19
“Listen, dear lady,” Mortimer lectured gently. He sat by Crystal’s bed. “We have only two real sources of energy. One is sleep. The other is food.”
The telephone he had placed in the corner of the gymnasium for Crystal’s use rang.
“You must not spend all night every night reading. Man does not live by literature alone. You need sleep.”
“I get hungry. Too hungry to sleep,” Crystal said. “I mean, I used to think I was hungry.”
“That’s the good dear. You’re beginning to understand.”
Mortimer answered the phone. “Hello? Oh, my God, it’s that Fletcher bird. I thought we got rid of you, Fletcher. Please at least tell me you’ve left the state of Wyoming?”
“I’ve left the state,” Fletch said.
“That’s the best thing I’ve heard about Wyoming since I’ve been here—you’ve left.”
Talking on his personal communicator, Fletch was walking back through the twisting, landscaped walks to Vindemia’s main house. “Just want to know how you two are getting along.”
“Better without you,” Mortimer said.
“Either one of you killed the other yet?”
“I am enjoying Crystal’s company enormously.”
“You are?”
“Best company I’ve had in years. What a charming lady! She tells wonderful stories.”
“Yeah. I know.”
“Nothing about the boxing world, of course. Those stories I tell,” Mortimer said. “To her, they’re news.”
“So you’re grateful I brought Crystal to you?”
“And then left.”
“I didn’t feel all that welcome this morning.”
“You weren’t.”
“I mean, we weren’t as well received at your place as we might have been. Under the circumstances.”
“Better than you deserved. We didn’t shoot you. Well, we did shoot at you, but we didn’t succeed in killing you, more’s the pity.”
“You couldn’t have hit me from more than arm’s length away even if you had succeeded in reloading the gun.”
“I seem to remember you on the ground, on your back.”
“I tripped.”
“That’s what Schmeling said.”
“What happened to gratitude?”
“It came in last in the last race at Hialeah. Hasn’t been heard from since.”
“Okay, I give up,” Fletch said. “Is Crystal within reach of the phone? I want to make sure she’s still among the living and breathing.”
“Here,” Mortimer said. “She lives. She breathes. With a friend like you, I don’t know why she bothers.”
“Fletch?” Crystal asked. “Where are you?”
“Vindemia.”
“How could you be? That’s in Georgia. You left here just this morning.”
“I was propelled by Mister Mortimer’s bad breath.”
“Have you seen Jack?”
“Just left him. He’s fine. How are you?”
“Having a wonderful time! Whatever convinced you Mister Mortimer is the solution to my problems?”
“At frequent great risk to myself, I am determined to see the best in people.”
“I’m even exercising!”
“He strapped wrist weights and ankle weights on me. I’ve been doing arm lifts and leg lifts in bed.”
“Lifting weights in bed? I’ve done that.”
“Earlier I did five sit-ups. Later three sit-ups. I’m scheduled to do one more. I feel the blood coursing through my veins vigorously.”
“You must be exhausted.”
“He gives me frequent high-energy snacks. The food makes me want to do these exercises. ‘Shrinking the belly,’ he calls it.”
In Vindemia’s dark gardens, Fletch envisioned Crystal’s mammoth white belly shrinking. Then he envisioned the polar ice cap melting. “That’s good.”
“Watching the boys here in the gym inspires me. My God, the energy they spend. They jump rope, lift weights for hours, it seems, beat up punching bags, beat up each other, then do one-armed chin-ups just for fun. I didn’t know even boys could have so much energy!”
Fletch said, “It’s why war was invented.”
“I think I inspire them, too. Every once in a while they look over at me, the great burial mound—and throw themselves back into their training, speed up. Well, seeing what all they do makes me lift my arms and legs a few more times. We drive each other on.”
“Mister Mortimer is being nice enough?”
“He’s a dear. Such a gentleman!”
“Poo,” Fletch said. “If he’s a gentleman, I’m a trout.”
“You’re a trout. He couldn’t be more considerate, charming, encouraging. He says I’ll be doing standing exercises within five days, beginning to hike within seven.”
“Just don’t wreck the punching bags, Crystal. I mean, it actually is possible to hit them too hard.”
“I’m not to think about losing weight. It will just happen.”
“That sounds right.”
“My goal is not to lose weight; it’s to change my way of life, my way of thinking.”
“Your perceptions of yourself.”
“How’s Carrie? Did you see her?”
“I stopped by the farm this afternoon to get a change of clothes. She’s well. She’s waiting for a mare to drop her filly.”
“Why would a Mayor drop cream cheese?”
“Crystal, you’re still thinking food.”
“Fletch, did you happen to notice the younger boy here?”
“Ricky? Yes.”
“There’s something about him.”
“Something … What?”
“I don’t know. Standing still, being quiet, still he oozes some kind of power.”
“Sex?”
“More than that.” Crystal separated her words with pauses. “One cannot help listening to him, watching him.”
“Is he handsome, attractive, what?”
“It’s something else …”
“Charisma?”
“I read to him this afternoon, from a book that just happened to be here, Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men.”
“Mister Mortimer reads Steinbeck?”
“He has lots of books.”
“He does?”
“At first, I was just reading to Ricky. He was sitting by my bed. Then I began to feel things from him.”
“From Steinbeck? Of course.”
“No. From Ricky. Then I started watching him as I read. He was hardly moving. His legs were twisted around each other. I couldn’t actually see the muscles of his shoulders, chest, arms, hands, even his face moving, but they were moving. I could feel them moving. I couldn’t hear or see him breathing, but I could tell his breathing was under some kind of intense control. His eyes were pulsing. Is that the right word?”
“I don’t know.”
“What I mean is that he was so into it… he was feeling it, every word … he was reacting physically to it … but I couldn’t see exactly what he was doing, or how he was doing it.”
“In other words, even while you were reading Steinbeck, somehow Ricky was making you watch him.”
“Yeah. Something like that. Can you explain it?”
“No. Yes.”
“Mister Mortimer here is making faces at me.” Fletch heard a grumble from the background. “He says, ‘Damned kid looked so much at himself in a mirror he fell into it and now he wants everybody else to join him there.’” Crystal laughed.
“Mister Mortimer said that?”
“What’s your explanation?”
“No explanation. Just a question.”
“What’s the question?”
“With which are you in love, Crystal? Mister Mortimer? Or Ricky? Or both?”
“You think I’m in love? Maybe. I love Wyoming. Oops, that did it! Mister Mortimer says I have to hang up now. It’s time for my sit-up.”
•
Fletch had waited on a high spot at the edge of the gardens until he had finished his conversation with Crystal.
At almost eye level was the large terrace of Vindemia’s main house. Men in white jackets and bow ties, women in their pretty summer dresses milled around.
At the side of the terrace opposite the bar and serving tables a string quartet played Haydn.
With his straight back, light glinting from his hornrimmed glasses, Doctor Chester Radliegh was urging his guests in to dinner.
Fletch noticed that variously colored lights, party lights, were built into the walls of the house facing the terrace, as well as the low walls surrounding it. Simply by switching them on, these lights would give the terrace a party glow even if no one were there partying.
For a moment Fletch watched the rich, brilliant man, gracious and graceful host, smiling, inviting his many friends into his home for dinner.
The rich, brilliant, gracious and graceful man whom more than one person was trying to murder.
Slipping the little telephone into his jacket’s pocket, Fletch rejoined the party.