Confess, Fletch

Thirty

“Fletch!”

He had never seen Andy in an overcoat before.

After they had embraced and he had taken her hand luggage, her first question was quick and to the point.

“Is Sylvia here?”

“Yes.”

“Bitch. What is she doing?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t seen much of her. I mean, I haven’t seen her often.”

“Where is she staying?”

“At my apartment.”

“Where am I staying?”

“At my apartment.”

“Oh, my god.”

“How are you?”

Andy’s big suitcase was in the way of people coming through the customs’ gate. The few porters were being grabbed by artful older people.

“Any luck with the paintings?” she asked.

“Can we wait until we get in the car? How are you?”

He handed her back her purse and vanity case.

“Why did you want to know about Bart Connors?”

“How are you?”

He carried the huge suitcase through the airport, across a street, up a flight of stairs, across a bridge and halfway through the garage, to where his car was parked.

The plainclothesmen, hands in their pockets, followed at twenty paces.

She began her questions again as he drove down the dark ramp of the airport garage.

“Where are the paintings? Do you know?”

“Not really. It’s possible they’re in Texas.”

“Texas?”

“You and I may fly down later this week.”

“How can they be in Texas?”

“Horan seems to have gotten all three de Grassi paintings from a man in Dallas named James Cooney. He’s a rancher, with eight kids.”

“Do you think so?”

“How do I know? I’ve handled Horan very carefully. His reputation is impeccable. Pompous bastard, but everything he’s said so far has been straight. I’m putting a lot of pressure on him to try to crack Cooney’s source.”

“You mean, find out where Cooney got the paintings?”

“Yes. If putting pressure on Horan doesn’t work, then we go to Texas and put pressure on Cooney ourselves.”

“What did you do? You asked Horan to locate one of the paintings?”

“Yes. The bigger Picasso.”

“Where is that painting now?”

“In Boston. Horan has it. I asked him for it Wednesday. He located it Thursday night or Friday morning and had it flown up Friday night. I saw it Saturday. He doubted the whole thing when I first spoke to him about it.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, he doubted whether the painting existed; whether it could be located; if it was authentic; if it was for sale.”

“Is the painting authentic?”

“Yes. I’m as certain as I can be. So’s Horan. And, apparently, Cooney is willing to sell it.”

After paying a toll, they went down a ramp into a tunnel.

Fletch spoke loudly at Andy’s puzzled expression.

“So far, Horan has acted in a thoroughly professional, efficient, routine manner. I don’t like him, but that’s immaterial.”

Driving up out of the tunnel, they faced strata of crossroads, and a vast confusion of signs and arrows.

“Oops,” he said. “I don’t know which way to go.”

“To the right,” Andy said. “Go on Storrow Drive.”

“How do you know?”

He turned right from the left lane.

“We’re going to Beacon Street, aren’t we? Near the Gardens?”

“Yeah, but how do you know?”

They went up a ramp onto a highway.

“I lived here nearly a year,” she said. “The year I was at Radcliffe.”

“Where’s that?”

“Cambridge. Go down there, to the right, to Storrow Drive. You knew that.”

Her directions were perfect.

“Why did you want to know about Bart Connors?” she asked.

“Because the night I arrived, a girl was found murdered in his apartment.”

Her profile was backed by lights reflected on the Charles River.

“He didn’t do it,” she said.

“You seem pretty certain.”

“Yes. I am.”

“That’s why I yelled at you that night on the phone to get out of the villa. When I asked you to go see him, I did not expect you to take up residence with him.”

“You’ll want to go left here.” At the red light, she craned her head left. “We’ll have to go all the way around the Gardens, won’t we? Dear old Boston. Or is your apartment down to the right?

Fletch said, “The police think I did it.”

“Murdered the girl? You didn’t do it, either. If you did, you wouldn’t be trying to blame Bart.”

“Thanks.”

“Bart’s a very gentle man. Wouldn’t hurt a fly.”

“Boy, when I ask you to do a job for me… Did you check his teeth, too?”

“His teeth,” she said, “are perfectly adequate.”

“My god.”

“So who killed her?”

“Damn it, Andy, there’s a very good chance Bart Connors did!”

“No chance whatsoever.”

“He was in Boston that night when he wasn’t supposed to be! He was seen two blocks away from the apartment in a pub with a girl tentatively identified as the murdered girl just before she was murdered! He had a key to his own apartment! He left on an airplane for Montreal just after the murder! And within the last six months he has received a sexual-psychological trauma, delivered by a woman, which he considered, wrongly, a blow to his masculinity!”

“I know,” Andy said. “He told me all about that.”

“Great.”

“And he told me the night you called you were trying to lay the crime off on him. He asked more questions about you than you’ve asked about him.”

“Andy…”

“Watch out for that taxi. Furthermore, Fletch,” she continued, “I can testify that the ‘sexual-psychological trauma delivered by a woman,’ as you phrase it, has done him no harm whatsoever.”

“I bet you can.”

“You and I have our understandings,” she said. “Stop being stuffy.”

“Stuffy? You’re wearing my engagement ring.”

“I know. And it’s a very nice ring. Whom did you make it with this week?”

“Whom? What?”

“I didn’t hear your answer. You’re not acting like Fletch.”

“We need a place to park.”

“Over there. To the left.”

“I need two places to park.”

Headlights grew large in his rearview mirror.

“Absolutely,” she said, “I will not help you blame Bart Connors for a crime neither of you committed.”

He said, “Such loyalty.”

Going up in the creaky elevator, she said, “Try Horan again.”