Fletch’s Fortune

Two

“So you’re going to bug the entire American press establishment? Just because someone asked you to?”

Gibbs’ voice was barely audible. Fletch had had a better connection when he had called from London.

Across the National Airport waiting room a brass quartet was beginning to play “America.”

Fletch pushed the brown suitcase he had taken from Locker Number 719 out of the telephone booth with his foot and slammed the door.

“Fletch?”

“Hello? I was closing the door.”

“Are you in Washington now?”

“Yes.”

“Did you have a nice flight?”

“No.”

“Sorry to hear that. Why not?”

“Sat next to a Methodist minister.”

“What’s wrong with sitting next to a Methodist minister?”

“Are you kidding? The closer to heaven we got, the smugger he got.”

“Jesus, Fletch.”

“That’s what I say.”

“Can you still sing a few bars of the old Northwestern fight song?”

“Never could.”

In college, Don Gibbs had believed in the football team (he was a second-string tackle), beer (a case between Saturday night and Monday morning), the Chevrolet car (he had a sedan, painted blue and yellow), the Methodist Church (for women and children), and applied physics (for an eventual guaranteed income from American industry, which he also believed in, but which, upon his graduation, had not returned his faith by offering him a job). He had not believed in poetry, painting, philosophy, people, or any of the other p’s treated in the humanities—an attitude generally accepted by American industry, but not when manifested by the candidate for a job so obviously.

He and Fletch had been roommates in their freshman year.

“The only thing I learned in college,” Fletch said into the phone, “is that all our less successful classmates went to work for the government.”

“Who placed this call?” Gibbs’ throat muscles had tightened. “Tell me that, Fletcher. Did you call me, or did I call you? Are you asking me to help you, or am I asking you to help me?”

“Gee whiz, Don. You forgot to take your Insensitive Pill this morning.”

“I’m sick to death of you guys knocking us in the press whenever you feel like it, but whenever you have a problem that hurts even a little bit you’re crying over the phone at us.”

“Bullshit, Don. I’ve never knocked you in the press. You’ve never been important enough to knock.”

“Oh, yeah?”

They might as well have been seventeen-year-old freshmen arguing at eleven o’clock at night over who got to take a shower first. Fletch always hated to wait twenty minutes while Gibbs went through his shower routine; Gibbs hated the mirrors steamed by the time he got to take his shower.

Fletch said, “Yeah, Furthermore, I’m not asking you a favor. I’m asking you a question.”

“What’s the question, Irwin Maurice? Do you have the legal right to bug the entire American press establishment? No! Absolutely not.” His voice lowered. “But then again, Irwin Maurice Fletcher, I suspect you always have bugged the entire American press establishment.”

“Funny, funny.” He had to grant that; he had to give him something. “Since when are you a lawyer? I’m not asking for legal advice. I know it’s not nice to bug my friends with the intention of blackmail—even if I’m not the guy who’s going to be putting the screws to ’em—you shits are. My question is: Do I have to do this?”

There was a long silence from the other end of the phone.

Fletch said, “Hello? Don?”

The line clicked.

“Fletch?”

“Hello.”

“I’m trying to answer your question. Would you mind going over all the facts again?”

Don Gibbs’ voice had moderated. It had become more mature, reasonable, responsible. It also had lowered half an octave.

“I gave you all the facts when I called you from London, Don.”

“Just to make sure I’ve got everything straight.”

“You’re just trying to take advantage of a local phone call from an old friend to make you look busy at your desk,” Fletch said. “Bastard.”

Fletch knew it wasn’t a local phone call.

The number he had dialed supposedly was a Pentagon number. But he knew he was talking to Don Gibbs in that curious underground headquarters of American intelligence in the mountains of North Carolina.

“I have a plane to catch.”

“Just run it by me again, Fletch.”

“Okay. Two of your goons broke into my house in Cagna, Italy, yesterday morning, Sunday—”

“Names?”

“Gordon Eggers and Richard Fabens.”

“Eggers, Gordon and Fabens, Richard. Right?”

“You government jerks do everything backwards.”

“Did you get their identification numbers off their credentials?”

“No. But they had numbers. Lots of numbers.”

“Doesn’t matter. When you say they broke into your house, what precisely do you mean?”

“I think they entered through the French windows, doors, whatever you call them. The house was open.”

“Did they actually break anything?”

“Amazingly enough—no.”

“So they entered your house.”

“They entered it uninvited. Unexpected. Unwanted. They trespassed.”

“What are you doing with a house in Italy?”

“I live there.”

“Yeah, but why? I mean, are you working for a wire service or something?”

“No. I’m doing some writing on art. I had a piece in Bronson’s last month. I’m trying to do a biography of Edgar Arthur Tharp, Junior.…”

“The cowboys-and-Indian artist?”

“Gee. You know something.”

“Wasn’t he a friend of Winslow Homer?”

“No.”

“Have you given up investigative reporting altogether?”

Fletch dropped a pause into the conversation. “I’m on a sabbatical.”

“Fired again, uh? I’m glad I’m not one of the more obvious successes in my class.”

“There’s no job security,” Fletch said, “without complete obscurity.”

“So what did these two gentlemen want?”

“They weren’t gentlemen.”

“Sorry to hear that. We usually send only our finest abroad. I haven’t made it yet.”

“Not surprised.”

“What did they want?”

Across the terminal the band was playing “The eyes of Texas are upon you.…”

“They told me to come to the A.J.A. convention, here in Hendricks, Virginia, and bug my ever-loving colleagues—get tape recordings of their bedroom conversations—and turn the tapes over to them, for blackmail purposes. They said there would be a suitcase full of bugging equipment here in a locker in Washington, and it is here.” Through the door of the phone booth Fletch noticed how badly the suitcase he had just taken from Locker 719 matched the rest of his luggage. “Are you telling me you don’t know all this already, Don?”

Don Gibbs said, “It’s not often we get another perspective on one of our operations.”

“When I called you from London last night, I asked you to look into all this.”

“I have,” Don said. “I’ve checked pretty thoroughly.”

“So why am I standing in a phone booth, late for a plane I don’t want to take anyway, going over it all with you again?”

“Tell me again why you agreed to do it. I just want to see if it checks out with what I know.”

“Oh, for God’s sake, Don! I’m being blackmailed.”

“I know that, but tell me again how.”

“Well.…”

“It won’t hurt to tell me, Fletcher. Don’t I already know?”

“Nice guy.” The floor of the phone booth was filthy. “Taxes.”

“You’ve never paid any?”

“Just whatever was withheld from my salary.” He was pressing the phone against his ear. “Even for those years I never filed a return.”

“Uh-uh. And what about the last year or two?”

“I’ve never filed a return.”

“It says here you have money you can’t account for. Is that right?”

“Yeah.”

“What?”

“Yes.”

“So why are you calling me?”

“You’re my friend in the American Intelligence community.”

“We’re not friends.”

“Acquaintance. I’m trying to report to someone in the home office—someone responsible—that your guys down the line are blackmailing me to bug the private lives of some of the most important members of the American press—newspapers, radio, and television.”

“Don’t you think our right hand knows what our left hand is doing?”

“No, I don’t. And if you do, you should be ashamed of yourselves.”

“I’m not ashamed of myself. Nobody’s blackmailing me.”

“Come on, Don! Jesus Christ!”

“How do you think we gather intelligence, Fletcher? By reading your lousy newspapers? From network news?”

“Don, this isn’t legitimate, and you know it.”

“I know lots of things.” Gibbs’ voice had risen again, slightly. “You said when you called from London that the guys who talked to you were particularly interested in getting information on old Mister March.”

“Yes. That’s right. Walter March. I used to work for him.”

“What does that mean to you?”

“That they single out March?”

“Yes.”

“He’s an incredibly powerful man. March Newspapers.” Fletch’s right ear was becoming hot and sore. “Listen, Don, I’ve only got a few minutes to make that plane, if I’m going to make it. Are you telling me…?”

“No, Mister Fletcher. I’m telling you.”

It was a much older, deeper voice.

“Who is this?” Fletch asked.

“Robert Englehardt,” the voice said. “Don’s department head. I’ve been listening in.”

“Man!” Alone in the phone booth, Fletch grinned. “You guys can’t do anything straight.”

“I guess you’re calling Don to ask if this assignment is something you have to take on.”

“You’ve got it.”

“What do you think the answer is?”

“It sounds to me like the answer is yes.”

“You have the right impression.”

There was another click on the line.

Fletch asked, “Don, are you still there?”

“Yes.”

“I know you guys are so wrapped up in your own mysteriousness you can’t answer a simple question yes or no, but why the extra degree of mysteriousness about this?”

“What mysteriousness?”

“Come on, Don.”

“We’ve just been trying to make absolutely sure that the A.J.A. convention is still on.”

“Still on? Why wouldn’t it be?”

“You journalists are always the last with the news, aren’t you?”

“What news?”

“Walter March was murdered this morning. At the convention. So long, Fletcher.”