Fletch's Fortune

by Gregory Mcdonald

  “I wish you were a critic. You just gave me a good review.”

  “Well, I have no way to judge such things.”

  “Next question is.…”

  “No more questions, Mister Wisham.”

  “If I’m good enough at my job to please you, the network, and a hell of a lot of viewers—how come Walter March was out to screw me?”

  “That’s a question.”

  “Got an answer?”

  “No. But I’ve got some questions.”

  “I’m asking them for you.”

  “Okay, Mister Wisham. You’re more experienced at asking questions than I am. I’ve got the point.”

  “That’s not the point. I’m not trying to put you down, Captain Neale. I’m trying to tell you something.”

  “What? What are you trying to tell me?”

  “You look at television. There are a lot of television reporters. Most of us have our own style. What’s the difference between me and the others? I’m younger than most of them. My hair is a little longer. I don’t work in a studio in a jacket and tie. My reports are usually feature stories. They’re supposed to be softer than so-called hard news. Most of my stories have to do with people’s attitudes, and feelings, more than just hard facts. That’s my job, and you just said I do it pretty well.”

  “Mister Wisham.…”

  “So, why me? Why would Walter March, or anyone else, raise a national campaign to get me off the air?”

  “Okay, Mister Wisham. Rolly. You asked the question. You could wear an elephant down to a mouse.”

  “Because he was afraid of me.”

  “Walter March? Afraid of you?”

  “I was becoming an enormous threat to him.”

  “Ah.… Someone told me last night—I think it was that Nettie Horn woman—all you journalists have identity problems. ‘Delusions of grandeur,’ she said. Rolly, a few minutes of network television time a week—I mean, against Walter March and all those newspapers coast-to-coast, coming out every day, edition after edition.…”

  “Potentially I was an enormous threat to him.”

  “Okay, Rolly. I’m supposed to ask ‘Why?’ now. Is that right?”

  “I’ve been trying to tell you something.”

  “Okay.”

  “I have more reason to murder that bastard than anyone you can think of.”

  “Uh.…”

  “Don’t tell me I need a lawyer. I know my rights. I came to this convention because the network forced me to. I came with such hatred for that bastard.… Frankly, I was afraid to cross his path, to see him, or even hear him, or be in a room with him—for fear of what I might do to him.”

  “Wait.”

  “My Dad owned a newspaper in Denver. I was brought up skiing, horsing around, loving journalism, my Dad, happy to be the son of a newspaper publisher. Once a newspaper starts to decline in popularity, it’s almost impossible to reverse the trend. I didn’t know it, but when I was about ten, Dad’s newspaper began to go into a decline. By the time I was fourteen, he had mortgaged everything, including his desk, Goddamn it, the desk he had inherited from his father, to keep the paper running. These were straight bank loans—but unfortunately Dad had made the mistake of using only one bank. He wasn’t the sharpest businessman in the world.”

  “Neither am I. I.…”

  “Just when Dad thought he was turning the paper around—it had taken five years—this one bank called all the loans.”

  “Could they do that? I mean, legally?”

  “Sure. Dad never thought they would. They were friends. He went to see them. They wouldn’t even speak to him. They called all the loans at once, and that was it.”

  “I don’t get it.”

  “Neither did Dad. Why would the bank want to take over a newspaper, especially when there was hope for its doing well? They wouldn’t know how to run it. Dad lost the newspaper. He gave up as decently as he could. He wandered around the house for weeks, trying to figure out what had happened. I was fifteen. There was a rumor around that the bank had sold the newspaper to Walter March, of March Newspapers.”

  “Okay, it seems like an ordinary.…”

  “Not a bit ordinary. These bankers were old friends of my father. Huntin’, fishin’, cussin’ and drinkin’ friends.”

  “He was hurt.”

  “He was curious. He was also a hell of a journalist. In time, he found out what happened. People always talk. Walter March had bought up Dad’s loans, lock, stock, and barrel—to get control of the newspaper.”

  “Why did the bankers let him? They were friends.…”

  “Blackmail, Captain Neale. Sheer, unadulterated blackmail. He had blackmailed the bankers, individually, as persons. So far, in your twenty-four hours of investigation, have you heard about Walter March and his flotilla of private detectives?”

  “I’ve heard rumors.”

  “When I was sixteen, Dad died of a gunshot wound, in the temple, fired at close range.”

  The recording tape reel revolved three times before Rolly Wisham said, “I never could understand why Dad didn’t shoot Walter March instead.”

  “Mister Wisham, I really think you should have a lawyer present.…”

  “No lawyer.”

  Captain Neale sighed audibly. “Where were you at eight o’clock Monday morning?”

  “I had driven into Hendricks to get the newspapers and have breakfast in a drugstore, or whatever I could find.”

  “You have a car here?”

  “A rented car.”

  “You could have had breakfast and gotten your newspapers here at the hotel.”

  “I wanted to get out of the hotel. Night before, I had seen Walter March with Jake Williams in the elevator. They were laughing. Something about the President and golf … catfish. I hadn’t slept all night.”

  “Did you drive into Hendricks alone?”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay, Mister Wisham, I don’t see any problem. Your face is famous. We can just ask people down in the village. I’m sure they saw you, and recognized you. Where did you have breakfast?”

  “I never got out of the car, Captain Neale.”

  “What?”

  “I did not have breakfast, and did not buy newspapers. At least, not until I got back to the hotel.”

  “Oh, Lord.”

  “I changed my mind. I drove through that shopping center and said, to hell with it. It was a beautiful morning and the shopping center looked so sterile. Also, of course, I’m forever making simple little plans like going to a drugstore for breakfast—I like people, you know? I like being with people—and I get right up to it, and I realize everybody will recognize me, and giggle, and shake hands, and ask for autographs. I’m not keen on that part of my life.”

  “Are you saying that no one saw you Monday morning?”

  “I guess I prevented anyone from seeing me. I wore sunglasses. I drove around. Over the hills. Maybe I was trying to talk myself out of murdering Walter March.”

  “What time did you leave the hotel?”

  “About seven-fifteen.”

  “What time did you get back?”

  “About nine. I had breakfast in the coffee shop here. I didn’t hear about Walter March’s murder until later. Ten-thirty. Eleven.”

  “Okay, Mister Wisham. You say Walter March was smearing you, trying to destroy you.…”

  “Not ‘trying to,’ Captain Neale. He was going to. There is no doubt in my mind he would have succeeded.”

  “… because you were becoming a potential threat to him.”

  “Don’t you agree? I could never be as powerful as Walter March. We lost the only newspaper we had. But I have been becoming an increasingly powerful and respected journalist. I’m only twenty-eight, Captain Neale. I have a lot to say, and a forum for saying it. Even having me at this convention, telling people what I know about Walter March, was a threat to him. You’ve got to admit, I was more a threat to him as a halfway decent and important journalist than if I ha
d become a skiing instructor in Aspen.”

  “I guess so. Tell me, Mister Wisham, do you happen to know what suite the March family were in?”

  “Suite 3.”

  “How did you know that?”

  “I checked. I wanted to avoid any area in which Walter March might be.”

  “You checked at the desk?”

  “Yup. Which gave me an opportunity to steal the scissors. Right?”

  “You’re being very open with me, Mister Wisham.”

  “I’m a very open guy. Anyhow, you strike me as a pretty good cop. There’s a lot of pressure on this case. Sooner or later, you’d discover Walter March drove my Dad to suicide. Everyone in Denver knows it, and probably half the people here at the convention do. Concealing evidence against myself would just waste your time, and leave me hung up.”

  “It’s almost as if you were daring me, Mister Wisham.”

  “I am daring you, Captain Neale. I’ve worked a lot with cops. I’m daring you to be on my side, and to believe I didn’t kill Walter March.”

  Twenty

  3:30 P.M.

  COMPUTERS AND LABOR UNIONS

  Seminar

  Aunt Sally Hendricks Sewing Room

  At three-thirty Wednesday afternoon all the tennis courts were in use, the swimming pool area was full, and on the hills around Hendricks Plantation House people were walking and horseback riding.

  The bar (Bobby-Joe Hendricks Lounge) was dark and empty except for some people from the Boston press keeping up their luncheon glow with gin and tonics.

  And Walter March, Junior, sitting at the bar.

  Fletch sat beside him and ordered a gin and bitter lemon from the bored, slow-moving barman.

  At the sound of his voice, Junior’s head turned slowly to look at him.

  Junior’s eyes were red-rimmed and glazed, his cheeks puffy, his mouth slack. A small vein in his temple was throbbing. He looked away, slowly, thought a moment, burped, and looked back at Fletch.

  He said, “William Morris Fletcher. I remember you.”

  “Irwin Maurice Fletcher.”

  “Tha’s right. You used to work for us.”

  “Practically everybody used to work for you.”

  “Flesh. There used to be a joke about you. ‘And the Word was made Fletch.’ ”

  “Yeah.”

  “There were lots of jokes about you. You were a joke.”

  Fletch paid the barman.

  Walter March, Junior, said, “You heard my father’s dead?”

  “I heard something to that effect.”

  “Someone stabbed him.” Junior made a stabbing motion with his right hand, his eyes looking insane as he did it. “With a scissors.”

  Fletch said, “Tough to take.”

  “Tough!” Junior snorted. “Tough for him. Tough for March Newspapers. Tough for the whole mother-fuckin’ world.”

  “Tough for you.”

  “Yeah.” Junior blinked slowly. “Tough for me. Tough darts. Isn’t that what we used to say in school?”

  “I don’t know. I wasn’t in school with you.”

  There was a long, slow, blinking pause.

  Junior said, “My father hated you.”

  Fletch said, “Your father hated everybody.”

  Another three blinks.

  “I hated you.”

  “Anyone who hates me is probably right.”

  “My Jesus father thought you were night and day.”

  Fletch sipped his drink. “What does that mean?”

  Junior tried to look at Fletch in the proper executive fashion. “You know, he wanted to make a thing with you. He loved your balls.” Junior’s eyelids drooped. “He wanted to bring you along, you know? Make something of you.”

  “Gee, and I’m not even in journalism anymore. Just a hanger-on.”

  “Do you remember his trying to frighten you once?”

  “No.”

  “He tried to scare you.”

  “I don’t remember it.”

  “Tha’s because you weren’t frightened, shit. You remember the story about the Governor’s secretary?”

  “Yeah.”

  “He sent memos to you. Directly. Telling you to blow the story.”

  “Sure.”

  “He came to town. Sent for you in his office.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Scared the shit out of you.”

  “Did he?”

  “Told you you’d be fired if you wrote the story.”

  “Five minutes in an office.…”

  Junior’s head swooped up toward Fletch. “You wrote the fuckin’ story! And then quit!”

  “Yeah.”

  There was a long pause, and two small burps.

  “It wasn’t the Governor Dad cared about. Not the Governor’s secretary. Not the story.” This time Junior put the back of his hand to his burp. “It was you.”

  “There was a long pause,” Irwin Maurice Fletcher said, “while Irwin Maurice Fletcher reacted.”

  “You don’t get the point,” Junior said.

  “I get the point,” Fletch said. “People are always shittin’ around, and I’m me. I always get the point.”

  “Apologize.”

  “Apologize?”

  “Jesus, yes. Apologize.”

  “For what? For everyone else always shittin’ around, or for me being me?”

  “Before my Dad did that …”—apparently, Junior was considering the prudence of saying what he was about to say—“he had every kind of a fix run on you.”

  Fletch sat quietly over his drink.

  “He wanted you,” Junior said.

  “I was an employee. I wrote that story. Quit. A common incident, in this business.”

  “Dad didn’t want any of that. He wanted you. He ran every kind of a fix on you. Have I said that?”

  “No.”

  “Before he tried to throw the scare into you, he had you worked over with a fine-toothed … pig.”

  “That I don’t understand.”

  “He wanted you. You were tough. You didn’t scare.”

  “He let me resign.”

  “That, beaut…”—Junior leaned toward him—“was because he hadn’t figured you out. He gave up, you see.”

  “He put detectives on me?”

  “He liked your style. In the city room. You were a thousand-dollar job, at first. A mere hand job. He couldn’t believe what he found out. More. Ten thousand. Fifteen.”

  “I would rather have taken it in pay.”

  “He couldn’t believe.… Who were you married to then?”

  “I don’t remember.”

  “He said, ‘Either all of it’s true, or none of it’s true.’”

  “None of it’s true,” Fletch said. “At the age of eleven, if you want the truth.…”

  “Stories,” Junior said. “Used to get stories about you. At dinner.”

  Fletch said, “This is very uncomfortable. What a lousy bar. The barman has dirty elbows. No music. What’s that noise? ‘Moon River.’ That’s what I mean. No music. Look at that painting. Disgusting. A horse, of all things. A horse over a bar. Ridiculous.…”

  Junior was blinking over his drink.

  “It was me Dad hated.”

  “What?”

  “All my life … I grew up.…”

  “Most of us did.”

  “… being Walter March, Junior. Walter March Newspapers, Junior. The inheritor of enormous power.”

  “That can be a problem.”

  “What if I wanted to be a violinist, or a painter, or a baseball player?”

  “Did you?”

  Junior closed his eyes tight over his drink.

  “I don’t even know.”

  Someone at the table in the corner said, “Walter marched.”

  Someone else said, “And about time, to boot!”

  Fletch looked over at them.

  Junior hadn’t heard.

  “You know, the first day I was supposed to report for work,” Junior s
aid. “September. The year I graduated college. They’d let me have the summer off. I walked to the office. Stood across the street from it, staring at it. Twenty minutes. Maybe a half-hour. Then I walked back to my apartment. I was scared shitless. That night, Jake Williams came over to my apartment and talked to me. For hours. Next morning, he picked me up and we walked into the March Newspapers Building together.” Junior went through the motions of drinking from his empty glass. “Good old Jake Williams.”

  Fletch said nothing.

  “Fletcher, will you help me?”

  “How?”

  “Work with me. The way Dad wanted.”

  “I don’t know anything about the publishing side of this business. The business end.”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  “It does to me.”

  Junior tightened his right fist and let it down slowly on the bar, as if he were banging it in slow motion.

  “Help me!”

  “Junior, I suspect you missed lunch.”

  “My father loved you so much.”

  “Come on, I met the bastard—I mean, your father—I mean, your father the bastard, the big bastard five minutes in his office.…”

  “I can’t esplain. I can’t esplain.”

  Fletch, on his bar stool, was facing Walter March, Junior.

  There were tears on Junior’s cheeks.

  Fletch said, “Nappy time?”

  Junior straightened up immediately. Suddenly, no tears. No whining voice. No quivering. Princeton right down the spine. Hand firmly around the empty glass. Not deigning to answer.

  “Hey, Walt,” Fletch said. “I was thinking of a sauna and a rub. They’ve got this fantastic lady hidden away in the basement, a Mrs. Leary, she gives a great massage.…”

  Junior looked at him. He was the President of March Newspapers.

  “Good to see you again, Fletcher,” he said. He cleared his throat. “I guess I just said I’m sorry you didn’t stay aboard.” He dipped his head to Fletch. “Can I have a drink sent to your room?”

  “No, that’s all right.” Fletch stood up from the bar stool.