Fletch Won

“Thank you for seeing me,” Fletch said slowly, “so promptly.”

He was surprised the curator of contemporary art at the museum was seeing him at all, let alone at nine-thirty in the morning without an appointment. He expected museum curators to keep relaxed hours. He also expected any museum curator to be standoffish with someone presenting himself in blue jeans and T-shirt, however fresh and clean, sneakers however new and glistening white, who said he was from a newspaper.

He also did not expect any museum curator, however contemporary, to be sitting behind a desk in a Detroit Tigers baseball cap. On the desk, beside one huge book with MARGILETH written in script on the glossy cover and a few folders, was an outfielder’s mitt and a baseball.

“You’re from the News-Tribune” curator William Kennedy confirmed.

“Yes. I was assigned to report on the five-million-dollar gift to the museum that was to be announced by Donald and Jasmine Habeck.” Fletch smiled slightly at his accurate use of the past tense. “A lady in your Trustees’ Office said she thought the gift was to be made to this department.”

“I’m glad to talk to someone, anyone, about it,” Kennedy said.

Fletch asked, “Are you from Detroit?”

“No.” Kennedy took off his baseball cap and looked at its logo. “I just admire excellence, in any form.”

“I see.”

“I also collect video-cassettes of Nureyev, Muhammad Ali, and Michael Jackson. Recordings of Caruso, Mc-Cormack, Erroll Garner, and Eric Clapton. Do you think I’m odd?”

“Eclectic.”

“I’m a perfectly happy man.” Kennedy reached for his baseball mitt. “I don’t know why everyone isn’t like me.”

“Neither do I,” Fletch said.

“Do you collect things?”

“Yes,” Fletch said. “People.”

“What an interesting thought.”

“I don’t use people, just collect them. It gives me some interesting memories on the long drive.”

“Is that why you’re a journalist?”

“I suppose so. That, and a few other reasons.”

“You have less of a storage problem than I have.”

“First, I need to confirm with you that Mr. and Mrs. Donald Habeck were giving this department of the museum five million dollars.”

“I’m not sure.” Kennedy tossed the ball up into the air and caught it in his mitt. “And if they were going to actually make such an offer, in writing, I’m not sure we would accept it.”

Fletch raised his eyebrows. “Wouldn’t a museum accept money from any source?”

“The source doesn’t bother us. In my fifteen-year museum career to date, I’ve never seen money turned down because of its source, even if it were tainted money. Remember that old wheeze about Mark Twain? A minister came to him saying that a gangster had offered him money to fix the church’s roof. Twain asked ‘Why are you hesitating?’ The minister said, ‘Because it’s tainted money.’ That’s right,’ Twain said. ‘T’ain’t yours, and t’ain’t mine.’ ”

“You collect good stories, too?”

“As they come along.”

“I think I’m hearing you saying that you considered Habeck’s money tainted.”

Kennedy shrugged. “We knew he was a tricky lawyer.”

“By ‘tricky’ do you mean crooked? I think I’m collecting polite ways of saying crooked.”

“How often do you hear of lawyers going to jail?”

“Not often.”

“Doctors get sick, but lawyers seldom go to jail.”

“Why would a museum turn down money?”

“Because of the stipulations that come with the money. Let me explain.” Kennedy put his mitted hand on top of the baseball cap on his head. His other hand spun the baseball on the desk. “Late last week, Donald Habeck made an appointment to see me. I was dismayed when my secretary told me she had made the appointment. We had never pursued Donald Habeck. I had never heard that he cared anything about art, or the museum. Therefore, I suspected he wanted to talk me into being an expert witness for a case of his—something of that sort.”

“And you wouldn’t have agreed?”

“I don’t think so. I have been an expert witness in court, of course. But only when I have felt I was on solid ground, could trust whichever side of a case requested me. I don’t make a career of it. Only when I feel need for me is justified.”

“And you didn’t feel you could trust Donald Habeck?”

“I didn’t know anything about him, other than an impression of him that has come through the newspapers and television press. Vaguely, my impression was that, through a lot of tricks, he kept people who ought to be in jail out of it. I had never met the man.”

Fletch noted how quick people were to say they had never met, or had scarcely met, Donald Habeck.

“So Habeck was given an appointment, but not invited to lunch,” Kennedy continued. “He came in last Wednesday afternoon, sat in the chair you’re sitting in, and surprised the hell out of me by saying he was thinking of giving the museum five million dollars.”

“What was your first question?”

Kennedy thought a moment. “My first question was, ‘Of your own money?’ Immediately, I was suspicious, of I don’t know what.”

“And he confirmed it was his own money he wanted to give away?”

“Yes. I then said, as politely as I could, that I had never heard he was interested either in art or the museum. He answered that he was very interested in art and, furthermore, that he had identified what he referred to as ‘a vast hole’ in our present contemporary collection.”

“That got your attention.”

“It certainly did. I could hardly wait to hear what ‘hole’ he felt was in our collection. Ours is not the strongest collection of contemporary art in the whole world, but it is very strong and really quite well balanced, thanks to my predecessor and myself.” Kennedy was again playing catch with himself. “He said he wanted the five million dollars spent exclusively on acquiring contemporary religious art.”

After a moment, Fletch said, “That’s a puzzle.”

“Isn’t it?” Looking at Fletch apologetically, Kennedy said, “As you know, or don’t know, there is almost no contemporary religious art. I mean, all art is religious, isn’t it? In its own way, even the profane. Art depicts man in his relation to nature, himself, his fellow persons, and his deity. Not all of it may be worshipful, but each piece of true art, to me, is a powerful acknowledgment of the nature of our existence.”

“How did you answer him?”

“Politely, I asked him whom he thought we should be collecting. In true legalistic fashion, he answered that we are supposed to be the experts in that, and that if we felt we couldn’t find viable contemporary religious art to acquire, he’d take his money elsewhere.”

“A tough guy even in his giving.”

“Wait. You haven’t heard everything. Gently, I tried to explain to Mr. Habeck that if there were much viable contemporary religious art, I’d be the first to seek it out and acquire it. Of course, prayer-card art, like the poor, is ever with us. Some churches have developed very contemporary-looking designs for their crosses, and stations thereof. But unless you consider a Jesus with female breasts on the cross a viable statement, there isn’t much new in the field. As critics and curators, we find ourselves nowadays, perhaps mistakenly, considering the various religious genres, from Creation to Joan-at-the-stake, closed history.” Kennedy tossed the ball high and caught it. “Then I realized I was lecturing the poor man, and that was not why he came here. I could see he was getting angry. I was on the wrong track altogether. So, more personally, I asked him why he wanted to contribute so much money.”

“A question we all have.”

“I expect the answer will astound you. After a few moments of writhing in that chair, I’m sure looking as uncomfortable as any witness under his own cross-examination, Habeck blurted out that his life was over, that he was packing it in; no one cared a tin whistle for him; he was dispossessing himself of all of his property, and”—Kennedy threw the ball high in the air; he had to lean forward to catch it—“he intended to spend the rest of his life in a Roman Catholic monastery.”

After a moment of silence, Kennedy threw the ball across the desk at Fletch.

Catching the ball, Fletch said, “Glunk.”

“Thought that would surprise you,” Kennedy said. “You see why I’m happy to talk to you this morning. A very strange circumstance indeed.”

“My, my. Who’d have thought it?”

“Aren’t people amazing? Well worth your collecting.”

“He wanted to become a monk?”

“Yes. So he said. A Roman Catholic monk. Spend the rest of his life reading Thomas Merton, or something. Matins and evensong. The whole bit.”

“He always wore black shoes.”

“What?”

“Never mind.”

“Needless to say, we’ve had some staff meetings around here to discuss this whole Habeck business. No one has known what to think. Then, yesterday, when I was driving out to lunch, I heard on the car radio Habeck had been murdered. When he said last Wednesday that his life was over, he was more right than he knew.”

“If he wanted to give away five million dollars and go into the monastery, why didn’t he give the money to the monastery, or to the Church?”

“I asked him that. He said he was too old ever to fulfill a ministry. Furthermore, that he would have too much to learn. And, he wanted the peace and quiet of a monastery. He said he was tired of talking and arguing and pleading. Would you believe that?”

“So establishing a collection of religious art at the museum would do his public pleading for him?”

“I guess. He hoped such a collection would inspire religious feelings among contemporary people more than any sermons he could ever give, or ever wanted to give. If I understood him correctly.”

Fletch tossed the ball back to Kennedy in a high arc. “I don’t get it.”

“He said he’d have something more than a million dollars left over, and that money he would give to the monastery.”

“What about his wife? His kids? His grandchildren?”

“He didn’t mention them. Except to say no one cared a tin whistle for him. His words exactly.”

Kennedy tossed the baseball back to Fletch.

“The museum as church, uh?”

“A museum is partly a church. Maybe entirely a church.”

“So how did you leave it with him?”

“I was so startled, I suggested he think it over. I think I even dared suggest he talk it over with his wife, his children, his law partners.”

Fletch tossed the ball back in as high an arc as the room could take. “Curator as minister, eh?”

“Or shrink.” Kennedy caught the ball over the glass top of the desk. “And I told him we’d talk it over here. I indicated very strongly to him that I didn’t feel we could take his five million dollars with the restriction that it be spent solely on acquiring contemporary religious art. It wouldn’t be fair to him to accept money on conditions we couldn’t observe.” He tossed the ball back to Fletch. “If he could find some wording which would make the money available to us to use, with the understanding that we would acquire valid contemporary religious art when and if it becomes available, then maybe we could accept his money.”

Fletch arced the ball back at the curator. “And he, being a lawyer, was perfectly sure that he could develop such wording.”

“Probably. The story of his murder I read on the front page of your newspaper this morning said he intended to see your publisher regarding the announcement that he was giving five million dollars to something in the city.”

“The museum was what was mentioned to me.”

“Did you write that piece in this morning’s paper?”

“No. Biff Wilson.”

Kennedy tossed the ball into his glove. “It was a good piece.”

“It was okay,” Fletch said. “For an obituary.”