Fletch Won

by Gregory Mcdonald

  “Did you do something wrong?”

  Instantly, there were tears in Felix’s eyes. “I shouldn’t have been put in prison. I was sick. What would you call someone who bothers small children?”

  “Sick.”

  “Sure. They had to put me away. Couldn’t let me be loose. Had to keep me in prison until I was no good anymore. Had to wreck me. I don’t know about prison, though. That’s an awful insult to a sick person.”

  “At your trial, you didn’t plead insanity.”

  “At my trial, I didn’t say nothin’!” Felix made no effort to control his tears. “You know what a defendant feels like at a trial?” Fletch shook his head. “He’s in a daze. He’s shocked this could be happenin’ to him. He’s shocked by what he’s hearin’ about himself, about the things he did. All these people are talkin’, talkin’, talkin’ about you and about the things you did. What they’re sayin’ has nothin’ to do with what you’ve always thought about yourself. All the time they’re talkin’, you’re sick. You’re struck dumb, you know what I mean?”

  “Your lawyer was Donald Habeck, right?” “Mr. Habeck. Yeah. I could have said a lot, if he didn’t talk so much. See, I had my reasons. I had my own idea of things. I could’ve explained.”

  “You could explain molesting children?” “I had things to say. I was just tryin’ to make it up to them.”

  “How did you pay Habeck? How could you afford him?”

  “I never paid Mr. Habeck. Not a dime.”

  “I don’t get it. Why did he take your case?”

  “I don’t know. One day he walks into the jail and says, ‘I’m your lawyer.’ He never asked me nothin’. He never let me explain. I could have explained, from my perspective, why I was such a bad guy. He never let the judge ask me nothin’. Day after day after day I sat there in the courtroom while all these people came out, one after another, and said they saw me do this, they saw me do that, the two dogs, this, that, this, that.” Felix put the bottle of beer to his mouth, but didn’t swallow much. “Every day the television and newspapers made a big thing of it. They hounded my sister. They hounded my sister crazy. Showed where we lived. Drew maps. Showed the playgrounds, the schoolyards where I used to walk the dogs and meet the children.” Felix was crying copiously. “The newspapers were lousy! Drove her stupid!”

  “I’m beginning to understand.”

  “You ever hear of trial by newspaper?”

  “You were the case Habeck lost. Lost big. Why not? A child molester…”

  “Why did he do it? Why did he let it drag on so long? Why did he tell ’em everything? Why didn’t he let me tell ’em anything?”

  “He used you for publicity. Through you, he proved that Habeck could lose a case, big. And get his name in the newspaper every day while he was doing so. What I don’t understand is, how come you served only eleven years?”

  “That’s the point! After all this punishment of my sister in the newspaper, after wreckin’ her, one day this Mr. Habeck stands up in court and says, Tour Honor, my client changes his plea to guilty on all counts.’ ”

  “Wow. And he never told you he was going to do that?”

  “Never! He never said a word to me. And I had things to say. I didn’t mean to bother the children! I was just lovin’ ’em up!”

  “You were ‘lovin’ ’em up’ with two dogs on them.”

  “Sure! They loved the dogs. The children always came to the dogs!”

  “You’d corner the children with the dogs.”

  “Listen! Have you ever seen a schoolyard? The little kids are always in the corners! The dogs didn’t put ’em there! The dogs would go see ’em. They’d call the dogs!” Fletch made a gesture of impatience at himself. “I don’t mean to harass you.”

  “I understand all about it! I had things to say. See, there was this psychiatrist who spent a lot of time with me when I first went to prison. I felt guilty about my sister. When we were little kids I pushed her behind my father’s car when he was backing out of the driveway. She got crippled from that. My father got mad. He went away. Never heard from him. See? I was tryin’ to make it up to little kids. I was just lovin’ ’em up. Tryin’ to love ’em up.”

  “A psychiatrist told you all that?”

  “Helped me to realize it, he said. I was sick. I had things to say at that trial. Habeck just fucked me over, and threw me to the pits.”

  Fletch shook his head. “How did you get so fat in prison?”

  “None of the crews wanted me on ’em. None of the work crews. I was sent to the prison farm. I’d go in a corner. They all knew all these terrible things about me, from the newspapers.” Felix Gabais was sobbing. “If Mr. Habeck was going to tell the court I was guilty of everything, why did he let the newspapers wreck my sister so long?”

  “So you killed Habeck.”

  “I didn’t kill nobody!” Felix’s angry, reddened eyes blazed at Fletch. “I needed to be gotten off the streets. The dogs were dead! I had to be wrecked!”

  “But not your sister.”

  Felix pointed at himself with both hands. “I’m going to go out in the streets and kill somebody? I’m a wreck!”

  “You’re pretty angry at Habeck.”

  “I don’t want to go in the streets for nothin’! The mattress, this chair, I had to have. What day is this?”

  “Wednesday.”

  “Thursday. Tomorrow. I have to go to the parole office. You’ll come with me?”

  “What? No.”

  “My sister can’t come. It’s way downtown.”

  Fletch stood up. “I think you’d better check in with your parole officer.”

  “You won’t come with me?”

  “No.”

  “What are you going to do about my sister?”

  “Have I heard that question somewhere before?”

  “Now that you finally show up, you just wanted to sit and hear the story of my life?”

  “I wanted to hear you say you murdered Donald Habeck.”

  “Who are you?”

  “I.M. Fletcher.”

  “You’re not from the public agency?”

  “I said I’m from a newspaper.” Fletch was standing at the door of the room. “Didn’t you hear me?”

  Felix Gabais’s eyes grew huge. He tried to get up from the big chair.

  Fletch said, “The News-Tribune.”

  Felix fell back into the chair. He switched the beer bottle to his right hand.

  Fletch ducked through the door. In the dark outer room he bumped into Therese Gabais’s wheelchair.

  The beer bottle smashed against the doorframe.

  Therese Gabais said, “My brother doesn’t like the newspapers.”

  “I understand.”

  “Blames ’em for everything,” Therese Gabais said.

  Down Twig Street, Fletch ducked into his car quickly.

  Opening the door of his car, Fletch had seen the car Biff Wilson used, lights, antennae, and NEWS-TRIBUNE all over it, stop in front of number 45447.

  “555-2900.”

  It was exactly twelve-thirty.

  There were many places Fletch felt he ought not be. His apartment was one. The News-Tribune was another. Driving around the streets without his driver’s license or car registration, both of which had been taken by the police with his wallet and keys, and, with the police prone to recognize him as Alexander Liddicoat, the robber, and probably looking for him as Irwin Maurice Fletcher, angel-dust merchant, also struck him as imprudent.

  So, after he watched Biff Wilson lift himself out of his car, button his suit jacket, and lumber into number 45447 Twig Street, Fletch drove into the used-car lot. He parked his Datsun 300 ZX in the front row of used cars, facing the street. All the other cars in the row, bigger than his, nevertheless were newer and cleaner.

  No car salesmen were around. Undoubtedly they were off reenergizing their smiles and chatter with soup and sandwiches.

  Fletch took a cardboard sign off the windshield of another car and put
it on his own. The sign read: SALE! $5,000 AND THIS CAR IS YOURS!

  Seated behind the FOR SALE sign in his car, Fletch could make his phone calls. He also could watch number 45447 Twig Street.

  Cindy answered immediately. “Fletch?”

  “You feel okay?”

  “Sure. Why not?”

  “Sorry about the pizza last night.”

  “Isn’t that what men do? Negotiate with women and then walk out on them, ignoring their agreements? I mean, even about bringing back pizza? It was no surprise to me. Of course, Barbara mentioned being both hungry and disappointed in you.”

  “Hey, Cindy. Don’t be angry. If you only knew what happened—”

  “I don’t want to be told. From what I know of men, they’re as incapable of telling the truth to women as snakes are of singing four-part harmony.”

  “You’ve met a lot of snakes.”

  “I’m not doing this for you, Fletcher. I’m doing this for Barbara.”

  “Wedding presents are for brides and grooms, aren’t they? Isn’t that why, so often, there are rods and reels among the packages?”

  “We all have to give men everything their little hearts desire so that a few of the good things of this world will dribble down to their dependent wives. Isn’t that the way the world works?”

  “You’re doing it to screw Marta.”

  “That, too.”

  “Where are you?”

  “None of your business.”

  “Cindy, I just want to make sure you’re on a safe phone. That no one is listening in.”

  “No one is listening.”

  “Good. Who owns the Ben Franklyn Friend Service?”

  “Okay. Wood Nymph, Incorporated, as I said. I got into the filing cabinet in Marta’s office this morning. She spent most of the morning at the reception desk. Found references to two other corporations. One is called Cungwell Screw—”

  “That’s funny.”

  “A riot. The other is called Lingman Toys, Incorporated.”

  “Someone has a sense of humor. What’s the relationship among these three companies?”

  “I don’t know. I wouldn’t expect terribly accurate or complete evidence of ownership to be lying about Marta’s office, would you?”

  “No. But it’s more of a lead than we had, I guess.”

  “I think Cungwell Screw and Lingman Toys are investors, owners of Wood Nymph.”

  “Any reference to any of the officers of any of the companies?”

  Down Twig Street, Biff Wilson dashed out of number 45447. He slammed the door behind him. Looking back, he stumbled down the steps.

  “Marta. President of Wood Nymph, vice-president of both, Cungwell Screw and Lingman Toys. President of Cungwell Screw is a Marietta Ramsin.”

  The door of 45447 Twig Street opened again. Felix Gabais, empty beer bottle in hand like a football, stood on the front stoop. Really, he was a massive person.

  Felix threw the empty bottle at the fleeing Biff Wilson.

  The bottle hit Biff on the ear. It fell into the gutter and smashed.

  “Jokes everywhere,” Fletch said.

  “And president of Lingman Toys is an Yvonne Heller. Treasurer of all these companies is a man named Jay Demarest. I know him.”

  “You do?”

  The ground-floor window of 45447 Twig Street opened. Therese Gabais leaned as far out the window as she could from her wheelchair. She was shaking her arm and shouting at Biff in the street.

  “Yeah. Comes in all the time. Uses the place, you know, as if it were all for him. Never gets a bill. Exercises, gets what he wants when he wants it.”

  “What’s he like?”

  Now Felix was bending over as well as he could in the gutter and scooping up broken glass from his beer bottle.

  “Actually, over the two years I’ve known him, he’s gotten himself into pretty good shape, one way and another. He’s in his thirties, not married.”

  “Why would he marry, with the friends he’s got?”

  “What?”

  Head tilted, hand pressed against his wounded ear, Biff turned back to attack Felix.

  Felix threw the bits of glass in Biff’s face.

  “Nothing.”

  “I’ve even been out with him on dates, you know, as escort. When he takes friends out for dinner, that sort of thing.”

  “What are his friends like?”

  Brother and sister Gabais screaming at him from the street and the window, Biff hustled into his car.

  “Losers. You know what I mean? People who think that if they ever get their lies properly organized they’ll make it big and be as good as other people.”

  “Do you think Jay Demarest is a real owner?”

  Biff seemed to be having trouble getting his car started.

  All the lights on the News-Tribune car began to whir and flash.

  “I think he keeps the books, and orders the ground elk’s horn. The fall guy.”

  “Being given a few good years and meant to take the fall for the real owners.”

  Now Felix was beating up the car. He kicked the rear left fender hard enough to rock the car and leave a good-sized dent. Arms joined at the fists, he landed his considerable weight on the car’s trunk. That made an impression.

  “Yeah. He and Marta better look out below. I think they’re both just employees.”

  Biff’s car engine roared.

  “When can you have the rest of the stuff for me?”

  Twice dented, lights whirring and flashing, rear end skittering, Biff’s News-Tribune car fled down the street.

  A stone Felix had ready in hand caught up to it and broke its rear window.

  Skittering around the far corner, Biff almost hit a bus.

  “Ah,” Fletcher said. “The reportorial life does have its ups and downs, its ins and outs.”

  “What?”

  Retreating slowly, unwillingly, back into their depression, Felix and Therese Gabais intermittently shouted and shook their fists at the corner around which Biff had disappeared.

  “When can you have the other stuff?”

  “Anytime you want to meet me, I’ll be ready. I’m preparing a list of the services and charges. I’ve got the names and addresses of some of the clients. I’ve even pinched some of the still photographs and videotapes for you.”

  “Great! Any of Marta?”

  “Sure. She’s not beyond takin’ a trick now and again. She has her vanity.”

  “Jay Demarest?”

  “You bet. Marta probably took those, to keep Jay in line, should the need ever arise. Nice lady, uh? All in the same cesspool together.”

  “I don’t want you to risk yourself, Cindy.”

  “Not to worry. You can’t make pie without crust.”

  “What? Right! Sure. I suppose so. Will you be at this number later?”

  The window and the door to 45447 Twig Street were now closed. Therese and Felix Gabais were now back inside their own morosity.

  “If not, I’ll be back. Don’t call me at Ben Franklyn.”

  “Course not. Marta would ask me when I’m coming to work.”

  In the street in front of Fletch, a police car cruised by slowly.

  Alston Chambers said, “Glad you called. I’ve been trying to get you. Your apartment doesn’t answer, the beach house doesn’t answer, your car phone hasn’t answered. No one at the newspaper seems to know where you are. I’ve got some news for you. By the way, where are you?”

  “At the moment, I’m hiding out in a used-car lot disguised as a satisfied mannequin in a Datsun 300 ZX.”

  “Why didn’t I guess that?”

  “I need a couple of favors, old buddy.”

  “Why should I do you favors? Aren’t I already marrying you off, Saturday, or something?”

  “Cause I’m trying to find out who murdered your boss, or buddy.”

  “Not even a topic of discussion around here. Bunch of cold-blooded bastards. It won’t interest anyone at Habeck, Harrison and Haller who mur
dered Donald Habeck unless and until they get to defend the accused, always presuming he or she is rich, or, good for publicity. By the way, who did murder Donald Habeck?”

  “You’re always good for the obvious question.”

  “That’s my legal training.”

  “I don’t know who killed Donald Habeck. So far, I have spent time with each member of the Habeck family, and I believe any one of them could have and would have done it, if, and that’s a big if, any of them knew Habeck was disinheriting them in behalf of a museum and a monastery.”

  “Monastery! What in hell are you talking about?”

  “I forgot. You and I haven’t talked lately. Believe it or not, ol’ chum, I believe a liar for once told the truth.”

  “And no one believed him?”

  “Of course not. I believe Donald Habeck really wanted to give five million dollars to the museum and, knowing how to use the press, by making the announcement through the press, embarrass the museum into accepting the gift and promising to use it to develop a collection of contemporary religious art. Of that Habeck crafty scheme, I and the News-Tribune were to be the unwitting tools.”

  “Telling the truth once in your life doesn’t make you a monk. Does it?”

  “I believe Donald Habeck wanted to enter a monastery. If you can believe any of my insane and otherwise unreliable sources, you can believe it. Over the years, he had taken religious instruction. He had not divorced the only wife he ever had. She had been permanently endowed in an institution years before. Maybe Donald was trying to relate thusly to his son, a monk. Maybe they each had the same instinct. Maybe, as sometimes happens, the son, thinking he was rebelling from his father, instinctively and inadvertently perceived and fulfilled his father’s inner-most ambitions. Also, of course, Habeck was not lying when he said no one cared ‘a tin whistle’ for him. No one did. Plus, lately Habeck had been reading Russian novels, in which icons abound and the theme of personal withdrawal is very strong, especially as written by Dostoevsky.”