Fletch and the Man Who

by Gregory Mcdonald

  “Oh, no. I like looking at the lake. I keep sweaters up there, you know, and a big down jacket. It’s quiet. I talk to the birds. I chirp back at them. You can get a real conversation going with the birds, if you really try. I like helping out the chipmunks.”

  Fletch gave this big, ex-boxer a long look. “How do you help out a chipmunk?”

  “The place is so rotten. There’s a stone wall under the cabin, a foundation, and then another between the cabin and the lake. The chipmunks live in the walls. They come in and out. The walls keep fallen down, blockin’ up their doors. I move the big rocks for them. And I find nuts and leave them outside their doors for them. It’s easier for me to find nuts than it is for them.” The man said sincerely, “I can carry more nuts than a chipmunk can.”

  “Sure,” said Fletch, “but do they thank you?”

  “They take the nuts inside the walls. I think they do. They go somewhere.” Fletch said nothing. “Why shouldn’t I help them out?” Flash Grasselli asked reasonably. “I’m bigger than they are.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Sure. Haven’t anything better to do.”

  “Don’t see how he gets away with this. I don’t see how he gets away without making any kind of an explanation to Doris and Walsh.”

  “Why? The guy’s a success in every other way. Jeez, he’s a presidential candidate. What more do you want? They put up with it. They mention it to me every once in a while. You know, thank me for takin’ care of him when he disappears. They’re fishin’, too. I never say nothin’. God knows what they think. Sure it worries them, but so what? The guy lives in a glass suit. He has a right to some privacy.”

  “He doesn’t really trust them, does he?”

  “He has a right to some privacy.”

  “Flash, if the governor were off boozin’ with broads, would you put up with it?”

  “I dunno. Sure. I expect so. I like broads better’n I like chipmunks.”

  “Would you tell the truth about it?”

  Flash’s eyes narrowed. “I’d shut up about it, if that’s what you mean. The way I figure, everybody’s gotta blow off steam in his own way. Everybody’s gotta have a piece of hisself to hisself. Me, I go to my room over the garage at the mansion and I can do what I want. I never bring girls there, though. Not to the governor’s mansion. I can do what I want. The governor, he wears a glass suit all the time. Except when he’s at the lake. Just me and him. Then he zonks out. That’s his thing.”

  “And, Flash, drugs have nothing to do with it?”

  “Nothin’. Absolutely nothin’. He doesn’t even drink coffee there. If that shithead Dr. Thom and his little black bag ever showed up at the cabin, I’d drown ’em faster than he can insult me.”

  “That’s pretty fast.”

  “Dr. Thom is an insult to the human race.”

  “Has the governor done this lately? Disappeared?”

  “No.” Flash frowned. “Not since the campaign started. But we went up to the lake the day after Christmas. When no one was lookin’. A long rest. Back by New Year’s Eve.”

  “Okay. Flash, the question is obvious.”

  The look on Flash’s face indicated the question wasn’t obvious.

  “Why are you telling me this?” Fletch asked.

  Simply, Flash answered, “The governor told me to.”

  “I guessed as much. The answer’s obvious too. But why? Why did he tell you to tell me?”

  Flash shrugged. “Dunno. I have a guess.”

  “What’s your guess?”

  “Maybe because he knows you don’t like Dr. Thom and his little black bag any better’n I do. I heard Walsh tell him that.”

  Fletch shook his head. “So now I know something Walsh doesn’t know? I don’t get it.”

  “You see, Mr. Fletcher, the people around the governor don’t care much about him, as long as he keeps movin’, keeps walkin’ and talkin’, keeps bein’ Caxton Wheeler, keeps winning. Including his wife and son. They remind me of a football team or somethin’. They work together beautifully, always slappin’ each other on the ass and everything. But one of them breaks his back, like James, or like that guy who got killed today—what’s his name? Victor Somethin’—no longer useful anymore, and they find they can play without him. They never really think of him again. There’s that goal up the field there, and the point is to get that ball through that goal. That’s the only point there is. The governor’s the ball. They’ll kick the shit out of him, throw him to the ground, land on him. He’s just got to keep lookin’ like a ball.” Flash waggled his head. “You’ve been with the campaign what? Like twenty-four hours? And the governor wanted you to know this about him. I don’t know what those friggin’ pills are Dr. Thom feeds him. The governor wants you to know he’s all right.”

  “I’m not sure you’re right about Walsh.”

  “He cares?” Flash sat back. “Yeah, he cares. Too much. To him his dad is Mr. Magical Marvelous.” Flash laughed. “I think the governor maybe almost wants his son to think he’s up there somewhere burnin’ up more energy with booze and broads. I think it would kill him if Walsh ever discovered the ol’ man’s just up at a rickety old cabin takin’ a nap. You know what I mean?”

  “Hell of a lot of pressure,” Fletch said.

  “Yeah, and this is the old man’s way of beatin’ it off. He’s right. It’s against his image. What could be worse for him than to have the National Nose, as he calls it, print that he’s asleep? Jeez, it would ruin him. Better they think he’s gettin’ his rocks off—as long as they can’t prove it.”

  “Well, well,” Fletch said. “My daddy always said you can learn a lot in a bar, if you listen.”

  Walsh stuck his head in the bar, looked around, but did not come in.

  Fletch said, “The governor wanted me to know he’s not hooked on anything but sleep. Is that it?”

  Flash shrugged. “The governor’s a very intelligent man. I don’t have any brains. Never did have. I’m just smart enough to know I should do what he tells me and everything will be fine.”

  “What did he tell you to say to me about Mrs. Wheeler?”

  “Nothin’.”

  Fletch waited. He sipped his beer. He waited again. “What are you going to tell me about Mrs. Wheeler?”

  “Nothin’. She’s one tough, smart person. As strong as steel.”

  “Smarter and tougher than the governor?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Tonight, when she yelled at the governor—”

  “I didn’t hear it. I was in the bathroom.”

  “You were in the bathroom on purpose. You knew she was going to do some such thing.”

  Flash said, “Yes.”

  “You call that smart and tough? You don’t call that being out of control?”

  “Mrs. Wheeler’s kept things going all these years. She was probably right in everything she said tonight. I didn’t hear her.”

  “You must have been trying pretty hard not to hear her.”

  “That’s my business. She uses her tongue like a whip. She whips Walsh, yells at the governor, calls me a goon.”

  “Not just her tongue, Flash. She uses her hands.”

  “You know, you don’t get to be a presidential candidate just by standin’ out in the rain. Someone has to push you, and push you damned hard. You see, I know the governor’s secret: he’s a nice guy. If it weren’t for her, the governor would have gone to sleep years ago. Read novels. Play with little kids. You know what I mean?”

  “What’s wrong with that?”

  “Someone’s got to be President of the United States,” Flash said simply. “Why not a smart, honest, good man like Caxton Wheeler?”

  20

  “I completed, duplicated, and delivered tomorrow’s final schedules,” Fletch said. “I also issued the three special releases Nolting and Dobson have been working on. You saw them. On Central America, exploitation of Native American lands, on the Russian economic situation. I also made up some nice-guy stuff about your
dad for the feature press—”

  “Like what?” Walsh asked sharply.

  They were in Walsh’s bedroom on the twelfth floor of the hotel, sitting at the table under the shaded light.

  “I told them how your dad used to give you your allowance. Make the coin disappear between his hands and then pretend to find it in your ear or something. Okay?”

  “Okay.” Walsh’s eyes were darting around the areas of the room outside the light.

  “Idea being to take the stink out of that scene this morning at Conroy School,” Fletch said. “To imply he treats all kids as he would his own.”

  “I understand,” Walsh said with a touch of impatience.

  “Helped a local reporter get permission to spend some time with your mother in the morning.”

  “Did you go through Sully?” Walsh asked.

  “I guess you could say that. I went through Sully.”

  “Your first run-in with Sully?”

  “Yeah.”

  “What a bitch,” Walsh said.

  “Oh, you know that.”

  “Fletch, I think you’d better plan to spend some time with my mother tomorrow. Get to know her a little. See her as she really is.”

  “I would like that,” Fletch said.

  “I’ll arrange it.”

  “My phone was ringing constantly, Walsh. All the world’s pundits wanting to know the source of your dad’s ‘New Reality’ speech.”

  “Did you tell them?”

  “I said as far as I know it’s the result of the governor’s own thought.”

  “Is it?” Again, Walsh’s question was quick and sharp.

  “Walsh—”

  “What was the source of the idea, Fletch?” And again Walsh’s eyes were roaming restlessly around the room outside their circle of light.

  “I said something. He asked. Maybe it was the germ of the idea. On the bus this morning. Your father was asking me what I thought. I’d never been asked what I thought by a presidential candidate before.”

  “You were flattered.”

  “Who wouldn’t be? Of course, I didn’t have time to think the idea out.”

  “You’re not a speechwriter.”

  “What was I supposed to do?”

  “The speechwriters are responsible for the consistency of what the candidate says.”

  “Anyway, Walsh, less than two hours later in Winslow your dad stands up and issues this perfectly eloquent speech, developing a couple of things I had said—”

  “He was angry at the congressperson. He was angry at the way the press handled the Conroy School incident. He was fighting back. We —I had put too much pressure on him over Victor Robbins’s death to make the nightly news with something, anything.”

  “I thought it was great.”

  “Of course you did. Piece of history. By your own hand. When history books pose the question, ‘Why didn’t Caxton Wheeler become President of the United States?’ your grandchildren can read the answer. ‘Because of an ill-considered speech in a snowstorm in a little town called Winslow where he criticized Christianity and the democratic process.’”

  “Hey, Walsh. Maybe I just do that to authority. Any authority. Maybe I just get near authority and unconsciously start planting bombs. Your dad is one authority I like. I don’t want to destroy him.”

  “Oedipus. Is that it?”

  “Maybe. I’m a born-and-bred wise guy. I’ve never done well with authority. You should know that better than anyone. You remember Hill 1918. But I remember I got the platoon too stoned to go out on that earlier patrol. I knew it was suicidal.”

  “You were right.”

  “You almost got court-martialed for it.”

  “The platoon that did go out got blown away.”

  “Hell, Walsh. I’m a reporter. I can’t be a kept boy. Telling these reporters I love the stuff they’re writing when most of them couldn’t write their way out of a detention hall.”

  Walsh was looking into the dark of the room, clearly not hearing, not listening.

  “What I’m trying to say is maybe I should pack my pistols and ride off into the sunset.”

  Walsh asked, “What was that thing you did between Betsy Ginsberg and me?”

  “Got you to say hello to each other.”

  Walsh shook his head slowly.

  “That too, Walsh.” Still Fletch was not sure how much of Walsh’s attention he had. “A lady I knew before this campaign ever started refused to have supper with me tonight because of my job. Because of the position I’m in. What do you do about the isolation, Walsh?”

  “Fletch, I think your sex life can take a rest.”

  “I might get sick.”

  “So get sick.”

  “Another lady offered me her body for an interview with your mother in the morning.”

  “Did you accept?”

  “Of course not.”

  “See? You’re sick already.”

  “I think I ought to go back to bayin’ at the moon, Walsh.”

  Walsh’s eyes came back into the light, focused on the table surface. “You just gave Dad the coins. You didn’t hand them out to the kids. To some of the kids. You just gave him the ideas. You didn’t make the speech.”

  Fletch stretched his fingers. “Maybe that’s what I like about your dad. He’s a bit of a rebel, too. His mind’s up there somewhere, kissin’ the truth. At least he’s not the complete phony I expected the front-runnin’ politician to be. Once in a while he actually says what occurs to him as the truth.”

  Abruptly Walsh sat up in his chair. “You’re always making jokes. Is that how you escape?”

  Slowly, carefully, Fletch said, “No. That’s why the chicken crossed the road.”

  For the first time since Fletch had entered the room, Walsh looked him fully in the face. Then he grinned.

  Fletch said, “Now that I have your attention …”

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah,” said Walsh. “You have my attention.”

  “James called me tonight. From Iowa. He’s in Iowa to attend Victor Robbins’s funeral.”

  “Bastard. He’s there to get himself a job with the opposition.”

  “I wondered about that.”

  “You bet. As sure as God made anchovies.”

  “He talked a long time. Gave me some advice. Answered some questions.”

  “Said he loves Dad more than he loves himself. Will do anything he can to help out. Call him anytime. Am I right, or am I right?”

  “You’re right.”

  “He’d love a pipeline to this campaign. Don’t talk to him.”

  “Except I think he was telling the truth. Twenty-three years—”

  “Means nothing in history. A pimple on Tuchman’s tuchis.”

  “Okay, but—”

  Walsh shook his head no rapidly. “He was out to get my mother. Can’t have that. No such thing as being loyal to my father, to the campaign, while you’re sluggin’ away at my mother.”

  “He doesn’t see it that way.”

  “You trying to get James his job back? Your job?”

  “Maybe it’s impossible.”

  “It’s impossible. The jerk self-destructed. People make mistakes in this business. But to go after the candidate’s wife with bare knuckles, that’s the way you get a one-way ticket home.”

  “Walsh, listen to me.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “He says your mother’s temper is getting worse, that people, the press are beginning to know about it …”

  Again Walsh was shaking his head no. “When you’ve got dozens of people talking at once, somebody’s got to yell.”

  “That scene tonight in your father’s room—”

  “Aw, that’s just Ma’s way of blowin’ off steam. Everyone’s gotta blow off steam.” Fletch was watching Walsh’s eyes. “What harm did it do?” Walsh asked. “So people now think the candidate watches Archie Bunker on television. So what? Makes him seem human.”

  Fletch said, “Your father isn’t h
uman, Walsh?”

  Walsh said: “He’s human.”

  “But only Flash Grasselli knows how human, is that right?”

  Walsh glanced at Fletch. “I see the press has been pumping you on Dad’s sojourns away from home. I should have warned you.”

  “Do you know where he goes, Walsh?”

  “Sure. There’s a place he goes. Belongs to a friend. He goes there, fishes, relaxes, reads history. Works on political strategy.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “He’s told me. Just doesn’t want anyone to have his phone number. He calls us. We don’t call him. He calls regularly. Doesn’t want the press to know. Can’t blame him.”

  “Who’s this friend?”

  “Someone he knew in school. In law school. One of his lawyer friends, I think.”

  The phone rang. Walsh jumped to answer it. “Be right up,” he said into the phone. He hung up and said to Fletch: “Mother.”

  Remaining seated, Fletch asked, “When do you get to sleep, Walsh?”

  Walsh said, “Plenty of time for that in the White House.”

  21

  Fletch got off the elevator on the fifth floor to go to his own room.

  Down the corridor a man was leaning against the wall. His back was to the elevators. His right hand was against the wall, his arm fairly straight. His left hand was raised to his head.

  Fletch went to him. “Bill?”

  Bill Dieckmann’s eyes were frosted over. They were not focusing at all. Clearly he did not recognize Fletch. Maybe he knew someone was there.

  “Bill …”

  Bill’s knees jerked forward. Fletch did not catch him. He was too surprised. He put his own hands around Bill’s head and went to the floor with him. Together they landed softly.

  Fletch disentangled himself and sat up. Bill Dieckmann was unconscious. Some, but not all, of the pain was gone from his face.

  The room key in Bill’s jacket read 916.

  Dieckmann was heavy. Fletch raised him in the fireman’s lift.

  With Dieckmann over his shoulders, Fletch waited for the elevator.

  Andrew Esty was on the elevator when it arrived. He was wearing his overcoat, Daily Gospel button in the lapel. In one hand he had a suitcase; in the other a typewriter case.

  “I thought you left the campaign, Mr. Esty.” Fletch pushed the button for the ninth floor.