Fletch's Fortune Part 17

"You government guys drink good stuff."

"Seldom do I personally get the opportunity to squeeze the taxpayer's wallet. How goes the convention?"

"If I ask where you are will I get an answer?"

"Try it and see."

"Where are you, Don?"

"Here."

"Terrific. Can you be a little more precise as to where 'here' is, geographically, at the moment?"

"Hendricks Plantation. Hendricks, Virginia. U. S. of A."

"Here?"

"You've got it."

"What are you doing here?"

"Thought we'd come along to see how you're doing."

"'We'?"

"Bob is with me."

"Who's Bob?"

"Bob Englehardt, my honored and beloved department head."

"What are you doing here?"

"This Walter March murder, Fletch. It sort of worries us."

"Why should it? What's the C.I.A. got to do with it? The murder of a private citizen within the United States is a purely domestic matter."

"March Newspapers has foreign bureaus, hasn't it?"

"Boy, you guys have elastic minds."

"By the way, how much p.o.o.p have you got on the murder?"

"I've got it solved."

"Really?"

"Yeah."

"Out with it."

"No."

"Wait a minute, Fletch. Bob wants to speak to you. I'll come back on the line."

"Mister Fletcher?" Robert Englehardt was trying to lighten his ponderous tone. "May I call you Fletch?"

"I don't know why you call me at all."

"Well, to answer that question, we need you to cover for us. Don has been calling your room since we arrived, so you wouldn't express surprise at seeing us at the various functions here at the hotel and blurt out our actual employer."

"I was playing tennis with What's-her-name."

"Who? What is her name?"

"Exactly."

"Fletch, we're here as observers from the Canadian press."

"Anyone in Canada know that?"

"No. Our official story is that we're thinking of setting up a similar convention, next year, in Ontario. Naturally, we expect you to allow no one here, now or ever, to know whom we actually represent."

"Why in h.e.l.l should I cover for you guys?"

"For all of the above reasons."

"Again?"

"Failure to file federal tax returns, evasion of federal taxes, deporting United States currency illegally...."

"I've always heard it's more difficult to keep a fortune than to make one."

"Then we have your complete cooperation?"

"How could you think otherwise?"

Robert Englehardt said, "Good. Here's Don."

After a pause in which the clink of an ice cube against a gla.s.s was audible, Don Gibbs said, "Fletch?"

"Gee, Don. Your superior didn't say he was looking forward to meeting me."

"Actually, Fletch," Don said, "he's not."

"Gee, Don."

"How's the taping going? Got much dirt yet?"

"It's a marvelous machine. Very sensitive."

"What do you have so far? Anything good?"

"Mostly toilets flushing, showers running, typewriters clacking, and a lot of journalists talking to themselves in their rooms. I never realized journalists are such lonely people."

"That all?"

"No, I also have a complete tape of the New World New World Symphony from somebody's radio." Symphony from somebody's radio."

"You must have more than that."

"People snoring, coughing, sneezing...."

"Okay, Fletch. Expect we'll see you around."

"Never saw you before in my life. By the way, Don, what room are you in?"

"Suite 3. They had to give us the suite in which Walter March was murdered. They didn't have any other place to put us."

"Really living it up, uh?"

"The rule book says we can take a suite if nothing else is available."

"I'm glad I'm not a taxpayer," Fletch said. "Bye."

Fletch switched his marvelous machine to Station 5-Suite 3.

"... Turkey in school," Don Gibbs was saying. "Always out doing his own thing."

"More?" Robert Englehardt said.

"No one could ever figure out what it was. Gone night after night. Never came to the parties. Used to make jokes about Fletch. They always began with, 'Where's Fletch?' and then someone would make up something ridiculous, like, 'Sniffing the bicycle seats outside the girls' dorms....' "

"Come on. Finish your drink. Let's go to lunch."

"Hey, Bob. We're supposed to be journalists, aren't we? Journalists live it up. I saw a movie once...."

Seventeen.

1:00 P.M P.M. LunchMain Dining Room

Arriving late at lunch, Fletch put his hand out to Robert McConnell, who was already looking warily at him from his place at the round table, and said, "Bob, I apologize. Let me buy you a drink."

Robert McConnell's jaw dropped, his eyes bugged out, and he turned white.

Robert McConnell bolted from the table, and, from the room.

Crystal Faoni was staring at Fletch.

Fletch said to her, "What's the matter with him? Just trying to apologize for accusing him of murder...."

Freddie Arbuthnot looked clean and fresh after their tennis. Clearly she had sung her "Hoo, boy" song again.

Lewis Graham had taken one of the empty seats at the table, and Fletch shook hands with him, saying, "Slumming, eh?"

The man shook hands as would an eel-if eels were familiar with human social graces.

Lewis Graham was a television network's answer to the newspaper editorial.

A gray man with a long face and narrow chin, who apparently confused looking distinguished and intellectual with looking sad and tired, every night for ninety polysyllabic seconds he machine-gunned his audience with informed, intellectual opinion on some event or situation of the day or the week, permitting the people of America to understand there were facts they didn't have yet and probably wouldn't be able to comprehend if they did have them, without his experience, and understandings they could never have, without his incisive intelligence.

Trouble was, his colleagues read the New York Times New York Times, the Washington Post Washington Post, the Atlanta Const.i.tution Atlanta Const.i.tution, the Los Angeles Times, Time, Newsweek, Foreign Affairs Los Angeles Times, Time, Newsweek, Foreign Affairs, and the Old Testament as well as he and could identify the sources of his facts, insights, and understandings, precisely, night after night.

Other journalists referred to Lewis Graham as "the Reader's Digest Reader's Digest of the air." of the air."

It was questioned whether behind his grayness he had any personality he had not lifted from newsprint.

Lewis Graham said, "I didn't know where to sit. I expect lunch is the same at all the tables."

Crystal Faoni was still staring at Fletch after he sat down.

Freddie said, "A fairly even match, if I may say so. Six-four you; six-four me; seven-five us."

"Me," said Fletch.

"It was just your chauvinist pride."

"Me," said Fletch. "Me."

"Not a clear victory. Your arms and legs are longer than mine."

"The thing about tennis," Lewis Graham said, "is that someone has to win, and someone has to lose."

Crystal turned her stare at Lewis Graham.

They all stared at Lewis Graham.

"Tennis always provides a clear victory," Lewis Graham said.