Fletch's Fortune

by Gregory Mcdonald

  “Junior does. He’s really very good at the back room mechanics of this business.” She poured herself more coffee. “Fletch, this is very much a horse-and-wagon sort of business. The horse has to be in front of the wagon. What a newspaper looks like and how it reads is the horse, and the wagon it pulls is the advertising and whatnot. If a newspaper isn’t exciting and important, you can have all the clever people in the world in the back room and it won’t work out as a business.”

  “There’s Jake Williams.…”

  “Oh, Jake.” She let her hand flop, in disparagement. “Jake is sort of old, and worn-out.”

  Jake Williams was a good twenty years younger than Lydia March.

  “What I’m asking you, Fletch is: would you help Junior out? He has a terribly tough row to hoe just now.…”

  “I doubt he’d want me to.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “I bumped into him in the bar this afternoon, and we had a little chat.”

  “The bar, the bar!” Her face was annoyed and pained. “Really, Junior’s got to pull up his socks, and very soon.”

  “He seems to have some ambivalent feelings toward me.”

  “Junior doesn’t know what he feels at the moment. He’s keeping himself as drunk as he can. To be frank, I suppose a little bit of that is understandable, under the circumstances. But, really, becoming totally inoperable.…”

  “I think he’s afraid.”

  Her eyes opened wide. “Afraid?”

  “I never really had a sense of how much your husband was doing—and how he was doing it—until I came to this convention and started hearing the gossip. Your husband’s death was pretty ugly.”

  Lydia fitted her back into the corner of the divan and stared at the floor.

  The lady had much to think about.

  “Mrs. March, more than five years ago, your husband announced his retirement. Publicly. All the newspapers carried it. Why didn’t he retire?”

  “Oh, you heard Lewis Graham tonight. On television,”

  “I heard about it.”

  “What a pompous ass. You know, he ran against my husband last year for the presidency of the A.J.A. So he takes all the resentment and hatred he has for my husband, and turns it into ninety seconds of philosophical network pablum.”

  “Why didn’t your husband retire when he said he was going to?”

  “You don’t know?”

  “No.”

  She was sitting up, looking uneasy. “It was because of that stupid union thing Junior did.”

  Fletch said, “I still don’t know.”

  “Well, a huge union negotiation was coming up, and Junior thought he’d be clever. Our board of directors had been putting pressure on him for some years, you know, saying they thought he had led too sheltered a life, was too naive. They thought all he wanted was to do his day’s work and go home at five o’clock to his wife. Of course, that was before she left him. They insisted he travel more, and, of course he did take that trip to the Far East.…”

  Fletch remembered that Junior had filed a dispatch from Hong Kong which began, “There are a lot of Chinese…,” and every March newspaper printed it on the front page, faithfully, just to make the son of the publisher look ridiculous, which he did.

  “… So I guess Junior wanted to show his father and the board of directors that he had some ideas of his own, could operate in what he thought was a manly manner. Even Walter, my husband, thought the negotiations were going too smoothly. Even points brought up by our side as negotiating points were being accepted, almost without discussion. Of course, some of the union members smelled a rat and began nosing around. Don’t you know about this? Walter did his best to keep it quiet. I guess he succeeded. It was discovered that Junior had invested in a large bar-restaurant with the president of the labor union. Well, he had advanced the man the down payment and had accepted a first and second mortage on the place. Obviously, the union president hadn’t contributed a damn thing. Junior thought it was all right, because he had done it out of personal money, not company funds. There was hell to pay, of course. The National Labor Relations Board got involved. There was talk of sending both Junior and the union man to jail. We lost one newspaper because of it—the one in Baltimore. There was no question Walter could leave under such circumstances. And, of course, a thing like that takes years to settle down.”

  Fletch’s inner ear heard Lydia say, He’s every bit the man his father was, of course, even better, in many ways.…

  “We’re all entitled to one mistake,” Lydia said. “Junior’s was a beaut. You see, Fletch, it was really the fault of the board of directors, for doubting Junior so. He felt he had to prove something. You do understand that, don’t you, Fletch? You see, I think Junior needs a special kind of help.…”

  Again, Lydia was sitting back on the divan, staring at the floor, clearly a very troubled person.

  “Mrs. March, I think you and I should talk again, in a day or two.…”

  “Yes, of course.” With dignity, she stood up and put out her hand. “Of course, it is now when Junior most needs the help.…”

  “Yes,” Fletch said.

  “And in reference to what you said”—Lydia continued to hold his hand—“Junior and I did speak about you tonight, at dinner. He agrees with me. He would like to see you involved in March Newspapers. I wish you’d talk with him more about it. When you can.”

  “Okay.”

  At the door, she said, “Thanks for coming up, Fletch. I’m sure you didn’t mind missing Oscar Perlman’s after-dinner speech. Think of the people down there in the dining room, laughing at that dreadful man.…”

  Twenty-six

  10:00 P.M.

  WOMEN IN JOURNALISM: Face It, Fellas—

  Few Stories Take Nine Months to Finish

  Group Discussion

  Aunt Sally Hendricks Sewing Room

  From TAPE

  Station 4

  Suite 9 (Eleanor Earles)

  Eleanor Earles was saying, “… Thought I’d go to bed.”

  “I brought champagne.”

  “That’s nice of you, Rolly, but really, it is late.”

  “Since when is ten o’clock late?” asked Rolly Wisham. “You’re showing your age, Eleanor.”

  “You know I just got back from Pakistan Sunday.”

  “No, I didn’t know.”

  “I did.”

  “How are things in Pakistan?”

  “Just dreadful.”

  “Things are always dreadful in Pakistan.”

  “Rolly, what do you want?”

  “What do you think I want? When a man comes calling at ten o’clock at night, bearing a bottle of champagne.…”

  “A very young man.”

  “Eleanor, darling, ‘This is Rolly Wisham, with love.…’”

  “Very funny, you phony.”

  “Eleanor. You’re forgetting Vienna.”

  “I’m not forgetting Vienna, Rolly. That was very nice.”

  “It was raining.”

  “Rain somehow turns me on.”

  “Shall I run the shower?”

  “Honestly, Rolly! Look, I’m tired, and I’m upset about Walter.…”

  “Big, great Walter March. Sprung you for bail once, in Albania. And what have you been doing for him ever since?”

  “Knock it off, twerp.”

  “How come everyone in the world is a twerp? Except one old bastard named Walter March?”

  “Okay, Rolly, I know you’ve got all kinds of resentments against Walter because of what happened to your dad’s newspaper, and all.”

  “Not resentment, Eleanor. He killed my father. Can you understand? Killed him. He didn’t make the rest of my mother’s life any string symphony, either. Or mine. The word ‘resentment’ is an insult, Eleanor.”

  “It all happened a long time ago, in Oklahoma.…”

  “Colorado.”

  “… And you know only your side of the story.…”

  “I have th
e facts, Eleanor.”

  “If you have facts, Rolly, why didn’t you ever go to court with them? Why haven’t you ever printed the facts?”

  “I was a kid, Eleanor.”

  “You’ve had plenty of time.”

  “I’ll print the facts. One day. You’d better believe it. Shall I open the champagne?”

  “No.”

  “Oh, come on, Eleanor. The old bastard’s dead.”

  “Did you kill him, Rolly?”

  “Did I murder Walter March?”

  “That’s the question. If you want to be intimate with me, you can answer an intimate question.”

  “The question you asked was: Did I murder Walter March?”

  “That’s the question. What’s the answer?”

  “The answer is: maybe.” There was the pop of the champagne bottle cork, and the immediate sound of it’s being poured.

  “Really, Rolly.”

  “Here’s to your continued health, Eleanor, your success, and your love life.”

  “You don’t take a hint very easily.”

  “Not bad champagne. For domestic.”

  “What is it you really want, Rolly? We can’t duplicate Vienna in the rain in Hendricks, Virginia, with an air conditioner blasting.”

  “Let’s talk about Albania.”

  “That’s even worse. I don’t like to talk about Albania.”

  “But you do. You talk about Albania quite a lot.”

  “Well, it made me famous, that incident. You know that. The network took damn good care of me after that. And damn well they should have. The twerps.”

  “I’ve never believed your story about Albania, Eleanor. Sorry. Journalistic skepticism. I’m a good journalist. Fact, I just got a good review from a people. More champagne? Suddenly you’re being strangely unresponsive.”

  “I haven’t anything to say.”

  “You mean, you haven’t anything you’ve ever said.”

  “You came here to find out something. Right, Rolly? You came here for a story. Rolly Wisham, with love and a bottle of champagne. Well, there is no story, Rolly.”

  “Yes, there is, Eleanor. I wish you’d stop denying it. You’ve told the story so often, attributing what Walter March did for you to Walter March’s goodness, you’ve blinded everybody to the simple, glaring fact that Walter March wasn’t any good. He was a prick.”

  “Even a prick can do one or two good things, Rolly.”

  “Eleanor, I think you’ve just admitted something. I suspect I picked a fortunate metaphor.”

  “Get out of here, Rolly.”

  “Walter March had to have some reason for springing you out of Albania. He sent his own man in. His Rome bureau chief. You know what it must have cost him. Yet he never took credit for it. He didn’t even scoop the story. He let our old network take the credit. Come on, Eleanor.”

  “Rolly. I’m going to say this once. If you don’t get out of here, I’m going to call the police.”

  “The Hendricks, Virginia, police?”

  “House security.”

  “Come on, Eleanor. Tell old Rolly.”

  “Jesus, I wish Walter had lived. He would have nailed you to the wall.”

  “Yes,” Rolly Wisham said. “He would have. But he can’t now. Can he, Eleanor? There are a lot of things he can’t do now. Aren’t there, Eleanor?”

  A phone was ringing. Lying on his bed, half-asleep, Fletch wasn’t sure whether the phone was ringing in Eleanor Earles? room, or his own.

  “You’re.…”

  “Shall I leave the champagne?”

  “You know what to do with it.”

  “Good night, Eleanor.”

  It was Fletch’s own phone ringing.

  Twenty-seven

  “Ye Olde Listening Poste,” Fletch said.

  He had sat up, on the edge of his bed, and thrown the switch on the marvelous machine before answering the phone.

  “Hell, I’ve been trying to get you all night.”

  “You succeeded. Are you calling from Boston?”

  How many hours, days, weeks, months of his life in total had Fletch had to listen to this man’s voice on the phone?

  “I’ve never known a switchboard to be so damned screwed up,” Jack Saunders said. “It’s easier to get through to the White House during a national emergency.”

  “There’s a convention going on here. And the poor women on the switchboard have to work from only one room information sheet. Are you at the Star?”

  Jack had been Fletch’s city editor for more than a year at a newspaper in Chicago.

  More recently, they had met in Boston, where Jack was working as night city editor for the Star.

  Fletch had even done Jack the minor favor of working a desk for him one night in Boston during an arsonist’s binge.

  “Of course I’m at the Star. Would I be home with my god-awful wife if I could help it?”

  “Ah,” Fletch said. “The Continuing Romance of Jack and Daphne Saunders. How is the old dear?”

  “Fatter, meaner, and uglier than ever.”

  “Don’t knock fat.”

  “How can you?”

  “Got her eyelashes stuck in a freezer’s door lately?”

  “No, but she plumped into a door the other night Got the door knob stuck in her belly button. Had to have it surgically removed.” Fletch thought Jack remained married to Daphne simply to make up rotten stories about her. “I saw in the Washington newspaper you’re at the convention. Working for anyone?”

  “Just the C.I.A.”

  “Yeah. I bet. If you’re at a convention, you must be looking for a job. What’s the matter? Blow all that money you ripped off?”

  “No, but I’m about to.”

  “I figure you can give me some background on the Walter March murder.”

  “You mean the Star doesn’t have people here at the convention?”

  “Two of ’em. But if they weren’t perfectly useless, we wouldn’t have sent ’em.”

  “Ah, members of the great sixteen-point-seven percent.”

  “What?”

  “Something a friend said.”

  “So how about it?”

  “How about what?”

  “Briefing me.”

  “Why?”

  “How about ‘old times’ sake’ as a reason?”

  “So I can win another award and you not even tell me but go accept it yourself and make a nice, humble little speech lauding teamwork?”

  Such had actually happened.

  Saunders said, “I guess technically that would come under the heading of ‘old times’ sake’—in this instance.”

  “If I scoop the story, will you offer me a job?”

  “I’ll offer you a job anyway.”

  “That’s not what I asked. If you get a scoop on this, will you make with a job?”

  “Sure.”

  “Okay. You want background or gossip at this point?”

  “Both.”

  “Walter March was murdered,”

  “No foolin’.”

  “Scissors in the back.”

  “Next you’re going to say he fell down dead.”

  “You’re always rushing ahead, Jack.”

  “Sorry.”

  “Take one point at a time.”

  “‘Walter March was murdered.’ I’ve written it down.”

  “He was murdered here at the convention, where everybody knows him, and a great many people hate him.”

  “He’s the elected president.”

  “You know that Walter March kept a stable of private detectives on his permanent payroll?”

  “Of course I do.”

  “His use of them has irritated many people—apparently given many people reason to murder him. In fact, if you believe what you hear around here, dear old saintly Walter March was blackmailing everybody this side of Tibet.”

  “Do you know whom he was blackmailing and why?”

  “A few. He’s been having Oscar Perlman followed and hounded for
years and years now.”

  “Oscar Perlman? The humorist?”

  “Used to work for March. His column got picked up by a syndicate, and has been running in March’s competing newspapers ever since.”

  “That was a thousand years ago.”

  “Nevertheless, he’s been hounding Perlman ever since.”

  “So why should Perlman stab March at this point, when he hasn’t before?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe March’s goons finally came up with something.”

  “Oscar Perlman,” Jack Saunders mused. “That would be an amusing trial. It would make great copy.”

  “Lydia March says she saw Perlman in the corridor outside their suite immediately after the murder. Walking away.”

  “Good. Let’s stick Perlman. Anything for a laugh.”

  “None of this is printable, Jack.”

  “I know that. I’m the editor, remember? Daphne and all those ugly kids of mine to feed.”

  “Rolly Wisham hated Walter March with a passion. He has reason, I guess, but I think his hatred borders on the uncontrollable.”

  “‘Rolly Wisham, with love’?”

  “The same. He says he was so upset at seeing March in the elevator Sunday night, he didn’t sleep all night.”

  “What’s his beef?”

  “Wisham says that March, again using his p.i.’s, took the family newspaper away from Rolly’s dad, and drove him to suicide.”

  “True?”

  “How do I know? If it is true, it happened at a dangerous age for Rolly—fifteen or sixteen—I forget which. Loves and hatreds run deep in people that age.”

  “I remember. Did Wisham have the opportunity? You said he was there Sunday night.”

  “Yeah, and he has no working alibi for Monday morning. He says he was driving around Virginia, in sunglasses, in a rented car. Didn’t even stop at a gas station.”

  “Funny. ‘This is Rolly Wisham, with love, and a scissors in Walter March’s back.’ ”

  “You know March was planning a coast-to-coast campaign to get Wisham thrown off the air?”

  “Oh, yeah. I read that editorial. It was right. Wisham’s a fuckin’ idiot. The world’s greatest practitioner of the sufferin’-Jesus school of journalism.”

  “Keep your conservative sentiments to yourself, Saunders. You’ve been off the street too long.”