Fletch’s Fortune

Thirty-two

12:30 P.M. Lunch

Main Dining Room

Captain Andrew Neale was at the luncheon table for six, with Crystal Faoni and, of course, Fredericka Arbuthnot. No Robert McConnell. No Lewis Graham. No Eleanor Earles.

“Has anyone noticed,” Fletch asked, “that anyone who shares a meal with the three of us never returns?”

“It’s because you get along so well with everybody,” Freddie said.

“Whom shall we have for lunch today?” Crystal asked. “Poor Captain Neale. Our next victim.”

Sitting straight in his light, neat jacket, Captain Neale smiled distantly at what was clearly an in-joke.

“You’re not thinking of keeping us all here beyond tomorrow morning, are you?” Crystal asked.

“Tonight, you mean,” said Freddie. “I have to leave on the six-forty-five flight.”

“You’re not keeping us beyond the end of the convention.” Crystal was only passably interested in her fruit salad.

“I don’t see how I can,” Captain Neale said. “Almost everyone here has made a point of telling me how important he or she is. Such a lot of important people. The seas would rumble and nations would crumble if I kept any of you out of circulation for many more minutes than I had to.”

Crystal said to Fletch, “I told you I’d like this guy.”

“Have people been beastly to you?” Freddie, grinning, asked Neale.

“I thought reporters were people who report the news,” Neale said. “The last couple of days, I’ve gotten the impression they are the news.”

“Right,” Crystal said solemnly to her fruit salad. “News does not happen unless a reporter is there to report it.”

“For example,” said Fletch, “if no one had known World War Two was happening.…”

“Actually,” Crystal said, “Hitler without the use of the radio wouldn’t have been Hitler at all.”

“And the Civil War,” said Freddie. “If it hadn’t been for the telegraph.…”

“The geographic center of the American Revolution,” Fletch said, “was identical to the center of the new American printing industry.”

“And then there was Caesar,” Crystal said. “Was he a military genius with pen in hand, or a literary genius with sword in hand? Did Rome conquer the world in reality, or just its communications systems?”

“Weighty matters we discuss at these conventions,” Freddie said.

“Listen,” Crystal said. “You know I take such comments personally. If I had two breakfasts, blame Fletch. Did you try those blueberry muffins this morning?”

“I tried only one of them,” Freddie said.

Crystal said, “The rest of them were good, too.”

Captain Neale was chuckling at their foolishness.

Fletch said to him, “People here have given you a pretty rough time, uh?”

Captain Neale stared at his plate a moment before answering.

“It’s been like trying to sing ‘Strawberry Fields Forever’ while your head’s stuck in a beehive.”

“Literary fella,” Crystal told her salad.

“Musical, too,” said Freddie.

“Questioning them, they question me.”

“Reporters ain’t got no humility,” Crystal said.

“When they do answer a question,” Neale continued, “they know exactly how to answer it—for their own sakes. They know exactly how to present facts absolutely to their own benefit—what to reveal, and what to conceal.”

“I suppose so,” said Freddie. “Never thought of it that way.”

“I’d rather be questioning the full bench of the Supreme Court.”

“There are only nine of them,” said Freddie.

Crystal said, “I’d say from reading the press you’ve given away very little. There have been no news-breaks—except for Poynton’s—since the beginning.”

“Poynton’s?” Neale asked.

“Stuart Poynton. You didn’t read him this morning?”

“No,” Neale said. “I didn’t.”

“He said you want to question a man named Joseph Molinaro regarding the murder of Walter March.”

“That was in the newspaper?” asked Neale.

“Who is Joseph Molinaro?” Crystal asked.

Neale smiled. “I suppose you’d like to know.”

“Oh, no,” Crystal said airily. “I’ve just been through a list of those attending the convention, a list of all hotel employees, the voting list in the town of Hendricks, the membership list of the American Journalism Alliance, Who’s Who, and, by telephone, the morgue of People magazine.…”

“You must be curious,” commented Neale.

Freddie said, “Who is Joseph Molinaro?”

Captain Neale said, “This is the perfect day for a fruit salad. Don’t you think?”

“In a way,” Fletch said, quietly, “everyone here is a bastard of Walter March. Or has been treated like one.”

Neale dropped his fork, but caught it before it went into his lap.

Crystal said brightly, as if introducing a new topic, “Say, who is this Joseph Molinaro, anyway?”

Neale, applying himself to his lunch, seemingly unperturbed, said, “There is no way I can keep any of you beyond tomorrow morning, or tonight, or whenever.”

“I understand I’m on the six-forty-five flight out of here.” Fletch looked at Freddie. “Me and my shadow. I’m catching a nine o’clock from Washington to London.”

She did not look at him.

Fletch said to Neale, “I don’t see how you could have accomplished very much, in just a couple of days. Under the circumstances.”

“We’ve accomplished more than you think,” Neale said.

“What have you accomplished?” Crystal asked like a sledgehammer.

To Neale’s silence, Fletch said, “Captain Neale has narrowed it down to two or three people. Or he wouldn’t be letting the rest of us go.”

Neale was paying more attention to the remainder of his salad than Crystal would do after trekking across a full golf course.

Fletch hitched himself forward in the chair and addressed himself to Crystal, speaking slowly. “The key,” he said, “is that Walter March was murdered—stabbed in the back with a pair of scissors—shortly before eight o’clock Monday morning, in the sitting room of his suite.”

Crystal stared at him dumbly.

“People lose sight of the simplicities,” Fletch said.

Under the table, Freddie kicked him hard, on the shin.

Fletch said, “Ow.”

“I just felt like doing that,” she said.

“Damnit” He rubbed his shin. “Are you trying to tell me I don’t get along well with everybody?”

“Something like that.”

“Well, you’re wrong,” Fletch said. “I do.”

The waiter was bringing chocolate cake for dessert.

“Oh, yum!” said Crystal. “Who cares about death and perdition as long as there’s chocolate cake?”

“Captain Neale does,” said Fletch.

“No,” said Neale. “I care about chocolate cake.”

“There is evidence,” Fletch said, the pain in his shin having abated, “that Walter March was expecting someone—someone he knew. He was expecting someone to call upon him in his suite at eight o’clock or shortly before.” Fletch had a forkful of the cake. “Someone to whom he would have opened the door.”

Freddie was continuing to look disgusted, but she was listening carefully.

Neale appeared to be paying no attention whatsoever.

Fletch asked him, mildly, “Who was it?”

“Good cake,” Neale said.

Fletch said, “Was it Oscar Perlman?”

Neale didn’t need to answer.

He looked at Fletch, both alarm and despair in his eyes.

“And who was it who told you Walter March was expecting Oscar Perlman?” Fletch asked. “Junior?”

Neale’s throat was dry from the cake. “Junior?”

“Walter March, Junior,” Fletch said.

“Jesus!” Neale’s eyes went from one to the other of them, desperately. “Don’t you print this. None of you. I didn’t say a word. If one of you prints.…”

“Don’t worry.” Fletch put his napkin on the table, and stood up. “Crystal and I are unemployed. And Freddie Arbuthnot,” he said, “doesn’t work for Newsworld magazine.”