Fletch, Too

“Barbara says every woman around is eating you up with her eyes,” Fletch said.

Carr had brought two fresh beers to the table. “Occupational hazard. Women can think bush pilots attractive, but, for the most part, they’d never think of marrying one,” He touched his glass to Fletch’s. “Home tomorrow to the camp, and Sheila.”

They drank.

Fletch said, “Barbara and I are very grateful to you, Mr. Peter Carr. Seeing the Masai Mara has been a most memorable treat.”

“Then perhaps you’ll permit me a personal question?”

“Of course.”

Carr took another swallow of his beer before speaking. “You’ve got me a bit confused, young Fletcher. I’m speaking of the murder you saw, or half saw, at the airport.”

“Yes.”

“I understand your not running out of the men’s room yelling bloody murder, or I guess I do. Jet-lagged, deeply shocked, sick, newly arrived in a country foreign to you, knowing no one here, unsure of your father, his invitation, all that.”

“Did he ever indicate to you he might meet us at the airport?”

“But in the days since then, why haven’t you come forward? Granted, the authorities here would want you to testify, might hold you over, and, sooner rather than later you want to get back to your own lives in the States … but something could be worked out, don’t you think?”

Fletch cleared his throat. “My ace in the hole.”

“You’re playing poker?”

“There are those who say life is poker.”

“What’s in the pot?”

“My father.”

“Oh, I see. I think I see.”

“I’m talking about a trade-off, Carr.”

Carr’s eyes narrowed. “The senior Fletcher for a murderer.”

“Carr, I’ve been listening to you all. That’s what a reporter does: he listens. I’m in a country, however you love it, where a tourist is jailed, fined, and expelled for tearing a hundred-shillingi note in half; where a government driver is jailed for eighteen months for parking a government car outside a bar; where an Indian lawyer is sentenced to seven years in prison for having thirteen U.S. dollars in his pocket. My father got into a drunken bar brawl and may or may not have slugged a cop. What’s that worth in Kenyan prison time?”

“I see. You’re looking forward to doing a deal.”

“If it comes to it, I know a deal is possible. No police in the world would fail to forgive what is essentially a misdemeanor for an eyewitness account of a murder.”

“You’re not just playing Hamlet.”

“I see my father’s ghost, and that’s about all.”

Quietly, Carr said, “You don’t even know the chap.”

“He’s my father.”

“And that means something to you?”

“I don’t know what it means to me.”

“He ran off on you and your mother. He seems to have ignored you all your life. A few days ago, in prison, he refused to see you.”

“Am I crazy?”

“I don’t know.”

“He also arranged for Barbara and me to come out here to meet him, spend some time with him, get to know him. There must be some feeling there. At least ‘mild curiosity.’”

“There’s a moral question here somewhere.”

“Is there? How do I know what morals there are within a family, between a father and a son? No one ever taught me.”

“I see.”

“I know I don’t want to see anyone who is my father spend months, years in an African prison for getting pissed and blindly swinging out at someone.”

“Not quite what I mean. You can identify a murderer, someone who has murdered and is still at large.”

“You mean you think he may murder again?”

“Exactly. Don’t you have the responsibility to get the chap off the streets?”

Fletch shook his head. “No. That was a murder of impulse, of rage. I was there.”

“The police aren’t so sure,” Carr said. “I made a phone call while we were in Nairobi.”

“Dan Dawes?”

“The same.”

Fletch chuckled. “The police informant.”

“Right. The police inform him of everything. Bringing hard currency into Kenya isn’t illegal; in fact, it’s rather appreciated. Failing to declare the money upon arrival is illegal. In getting as far as the men’s room without declaring this extraordinary number of deutsche marks, Louis Ramon, who, by the way, was on your airplane, had committed a crime.”

“So?”

“So the Kenyan police are looking for a Kenyan financial acrobat who had desperate need for that much hard currency.”

“Wrong. The man who killed, what’s-his-name, Louis Ramon?”

“Right.”

“Was not the man Louis Ramon came to meet. Whoever killed Louis Ramon did not know he was carrying one hundred thousand dollars in hard currency on him. You can’t tell me someone’s willing to do murder and not willing to stoop over and pick up one hundred thousand dollars if he knows it’s there.”

“Dan thought that point interesting.”

“Was Dan interested in why you called?”

“Beg pardon?”

“Carr, in calling Dan Dawes, you’re showing a lot of interest in a case which has nothing to do with you. Aren’t you afraid of making him, and the police, suspicious of you?”

“Oh, I see. Well, in a small place like Nairobi, we all love the gossip.”

“Yeah? How many other people have called Dan Dawes for inside information on this case?”

“I didn’t ask him. And he didn’t say.”

“Sorry, but I’m afraid you’re tipping our hand.”

“Didn’t realize we’re playing poker.”

“I’m waiting to hear the official charges against my father. Was the man he slugged a policeman or not? I’d appreciate knowing that as soon as possible.”

“Is this all you’re thinking, young Fletcher?” Even in the dim light shed by the hanging lanterns of the lodge’s patio, Carr’s face was without shadows.

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know what I mean.”

Surprising warmth flooded through Fletch’s body. “Well. I don’t know my father.” He shook his head. “It would have been natural for him to meet us at the airport.” He shook his head again. “I don’t know. I may be mistaken.”

Carr tipped his head back and finished his beer. “You’re thinking something, at any rate. That’s a relief.”