Fletch and the Man Who f-6

by Gregory Mcdonald

  Fletch walked close beside him. Quietly he said, “We’ve got to talk. Privately. Soon.”

  “Sure,” the governor said. “What’s up?”

  Into the governor’s ear, Fletch said, “Ira Lapin tells me another young woman has been murdered.”

  The governor reached through the mob, went out of his way to shake a bellman’s hand.

  With his public grin on his face, the governor spoke almost through his teeth. “Two people in the United States are murdered every hour, Fletch. Didn’t you know that?”

  “Talk,” Fletch said.

  “Sure, sure.”

  25

  “I’m glad you asked me that question.” Sitting behind Flash in the rented black sedan, Governor Wheeler’s eyes twinkled at Fletch sitting in the front passenger seat. Sitting behind Fletch, Lansing Sayer had just asked some general question about the “New Reality” speech The Man Who had delivered in Winslow the day before. Sayer had a tape recorder going and also was working a pen and notebook. “I guess I made a rather sweeping statement.”

  It was a raw, bone-chilling day with a heavy sky. Flash had the car heater on high.

  “Senator Upton says you’re proposing a technocracy,” Lansing said.

  “I’m not proposing anything,” the governor said. “I’m simply making an observation.”

  Fletch remembered James’s advice that when he thought the candidate was about to say something profound and statesmanlike he ought to stick a glove in his mouth.

  “Just observe,” the governor said slowly, thoughtfully, “what technology is getting the major share of the governments’ attention. Advanced weaponry. Machines of death and destruction. Do you realize what a single tank costs these days? A fighter aircraft? An aircraft carrier? I don’t just mean our government. I mean all governments. Some governments are exporting weaponry at a high rate; others are importing at a high rate; some do both. The technology upon which almost all governments concentrate is the technology of weaponry. Advanced bows and arrows.”

  It was true: Flash drove slowly. He hugged the right lane of the city’s main street and proceeded at only slightly better than a pedestrian’s pace. Fletch had been in funeral processions that went faster.

  “At the same time,” the governor continued, at about the same pace as the car, “over the earth has been spreading a communications system that does or can reach into every hovel, capable of collecting and dispersing information instantaneously. An amazing technology, for the most part developed by free enterprise, private business— particularly the entertainment business.

  “Through this technology, the people of this earth are beginning to recognize each other, know each other, and realize their commonality of interest.

  “This technology is far more powerful, and far more positive I might add, than the thermonuclear bomb.”

  It was hardly noticeable when the car came to a full stop, but, indeed, they were stopped at a red light. The people crossing the street in front of the car had no idea they were so close to a leading presidential candidate. They were all hurrying someplace, to work, to shop. None looked in the car. And none knew what was being discussed in that black sedan.

  “Governments lie now, and all the people know it. A government runs a phony election, and all the people of the world witness it. Governments put on brushfire wars now for some diplomatic or ideologic reason, and all the world see themselves being maimed and killed.”

  Lansing Sayer dropped his hands, his pen and notebook in his lap, and said, “I don’t know what all this is about.”

  Flash had taken off his gloves and dropped them on the seat beside Fletch.

  The car oozed forward again.

  “I’m talking about the gathering and dissemination of information,” the governor said, “instead of weapons.”

  Lansing said, “Graves stated that in your speech yesterday, you seemed to be disparaging—among other ideologies—Christianity, Judaism, and democracy.”

  “I don’t disparage ideas at all,” the governor said. “I’m having one, am I not?”

  “You said technology is tying this world together, integrating the people of this world, in a way no ideology ever has or ever could.”

  “Isn’t that true? We’re all brothers in the Bible. We’re all comrades under Marxism. But it is through our increased factual awareness of each other that we’re discovering our common humanity as a reality.”

  Lansing Sayer wasn’t getting much into his notebook.

  “Am I wrong to think that most of the bad things that happen on this earth happen because people don’t have the right facts at the right time? It’s all very well to believe something. You can go cheering to war over what you believe. You can starve to death happily over what you believe. But would wars ever happen if everybody had the same facts? There is no factual basis for starvation on this earth,” Governor Caxton Wheeler said softly. “Not yet, there isn’t.”

  “It’s the interpretation of facts that counts,” Lansing Sayer said.

  “Facts are facts,” said The Man Who. “I’m not talking about faith, belief, opinions. I’m talking about facts. How come most children in this world know Pele’s every move playing soccer, know every line of Muhammad Ali’s face, and yet this same technology has not been used to teach them the history of their own people, or how to read and write their own language? How come a bank in London can know, up to the minute, how much money a bank in New York has, to the penny, but a kid in Liverpool who just had his teeth bashed out doesn’t know three thousand years ago a Greek analyzed gang warfare accurately? How come the governments of this world know where every thermonuclear missile is, on land, under land, on sea, under sea, and yet this technology has never been used for the proper allocation of food? Is that a dumb question?”

  “You’re saying, regarding technology, governments are looking in the wrong direction.”

  “I’m saying governments are out of date in their thinking. They’ve been developing negative technology, rather than positive technology. You have to believe something, only if you don’t know. We now have the capability to know everything.”

  Lansing Sayer looked at the governor. “What has this to do with the presidential campaign? Are these ideas of yours going to be implemented in some kind of a political program?”

  And the governor looked through the car window. “Well… we’re having international meetings on arms control. We have had for decades now, while arms have proliferated through this world like the plague. Translating this observation into policy …” In the front seat Fletch again was amazed at how simply issues were raised and answered on a political campaign, how naturally problems were stated and policy formulated. “… I think it’s time we started working toward international understandings regarding the use and control of this technology,” The Man Who said. “Obviously no one—no political, religious, financial group—should have control of too large a section of this technology. Consider this.” The governor smiled at Lansing Sayer. “Electronically, a complete polling of a nation’s people, a complete plebiscite, can take place within seconds. Where is the time needed for the people to reflect? Maybe there should be an international understanding, agreement, that such a plebiscite is to be used only as an advisory to a government, but does not give a government authority to act.”

  The car was going up the hill to the hospital.

  “Great,” the governor said. “Easily accessible hospital. Good roads leading to it. That’s good.”

  Lansing Sayer took off his glasses and rubbed his forehead.

  “Flash will take you back to the hotel,” the governor said to Lansing Sayer, “then come back and pick us up. I have to make a television tape after this.”

  Lansing Sayer asked, “Is this what your campaign is about, Governor? Shifting governmental interest from bombs to communication?”

  “Bombs are a damned bad way to communicate,” The Man Who said. “Deafen people.”

  The car stopped. The gover
nor was leaving the car through the back door.

  Lansing Sayer leaned over. “Governor! May I report this is what your campaign is about? Coming to international understandings regarding the new technology?”

  Governor Caxton Wheeler looked back inside the car at Lansing Sayer. He grinned. He said: “Presidential campaigns ought to be about something.”

  Walking from the car to the hospital entrance, where administrators were waiting to greet him, Governor Caxton Wheeler chuckled and said to Fletch, “You know, sir, I’m beginning to want to be President of the United States!”

  26

  “Ah!” The concerned, consoling expression fell off the governor’s face when he saw the only one present in the private hospital room was I. M. Fletcher. The door behind the governor swung shut. “And what are you in hospital for?”

  “Anxiety,” Fletch answered. “Acute.”

  “I’m sure they’ll have you fixed up and home in no time.”

  While the governor had toured the happier wards of the hospital— maternity, general surgery, pediatrics (he was kept away from intensive care and the terminal section)—Fletch had arranged with a hospital administrator to have the governor shown into an unoccupied private room. His excuse had been the governor’s need to use the phone.

  More seriously, the governor asked, “What are you so anxious about? What’s up?”

  “Hanrahan wrote his usual muscular piece for this morning’s Newsbill. ” Fletch took the tabloid’s front page and two of its inside pages from his jacket pocket and handed them to the governor. “I want you to see what all this looks like in print.”

  Standing near the window, the governor glanced through the pages. “So? Who cares about Newsbill? They once reported I had been married before. As a law student.”

  “I’m afraid Hanrahan has a point. In the third paragraph.”

  The governor read aloud: “Campaign officials even refuse to state they have no knowledge of the women or of their murders….”

  He handed the pages from Newsbill back to Fletch. “How are we supposed to comment on something we don’t know about?”

  “Plus there was a woman murdered at the hotel last night. A chambermaid. Strangled. So Ira Lapin tells me. By the way, did you know Lapin’s own wife was murdered?”

  “So he’s off murdering other women?”

  “Maybe. Somebody is.”

  The governor paced off as far as the hospital room would permit, and then back to the window. “Do you think someone’s out to get me?”

  “I never thought of that.”

  “Think about it. It is, or could be, the net effect of these murders. To bring this campaign to its knees.”

  “It certainly increases the pressures …”

  “Getting rid of me, casting a pall, a question mark over my campaign, is the only motive I can think of.” The governor shrugged. “Or maybe paranoia is an occupational hazard for a political campaigner. You think the murderer is someone traveling with the campaign?”

  “Good grief, don’t you think so? It’s why Fredericka Arbuthnot, crime writer for Newsworld, is traveling with us. She’s not as careless and sensational as Hanrahan, but now that Hanrahan has blown the story, she’ll have to write something.”

  “I’d better get Nolting to whip up some statements, figures on the high incidence of crime. I can say things like, ‘Everywhere I go, it seems like someone is getting murdered.’”

  “Governor …” Fletch hesitated.

  “Yes?”

  “I understand. You have to protect yourself. You have to protect the campaign. But making statements won’t make the matter go away.”

  “What else can we do? The primary is in a couple of days.”

  “The best way to make the matter go away is to find out who is murdering these women.”

  “How are we supposed to do that? We’re at full gear here, traveling at high speed. How many people are traveling with us—fifty or sixty? Is someone trying to sabotage my campaign? Just when I’m beginning to say something that is at least of interest to me? Who? Upton? Unthinkable. Graves? This goes a bit beyond dirty tricks. Some foreign agent? That guy from Pravda—”

  “Solov.”

  “That’s his name? Looks like a complete basket case to me. You know he’s never approached me with a single question? What’s he here for? The press. You said Andrew Esty left yesterday, and there was a murder last night. So that lets him off.”

  “He came back. He was ordered back. Saw him in the elevator last night. Why do you mention him in particular?”

  “That guy’s a nut. Did you ever see him smile? He’s as tight as a tournament tennis racquet. One of those guys who thinks he’s absolutely right. Anyone who thinks he’s absolutely right is capable of anything, including murder. Some kook among the volunteers. Lee Allen can’t do very thorough checks on their backgrounds. We’re traveling too fast, don’t have the resources. I trust everyone on the staff implicitly. Believe me, they’ve all been vetted. You’re the only one I don’t know well personally, and you weren’t with us at the time of the murder in the Hotel Harris. What the hell am I supposed to do? Go before the electorate, and say, ‘Hey, guys and gals, I’m not a murderer.’ Has an unfortunate ring to it. ‘I’m not a froggy-woggy; I’m a toaddy-woaddy.’”

  “Yes, it’s time to say something,” Fletch said. “It’s also time to do something. I love what you’re saying about the ‘New Reality,’ but the true reality is that the people are going to be concerned about unsolved murders touching your campaign.”

  The governor waved his hand at the pages from Newsbill still in Fletch’s hand. “Did you show that filth to Walsh?”

  “He had already left his room when I called this morning.”

  The governor looked at his watch. “I’m due at a television studio for a taping in twenty minutes. I will refer to these women’s deaths, and say I am appalled. We have got to do something about violent crime in this country. It’s affecting all of us. There’s the big rally in Melville tonight. I have to fly to New York to be on that network program, ‘Q. & A.,’ live tomorrow morning. Everybody tells me I’ve got to attend a church service somehow in the morning, seeing I’m accused of slurring Christianity in Winslow.”

  For a moment the two men were silent. Recitation of schedule did not make the problem go away, either. “Damn,” the governor said. “It’s snowing again.”

  Fletch said, “Now will you get some federal investigators to travel with us?”

  “No.” The governor thought a moment, and then said: “Your job, Fletcher, is to make sure this doesn’t touch me. Doesn’t touch the campaign. That’s your only job.” The Man Who had fallen into the cadence of a public speech. “No matter who is doing this string of murders, for whatever reason, it is to have no bearing on my candidacy. The primary in this state is in a couple of days. No one can solve a string of far-flung murders in a couple of days. I cannot go into that primary election day with people thinking of murder, associating this campaign with the murder of women. Do what you have to do, but keep this away from me. Is that clear?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “We’d better go.”

  Fletch opened the swing door of the hospital room for the governor. “Do you know the President has announced a press conference for two o’clock this afternoon?”

  “Yes.”

  “Saturday afternoon press conference. Most unusual.”

  Going through the door the governor said, “I expect he’s going to speak well of Christianity and democracy and drop a bomb on me.”

  27

  “Here I am.” Freddie Arbuthnot announced her presence at Fletch’s elbow.

  Actually, using one of the hotel’s house telephones, Fletch had been trying to find Walsh Wheeler. His room didn’t answer. Barry Hines wasn’t sure where Walsh was. He thought Walsh was meeting with Farmingdale’s Young Professionals Association. Lee Allen Parke thought Walsh was visiting an agronomy exhibit about fifty miles from Farmingdale.
(Fletch was to discover Walsh breakfasted with the Young Professionals Association, then visited the agronomy exhibit.)

  “You are looking for me, aren’t you?” Freddie asked.

  “Always.” Fletch gave up on the phone. “Have you packed yet?”

  “I never really unpack.”

  “Neither do I. But I ought to go up and throw things together. Come with me?”

  “Sir! To your hotel room?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Sure.”

  Judy Nadich burst off the elevator.

  “Hey!” Fletch said to her.

  She turned around, her tote bag swinging against her leg. She was crying.

  “What’s the matter?” Fletch asked.

  “That bitch!” Judy said.

  “Who?”

  “Your Ms Sullivan.” She stepped closer to Fletch. “And your Doris Wheeler!”

  “What did they do?”

  “Nothing. Threw me out. Called me a squirrel.”

  Fletch couldn’t help smiling.

  “Told me to go cover the flower show!” Fresh tears poured from her eyes. “That’s not for a month yet!”

  “So screw ’em,” Fletch said.

  Judy tried to collect herself in front of Freddie. “How?”

  “Screw ’em in what you write.” Fletch realized James had been right: Mrs. Presidential Candidate Doris Wheeler badly needed a lesson in manners. The realization made him hot.

  “I don’t have anything to write!” Judy almost wailed. “I didn’t even see what the inside of her suite looked like!”

  “Oh,” he said lamely.

  “This story was important to me.” Judy Nadich walked away, head down, her tote bag banging against her knees, back to do stories about flower shows and cracked teacups and the funds needed to clean the statues in the park.

  “Poor local press,” Freddie sighed. “I was one once.”

  Fletch pressed the elevator button. “Where?”