Fletch, Too

“Hello.” Fletch waited for the young policeman behind the high counter to look up, notice him, answer him.

“Hello,” the policeman answered after only a glance.

Fletch sneezed. “How are you?”

“Well, thank you. And yourself?”

“I’m fine.”

The policeman glanced at Fletch again. “What do you want at a police station?”

Fletch swallowed. “I want to see my father. My name is Fletcher. Is he here?”

“Oh, yes.” The policeman checked the second sheet of paper on a clipboard. “Awaiting trial.”

“May I see him?”

“That’s not the way it’s supposed to be,” the policeman said. “He is being punished, you see.”

“He is being punished before his trial?”

The policeman’s forehead creased. “What is the point of keeping him here if we let everyone see him?”

“I have come from America,” Fletch said. “Arrived two days ago. I don’t know how long I will be able to stay here. I have come to see him.”

“Oh, I see.” Moving around behind the counter, the policeman fiddled with papers. His brow remained creased.

Fletch said nothing more.

After a few moments, the policeman went through a door behind the counter.

Trying to clear his eyes and his nose and his throat of sand, Fletch had walked the half block from the Norfolk Hotel to the police station. The sidewalk was busy with people his age carrying books to and from Nairobi University. He passed an older, Caucasian couple in plaid shorts and straw hats looking exhausted and confused.

No one else was in the lobby of the police station. The place was absolutely quiet.

Fletch sneezed again.

The policeman returned alone.

He said nothing. Behind the counter, he started to sort some papers.

Fletch said, “Well? Any chance of my seeing him?”

“Mr. Fletcher is not in.”

“What?”

“He says to tell you he is not in.”

“Did you tell him I’m his son? His son is here to see him?”

“Oh, yes. He asked me to say he is not in.”

Going toward the door to the street, Fletch sneezed.

Quietly, the policeman said, “Bless you.”

Fletch turned around. “Walter Fletcher? Is the man you are holding named Walter Fletcher, originally an American, Caucasian, somewhere in his forties?”

“Oh, yes,” the policeman said. “We know him well.”