Son of Fletch

7

In the kitchen, Fletch said to Carrie: “Only three extra for breakfast.” “What happened to the other one?”

“Snakes got him.”

Carrie didn’t even look up from the stove. “Devil knows his own.”

Fletch asked, “Ham? Country ham?”

“That’s right,” Carrie said with fierceness.

“It’s going to be a right hot day,” Fletch said.

“That’s right,” Carrie said in the same tone. “And I mean to give these bastards a case of thirst that’ll make them unable to think of anything but cool, clear water. They’ll just wish they could spit!”

“Well, don’t give me any.”

“Would I do that to you?”

“God knows what you’d do to a Yankee.”

“Ah, Fletch. Don’t think of yourself as a Yankee anymore. You’re about gettin’ over it.”

Fletch began breaking eggs into a large bowl.

Jack had been amazed to see Fletch come out of the henhouse carrying eleven eggs. “Wow!” he said. “You make your own eggs!” Then he said, “They’re dirty!”

Fletch said, “You think they were hatched already scrambled with milk and butter?”

Jack grinned. “I was hatched sunnyside up, I was.”

“I see,” Fletch said. “So you scrambled yourself.”

Near them on the driveway outside the henhouse, Leary, clutching his stomach, stumbled around in small circles. Exhausted, bruised, frightened, nearly drowned, run over by a horse, terrified by landing on a corpse, he was about as worn down as a man could be.

Fletch thought Leary did not have a whole lot of fight left in him.

Emory had parked his noisy truck in the shade of one of the sheds. He had fed the horses and the hens.

When Fletch came out of the henhouse, Emory was standing aside. First his eyes studied Jack. Then Leary.

Then he looked at Fletch.

Fletch said, “Say hello to Jack Fletcher, Emory.”

“Jack Fletcher?” It was hard to surprise or impress Emory. In the years Emory had worked for Fletch he had seen many people, country-music stars, authors, politicians, African and African-American leaders, slip on and off the farm. When people in the area asked Emory who had just been to the farm, Emory’s answer had always been the same: I didn’t notice. Fletch knew Emory would not ask if Jack were son, nephew, cousin, or coincidence.

Emory and Jack shook hands.

Warily, Emory looked at Leary again. Fletch noticed that Leary’s shirt and jeans were so muddy and torn the signs identifying him as a convict were invisible. “Who’s he? Is he goin’ to be workin’ here?”

“No,” Fletch answered. “In fact, Emory, I want you to do this for me. Go get the truck and put the cattle grills on it.” The grills were steel bars that would make a pen, nine feet high, all three sides, on the back of the pickup truck. “Throw a couple of small bales of hay on it. Then put that calf bull aboard, that little bastard who’s discovered he can walk through barbed wire fences. Then put the truck up near the house, in the shade.”

Jack muttered, “Wish you wouldn’t be so free with the word bastard.”

“Sorry, Coitus Interruptus.”

Emory started to move toward the house to get the truck. “You heard the news yet this mornin’?” He appeared to be asking his boots.

“No,” Fletch answered. “Anything interesting?”

Emory turned around and walked backward. “Something about escaped convicts. Nine or ten of them. From Missouri, or some such place. They say they’re here somewhere in the county.”

“Oh, sure,” Fletch said. “They always have to make a story, don’t they? Just to frighten the horses. By the way, Emory, Carrie will be deliverin’ the bull for me, and I’ll be takin’ Jack here down to the University of North Alabama. If anyone’s lookin’ for us.”

“Not to worry.” Emory turned around to walk frontward over the bridge. “I brought my gun.”

Driving the truck, Emory passed Fletch and Jack herding Leary toward the back of the house.

In the kitchen, Fletch said to Carrie, “The third one is outside. His name is Leary. I told Jack to get him stript and hose him down.”

Carrie looked through the kitchen window. “Big. Ugly.”

“Stupid.”

In low voices, while cooking together, Fletch outlined his thoughts regarding the truck, the bull calf, Leary, Carrie; the station wagon, Jack, Kriegel, himself. Carrie not only agreed, she relished the plan. She refined a few of its elements.

They focused on what they did not yet know.

Outside the back door, Fletch waited for Jack to turn off the hose before handing him a plate of ham and eggs. Standing in the morning sunlight, Jack proceeded to eat his breakfast.

When Fletch handed Leary his breakfast, Leary sat cross-legged on the grassy slope, naked and wet, to eat. Obviously he had lifted weights at one time. Most of his bulk had slipped into his gut, ass, thighs. His skin was pure white. He seemed to wrap his whole body around his plate of food.

He looked like a huge, hairless, white baby.

Fletch dropped a big garbage bag on the ground. He said to Jack. “Put everyone’s clothes and boots in this.”

“Then what do I do with it?”

“I haven’t figured that out yet. The cops will be here later. To collect Moreno.”

Jack looked up at him. “Just Moreno?”

“The rest of you will be gone by then. By the way, where are we really going?”

“Uh? South.”

Fletch repeated, “Where are we really going?”

“Tolliver, Alabama. There’s a camp there. In the woods. You know where Tolliver is?”

“Yes. Are you expected there?”

“Kriegel is.”

“What kind of a camp? Boy Scout?”

“The Tribe.” Jack watched Fletch’s face.

“The Tribe? What’s that when it’s at home?”

“If you don’t know,” Jack said, “you’ll find out. I want you to find out.”

“A grand bunch of sterling chaps, I’m sure.”

“Sure,” Jack said. “Like a hunting camp, you know?”

“Paramilitary? Do they have a good marching band?”

“By the way, may I bring the guitar?”

“That will be nice. You can lead the singing around the campfire. I’ll bring the marshmallows.”

In the morning light, Jack was squinting at Fletch’s face.

Fletch asked, “If you’re Kriegel’s lieutenant, what’s Leary’s function?”

“Bodyguard.”

“Kriegel’s bodyguard?”

“Yeah.”

Fletch nodded at the big baby sitting naked on the grass. He had dropped scrambled egg onto his stomach. With his hand he had slathered it up onto his chest. “I can see he would be good at that. Who wouldn’t want to stay away from him? Did he kidnap someone because he was lonely?”

“I think you’re about right,” Jack said.

“Whom did he kidnap?”

“A teenaged girl. I think he thought they were eloping.”

“She didn’t think so?”

“No. And he carried her across a state line.”

“The Mann Act. Did he rape her?”

“I think he thought he was making love. He kept her three weeks in a school bus. When he finally understood she didn’t like him, he went to a pool hall and tried to sell her.”

“His feelings were hurt.”

“Again I think you’re right.”

Leary must have been hearing them talking about him. He never even looked up. He kept scoffing his food with his fingers.

Jack said, “You might say he just didn’t know how to do things right.”

Watching Leary eat, hearing about him, Fletch’s stomach churned. “Not properly brought up, you might say.”

Jack said, “You might say that.”

“And Moreno?” Fletch asked. “What was his role in this scheme?”

“Money. He had a stash of it. In Florida.”

“Drug money?”

“Yeah.”

“You all were going to rob him?”

“Rob him? He owed us.” Jack grinned. “Then we were going to rob him. Once we knew how to get to his money.”

“For a guitar picker, you sure know some different scales.” Avoiding the puddles, Fletch walked toward the smokehouse.

“Hey,” Jack said. “Don’t I get any coffee?”

“You drink coffee?”

“Sure.”

“You can go in the house. Ask Carrie to help you find some clothes for your traveling companions. White shirt, decent slacks for Kriegel, maybe a necktie. Overalls for Leary. I don’t want Leary wearing a shirt.”

Glancing at Leary’s blubber, Jack muttered, “I do.”

“WE ARE SORRY, but due to seismic disturbances, your telephone call to this exchange in California cannot be completed at this time. Please try your call at a later time.”

“Wow.” Fletch was in the smokehouse, with the door closed, using his cellular phone. “‘Seismic disturbances’! They’re so used to California rockin’ and rollin’ they’re ready with a recorded message! A recorded message about seismic disturbances! So cool! We are sorry, Fletch imitated the computer voice, as California has just crumbled into the ocean and whoever you are calling doubtlessly has just been swallowed by earth, fire, or water, we are unable to complete your call. Have a nice day! Should have called Andy Cyst in the first place. Last night.”

While punching in Alston Chambers’s home telephone number, Fletch had felt a twinge of guilt. He was sure he would be waking Alston and his whole family. He assuaged his guilt by telling himself that matters had gotten to such a point at the farm, his inferences had been so unsettling, especially regarding a son, Crystal’s son—to say nothing of his having a murderer, a rapist-kidnapper, an attempted murderer, and a corpse underfoot; that he was apparently aiding these fugitives from justice; that he was going somewhere, being taken somewhere of which he was distinctly unsure; that now Carrie was involved, however gladly, whimsically in his reaching out to his son, Crystal’s son, his trying to discover the truth about him, perhaps irrationally risking too much for someone essentially a stranger with a poor resume, desperately he needed factual information. From the telephone company’s recorded message, Fletch now assumed Alston and his family were up. Or down. Or in or out.

Now punching in Andy Cyst’s home telephone number in Virginia, California passed before Fletch’s eyes: some of his life, experiences there; some of his friends, people he loved, others.

What was happening to them?

Andy answered on the first ring. “Hello?”

“Andy, what’s happening in California?”

“Aftershocks?” Andy answered. “Foreshocks? Another of the big ones? Geologists, as you know, Mister Fletcher, are slow to commit to their jargon.”

“Any real damage reported?”

“Many communication lines aren’t working. So we don’t know. This series started just an hour ago. Where are you?”

“At the farm. I’m not really calling about California.”

“Good.” Andy’s voice was always eager. Not this morning. “Ask me something I know.”

“Andy, you don’t sound like your old self.”

“I’m fine.”

“A little irascible?”

“Just fine.”

Having been a print journalist, and someone who had written a book, Fletch persisted in believing there was not much future in electronics, generally. Therefore, in an effort to dispose of some money he never was sure he deserved, many years previously he had invested in a start-up business called Global Cable News.

On his last visit to their offices three years previous, he discovered that since Global Cable’s move from Washington, D.C., to deep in the Virginia countryside, their headquarters had grown to airport-hangar size. Besides the studios, there were rows and rows of young people frowning at computer workstations. There were whole sections of medical doctors working as journalists, lawyers working as journalists, people with doctors of philosophy in the various disciplines working as journalists, athletes working as journalists. They did not seem to talk to each other, NO SMOKING signs were everywhere. There were neither wads of chewing tobacco nor chewing gum on the floors. The windows were clean. The facility had a health spa, including trainers, handball courts, and an Olympic-sized swimming pool, and a day-care center. Just the parking lot was acres big.

As a journalist, Fletch had worked (as seldom as possible) in a city room in a building he thought big in the busiest section of the city, surrounded by bars and theaters and bars and police stations and bars and slums. Few journalists had academic degrees. They had strong legs, loud voices, no regard for theories, predictions, speculation, trends, or statistics. They believed only in discovering and printing the facts of present history. They lived in the city, rode the buses, the subways, hung around the bars, police stations, hospitals, ballparks, political enclaves. They had charm and temper and the gift of gab that would draw admissions from a judge. They loved and hated each other with passion.

News, in those days, was ninety-five percent fact, three percent fancy, and two percent speculation.

As extrapolation had not yet entered the business, news, in those days, was far less confusing.

When Fletch would call Global Cable News with a bit of information, news, suggestion, comment, a question, he was answered with Yes, Mister Fletcher. Yes, Mister Fletcher. Yes, Mister Fletcher, instant response, thorough follow-through. It made him as uncomfortable as their headquarters. He did not like being listened to as a journalist because he was a major investor.

So he asked that when he called, only one person answer and say, Yes, Mister Fletcher.

That person was Andy Cyst.

“Yes, Mister Fletcher?”

“Andy, I need some information. First, I need to find a woman named Crystal Faoni.” He spelled the name out. “She used to be a working journalist. I believe she never married. I believe she has one son, named John, which she has raised herself. I’m told she now owns five radio stations in Indiana. Possibly with a residence in Bloomington. Presently, she may be at a health spa, I’m told incommunicado, somewhere.”

“F-A-O-N-I?”

“Yes.”

“An unusual name.”

“I’m afraid so.”

“An old flame, eh?” Andy asked.

“An old spark, more like.”

“Why do you need me? You have enough information here—”

“Because I am limited in what I can do at this moment.” He hoped Andy was saying to himself, The old boy’s gettin’ lazy. “Also, I think I would like to see, or at least talk to, Faoni within the next few days. Where exactly is she? What’s her schedule? How serious is this incommunicado situation? When you find her.”

“Okay.”

“Next, some convicts escaped from the federal penitentiary in Tomaston, Kentucky, yesterday.”

“Yes. Two.”

“Two?”

“I’m trying to recall what I saw regarding this story on Global Cable News. We’ve carried the full story, needless to say.”

“Andy, you know I don’t get cable here on the farm.”

“I know.”

“Cable was originally intended for rural areas. Then your business chiefs discovered dwellings in the cities and towns are closer together, and therefore much more profitable to wire. So we still don’t get cable out here.”

“You’ve mentioned this to me before.”

“About a thousand times.”

“Thirteen hundred and five times. You’re the one who makes the profits, Mister Fletcher.”

“Go ahead. Rub it in. I just want you all to know why I am not a devoted viewer. Why I do not memorize your every shifting probability. Furthermore, I understand there are four escapees.” To himself, Fletch said, Now there are three. “I need to know everything about every one of them.”

“Are you working on something, Mister Fletcher? I mean, for GCN?”

“Just maybe.”

“You want a crew?”

“No. Not yet, anyway. Was anyone hurt during the escape?”

“Ummm. I think not. You want me to boot up my personal computer to read the office files?”

“No. I haven’t the time right now. I have another call to make.”

“Sorry, I guess I didn’t pay that much attention to this story. Last night we, uh—”

Fletch waited. “Are you going to tell me?”

“Went to a concert, in old D.C.”

“So you had a late night.”

“You know what was weird?”

“Tell me.” In the smokehouse, Fletch glanced at his watch.

“The first half of the concert was big band, you know, like in the 1940s? The second half a rock light show. Like in the sixties, I guess.”

“Eclectic,” Fletch said.

“It’s left me confused. Headachy.”

One of many things Fletch admired about Andy was his respect for straight lines. “Go with the flow, baby.”

“Anything else? I’m leaving for the office now.”

“What’s The Tribe?”

“Whose?”

“I guess that’s the right question.”

“Mister Fletcher, I told you I heard more noise last night than is good for one.”

“I know, Andy. You lead the quiet life, there in the Virginia countryside.”

“Is this a real question? Am I supposed to find out something about some tribe?”

“I don’t know yet. But the question doesn’t mean anything to you?”

“Can noise make you feel sort of sick? We had beef Thai pecan last night, wild rice. That couldn’t have done it, could it?”

“As long as the pecans weren’t wild.”

“Are there wild pecans?”

“Oh, Andy, you should know some of the nuts I’ve known! I’ll say they can be wild! I’ll call you later at the office. Don’t try to call me.”

“HI, AETNA. WILL you patch me through to the sheriff, please?”

“Hydy, Mister Fletcher. How’s everything at the farm this fine morning? You all survive the big storm last night?”

“Just fine, Aetna. We’re as slick as a boxer after the tenth round.”

Fletch wondered if the dispatcher for the county sheriffs office recognized the voice of everyone in the county. Once, only by recognizing a woman’s voice had she sent the Rescue Squad to the right farm. She was credited with saving the woman’s life. She also had a great ear for music. She led the county’s most accomplished Baptist choir.

“The sheriff’s actin’ right tired this morning, Mister Fletcher.”

“I expect so.”

“Say, Mister Fletcher, while I have you on the phone, will you tell Carrie that Angie Kelly has that recipe for firecracker cake Carrie wanted?”

“Angie Kelly. Firecracker cake.”

“Who’s talking about firecracker cake on this line?”

Fletch recognized Sheriff Rogers’s gravelly voice. It was more gravelly than usual this morning.

Aetna said, “Mister Fletcher’s on the line, Sheriff.”

The sheriff said, “I sincerely doubt Mister Fletcher is interested in the recipe for firecracker cake.”

Fletch said, “I don’t even know what firecracker cake is. Listen, Sheriff, I have two of them.”

“Cakes?”

“Convicts. Escaped convicts.”

“Where?”

“One of them is dead. We found him in the gully behind my barns. Looks like the snakes got him, and then maybe he drowned.”

“Describe him.”

“Hispanic.”

“I’m prepared to call that a good arrest, aren’t you?”

“Absolutely.”

“Describe the other convict to me.”

“Heavyset. Caucasian. None too bright.”

“Okay. Restrain him however you can. We’ll come pick him up.”

“Please, no.”

“No?”

“Carrie is going to drive him out to the intersection of Worthy Road and The Old County Pike. He’ll be penned up in the back of the pickup truck. She’ll pretend she’s run out of gas. As soon as she stops at the intersection there, you guys swarm him.”

“Why you want to do it that way? Why don’t we just come shoot the bastard your place?”

“I don’t particularly want that to happen.”

“Oh, I see. Sorry, Fletch. Your wife. Princess … You don’t want the unpleasantness of a police action your place. Might attract the tourists, uh? Cause the press to reprise the assassination. Is that it?”

“Something like that.” One way and another, Fletch had learned the importance of creating a diversion.

“We do it my way, he’ll be docile. We’re telling him Carrie is helping him escape. He’s a real big guy. He’ll be half asleep. This way, all you need do is step out of the woods, swarm him, and chain him.”

“Sure.” The sheriff was slurring his words, just slightly. “We’ll blow him away wherever you say.”

“Carrie doesn’t particularly need to see anyone blown away, either, here, there, or anywhere.”

“Okay. I understand. We’ve got to protect the ladies.” The sheriff burped. “And their gardens. We’ll tiptoe out of the woods and take him off Carrie’s truck as gently as a potted petunia. Say again where she will be?”

“At the intersection of Worthy Road and Old County Pike. She’ll be there at nine o’clock sharp.”

“Okay. Nine o’clock sharp.”

This rank, nonsensical interference in normal police procedure was proving easier than Fletch had thought.

“Worthy Road and Old County Pike, nine o’clock,” Fletch repeated.

“I’ve got it. We’ll be there. In tennis shoes.”

“By the way, Sheriff, will you do me a favor?”

“Anything.”

“This morning I’m driving my son and his professor down to the University of North Alabama. In the station wagon. They absolutely have to be there by eleven o’clock. Will you tell your guys and the state troopers please to let us through any roadblocks without delay?”

“Sure. I even recall your vanity license plate. I’ll put that on the radio right away. After what you’ve done: capturin’ those two guys. We’ve been up all night.”

“Sorry. You must be tired.”

“Rain that hard, ordinarily I would have called the hunt off. Sent everybody home. I mean, if we were just huntin’ ornery critters.”

“There will be three of us in the car. And Carrie will meet you at Worthy Road and Old Pike intersection at nine o’clock exactly.”

“This is great!” the sheriff said. “Only one left!”

The line went dead before Fletch could check the sheriff’s arithmetic.