Fletch

by Gregory Mcdonald

  He had the key in the ignition of the MG.

  “Oh, hello, Clara.”

  She had parked her gray Vega station wagon down the line of cars waiting to take their owners home again.

  “How are you, sweetheart?”

  “Fletcher, this is Thursday.”

  “I know.”

  She was leaning over his car door like a traffic officer.

  “Where are you going?”

  “Home.”

  “I haven’t seen the beach-drug story yet.”

  “I know.”

  “I told you you’re to have that story in by four o’clock this afternoon.”

  “When would you run it?”

  “I don’t know. I’ll have to do some work on it first.”

  “Would you run it tomorrow?”

  “I don’t know. It depends on how much work we have to do on it.”

  “Would you run it in the Sunday paper?”

  “I don’t know. Frank said something about holding it for a week or two. He said he wanted to see it too. He said you had some crazy idea Graham Cummings is implicated.”

  “Did I say that?”

  “They’re friends.”

  “Oh.”

  “Is Cummings implicated?”

  “His name is mentioned in the story.”

  “It’s up to Frank and me when the story runs in the paper. It’s your job to get the story on my desk by four o’clock this afternoon.”

  “Have I ever disappointed you yet, Clara?”

  “I’m serious, Fletcher.”

  “Have no fear. You’ll see the story this afternoon.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Clara: I’m absolutely sure. This afternoon you’ll see the drug-beach story.”

  “I’d better.”

  “You will.”

  “And you’d better plan on being in the marine commandant’s office at ten o’clock tomorrow morning.”

  “Don’t worry about that, either.”

  “Okay. Your job is on the line.”

  “I’d hate to lose it,” Fletch said. “You know how I love working with you.”

  Fletch turned the ignition key.

  “Fletch, I’ll see you by four o’clock at the latest.”

  “You’ll see the story by four o’clock,” Fletch said. “Maybe even a little earlier.”

  30

  Fletch spent most of Thursday alone in his apartment.

  He ate.

  He slept.

  He destroyed the Stanwyk tape.

  He typed a letter to John Collins. He typed an original and a single carbon copy of the letter. And threw the original of the letter away. The copy he placed folded in the inside pocket of his suit jacket.

  He emptied the wastebaskets.

  At eleven-thirty, the phone began ringing persistently. He knew it was Clara Snow and/or Frank Jaffe or any one of several other News-Tribune executives who characteristically became excited, one way or the other, in pleasure if they were real professionals, in anger if they were not, when a staff member had snuck a genuine, unadulterated piece of journalism over on them. In all newspapers Fletch had seen there was always a hard core of genuinely professional working staff which made it possible to commit genuine journalism occasionally, regardless of the incompetence among the executive staff. The afternoon newspaper was on the streets. The excited callers apparently went out to lunch at one o’clock. The phone did not begin ringing relentlessly again until two-thirty.

  At three o’clock the lobby doorbell rang.

  Fletch pressed the buzzer to unlock the downstairs lobby door and waited.

  In a moment his own apartment doorbell rang.

  He opened the door to Joan Collins Stanwyk.

  “Good afternoon, Mr. Fletcher.”

  “Good afternoon, Mrs. Stanwyk.”

  “Fletcher, as I said, is a name I can remember.”

  “You know who I am?”

  “Thank you, I do.”

  “Won’t you come in?”

  She entered and sat on the divan.

  “May I offer you a drink?”

  “No, thank you, Mr. Fletcher. But you may offer me an explanation.”

  “Ah?”

  Fletch remained standing, taking a step this way, a step that. In the eleventh hour, his cover had been blown.

  “Mr. Fletcher, why are you investigating my husband? Or is it I you are investigating?”

  “Neither of you,” Fletch said.

  Also, he found this Mr. and Mrs. business a bit cumbersome between two people who had made love both Polish and Rumanian style only two days before.

  “What makes you think I am investigating you?”

  “Mr. Fletcher, I have been born, bred and educated to do a job, as I gather you have, because clearly you are very good at your job. My job is to support and protect my father and my husband. And I’m rather good at it.”

  “In fact, protect Collins Aviation.”

  “And its investors, and the people it employs, et cetera.”

  “I see.”

  “One can’t have this subtle job for as many years as I’ve had it without developing certain subtle instincts. At lunch at the Racquets Club Saturday, when you and I first met, after a while my intuition told me I was being questioned. For the life of me, I could not figure what I was being questioned about. So I took your picture.”

  Without looking at it, she transferred it from her purse to the coffee table. It was a three-quarter Polaroid shot of Fletch in a tennis shirt in the Racquets Club pavilion.

  “While you were getting another chair for the table, after my father joined us. I turned your picture over to Collins plant security Monday morning. It was just this morning I received their report. You are I. M. Fletcher of the News-Tribune. Your identity was confirmed by a city police detective named Lupo, and has since been confirmed again by the newspaper itself.”

  Fletch said, “Wow.”

  Prowling the room, watching her, Fletch had the sudden, irrational desire to marry Joan Collins Stanwyk.

  “Now, Mr. Fletcher, when a newspaper reporter ingratiates himself into one’s acquaintanceship—in this case, I might even say into one’s intimacy—under a false name, an entirely false identity, one can safely assume one is being investigated.”

  “Right.”

  “But you say you’re not investigating us.”

  “Right. Your father. John Collins. I wanted some information from him.”

  “Your phone is ringing.”

  “I know.”

  “Seeing you apparently don’t answer your phone, may I ask what information you wanted from my father?”

  “Whether or not he had ever offered to subsidize a private investigation of the source of drugs at The Beach, and whether or not the chief of police, Graham Cummings, had ever refused his help.”

  “Of what conceivable use could that piece of information be to

  “I’ve already printed it. Have you seen this afternoon’s News-Tribune? “

  “No, I haven’t.”

  “I busted your local drug story wide open. Cummings is the source of the drugs. In one paragraph, I believe paragraph thirty-four, I report your father’s offers. If I had asked your father officially or directly, he would never have told me, for fear it would reflect upon the chief of police, never dreaming it is the chief himself who is guilty.”

  “How very interesting. You go to that much effort for one paragraph?”

  “You should see the efforts I go to sometimes for paragraphs I don’t even wite.”

  “But I have the distinct impression it was my father who first brought up the topic of drugs, not you.”

  “You can’t be sure, can you?”

  “No, I can’t. Have you ever known my husband?”

  “No.”

  “How were you so able to convince us that you had known him and known him well? That you had even attended the wedding?”

  ‘Newspaper research. Plain old homework.”
>
  “But you even knew that he had buzzed a house in San Antonio, Texas, years ago. We didn’t know that.”

  “How do you know it’s true?”

  “I asked him.”

  “You asked him?”

  “Yes. He was embarrassed, but he didn’t deny it.”

  “That’s funny.”

  “How did you know it?”

  “It’s on his police record. That and a six-month-old unpaid parking ticket in Los Angeles.”

  “And why would you look up his police record if you are not investigating him?”

  “I wanted to have some detail of information to convince you that I knew him.”

  “I’m having great difficulty believing you would go to such lengths for one, unimportant paragraph in a news story which really doesn’t concern us.”

  “Believe me. I’m absolutely honest.”

  “Your phone is ringing.”

  “I know.”

  Joan Collins Stanwyk said, “In trying to focus upon what your line of questioning was, if there was one, I believed it had to do with your curiosity concerning my husband’s health.”

  “How is he, by the way?”

  “Fine, as far as I know. But your questions concerned his health. You even pinned down the name and address of his insurance agent. And I think—I’m not sure—you even mentioned the name of the family doctor.”

  Standing in the room, looking at Joan Collins Stanwyk sitting with dignity on the divan, Fletch was full of joy. She was wonderful. A woman who penetrated his sense of play, could reconstruct it, come close to understanding his moves, he should love forever.

  And in a few hours he was scheduled to murder her husband—at the request of the man himself.

  He said, “I have no idea what you’re talking about. All that was idle chatter.”

  “Secondly, you directed a great many questions to me, and virtually none to my father. With him, again the question of Alan’s health came up.”

  “What else is there to talk about? The weather. When one has nothing to talk about, one talks about either the weather or someone’s health.”

  “Do you know anything about my husband’s health that I don’t know?”

  “Honestly, I don’t.”

  “How did you get into the Racquets Club, Mr. Fletcher?”

  “I bought a pair of tennis shorts and said I was a guest of the Underwoods.”

  “Do you know the Underwoods?”

  “No. I read the name from a locker.”

  “I will have to reimburse them for any expenses you incurred.”

  “It shouldn’t be much. Two screwdrivers.”

  “Nevertheless, I will reimburse them for two screwdrivers. You don’t even play tennis?”

  “I play with people. Somehow I don’t like the word ‘court.’ Not even ‘tennis court.’ Once playing with people gets close to a court, things are apt to get boring.”

  “Is that because in a court there are rules?”

  “It may be.”

  “Your phone is ringing.”

  “I know.”

  “Was our going to bed together Tuesday night a part of your investigation?”

  “No. That was on my own time.”

  “I sincerely hope so.”

  “Do you intend to tell your husband about I. M. Fletcher of the News-Tribune?”

  “Mr. Fletcher, how can I?”

  Fletch finally sat on the divan.

  “People call me Fletch.”

  “I have a committee meeting at the Racquets Club. It’s Thursday evening. I have to pick up Julie. The servants are away.”

  “There’s always time.”

  “Fletch. Your phone is ringing.”

  “I know.”

  At six o’clock the apartment doorbell rang again. Fletch was alone. He had showered and put on a suit. The downstairs lobby bell had not rung.

  At the door were two very young, very scrubbed men who were very obviously police detectives.

  “Mr. I. M. Fletcher?”

  Fletch said, “I’m sorry, Mr. Fletcher isn’t in. I’m his attorney, Mr. Gillett of Gillett, Worsham and O’Brien. Is there anything I can do for you?”

  “You’re his attorney?”

  “That’s right.”

  “We have a warrant for the arrest of I. M. Fletcher of this address to face charges of criminal fraud.”

  “Yes, I know. I’ve advised Mr. Fletcher on this matter.”

  “Where is he?”

  “Well, gentlemen, I’ll tell you. The man is as guilty as sin. He’s spending this afternoon and evening trying to wind up personal business. You do understand.”

  “This isn’t the first time we’ve come here trying to locate him.”

  “Never fear. I promise you I will bring Mr. Fletcher to the main police station tomorrow morning at ten o’clock, where he will surrender himself. He just needs tonight to iron things out for himself.”

  “What’s tomorrow, Friday?”

  “He will surrender himself Friday morning at ten o’clock.”

  “In your recognizance?”

  Fletch smiled patronizingly, as attorneys always do when police officers use large legal terms.

  “In my recognizance.”

  “What’s your name again?”

  “Mr. Gillett, of Gillett, Worsham and O’Brien. My firm is here in the city.”

  Fletch watched one of the policemen write in a notebook: “Gillett—Gillett, Worsham and O’Brien.”

  The other policeman said, “You do realize, sir, that if you do not surrender I. M. Fletcher tomorrow morning, you too will be liable for criminal arrest?”

  “Of course I realize it,” Fletch said. “After all, I am a member of the California bar and an officer of the court.”

  “Okay.”

  Fletch said, “Wait a minute, officers, I’ll walk out with you. Which way is the elevator?”

  “This way, sir.”

  “Oh, thank you.”

  Fletch then drove to the Stanwyk residence on Berman Street.

  31

  It was eight-thirty Thursday night.

  Dressed in a full business suit, shirt and tie, Fletch opened the french windows to the library of the Stanwyk house and entered.

  Alan Stanwyk, smoking a cigarette, was waiting in a leather chair the other side of the desk. He had bleached his hair blond.

  “Good evening, Mr. Stanwyk. I.M. Fletcher, of the News-Tribune. May I use your phone?”

  Stanwyk’s left knee jerked.

  Fletch picked up the phone and dialed.

  “This won’t take a minute.”

  He took the folded copy of the letter from his inside suit jacket and handed it across to Stanwyk while listening for the phone to be answered.

  “Here, you can read this while you’re waiting. Copies go to those people indicated at midnight, unless I make a coded phone call saying not to send them. Hello, Audrey? Fletcher. Is Alston there?”

  Stanwyk had leaned forward across the desk and taken the letter.

  Mr. John Collins,

  Chairman of the Board,

  Collins Aviation

  # 1 Collins Plaza

  Greenway, California

  Dear Sir:

  Alan Stanwyk murdered me tonight.

  The charred remains are mine, regardless of the evidence of the Colgate ring and the gold cigarette lighter identified as belonging to Stanwyk.

  Stanwyk boarded a plane chartered from Command Air Charter Service in my name for Rio de Janeiro, where he intends to establish residence under my name with the aid of my passport.

  For the purpose, he has bleached his hair blond. He stole the bleach from the apartment of his mistress, Sandra Faulkner, 15641B Putnam Street, Monday night.

  With Stanwyk in Rio de Janeiro are a Mrs. Sally Ann Cushing Cavanaugh, and son, William, of Nonheagan, Pennsylvania. Stanwyk has been visiting Mrs. Cavanaugh in Nonheagan on the average of every six weeks for at least four years. This can be confirmed by a pilot call
ed “Bucky” in your employ. Mrs. Cavanaugh was recently divorced from her husband.

  Also with Stanwyk in Rio are three million dollars in cash. This money is the result of sales of stock by broker William Carmichael, who believed the cash was required as down payment for a ranch in Nevada being bought through Swarthout Nevada Realty.

  Sincerely,

  I.M. Fletcher

  cc: Joan Collins Stanwyk

  William Carmichael

  Burt Eberhart

  Alston Chambers

  “Hello, Alston? Fletch.”

  “The world’s greatest journalist?”

  “The very same. How did everything go?”

  “Terrific. The affidavits are fine. That handwritten note from Cummings is beyond belief. We picked up your little birds, Witherspoon and Montgomery, and they’ve been singing all afternoon.”

  “Are they all right?”

  “We have them in protective custody under assumed names in a hospital far, far away from here.”

  “That’s great.” Stanwyk was reading the letter a second or a third time. “You do nice work, Alston.”

  “You made quite a splash in the afternoon paper, Irwin. This case is the biggest local sensation of the year.”

  “Would you believe I never saw it?”

  “You ought to read your own newspaper.”

  “I can’t afford to buy it on a reporter’s salary.”

  Beside the desk were neatly placed two matching attache cases.

  “There is one thing more, Alston.”

  “What’s that, old buddy?”

  “You haven’t arrested the chief of police yet. It’s only a small matter, I know, a minor detail, but the son of a bitch just followed me in his car.”

  “Where are you?”

  “He followed me from The Beach to The Hills.”

  “Is he still with you?”

  “I guess so. It was his car all right. The private car that looks like a police car.”

  “Fletch, there are federal narcotics agents waiting for him both at the police station and at his home. They’ve been there for hours.”