Son of Fletch

12

Hello, Andy. How’s your head bone?” “Feels like less a bone, thank you, Mister Fletcher, more like a head. I swear, I got a good case of sound poisoning last night.”

“I suppose it’s possible. First, please tell me about the ‘seismic disturbance’ in California. I still haven’t heard any news.”

“Cable is one thing, Mister Fletcher; I’ve heard your excuses for not watching GCN, but don’t you even have a radio down on that farm? A wireless? Are you too far from town to pick up the tom-toms?”

“Yes, Andy, we have radios. I just haven’t had the chance all morning to work the pedals to pump one up. They’re antique radios anyway. They only pick up Rudy Vallee and news of World War Two.”

Fletch sat in the station wagon in the sun-drenched parking lot of a shopping mall in Huntsville, Alabama.

The trip there from the encampment had been quiet. Carrie had sat in the front seat between Fletch and Jack.

Fletch had begun, once they had left the dust of the encampment behind them, by asking Jack, “Did you go to school, do all sorts of good things? Sports?”

“Oh, sure.”

“Where did you go to school?”

“Bloomington. Chicago. Boston.”

“Boston? Why Boston?”

“Why not Boston?”

Over the ignored condition of the babies, children, women Carrie had discovered at the encampment, their hunger, their filth, what she believed she identified as evidences of physical abuse, her fury emanated as palpably from her as would a strong odor. She had difficulty even looking at Jack. Clearly, she had no interest in anything he had to say.

Sensing this, Jack had no interest in talking.

Fletch hummed “What a swell party this is …”

As soon as Fletch stopped the car in the shopping mall’s parking lot, Jack was out the door headed for an electronics store. Separately, Carrie headed for a supermarket.

Fletch took the cellular phone from under the car seat and pressed in Andy Cyst’s office phone number at Global Cable News in Virginia.

“The California earthquakes,” Andy mused, as if asked to discuss something that had happened in sixteenth-century France. “Considerable.”

“Considerable what? Damage?”

“Yes. No estimates yet. Covered a wide area along the southern coast. Power lines, water lines disturbed, some fires, a small bridge fell in, no major buildings collapsed, although many will have to be inspected before being occupied again, two deaths reported so far. Two aftershocks reported. Geologists are saying there is no more to worry about than there was before. That’s reassuring, isn’t it? The governor of California has issued a statement reminding people that most of California is not affected by earthquakes at all. I suspect that bit was written for him by the Chamber of Commerce goaded by amusement park operators.”

“That’s called a positive spin.”

“Anyway, the California earthquake story has knocked out much interest in your prison escapees story. Ordinarily, that story would be getting a big play. But, as it is, there’s almost no coverage of it.”

“Why would it have been getting a big play in particular?”

“Because of who one of them is. By the way, I was wrong. There were three escapees.”

“Three?”

“Yes. Kris Kriegel, the most interesting, who would be drawing the most attention, if it weren’t for the California earthquakes, fifty-three years old, a native of South Africa, son of once-wealthy landowners with banking interests. He has his doctor of philosophy degree in cultural anthropology from the University of Warsaw, Poland. In South Africa, he was an apartheid activist, and a leader of the neo-Nazi movement there. He is suspected as one of the originators of the plan to instigate warfare among the tribes. He was present, in a neo-Nazi uniform, at the so-called ‘trod-through’ in Soweto, when, as you remember, seventy-two blacks, men, women, and children, were massacred by a white gang for which the old South African government denied all responsibility, and, damn their eyes, knowledge.”

“Yes.”

“Immediately thereafter, Kriegel spent some years based in Poland, without known employment, with frequent trips to Germany, France, and England. After that big riot in Munich on the anniversary of Kristallnacht, if you remember, in which forty-eight people—Jews, Slavs, homosexuals—were stabbed and beaten to death randomly in the streets, nine Pakistanis were burned to death in their boardinghouse, Kriegel came to this country, essentially as a fugitive from justice. The German government wanted to ‘interview’ him regarding these murders. Almost immediately after his arrival in this country he was apprehended, indicted, tried, found guilty, and sentenced for murder in the second degree of a prostitute in his hotel room. I guess in the throes of some sort of sexual whatever, maybe frustration, he strangled her to death. Incidentally, she was a black woman.”

“You’re making me sick.”

“And Kris Kriegel seems like such a friendly name. Doesn’t it? Kris Kringle. Sleigh bells ring, all that.”

“Roasting …”

“In prison, incidentally, Kriegel has continued his old ways. He took to calling himself ‘Reverend’ and preaching ‘ethnic cleansing,’ racism, I guess, the same old ordure of the anal retentive. There have been two race riots in the federal penitentiary at Tomaston, Kentucky, in the last five months.”

“I didn’t know that.”

“The prison system tries not to give such incidents much PR. A black guard was murdered in one. He was hung upside down until dead.”

Sitting in his car in the Alabama parking lot, his door open to catch a breeze, Fletch envisioned the pudgy, little man, gray hair standing out above his ears, the blue birthmark saddle over the bridge of his nose, whom he had seen mostly quietly asleep, sitting up, hands folded in his lap, like any grandfather dreaming up plans for his grandchildren and their friends.

He had plans for the children, all right.

“Juan Moreno, thirty-eight years old, a citizen of Colombia,” Andy Cyst droned on, “believed to be a member of the Medellín drug cartel. It is believed Juan Moreno is not his real name. Mostly, it says here, his job was to buy airplanes and boats for smuggling, and to establish landing situations in this country. He was caught driving an ambulance loaded with cocaine in east Texas. The uniformed driver of the ambulance was dead on the gurney in back. He had bled to death from the hole made by a screwdriver through his throat. Moreno was not found guilty of his murder, but of just about everything else. A full briefcase of bankbooks, real estate deeds, other documentation was found in the front seat of the ambulance with him. Various names were on the documents, but all the significant signatures were in his handwriting.”

And Fletch thought of “Moreno,” his throat swollen, his body bloating, twisted among the debris in the gully, snake-bitten, drowned, blank brown eyes staring up at a blank blue sky.

Fletch said, “Moreno has been found, right?”

“No.”

“No?”

“No report of it. And our last report is twenty minutes old.”

“Oh, boy.” Tiredness flowed against Fletch like a warm breeze.

“John Leary,” Andy Cyst said. “He almost doesn’t exist as a person. He’s just a rap sheet. He’s almost never been free. Thirty-two years old. He has been in institutions since he was eight years old. He was first institutionalized as an ‘unruly child.’”

“At age eight?”

“There is a notation here that he is a very large and physically dangerous person.”

“Even at age eight no one could handle him?”

“While waiting for Juvenile Court in Pennsylvania to dispose of him, as it were, he fractured the skull of a child psychologist assigned to test him. Wouldn’t you call that just a bit ‘unruly’ of an eight-year-old child?”

“Pesky.”

“His rap sheet is amazing. The authorities would put him out in foster care, and he would attack someone. They’d institutionalize him, and he’d attack someone. A great one for inflicting bodily harm.”

“Antisocial.”

“Psychotic? ‘Armed robbery, armed robbery, armed robbery,’” Andy read. “‘General mayhem, assault, assault, assault. Arson. Assault upon an officer of the law.’ His last conviction was for kidnapping a teenaged girl, transporting her across state lines for immoral purposes, keeping her captive for immoral purposes, multiple rapes, and slavery. What does ‘slavery’ mean?”

“He tried to sell her in a bar. A pool hall or something.”

“Oh, you do know something?”

“Of course. Why do you think I need to know more?”

“Mister Fletcher, you haven’t come across these people, have you? I mean, do you know where they are?”

“I’ll tell you one thing,” Fletch said.

“What’s that?”

“Leary hasn’t much future as a matador, either. Even a bull he attacks from the wrong end. I remain puzzled. You’re only telling me about three escapees, Andy. The local sheriff said there were four.”

“There are only three.”

“Isn’t there another name on the printout you’re reading?”

“I’ve read you everything I have. There are three escapees: Kriegel, Moreno, Leary. This isn’t a new story now. It’s almost twenty-four hours old. These are the facts. There were only three escapees from the federal penitentiary at Tomaston, Mister Fletcher.”

“I don’t get it. Why did the sheriff say four? He even had a name.”

“You know better than I, news stories at first are often garbled.”

“Yeah, but.”

“I will say that this printout I’m reading from looks like it might have had a deletion.”

“What do you mean?”

“There’s a big space between Moreno and Leary. It looks like something was deleted and the space wasn’t closed up. Probably just some kind of a human error.”

Fletch said, “Probably.”

“Regarding Ms. Crystal Faoni,” Andy said. He recited to Fletch her age, home address in Bloomington, Indiana, office address, the call letters and addresses of the five radio stations she owns around the state, the fact that she was never known to have married, has one son, John Faoni, who has graduated from Northwestern University, attended Boston University, currently is traveling in Greece; Ms. Faoni has no criminal record, a perfect credit record, and currently is spending time at a health spa in Wisconsin.

The sunlight glared on and through the windshield of the station wagon. Fletch closed his eyes. He left them closed.

Greece.

“I called her home,” Andy Cyst said. “Someone working for a cleaning service answered. Her office said she has gone to this health spa for two weeks. She is not to be disturbed under any circumstances. Her secretary said Ms. Faoni is concentrating on a weight-loss program which involves meditation. What meditation?” Andy asked. “Not thinking about hunger and food is called meditation now?”

“Omm,” Fletch said, eyes still closed. “Think yourself to a slimmer you.”

“She must be a shapely woman, to care this much about her weight.”

“She is shapely,” Fletch agreed.

“The secretary did not want to give me the name and number of the health spa, but I used my great charm, and won her over. She knew the staff at the health spa would block me anyway. They did. Ms. Faoni is not to be disturbed. She is concentrating. Meditating. Whatever.”

“Where is it?”

“It’s called Blythe Spirit.”

“No.”

“In a place called Forward, Wisconsin.”

“America,” Fletch said.

“About a hundred miles from Chicago.”

“Sounds like a story, Andy.”

“What?”

“An interesting feature story for GCN.” Fletch opened his eyes. “I might want a crew to go there with me.”

“Anything you say, Mister Fletcher. You’re GCN’s only consulting/contributing editor without a cable hookup.”

“It keeps me fresh.”

“Actually, I believe it does. Is there anything else you need for now?”

“Nothing you can do for me. Thanks, Andy.”

“A su órdenes, señor.”

FLETCH SAT A long moment, half in, half out of the car, dead telephone in hand.

Even though dressed just in cotton shorts and shirt, he was soaked with sweat. Always he had noticed builders in this area of the South never left trees, or any source of shade, in their parking lots. Trees are pretty, give shade, lessen the need for air-conditioning, but golly gee, take up as much as a square foot of ground space.

Instead of thinking about all that perplexed him, Fletch sat in the sun thinking of trees.

Slowly, he pressed Alston Chambers’s office number into the telephone’s panel.

The secretary put him right through.

“You guys are okay?” Fletch asked.

“The first so-called aftershock broke my whole shelf of Steuben glass,” Alston said. “Every piece of it. Including my best golf trophy.”

“Why would a Californian have Steuben glass on a shelf?” Fletch asked.

“Where was I supposed to put it?” Alston nearly shouted. “Between two mattresses on a gimbal table?”

“Sounds good.”

“Busted pipes. I had to shave with Apollonaris.”

“Sorry. Did it tickle?”

“This bouncin’ around out here is gettin’ tiresome, Fletch.”

“I’m sure it is.”

“People drive along looking at the tops of buildings and they run smack into each other. From one thing and another, there’s glass all over the streets out here.”

“There’s an idea.”

“What?”

“Go into the glass business.”

“Are you still in the smokehouse?”

“I wish I were. I’m in a very hot parking lot.”

“You and Carrie all right?”

“Fine.”

“Where’s your so-called son?”

“In Greece.”

“What?”

“Never mind. I’m hot and tired. Sun-dazed. Nothing makes any sense.”

“You didn’t make any sense last time you called, either.”

“What do you mean?”

“There is a Crystal Faoni extant. And at the moment she is incommunicado at a place called Blathering Spooks or something in some place called Up-and-At-’Em, Wisconsin, or somewhere. I’ve got it right here.”

“That’s okay. I’ve got it, too. When I called you this morning, I couldn’t get through. Would you believe the telephone company has recorded its message notifying callers of your seismic disturbances?”

“But everything else you said was crazy. Only three men escaped from Tomaston Prison. Their names are Moreno, Leary, and Kriegel. No Faoni.”

“Alston, are you sure?”

“Fletch, I talked with the Attorney General of the state of Kentucky. I talked with the warden of Tomaston Prison. I talked with the Justice Department in Washington, D.C. No Faoni.”

“I don’t understand.”

“There never has been a Faoni.”

“What?”

“The federal penitentiary in Tomaston, Kentucky, did not, and never has had an inmate named Faoni.”

“John Fletcher—”

“Not John Fletcher Faoni, not Alexander Faoni, not Betty Boop Faoni. I have just checked the entire federal penal system. There never has been an inmate named John Fletcher Faoni.”

I’m being used, Fletch said to himself. I knew it. I am being involved in something…. But by whom? For what reason? This kid knows about me things only Crystal knows… our tumbling out of the shower… Kriegel recognized a physical similarity…. Carrie said we are similar…. John Fletcher Faoni has not been a prisoner…. He is in Greece…

Alston asked, “Are you fantasizing up a son in your dotage? A big one? One you don’t have to burp?”

Dragging two loaded shopping carts behind him, Jack was crossing the parking lot toward Fletch.

Heat waves from the noonday sun were rising from the pavement in the parking lot.

In fact, Jack was an apparition shimmering in the heat waves like a moving figure in a fun house mirror.

“A fantasy,” Fletch said. “Maybe a fantasy.”

“Fletch, are you all right?”

“I’ve got to hang up, Alston. Hide the phone.”

“Hide the phone?”

Fletch hung up.

And hid the phone.

AS SOON AS JACK loaded his electronic equipment into the back of the station wagon, Carrie appeared with bundles and bundles of milk, cereals, baby food, diapers, soap, cleaning fluids, brushes, mops …

The three of them sat as before in the car.

Almost perfectly silently.

Fletch asked, “Lunch, anyone?”

“Fast food,” Carrie said. “In the car. I’ve got to get back.” Slowly, with jaw jutting, she looked up from Jack’s legs to his waist to his chest to his face. “Before I’m guilty of child abuse, too.”

“If that’s the case,” Jack said, “we have to stop at a drugstore, too.”

“What for?” Carrie still stared at his profile. “You run out of mean pills?”

“Concentrated salt,” Jack said. “To sprinkle on baked ham.”

“What do you want to stop for?” Fletch asked.

“Earplugs.”

Carrie said, “Now there’s a good idea. Get some for us, too.”

“I will.”

As the car rolled forward, Jack slid the tips of the fingers of his right hand down his left forearm. He said, “I’m hardly sweating at all. Must be all that salt I had for breakfast.” Jack looked at Fletch and Carrie. He smiled broadly. “You guys seem to be sweating a whole lot!”

In fact, they were.