Fletch's Fortune Part 3

"He's an incredibly powerful man. March Newspapers." Fletch's right ear was becoming hot and sore. "Listen, Don, I've only got a few minutes to make that plane, if I'm going to make it. Are you telling me...?"

"No, Mister Fletcher. I'm telling you."

It was a much older, deeper voice.

"Who is this?" Fletch asked.

"Robert Englehardt," the voice said. "Don's department head. I've been listening in."

"Man!" Alone in the phone booth, Fletch grinned. "You guys can't do anything straight."

"I guess you're calling Don to ask if this a.s.signment is something you have to take on."

"You've got it."

"What do you think the answer is?"

"It sounds to me like the answer is yes."

"You have the right impression."

There was another click on the line.

Fletch asked, "Don, are you still there?"

"Yes."

"I know you guys are so wrapped up in your own mysteriousness you can't answer a simple question yes or no, but why the extra degree of mysteriousness about this?"

"What mysteriousness?"

"Come on, Don."

"We've just been trying to make absolutely sure that the A.J.A. convention is still on."

"Still on? Why wouldn't it be?"

"You journalists are always the last with the news, aren't you?"

"What news?"

"Walter March was murdered this morning. At the convention. So long, Fletcher."

Three.

"h.e.l.lo, h.e.l.lo," Fletch said, as he buckled himself into the seat next to the girl with the honey-colored hair and the brown eyes, "I get along well with everybody."

"You don't even get along with plane schedules," she answered. "They've been holding the plane for you for ten minutes."

It was a twelve-seater.

"I was on the phone," Fletch said. "Talking to an old uncle. He doesn't talk as fast as he used to."

The pilot slammed the pa.s.senger door and pulled the handle up.

"I forgive you," the girl said. "Why are you so tan?"

"I just arrived from Italy. This morning."

"That would have been excuse enough."

The pilot had started the engines and turned the plane away from the terminal.

"Ask me if I had a nice flight."

They had to shout. The plane had three propellers, one of them right over their heads.

"Did you have a nice flight?"

"No." Taxiing to the runway, the small plane was very bouncy. "Ask me why I didn't have a nice flight."

"Why didn't you have a nice flight?"

"I sat next to a Methodist minister."

She said, "So what?"

"The closer to heaven we got, the smugger he got."

She shook her head. "Jet lag affects different people in different ways."

Fletch said, "My uncle didn't think it was funny either."

"Not only that," the girl said, "but telling it to your uncle probably took up the whole ten minutes we waited."

"I'm a loyal nephew."

The plane stopped. Each of the three engines was gunned. With the left engine still running high, the brakes were released and the plane swung onto the runway. Gathering speed, it bounced and vibrated down the runway until the bounces got big enough, at which point the plane popped into the air.

The plane rose and banked over Washington and the sound of the engines diminished somewhat.

The girl was looking out her window.

She said, "I love to look at Washington from the air. Such a pretty place."

"Want to buy it?"

She gave him the sardonic grin he deserved. "You say you get along well with everybody?"

"Everybody," Fletch said. "Absolutely everybody. Methodist ministers, uncles, terrific looking girls sitting next to me on airplanes ..."

"Am I terrific looking?" she shouted.

"Smashing."

"You mean smash-mirrors kind of smashing?"

"I dunno. Maybe. How's your husband?"

"Don't have one."

"Why not?"

"Never found anybody good enough to marry me. How's your wife?"

"Which one?"

"You have lots?"

"Have had. Lots and lots. Gross lots. Practically anybody's good enough to marry me."

"Guess that lets me out," she said.

"I ask people to marry me too quickly," Fletch said. "At least that's what the Methodist minister said."

"And they all say yes?"

"Most have. It's a thing with me. I love the old inst.i.tutions. Like marriage."

"It's a problem?"

"Definitely. Will you help me with it?"

"Of course."

"When I ask you to marry me, please say no."

"Okay."

Fletch looked at his wrist.w.a.tch and counted off ten seconds under his breath.

"Will you marry me?" he asked.

"Sure."

"What?"

"I said, 'Sure.'"

"Well, you're not much of a help."

"Why should I help you? You get along well with everybody."

"Don't you?"

"No."

"I can see why not. Underneath that terrific exterior, you're weird."

"It's a defense mechanism. I've been working on it."

"Have you ever been in Hendricks, Virginia, before?" Fletch asked.

"No."

"Are you going to the A.J.A. Convention?"

"Yes."

Fletch thought most, if not all, the people on the plane were.

Two seats in front of him was Hy Litwack, anchorman for United Broadcasting Company.

Even the back of Hy Litwack's head was recognizable as Hy Litwack.

"Are you a journalist?" Fletch asked.

"You think I'm a busboy?"

"No." Fletch considered his thumbs in his lap. "I hadn't thought that. You're a newsperson."

"With Newsworld Newsworld magazine." magazine."

"Women's stuff? Fashion? Food?"

"Crime," she said, looking straight ahead.

"Women's stuff."

Fletch was smiling behind his hand.

"Newspersons' stuff. I've just come back from covering the Pecuchet trial, in Arizona."