He looked at Junior, closely, through the dark of the bar.
“As a matter of fact, Walt.” Fletch put his hands in his trouser pockets. “I would like you to send a drink to my room.” He drawled, “I’d appreciate it. Room 79.” He spoke slowly, softly, deliberately. “A couple of gin and tonics. Room 79. Okay? I’d appreciate it. Room 79.”
Fletch wasn’t sure how well Junior was hearing him, if at all.
“Thanks, Walt.”
Twenty-one
From TAPE
Station 8
Suite 8 (Oscar Perlman)
“… Yeah.”
“May I say, Mister Perlman, how much my wife enjoys your columns.”
“Fuck your wife.”
“Sir?” Captain Neale said.
“Fuck your wife. It’s always, ‘My wife likes your columns.’” Clearly, Oscar Perlman was talking through a well-chewed cigar. “Everytime I do anything, a book, a play, it’s always, ‘My wife likes it.’ I go to a party and try to get the topic of conversation off me and my work, because I know what to expect all ready. I say, ‘What did you think of Nureyev last night at the National Theater?’ ‘My wife liked it.’ Always, ‘My wife liked it.’ You saw the latest Bergman? ‘My wife liked it.’ What about Neil Diamond’s latest record—isn’t it somethin’ else? ‘My wife liked it.’ You read the new Joe Gores novel? ‘My wife.…’ What about King Lear these days? ‘My wife says it’s chauvinistic. The father expects something.’ Always, ‘My wife liked it, didn’t like it.’ What are American men, a bunch of cultural shits? Always what the wife likes. The men don’t have eyes, ears, and a brain? What’sa matter with you? You can’t say you like my column? It’s feminine to like my column? Will your chest suck up your hair and push it out your asshole if you say you like something other than hockey, boxing, and other nose-endangering sports?”
“Mister Perlman, I am just a normal veteran.…”
“You do fuck your wife, don’t you?”
“I have never met such a bunch of strange, eccentric, maybe sick people.…”
“Does she say she likes it?”
“Mister Perlman.…”
“Do you believe everything your wife says? Who should believe everything his wife says anyway? Why don’t you say you enjoy my column? I work just for wives? Fred Waring worked for wives. And look at him. He invented Mixmasters. No, he invented Waring blenders. Maybe there’s a man who’s pleased to have everybody come up to him saying, ‘My wife likes your work.’ He sold plenty of Waring blenders. Jesus Christ, why don’t you just shut up and sit down.
“I have a terrible feeling I’ve just blown a column on you,” Oscar Perlman said. “So already you owe me seventeen thousand dollars. Relax. You want a cigar? Play cards? A little up and down? I don’t drink, but there’s plenty stuff around.
“Christ. I just blew a column. How’s your wife? I’m supposed to be here enjoying. I’m not. I lost twelve hundred bucks last night. These little shits from Dallas. St. Louis. Oof. Twelve hundred bucks. What? You don’t want a drink? These cards are dirty. They took twelve hundred from me.”
“Mister Perlman, any time you’re ready to answer some questions.…”
“Shoot. So old Walter March got it up-the. Never was up-the more deserved. Everybody else ’round here is writing about it. To me, it isn’t funny yet. Make it funny for me. I’ll appreciate.”
“Mister Perlman!”
“Don’t shout at me, you backwater, egg-sucking cop. You’ve cost me a column already. You were a veteran?”
“Listen. I know you journalists are in the business of asking questions. I’m in the business of asking questions. I’m going to ask the questions. Is that clear?”
“Jesus. He’s getting hysterical. You don’t play cards at all? You should. Very relaxing.”
“Mister Perlman, you used to work for Walter March?”
“Years ago. I worked on one of his newspapers. Twenty-five years ago. Most of the people here at this convention worked for March, one time or another. Why ask me?”
“I’m asking the questions.”
“That’s not a question.”
“You first wrote your humorous column on his newspaper?”
“You say it’s humorous? Thank you.”
“You first developed your column on his newspaper.”
“That’s not a question, either, but the answer is yes.”
“Then you took the column you had developed on one of March’s newspapers—the one in Washington—and sold it to a national syndicate?”
“International. Wives all over the world like my column.”
“Why did you walk out on Walter March and sell your column to another syndicate?”
“I’m supposed to starve because the man didn’t have a sense of humor? Even his wife didn’t have a sense of humor. He refused to syndicate my column even through his own newspaper chain. I gave him enough time. Two, three years.”
“Is it true he helped you develop your column?”
“Is it true trees grow upside down? ‘It’s true,’ the dairy maid said, ‘if you’re always lying on your back.’ He allowed the column to run. Irregularly. Usually cut in half. On the obituary page. From his encouragement, I could have had a free funeral, I was so big with the local undertakers.”
“And after you went with the syndicate, he sued you, is that true?”
“He didn’t win the suit. You can’t sue talent.”
“But he did sue you.”
“You can’t sue talent and win. He was laughed out of court. The judge’s wife had a sense of humor.”
“And then, what?”
Oscar Perlman repeated, “And then, what?”
“Mrs. March says the antagonism between you two has kept up all these years.”
“Old Lydia’s fingering me, uh? That lady’s got sharp nails.”
“Has the antagonism between you kept up all these years?”
“How could it? We’ve had nothing to do with each other. He’s been running his newspapers; I’ve been writing my column.”
“Someone told me March never gave up trying to force you to run your column in his newspapers.”
“Who told you that?”
“Well, actually, Stuart Poynton.”
“Nice guy. Did he get my name right?”
“I was wondering about that. He kept calling you ‘Oscar Worldman.’”
“Sounds about right.”
“Did you change your name?”
“No. Poynton did. He changes everybody’s name. He’s a walking justice of the peace.”
“Please answer the question, Mister Perlman.”
“Did March continue to want my column to run in his newspapers? Well, in most areas, as things worked out, my column ran in newspapers competing with his, I attract a few readers. Yes, I guess the matter would continue to be of some importance to him.”
“What was the nature of Walter March’s, let’s say, effort to get your column back in the March Newspapers.”
“You tell me.”
“Mister Perlman.…”
“No one’s pinned anything on me since I was a baby. That’s an old line, I’m ashamed to say.”
“Are you aware that Walter March kept a large number of private detectives on his payroll?”
“Who told you that?”
“You journalists are mighty particular about pinning down the sources of every statement, aren’t you?”
“Who told you?”
“Rolly Wisham, for one.”
“Rolly? Nice kid”
“Were you aware of Mister March’s private detectives, Mister Perlman?”
“If they were any good as private detectives I wouldn’t be aware of them, would I?”
“Did Walter March ever try to blackmail you?”
“How? There’s absolutely nothing in my life I could be blackmailed about. My life is as clean as a Minnesota kitchen.”
There was a pause.
Stretched out on his bed
, Fletch had closed his eyes.
Finally, Captain Neale said, “Where were you Monday morning at eight o’clock?”
“In my bedroom. Sleeping.”
“You were in the corridor, outside the March’s suite.”
“I was not.”
“You were seen there.”
“I couldn’t have been.”
“Mister Perlman, Mrs. March has given us a very detailed description of running through the open door of her suite, seeing you in the corridor, walking away, lighting a cigar, running toward you for help, recognizing you, then running past you to bang on the door of the Williams’ suite.”
“She was upset. She could have seen green zebras at that point.”
“You don’t remember seeing Lydia March at eight o’clock Monday morning?”
“Not even in my dreams. Captain Neale, we played poker until five-thirty in the morning. I slept until eleven, eleven-thirty.”
“Is there anyone here you know of Mrs. March could confuse with you?”
“Robert Redford didn’t come to this convention.”
“You’re willing to swear you were not in the corridor outside the March’s suite about eight o’clock Monday morning?”
“Lydia March would be a totally unreliable witness about what or whom she saw at that moment in time.”
“Is that what you’re relying on, Mister Perlman?”
“You want to know who killed Walter March? I’ll tell you who killed Walter March. Stuart Poynton killed Walter March. He was trying to kill Lewis Graham, only he got the names and room numbers mixed up.”
Twenty-two
4:30 P.M.
THE BIG I: ADVOCACY JOURNALISM—
RIGHT OR WRONG AND WHO SAYS SO?
Seminar
Conservatory
Fletch was kneeling, shoving his marvelous machine back under the bed, when he heard the glass door to the pool area slide open.
He dropped the edge of the bedspread to the floor.
He hadn’t realized the sliding glass door was unlocked.
He heard Crystal’s voice. “Now I’ve got the Fletch story to cap all Fletch stories! Tousle-headed Fletch kneeling by his bed, lisping, ‘Now I lay me down with sheep’!”
Crystal was in the doorway, her fat twice banded by a black bikini.
“I met a Methodist minister on the airplane the other day.” He stood up. “Twelve thousand meters up he taught me to sing ‘Nearer, My God, to Thee.’”
He had never seen so much restrained by so little before.
“I’m cold,” she said. “My room’s way the other side of the hotel. May I use your shower?”
“Of course.”
Her skin was beautiful. All of it.
Walking across the room her fat shook so it looked as if it would plop to the floor in handsful.
“That idiot, Stuart Poynton,” she said. “Had me standing waist-deep in the pool a half-hour, talking, trying to get me to do legwork for him.”
“Legwork?”
“On the Walter March murder. Someone told Poynton I’m unemployed.”
She left the bathroom door open.
“Did you agree?”
“I told him I’d work for Pravda first.”
“Why did you listen?”
Nude, she was adjusting the shower curtain. Even reaching up, her belly hung down.
“Find out if he knew anything. He had some big story about the desk clerk being afraid March was going to get him fired for being rude to Mrs. March, so he grabbed the desk scissors, let himself into March’s suite with the master key, and ventilated Walter March as he stood.”
Fletch said, “Where does Poynton get stupid stories like that?”
Crystal stepped into the tub, behind the shower curtain.
“Oh, well,” he said.
Fletch stripped and went into the bathroom.
He held the shower curtain aside and said, “Room for two of us in here? Watch where you step.”
Under the shower, Crystal’s body created the most remarkable cascade.
“Did you bring a sandwich?” she asked, “Anything to eat?”
“Young lady, if it’s the last thing I do—and it may be—I am going to teach you to not make disparaging remarks about yourself.”
“Nothing to eat, uh?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“Oh, I’ve never gone for these high-protein diets.”
“Obviously. Repeat after me. I will never insult myself again.”
“‘I will never insult…’ yipes!”
When they fell sideways out of the tub, the shower curtain and the bar holding it came with them.
On the bathroom floor, they tried to unwrap themselves from the shower curtain. Part of it was under them, on the floor.
“Goddamn it,” he said. “You’re on my leg. My left leg!”
“I don’t feel a thing,” she said.
“I do! I do! Get off!”
“I can’t. The shower curtain.…”
“Jesus, will you get off my leg! Christ, I think you broke it.”
“What do you mean, I broke it? Men are supposed to take some responsibility for situations like this.”
“How can I take responsibility when I’m pinned to the floor?”
“You’re no good to me pinned to the floor.”
“Will you get off my damned leg?”
“Get the shower curtain off me!”
“How can I get the shower curtain off? I can’t move.”
The shower curtain was yanked, pulled, lifted off from the top.
Fredericka Arbuthnot stood there in tan culottes and a blouse, shower curtain in hand.
Fletch said, “Oh, hi, Freddie.”
“Nice to see you, Fletch. Finally.”
“Thanks.”
Crystal had rolled off him.
Freddie said, “You make a very noisy neighbor.”
She dropped the shower curtain, and left.
Fletch was sitting up, feeling up and down his left leg with his fingers.
Face down on the floor, Crystal said, “Did-I break it?”
“You didn’t break anything.”
“You really turn her on, you know?”
“Who?”
“Freddie.”
Fletch said, “A bush in the hand.…”
Twenty-three
6:00 P.M. Cocktails
Amanda Hendricks Room
“Did you have a nice shower?” Freddie asked.
“Thanks for rescuing us. Quite an impasse.”
“Oh, any time. Really, Fletch, you ought to wear a whistle around your neck, for situations of that sort.”
In the Amanda Hendricks Room, Fletch stood with a Chivas Regal and soda in hand, Freddie with a vodka gimlet.
Since he had entered the room, Leona Hatch had been eyeing him curiously.
“And,” asked Freddie, “do you always sing at play?”
“Was I singing?”
“Something of doubtful appropriateness. I believe it was ‘Nearer, My God, to Thee.’ ”
“No, no. For Crystal, I was singing, ‘Nearer, my God! to thee.’”
“Such a happy child.”
Leona Hatch swayed over to Fletch and said, “Don’t I know you?”
She would make it to dinner tonight, but just barely.
“My name’s Fletcher.” He put out his hand. “I. M. Fletcher.”
Leona took his hand uncertainly. “I don’t recognize the name,” she said. “But I’m sure I know you from somewhere.”
“I’ve never worked in Washington.”
“Maybe on one of the presidential campaigns?”
“I’ve never covered one.”
“Funny,” she said. “I have the feeling I know you very well.”
“You probably do,” muttered Freddie. “You probably do.”
Don Gibbs and another man appeared behind Leona Hatch.
Gibbs’ face was highly flushed.
“Fletcher, old man!”
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Almost knocking Leona Hatch over—in fact, knocking her hat askew—Don Gibbs, drink in hand, made a clumsy effort to embrace Fletch’s shoulders.
“Ha, ha!” Fletch said. “Ha, ha!”
They remained standing in a circle while Fletch looked into his glass and remained quiet.
Don Gibbs, his face highly decorated with smiles, finally said, “Well, Fletch, aren’t you going to introduce us?”
Still looking into his glass, Fletch shrugged. “Oh, I’m sure you all know each other.”
He looked up in time to see an odd flicker in Fredericka Arbuthnot’s left eye.
Leona was resettling her hat on her head at a completely wrong angle.
“Well, I don’t know who they are. Who the hell are they?”
“Oh, Ms. Hatch, I’m sorry,” Fletch said. “This is Donald Gibbs. And this is Robert Englehardt. They work for the Central Intelligence Agency. Ms. Leona Hatch.”
Gibbs’ smile sank down his face, his neck, and disappeared somewhere beneath his shirt collar.
Englehardt, a large man in a loose brown suit, turned white all over his bald head.
Freddie said, “You have the C.I.A. on the brain.”
Fletch shrugged again. “And frankly, Ms. Hatch, I have no idea who this young lady is.”
Englehardt stepped forward and grabbed Leona’s free hand in his paw.
“Delighted to meet you, Ms. Hatch. Mister Gibbs and I are observers at your convention. We’re from the Canadian press. We’re planning a convention of our own, next year, in Ontario.…”
“You don’t sound Canadian,” she said.
“Pip,” said Gibbs. “Pip, pip, pip.”
“Pop,” said Fletch. “Pup.”
“See what I mean?” asked Leona. “Since when have Canadians said ‘pip’?”
Englehardt, the top of his bald head dampish, gave Fletch a killing look.
“And you pronounced the word ‘observers’ wrong, too.” Leona Hatch shook her arm. “Mister, you’re hurting my hand.”
“Oh, I’m sorry.”
Englehardt not only released her hand, but, in doing so, took a step backward, thus tipping Leona Hatch a little forward.
This time, she caught herself.
She said, “A Canadian would have said, ‘I am sorry,’ with the stress on the ‘am.’ A Canadian never would have contracted ‘I’ and ‘am’ in that sentence under those circumstances.”
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