Fletch and the Widow Bradley

39

“T H O M A S B R A D L E Y I S not dead,” Fletch said, walking into Frank Jaffe’s office. “He is alive and living in New York city in a different persona. Essentially, he is running Wagnall-Phipps. He did write and initial those memos. I quoted him fairly and accurately. I want my job back.”

There had been boos and catcalls as Fletch walked across the City Room of the News-Tribune Friday afternoon. Someone had shouted, “Hey, there’s Fletch! Back from the dead! Again!” Others had been silent and looked away.

“Janey,” Fletch said in the managing editor’s outer office, “Frank in?”

“Yes, he is,” she said. “Why are you?”

“Please tell him I’m here with something important to tell him.”

“What do you have to tell him?”

“It’s unprintable.”

Fletch was made to wait in Frank Jaffe’s outer office more than an hour. People went by him, in and out of Frank’s office. If they knew Fletch, they scowled at him and said nothing—all but one old reporter, whose look and nod were friendly. He said, “Hi, Fletch.”

“Hi.”

“You all right?”

“Happy as a baker at breakfast.”

“That’s good.”

Frank Jaffe had looked up from his desk sideways at Fletch when he entered, “It’s nice of me to see you.”

“Yes, it is,” Fletch said, closing the door behind him.

Frank’s face remained quizzical through Fletch’s statement and demand. Then he snorted.

“It’s time I had a little entertainment.” Frank looked at his watch. “Late Friday afternoon. You got a story?”

Without being asked, Fletch sat in one of the two chairs facing

Frank’s desk. While Fletch talked, Frank’s eyes wandered behind their permanent film, looked impatient at what appeared to be the prologue to a rather long story, curious when Fletch began mentioning all the airplanes he had been on, intrigued when the facts Fletch recited continued to be contradictory … Fletch told him about meeting the Bradleys, Enid, Roberta, and Tom, Jr., their neighbor, about his friend in the District Attorney’s office establishing that Thomas Bradley did not die in Switzerland, that the ashes in his funeral urn were not human ashes, about going to Mexico to interview Mary and Charles Blaine, to New York to interview Francine Bradley, to Dallas, Texas, to Juneau, Alaska, and back to New York …

Frank Jaffe’s face colored as Fletch reported his final conversation with Francine Bradley, the night before, in New York, and described Francine and Enid sitting next to each other on the divan, holding hands, being brave in their fear, finally being honest in their difficulty.

“My God,” Frank said. “A murder story without a murder. You do come up with some beauts, Fletch. We can’t print that.”

“Glad to hear you say that. I assured the Bradleys we wouldn’t run the story.”

“ ‘We’? Who are ‘we’? You still speaking for the News-Tribune?”

“Journalistic ‘we’, Frank. I won’t write the story, and you won’t run it. Right?”

“Of course not.” Frank ran a dry hand over the stubble on his cheeks and jowl. “Not without their permission.”

“That you’ll never get.”

“I suppose not. The Bradleys would lose too much by our running the story. Wagnall-Phipps would dry up faster than a drizzle in Las Vegas. What Tom Bradley—I mean, Francine Bradley has done does not affect the public interest in any way. People have a right to their personal lives.”

Frank Jaffe’s watery eyes looked long at Fletch. It was clear to Fletch that the managing editor—despite what he said—was tempted by the story. It was also clear to Fletch that Frank Jaffe had every reason to protect people’s right to privacy. He wanted his own personal privacy, and privacy for Clara Snow.

Fletch smiled at his managing editor. After a moment, Frank smiled back.

“Helluva story, though,” Frank said.

He squared his swivel chair with his desk. “You broke into and entered the Bradleys’ house? Is that what you said?”

“I didn’t break anything. The door to the swimming pool was not locked.”

“You broke and entered,” Frank said. “Are the Bradleys pressing charges against you?”

“I wasn’t stealing human ashes—I was stealing the ashes of a rug.”

“What made you so sure they weren’t Tom Bradley’s ashes?”

“I wasn’t sure. I was hoping. What made me do it? All you knew is that I’d said I’d seen memos dated recently and signed ‘T.B.’ I knew I’d really seen them. Second, of course, Enid Bradley had been quick to offer me money to go away.”

“That’s the best way to stimulate the curiosity of a good reporter,” Frank smiled. “Or corrupt a bad one.”

“Honest, Frank, I wasn’t sure of myself, even last night, standing in Francine’s apartment—until she offered me half-a-year’s pay to go away and get off their case. Only then did I decide to blunder ahead.”

“You still didn’t realize the truth?”

“How could I? Here was a middle-aged woman—I mean, a woman, Frank, a real woman, with breasts—and a missing middle-aged man, father of two children—”

“Ah, the naivete of the young.”

“Would you have known better?”

Frank smiled and nodded his head at the wall. “There’s a guy in the City Room whose name used to be Elizabeth.”

“You’re kidding.”

“I’m not kidding. You know him well. The wonders of contemporary science.”

Fletch shook his head. “I’m going to give up on my orange juice-and-cereal innocence pretty soon.”

“If it weren’t for human differences, Fletch, you and I would have nothing to write about.” Frank’s forearms were on the desk, his hands folded. “By the way, how do I confirm this story of yours? Not that I think you made it up.”

“Call Enid Bradley. She and I flew back on the plane together last night. We’re friends. You can even call Francine Bradley, in New York.”

“I will,” Frank said. “I will.”

“Frank, do I get my job back?”

“Sure. Report Monday morning.”

“And my expenses. I had big expenses sorting this business out, Frank. Will you refund my expenses?”

“No way.”

“Why not?”

“No story.”

“Jeez, Frank.”

“Why should we pay expenses on a story we can’t print?”

“At least you’re going to refund my last two weeks’ pay.”

“We are not.”

“You’re not?”

“The fact remains, Fletch: you goofed. You were called upon to defend an important element in a story you wrote for this newspaper, and you couldn’t defend it right away.”

“But I have defended it.”

“Two weeks later. And we can’t publicly defend your story. The newspaper remains embarrassed. You’re lucky to have your job back.”

Fletch was standing over the desk. “You mean to say, Frank Jaffe, that in order to write a lousy twelve-paragraph story on a lousy, no-’ccount, two-bit company, for the lousy, gray pages of the Financial Section of the News-Tribune, I was supposed to have found out the Chairman of the Board had gone off for sex-change operations?”

“Yep,” Frank said. “That’s what I mean.”

“You know what you’re full of, Frank?”

“Lemme see. Do you spell it with four letters?”

“Damnit, Frank!”

“Report Monday,” Frank Jaffe said. “And don’t ever write anything again you can’t defend immediately.”

“Blast you, Frank Jaffe.”

“Cheers, Fletch.”

Amid a widening pool of silence, Fletch sat down at his desk in the City Room. Someone had placed a sign on his desk which read R.I.P.

Fletch took the sign off the desk, and dropped it in the waste basket. Then he smiled at all the other reporters sitting at desks around him.

Al said, loudly enough for everyone around him to hear him, “Finally come to clean out your desk, Fletch?”

“No. I’m not doing that.”

“Then what are you doing?”

“Just stopped by to make sure it’s still here. I’ll need it Monday.”

The silence became brittle enough to crack with a hammer. Even the police radios became quiet.

Randall, the religion news reporter said, “You mean, Frank has taken you back? Given you your job back?”

“That’s what I mean,” Fletch said. “That’s exactly what I mean.”

Everyone around him exchanged looks—significant looks, angry looks.

“See you Monday,” Fletch said, getting up from his desk. “Nice weekend, everybody.”

He crossed the City Room. At the door to the foyer, he looked back. What was clearly a delegation of editors and reporters was barging into Frank’s office. Clara Snow was in the middle of the pack.

Fletch knew the delegation thought they were going in to protest his rehiring to the managing editor. What they were really doing, being journalists, was going in to get a story—whatever story Fletch had told Frank.

And Fletch knew they would not get the story from Frank.

Laughing, Fletch left the building.

A meter maid was putting a parking ticket on his car.

He took it from her, thanked her, then made her blush by kissing her lightly on the cheek.