Fletch’s Fortune

Twenty-six

10:00 P.M.

WOMEN IN JOURNALISM: Face It, Fellas—

Few Stories Take Nine Months to Finish

Group Discussion

Aunt Sally Hendricks Sewing Room

From TAPE

Station 4

Suite 9 (Eleanor Earles)

Eleanor Earles was saying, “… Thought I’d go to bed.”

“I brought champagne.”

“That’s nice of you, Rolly, but really, it is late.”

“Since when is ten o’clock late?” asked Rolly Wisham. “You’re showing your age, Eleanor.”

“You know I just got back from Pakistan Sunday.”

“No, I didn’t know.”

“I did.”

“How are things in Pakistan?”

“Just dreadful.”

“Things are always dreadful in Pakistan.”

“Rolly, what do you want?”

“What do you think I want? When a man comes calling at ten o’clock at night, bearing a bottle of champagne.…”

“A very young man.”

“Eleanor, darling, ‘This is Rolly Wisham, with love.…’”

“Very funny, you phony.”

“Eleanor. You’re forgetting Vienna.”

“I’m not forgetting Vienna, Rolly. That was very nice.”

“It was raining.”

“Rain somehow turns me on.”

“Shall I run the shower?”

“Honestly, Rolly! Look, I’m tired, and I’m upset about Walter.…”

“Big, great Walter March. Sprung you for bail once, in Albania. And what have you been doing for him ever since?”

“Knock it off, twerp.”

“How come everyone in the world is a twerp? Except one old bastard named Walter March?”

“Okay, Rolly, I know you’ve got all kinds of resentments against Walter because of what happened to your dad’s newspaper, and all.”

“Not resentment, Eleanor. He killed my father. Can you understand? Killed him. He didn’t make the rest of my mother’s life any string symphony, either. Or mine. The word ‘resentment’ is an insult, Eleanor.”

“It all happened a long time ago, in Oklahoma.…”

“Colorado.”

“… And you know only your side of the story.…”

“I have the facts, Eleanor.”

“If you have facts, Rolly, why didn’t you ever go to court with them? Why haven’t you ever printed the facts?”

“I was a kid, Eleanor.”

“You’ve had plenty of time.”

“I’ll print the facts. One day. You’d better believe it. Shall I open the champagne?”

“No.”

“Oh, come on, Eleanor. The old bastard’s dead.”

“Did you kill him, Rolly?”

“Did I murder Walter March?”

“That’s the question. If you want to be intimate with me, you can answer an intimate question.”

“The question you asked was: Did I murder Walter March?”

“That’s the question. What’s the answer?”

“The answer is: maybe.” There was the pop of the champagne bottle cork, and the immediate sound of it’s being poured.

“Really, Rolly.”

“Here’s to your continued health, Eleanor, your success, and your love life.”

“You don’t take a hint very easily.”

“Not bad champagne. For domestic.”

“What is it you really want, Rolly? We can’t duplicate Vienna in the rain in Hendricks, Virginia, with an air conditioner blasting.”

“Let’s talk about Albania.”

“That’s even worse. I don’t like to talk about Albania.”

“But you do. You talk about Albania quite a lot.”

“Well, it made me famous, that incident. You know that. The network took damn good care of me after that. And damn well they should have. The twerps.”

“I’ve never believed your story about Albania, Eleanor. Sorry. Journalistic skepticism. I’m a good journalist. Fact, I just got a good review from a people. More champagne? Suddenly you’re being strangely unresponsive.”

“I haven’t anything to say.”

“You mean, you haven’t anything you’ve ever said.”

“You came here to find out something. Right, Rolly? You came here for a story. Rolly Wisham, with love and a bottle of champagne. Well, there is no story, Rolly.”

“Yes, there is, Eleanor. I wish you’d stop denying it. You’ve told the story so often, attributing what Walter March did for you to Walter March’s goodness, you’ve blinded everybody to the simple, glaring fact that Walter March wasn’t any good. He was a prick.”

“Even a prick can do one or two good things, Rolly.”

“Eleanor, I think you’ve just admitted something. I suspect I picked a fortunate metaphor.”

“Get out of here, Rolly.”

“Walter March had to have some reason for springing you out of Albania. He sent his own man in. His Rome bureau chief. You know what it must have cost him. Yet he never took credit for it. He didn’t even scoop the story. He let our old network take the credit. Come on, Eleanor.”

“Rolly. I’m going to say this once. If you don’t get out of here, I’m going to call the police.”

“The Hendricks, Virginia, police?”

“House security.”

“Come on, Eleanor. Tell old Rolly.”

“Jesus, I wish Walter had lived. He would have nailed you to the wall.”

“Yes,” Rolly Wisham said. “He would have. But he can’t now. Can he, Eleanor? There are a lot of things he can’t do now. Aren’t there, Eleanor?”

A phone was ringing. Lying on his bed, half-asleep, Fletch wasn’t sure whether the phone was ringing in Eleanor Earles? room, or his own.

“You’re.…”

“Shall I leave the champagne?”

“You know what to do with it.”

“Good night, Eleanor.”

It was Fletch’s own phone ringing.