Fletch

30

Fletch spent most of Thursday alone in his apartment.

He ate.

He slept.

He destroyed the Stanwyk tape.

He typed a letter to John Collins. He typed an original and a single carbon copy of the letter. And threw the original of the letter away. The copy he placed folded in the inside pocket of his suit jacket.

He emptied the wastebaskets.

At eleven-thirty, the phone began ringing persistently. He knew it was Clara Snow and/or Frank Jaffe or any one of several other News-Tribune executives who characteristically became excited, one way or the other, in pleasure if they were real professionals, in anger if they were not, when a staff member had snuck a genuine, unadulterated piece of journalism over on them. In all newspapers Fletch had seen there was always a hard core of genuinely professional working staff which made it possible to commit genuine journalism occasionally, regardless of the incompetence among the executive staff. The afternoon newspaper was on the streets. The excited callers apparently went out to lunch at one o’clock. The phone did not begin ringing relentlessly again until two-thirty.

At three o’clock the lobby doorbell rang. Fletch pressed the buzzer to unlock the downstairs lobby door and waited.

In a moment his own apartment doorbell rang.

He opened the door to Joan Collins Stanwyk.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Fletcher.”

“Good afternoon, Mrs. Stanwyk.”

“Fletcher, as I said, is a name I can remember.”

“You know who I am?”

“Thank you, I do.”

“Won’t you come in?”

She entered and sat on the divan.

“May I offer you a drink?”

“No, thank you, Mr. Fletcher. But you may offer me an explanation.”

“Ah?”

Fletch remained standing, taking a step this way, a step that. In the eleventh hour, his cover had been blown.

“Mr. Fletcher, why are you investigating my husband? Or is it I you are investigating?”

“Neither of you,” Fletch said.

Also, he found this Mr. and Mrs. business a bit cumbersome between two people who had made love both Polish and Rumanian style only two days before.

“What makes you think I am investigating you?”

“Mr. Fletcher, I have been born, bred and educated to do a job, as I gather you have, because clearly you are very good at your job. My job is to support and protect my father and my husband. And I’m rather good at it.”

“In fact, protect Collins Aviation.”

“And its investors, and the people it employs, et cetera.”

“I see.”

“One can’t have this subtle job for as many years as I’ve had it without developing certain subtle instincts. At lunch at the Racquets Club Saturday, when you and I first met, after a while my intuition told me I was being questioned. For the life of me, I could not figure what I was being questioned about. So I took your picture.”

Without looking at it, she transferred it from her purse to the coffee table. It was a three-quarter Polaroid shot of Fletch in a tennis shirt in the Racquets Club pavilion.

“While you were getting another chair for the table, after my father joined us. I turned your picture over to Collins plant security Monday morning. It was just this morning I received their report. You are I. M. Fletcher of the News-Tribune. Your identity was confirmed by a city police detective named Lupo, and has since been confirmed again by the newspaper itself.”

Fletch said, “Wow.”

Prowling the room, watching her, Fletch had the sudden, irrational desire to marry Joan Collins Stanwyk.

“Now, Mr. Fletcher, when a newspaper reporter ingratiates himself into one’s acquaintanceship—in this case, I might even say into one’s intimacy—under a false name, an entirely false identity, one can safely assume one is being investigated.”

“Right.”

“But you say you’re not investigating us.”

“Right. Your father. John Collins. I wanted some information from him.”

“Your phone is ringing.”

“I know.”

“Seeing you apparently don’t answer your phone, may I ask what information you wanted from my father?”

“Whether or not he had ever offered to subsidize a private investigation of the source of drugs at The Beach, and whether or not the chief of police, Graham Cummings, had ever refused his help.”

“Of what conceivable use could that piece of information be to you?”

“I’ve already printed it. Have you seen this afternoon’s News-Tribune?”

“No, I haven’t.”

“I busted your local drug story wide open. Cummings is the source of the drugs. In one paragraph, I believe paragraph thirty-four, I report your father’s offers. If I had asked your father officially or directly, he would never have told me, for fear it would reflect upon the chief of police, never dreaming it is the chief himself who is guilty.”

“How very interesting. You go to that much effort for one paragraph?”

“You should see the efforts I go to sometimes for paragraphs I don’t even wite.”

“But I have the distinct impression it was my father who first brought up the topic of drugs, not you.”

“You can’t be sure, can you?”

“No, I can’t. Have you ever known my husband?”

“No.”

“How were you so able to convince us that you had known him and known him well? That you had even attended the wedding?”

“Newspaper research. Plain old homework.”

“But you even knew that he had buzzed a house in San Antonio, Texas, years ago. We didn’t know that.”

“How do you know it’s true?”

“I asked him.”

“You asked him?”

“Yes. He was embarrassed, but he didn’t deny it.”

“That’s funny.”

“How did you know it?”

“It’s on his police record. That and a six-month-old unpaid parking ticket in Los Angeles.”

“And why would you look up his police record if you are not investigating him?”

“I wanted to have some detail of information to convince you that I knew him.”

“I’m having great difficulty believing you would go to such lengths for one, unimportant paragraph in a news story which really doesn’t concern us.”

“Believe me. I’m absolutely honest.”

“Your phone is ringing.”

“I know.”

Joan Collins Stanwyk said, “In trying to focus upon what your line of questioning was, if there was one, I believed it had to do with your curiosity concerning my husband’s health.”

“How is he, by the way?”

“Fine, as far as I know. But your questions concerned his health. You even pinned down the name and address of his insurance agent. And I think—I’m not sure—you even mentioned the name of the family doctor.”

Standing in the room, looking at Joan Collins Stanwyk sitting with dignity on the divan, Fletch was full of joy. She was wonderful. A woman who penetrated his sense of play, could reconstruct it, come close to understanding his moves, he should love forever.

And in a few hours he was scheduled to murder her husband—at the request of the man himself.

He said, “I have no idea what you’re talking about. All that was idle chatter.”

“Secondly, you directed a great many questions to me, and virtually none to my father. With him, again the question of Alan’s health came up.”

“What else is there to talk about? The weather. When one has nothing to talk about, one talks about either the weather or someone’s health.”

“Do you know anything about my husband’s health that I don’t know?”

“Honestly, I don’t.”

“How did you get into the Racquets Club, Mr. Fletcher?”

“I bought a pair of tennis shorts and said I was a guest of the Underwoods.”

“Do you know the Underwoods?”

“No. I read the name from a locker.”

“I will have to reimburse them for any expenses you incurred.”

“It shouldn’t be much. Two screwdrivers.”

“Nevertheless, I will reimburse them for two screwdrivers. You don’t even play tennis?”

“I play with people. Somehow I don’t like the word ‘court.’ Not even ‘tennis court.’ Once playing with people gets close to a court, things are apt to get boring.”

“Is that because in a court there are rules?”

“It may be.”

“Your phone is ringing.”

“I know.”

“Was our going to bed together Tuesday night a part of your investigation?”

“No. That was on my own time.”

“I sincerely hope so.”

“Do you intend to tell your husband about I. M. Fletcher of the News-Tribune?”

“Mr. Fletcher, how can I?”

Fletch finally sat on the divan.

“People call me Fletch.”

“I have a committee meeting at the Racquets Club. It’s Thursday evening. I have to pick up Julie. The servants are away.”

“There’s always time.”

“Fletch. Your phone is ringing.”

“I know.”

***

At six o’clock the apartment doorbell rang again. Fletch was alone. He had showered and put on a suit. The downstairs lobby bell had not rung.

At the door were two very young, very scrubbed men who were very obviously police detectives.

“Mr. I. M. Fletcher?”

Fletch said, “I’m sorry, Mr. Fletcher isn’t in. I’m his attorney, Mr. Gillett of Gillett, Worsham and O’Brien. Is there anything I can do for you?”

“You’re his attorney?”

“That’s right.”

“We have a warrant for the arrest of I. M. Fletcher of this address to face charges of criminal fraud.”

“Yes, I know. I’ve advised Mr. Fletcher on this matter.”

“Where is he?”

“Well, gentlemen, I’ll tell you. The man is as guilty as sin. He’s spending this afternoon and evening trying to wind up personal business. You do understand.”

“This isn’t the first time we’ve come here trying to locate him.”

“Never fear. I promise you I will bring Mr. Fletcher to the main police station tomorrow morning at ten o’clock, where he will surrender himself. He just needs tonight to iron things out for himself.”

“What’s tomorrow, Friday?”

“He will surrender himself Friday morning at ten o’clock.”

“In your recognizance?”

Fletch smiled patronizingly, as attorneys always do when police officers use large legal terms.

“In my recognizance.”

“What’s your name again?”

“Mr. Gillett, of Gillett, Worsham and O’Brien. My firm is here in the city.”

Fletch watched one of the policemen write in a notebook: “Gillett—Gillett, Worsham and O’Brien.”

The other policeman said, “You do realize, sir, that if you do not surrender I. M. Fletcher tomorrow morning, you too will be liable for criminal arrest?”

“Of course I realize it,” Fletch said. “After all, I am a member of the California bar and an officer of the court.”

“Okay.”

Fletch said, “Wait a minute, officers, I’ll walk out with you. Which way is the elevator?”

“This way, sir.”

“Oh, thank you.” Fletch then drove to the Stanwyk residence on Berman Street.