Fletch’s Fortune

Twenty-eight

From TAPE

Station 5

Suite 3 (Donald Gibbs and Robert Englehardt)

“Snow, beautiful snow!”

From his voice, Fletch guessed Don had had plenty of something.

“Who’d ever expect snow in Virginia this time of year?”

Fletch couldn’t make out what Englehardt muttered.

“Who’d ever think my dear old department headie, Bobby Englehardt, would travel through the South with snow in his attaché case? Good thing it didn’t melt!”

Another unintelligible mutter from Englehardt.

“Well, I’ve got a surprise for you, too, dear old department headie,” Gibbs said. “‘What’s that?’ you ask with one voice. Well! I’ve got a surprise for you! ’Member those two sweet little things in Billy-Bobby’s boo-boo-bar lounge? ‘Sweet little things,’ you say together. Well, sir, I had the piss-pa-cacity to invite them up! To our glorious journalists’ suite. This very night! This very hour! This very minute! In fact, for twenty minutes ago.”

“You did?”

“I did. Where the hell are they? Got to live like journalists, right? Wild, wild, wicked women! Live it up!”

“I invited someone, too.” Englehardt’s voice sounded surprisingly cautious.

“You did? We gonna have four broads? Four naked, writhing girls? All in the same room?”

“The lifeguard,” Englehardt said.

“The lifeguard? Which lifeguard? The boy lifeguard? There weren’t any other type. I looked.”

Englehardt muttered something. There was a silence from Gibbs.

Then Englehardt said, “What’s the matter, Don? Don’t you like a change?”

“Jesus. Two girls and a boy. And us. For a fuck party. An orgy. Bob….”

“Take it calm, Gibbs.”

“Where’s the bourbon? I want the bourbon. Back of my nose feels funny.”

The doorbell in the suite was ringing.

“And the Lord High Mayor ate pomegranates,” Don Gibbs said. “Surprising fellas, department heads. Lifeguards with snow on. Boy lifeguards.”

“… Confront new situations,” Englehardt said. “Part of your training. Field training.”

“Never saw anything about it in the manual.”

Englehardt said, “You can do it that way, too.”

Fletch’s own phone was ringing.

“Hello?”

He had turned the volume down on his machine.

It was Freddie Arbuthnot.

“Fletcher, I thought I’d be more subtle. Meet you for a swim? Or have you about had it for today?”

“Are you in your room?”

“Yes.”

“Can’t you hear my tape recorder?”

“That’s how I knew you were still awake.”

“Then you should be able to figure out I’m working very hard. On my travel piece.”

“By now, I think, you’d have said everything there is to say about Italy.”

“You can never say enough about Italy. A gorgeous country filled with gorgeous people.…”

“All work and no play.…”

“Makes jack.”

“Why don’t you stop working, and come for a swim? We can have the pool all to ourselves.”

“What time is it in your room?”

“Midnight. Twelve-thirty-five. What time is it in yours?”

“My dear young lady. Crystal Faoni got very cold in that pool during the mid-afternoon.”

“And with all her insulation.”

“She was chilled.”

“I saw your efforts to warm her up.”

“Now, if she got cold in mid-afternoon, what do you think might happen to us at half-past midnight?”

“We might get warmed up.”

“You miss the point, Ms. Arbuthnot.”

“The point is, Mister Fletcher, you shot your wad.”

“The point is, Ms. Arbuthnot.…”

She said, “And I thought you were healthy,” and hung up.

There was a poker party, or the poker party, going on in Oscar Perlman’s suite, a whacky tobacky party in Sheldon Levi’s, silence in the Litwacks’; Leona Hatch was issuing her “Errrrrr’s” regularly; Jake Williams was on the phone to a March newspaper in Seattle, sounding very tired (something about how to handle a story about a fistfight among major-league baseball players in a downtown cocktail lounge); in her room Mary McBain appeared to be all alone, crying; Charlie Stieg was in the last stages of a seduction scene with a slightly drunk unknown; Rolly Wisham and Norm Reid were tuned to the same late-night movie in their rooms; Tom Lockhart’s room was silent.

Fletch switched back to Station 5, Suite 3.

“Switch!” Don Gibbs was shouting. “Everybody switch! Swish, swish, swish, I SAID!”

There was a considerable variety of background noises, some of which Fletch had difficulty identifying.

A girl’s voice sang, “Snow, beautiful snow.…”

“Everybody get your snow before it melts,” Don Gibbs said.

There was the sound of a hard slap.

Englehardt’s voice, low and serious, said, “When I pay money, I want to get what I pay for.”

“Cut that out,” Gibbs said. “I said, ‘Switch!’ Everybody switch!”

A young man’s voice said, “You’re not paying for that, bastard.”

“Switch! I said!”

Fletch listened long enough to make sure a second female voice was recorded by his marvelous machine.

Then Don Gibbs was saying, “Whee! We’re living like journalists! Goddamn journalists. Goddamn that Fletch! Live like this alla time. Disgusting!”

Fletch put his marvelous machine on automatic, for Station 5, Suite 3, and took a shower.