Fletch’s Fortune f-3

by Gregory Mcdonald

  “Here it comes,” Bob said.

  Captain Neale said, “Last, but not least, if any of you have genuine information which might help in this investigation, of course we will appreciate your reporting that information to me or one of the people working with me.

  “Someone at Hendricks Plantation murdered Walter March this morning, with premeditation. No one has been allowed to leave the plantation since this morning. Someone here—most likely in this room—is guilty of first degree murder.

  “I will appreciate your cooperation in every way.”

  Captain Neale started from the microphone, bent back to it, and said, “Thank you.”

  “Good old boy,” said Bob. “Good cop.”

  “Bright and decent,” said Crystal.

  Freddie Arbuthnot said, “Ineffectual.”

  Helena said Hy Litwack needed no introduction, and so she gave him none.

  Bob McConnell said, “I bet he says, ‘Don’t shoot the messenger.’”

  Crystal and Fletch shrugged at each other.

  Hy Litwack, anchorman for evening network news, was highly respected by everyone except other journalists, most of whom were purely envious of him.

  He was handsome, dignified, with a grand voice, solid manner, and had been earning a fabulous annual income for many years. He was staffed like no journalist in history had ever been staffed.

  An additional point of envy was that he was also an incredibly good journalist.

  Unlike many another television newsman, he kept his showmanship to a minimum.

  And, unlike many other journalists of roughly comparable power and prestige, there was minimal evidence of bias in his reporting—even in the questions he asked in live interview situations. He never led his audience, or anyone he was interviewing.

  Also enviable was his on-camera stamina, through conventions, elections, and other continuous-coverage stories.

  Hy Litwack had been at the top of the heap for years.

  Next to him at the head table sat his wife, Carol.

  “Good evening.” The famous voice cleared his throat. “When I have an opportunity to speak, I try to speak on the topics I find people most frequently ask me about, whether I wish to speak about them or not.

  “Recently, people have been asking me most about acts of terrorism, more specifically about television news coverage of acts of terrorism, most specifically whether by covering terrorism, television news is encouraging, or even causing, other terrorists to implement their dreadful, frequently insane fantasies.

  “I hate witnessing terrorism. I hate reading about it. I hate reporting it—as I’m sure we all do.

  “But television did not create terrorism.

  “Terrorism, like many another crime or insanity, is infectious. It perpetuates itself. It causes itself to happen. One incident of terrorism causes two more incidents, which cause more and more and more incidents.

  “Never was this social phenomenon, of acts of terrorism stimulating other acts of terrorism, on and on, more apparent than at the beginning of the twentieth century.

  “And television, or television news, at that point had not yet even been dreamed of.

  “An act of terrorism is an event. It is news.

  “And it is our job to bring the news to the people, whether we personally like that news, or not.”

  Bob McConnell whispered, “Here it comes.”

  “Blaming television,” Hy Litwack continued, “for causing acts of terrorism simply by reporting them is as bad as shooting the messenger simply because the news he brings is bad.…”

  Eleven

  In the privacy of their bedroom, Carol Litwack was saying to her husband, “… Live to be a hundred, I’ll never get over it.”

  “Over what?”

  “You. I don’t know.”

  At a distance there was the sound of gargling.

  Before leaving for dinner, Fletch had tuned the receiver to Leona Hatch’s room, Room 42, so he could check on her later, make sure she was as comfortable as possible. All he had expected to hear on the tape was snoring and “Errrrrrrr’s.”

  But that wasn’t the way the marvelous machine worked.

  Like all things governmental, it had its own system of priorities.

  It took him a while to figure it out.

  First he heard Leona Hatch snoring in Room 42, on Station 22, then Station 21 lit and he heard Sheldon Levi’s toilet flushing in Room 48, then Station 4 lit and he heard Eleanor Earles saying in Suite 9, “… Dressed to hear Hy Litwack’s stupid speech. Ugh! But if I don’t, I suppose there’ll be three pages in TV Guide about my snubbing the pan-fried son of a bitch at the American Journalism …” and then Station 2 lit and he heard Carol and Hy Litwack talking in Suite 5.

  Any noise in any room in which he had placed a lower-numbered bug had precedence over any noise in any room in which he had placed a higher-numbered bug.

  Fletch studied his telephone information sheet, and the notes he had made on it regarding which bugs he had put where, and discovered he had placed bugs instinctively more or less in accordance with the machine’s priorities.

  To keep himself straight at what he was doing, and, in fear of eventually being caught as he let himself into other people’s rooms, he had planted the lower-numbered bugs in the rooms of the more important people: Station 1 was Suite 12, Lydia March and Walter March, Junior; Station 2, the Litwacks, in Suite 5; Station 3, Helena and Jake Williams, in Suite 7; Station 4, Eleanor Earles, in Suite 9. In Suite 3, now empty—it being where Walter March had been murdered—he had placed bug Number 5. And, in Room 77, Fredericka Arbuthnot’s, he had placed bug Number 23.

  “My, my,” Fletch said of his marvelous machine, “it walks, it talks, cries ‘Mama!’ and piddles genuine orange juice!”

  Hy Litwack spent a long time gargling his famous throat—every bubble and blurp of which Fletch faithfully recorded.

  Carol Litwack was saying, “Here you are, the most successful, respected journalist in the country, in the whole world, a multimillionaire on top of that, and you still feel you can’t say what you want to say, what you think is the truth.”

  “Like what?” Hy Litwack’s voice sounded tired and bored.

  “Well, what you just said about terrorism and television downstairs is not what you’ve said to me about terrorism and television.”

  Clearly, Hy Litwack was having a bedtime conversation with his wife which did not interest him much. “I mentioned the possibility that the more publicity we give terrorists and murderers the more other kooks are apt to commit acts of terror and murder for the publicity alone. Too many people want to be on television, even with a gun in hand, or in handcuffs, or lying face down in the street with their backs riddled with police bullets… how much more of my speech would you like me to repeat to you? I admitted all that. I said I worry about it. But I don’t know what to do about it. No one does. News is news, and it’s seldom good.”

  There was a feminine sigh. “That’s not what you’ve said to me at all.”

  “What have I said different?”

  “Hy, you know you have. Time after time you’ve said to me the networks give maximum exposure to acts of terrorism in progress because it gets the ratings up.”

  Hy Litwack said, “They make for good drama.”

  “People tune in, especially, to see if the hostages or whoever have gotten machine-gunned yet. Or had their heads chopped off. You know you’ve said this.”

  “Yes,” Hy Litwack said. “I’ve said this. To you.”

  “You didn’t say it tonight. In your speech. An ongoing act of terrorism and the whole network news department comes alive. You rush to the studio, day or night. People switch on their TV sets. Audience ratings go up.”

  “I said they make for good drama.”

  “The advertisers’ commercials get more exposure,” Carol said. “Here some little nut out in Chicago, or Cleveland, is holding twenty people hostage to protest the establishment in some way, and in boardro
oms all across the country the establishment is cheering because the poor little nut is helping to sell the establishment’s products to all the other nuts and thus make the establishment richer!”

  “Everything makes the establishment richer.”

  “You’ve said that. To me. Why didn’t you say it in your speech tonight? Are you so establishment yourself you can’t say what you really think, as a journalist?”

  “No,” said Hy Litwack. “But I’m a good enough journalist to keep my cynicism to myself.”

  There was what seemed to Fletch a long silence. He was waiting to hear where the marvelous machine would switch next.

  He was about to experiment, to see if he could run the machine manually, when he again heard Carol Litwack’s voice. “Oh, Hy. You don’t know what I’m talking about.”

  “I guess not,” said the famous voice, now sleepy.

  “This afternoon you rushed down here to Virginia early, and immediately taped that phony eulogy on Walter March for the network evening news. ‘The great journalist, Walter March of March Newspapers, is dead,’ you intoned, ‘shockingly murdered at the convention of the American Journalism Alliance, of which March was the elected president.’”

  “I never said ‘shockingly murdered.’”

  “You even put on your tight-throat bit.”

  “You can check the tape.”

  “Whatever you said.”

  “Whatever I said.”

  “You didn’t even know Walter March. Really.”

  “No man is an island.”

  “The few times you met him you told me the same thing about him. He was a cold fish.”

  “Carol? Would you mind if we went to sleep now?”

  “You’re not listening.”

  “No. I’m not.”

  “Just because all you famous newspeople are here, because it’s a cheap story, cheap drama, because you’re competing with each other between martinis, you’re giving Walter March’s murder more publicity than World War Two!”

  “Carol!”

  The famous voice was no longer sleepy. It sounded as if someone had just declared World War Three.

  “You still don’t know what I’m saying.”

  “Do I have to sleep in the living room?”

  “You don’t know what you’re doing,” Carol said. “You can’t”

  “Carol.…”

  “Giving March’s murder all this publicity—all you’re doing is inciting some other kook—maybe hundreds of publicity-hungry kooks—to see if they can stick a knife, or scissors, or whatever, into the back of some other quote great American journalist unquote.”

  “Carol, for God’s sake!”

  There was another long silence.

  Then Carol Litwack’s voice said, “I just hope the next quote great American journalist unquote murdered isn’t you.”

  Fletch switched to Station 22, and heard only one “Errrrrrr” in three minutes of snores.

  He discovered that if he depressed a station button, and shoved it up a little, it would catch and remain on that station.

  On Station 23 he heard the shower running and Fredericka Arbuthnot singing a little ditty that apparently went, “Hoo, boy, now I wash my left knee; Hoo, boy, now I wash my right knee.…”

  Fletch said, “Hoo, boy. Nice knees. Treacherous heart.”

  Fletch scanned the other stations.

  There was conversation on Station 8, in syndicated humorist Oscar Perlman’s suite.

  “… like this and five dollars and you couldn’t even get a good dollar cigar.”

  “There’s a good dollar cigar now?”

  “I’m in. Two.”

  “Three little words. Make ’em nice.”

  “Nice? One, two, three. Those are nice?”

  “You’re asking? You dealt ’em.”

  “I deal without prejudice.”

  “… Litwack.”

  Oscar Perlman had written a play and a few books and had been on television often and his was the only voice Fletch recognized.

  Listening, Fletch could not even be sure how many men were in the room.

  He presumed they were all Washington newspapermen.

  “Fuckin’ phony.”

  “Who’s talking about Litwack?”

  “You recognized the description? I’m out.”

  “He’s just good-lookin’,” said Perlman.

  “He’s no journalist. He’s just an actor.”

  “All us plug-uglies are jealous of him,” said Perlman, “‘cause he’s good-lookin’.”

  “He’s no actor, either. Anybody see him jerking himself off over March’s death on the evening ersatz news show?”

  “Ersatz? Wha’s’at, ersatz?”

  “There’s no business, like show business,’ that’s news.…”

  “How much of Litwack’s income comes from his face, Walter?”

  “His face and his voice? Thirty percent.”

  “Ninety percent, Oscar. Ninety percent.”

  “He looks like everybody’s father. As last seen. Laid out in the coffin.”

  “Whose deal?”

  “Something all you guys are too jealous to recognize,” said Oscar Perlman, “is that Hy Litwack is a good journalist.”

  “A good journalist?”

  “Don’t bother. I’m folding right now. Your dealing has driven me to drink.”

  “Shit.”

  “Oscar, I thought I saw you sitting downstairs listening to Hy Litwack’s speech. In fact, I thought I saw you sitting next to me?”

  “I was there.”

  “You heard that speech and still tell us you think Hy Litwack is a good, honest, no-bullshit journalist?”

  Someone else said, “That speech was written for some afternoon ladies’ society out in Ohio. Not for his colleagues, Oscar.”

  “That’s true. Hit me once, and hit me twice, and hit me once again, it’s been a long, long time.”

  “Fuckin’ superior bastard.”

  “So?” Oscar Perlman said. “He’s not the first speaker who misjudged his audience. What are you going to do, wrap a coaxial cable around his neck and turn on the juice?”

  “At least he might have asked one of his three thousand staff members to write a new speech for us.”

  “Another reason you’re all jealous of him,” said Oscar Perlman, “is because Hy Litwack has a big, six-figure income.”

  There was a momentary silence.

  Someone said, quietly, “So have you, Oscar.”

  “Yeah. But you bastards have figured out a way of taking it away from me—over the poker table.”

  There was a laugh.

  “Oscar’s defending Hy because they’re both establishment. The two richest men in journalism.”

  “That’s right,” said Oscar. “Only Litwack’s smarter than I am. He doesn’t play poker.”

  “You going to do a column on Walter March’s death, Oscar?”

  “I don’t see anything funny about getting a pair of scissors up the ass. Even I can’t make anything funny out of that.”

  “You can’t?”

  “Pair of deuces. Pair of rockets.”

  “And the devils are up and away, Five-Card Charlie.”

  “No,” said Oscar Perlman. “I can’t.”

  “How much money has Walter March cost you, Oscar?”

  “It’s not the money. It’s the grief.”

  “Sizable bill. First, when you were working for him in Washington, for years March refused to syndicate you. He wouldn’t even let your column run in other March newspapers.”

  “He said what was funny in Washington no one would think funny in Dallas. He was wrong about Dallas.”

  “Then when the syndicate picked you up, he sued you, saying you had developed the column while working on his newspaper, and he had the original copyright.”

  “No one ever got rich working for Walter March.”

  “How much did all that cost you, Oscar?”

  “Nothing.”

 
; “Nothing?”

  “You can’t sue talent.”

  “You didn’t buy him off?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Legal fees?”

  “There were some.”

  “Grief?”

  “A lot. I’ll never forgive him. Frankly, I’ll never forgive him. Never.”

  “Then immediately he started nudging, saying if your column was going to run, it had to run in his newspapers. Right?”

  “The bastard threatened about every contract I’ve had with every newspaper in this country.”

  “This has been going on for years and years. Right, Oscar?”

  “What are you doing, playing cards or working on a story?”

  “I don’t get it,” another voice said. “So Walter March has been biting your tail all these years. Why all the grief? Lawyers are for grief. You can’t afford lawyers, Oscar?”

  “You don’t know how Walter March operated?”

  “Look at that. Nine, ten, Queen.”

  “Tell me.”

  “If you don’t know how Walter March operated, you never worked for him.”

  “Yeah, I only need one.”

  “A little blackmail. Always a little blackmail.”

  Someone else said, “That son of a bitch had more private eyes on his payroll than he had reporters. Paid ’em better, too.”

  “And they didn’t have to write.”

  “A cute man. Real cute.”

  “Shit. Son of a bitch. I’m out.”

  “You mean Walter March has been blackmailing you, Oscar?”

  “No. Just trying to find a way to. Pair of eyes behind every bush. I’m flying first class—there’s always the same son of a bitch flying coach. No matter what city I’m in, there’s always someone waiting for me in the hotel lobby to see if I go up in the elevator alone. Nuisance value, you know?”

  “Dear old saintly Walter March operated like that?”

  “Dear old saintly Walter March. The president of your American Journalism Alliance. You voted for him? Give me one card, so long as it’s the King of Clubs.”

  “I’m very grateful to him,” said Oscar Perlman. “Kept me straight all these years. I’ve never had the opportunity to lie to my wife.”