Fletch’s Fortune f-3

by Gregory Mcdonald

  “Oh, yeah. I read that editorial. It was right. Wisham’s a fuckin’ idiot. The world’s greatest practitioner of the sufferin’-Jesus school of journalism.”

  “Keep your conservative sentiments to yourself, Saunders. You’ve been off the street too long.”

  “Two good suspects. We’ll start doing background on them both right away. Anyone else?”

  “Remember Crystal Faoni?”

  “Crystal? Petite Crystal? The sweetheart of every ice cream store? She used to work with us in Chicago.”

  “She tells me that once when she was pregnant without benefit of ceremony, March fired her on moral grounds. Crystal had no choice but to abort.”

  “That bastard. That prude. Walter March was the most self-righteous.…”

  “Yes and no,” Fletch said.

  “Well, I’ll tell you, Fletch. Crystal has the intelligence and imagination to do murder, and get away with it.”

  “I know.”

  “I’d hate to have her as an enemy.”

  “Me too.”

  “I shiver at the thought. I’d rather have a boa constrictor in bed with me. This Captain Andrew Neale, who’s running this investigation, what do you think of him?”

  “He’s no Inspector Francis Xavier Flynn.”

  “Sometimes I think Inspector Francis Xavier Flynn isn’t, either.”

  Flynn was the only person working for the Boston Police Department with the rank of Inspector.

  “I think Neale’s all right,” Fletch said. “He’s working under enormous pressure here—the press all over the place—trying to interview professional interviewers. He’s under time pressure. He can keep us here only another twenty-four hours or so.”

  “Is there anyone else, Fletch, with motive and opportunity?”

  “Probably dozens. Robert McConnell is here.”

  “McConnell. Oh, yeah. He was what’s-his-face’s press aide. Wanted to go with him to the White House.”

  “Yeah. And Daddy March endorsed the other candidate, coast-to-coast, which may have made the difference, gave Bob his job back, and sat him in a corner, where he remains to this day.”

  “Bob could do it.”

  “Murder?”

  “Very sullen kind of guy anyway. Big sense of injustice. Always too quick to shove back, even when nobody’s shoved him.”

  “I noticed.”

  “We’ll do some b.g. on him, too. Who’s this guy Stuart Poynton mentions in tomorrow’s column?”

  “Poynton mentions someone? The desk clerk?”

  “I’ve got the wire copy here. He mentions someone named Joseph Molinaro.”

  “Never heard of him. I wonder what his name really is.”

  “I’ll read it to you. ‘In the investigation of the Walter March murder, local police will issue a national advisory Thursday that they wish to question Joseph Molinaro, twenty-eight, a Caucasian. It is not known that Molinaro was at the scene of the crime at the time the crime was committed. Andrew Neale, in charge of the investigation, would give no reason for the advisory.’ Mean anything to you, Fletch?”

  “Yeah. It means Poynton conned some poor slob into doing some legwork for him.”

  “Fletch, sitting back here in the ivory tower of the Boston Star.…”

  “If that’s an ivory tower, I’m a lollipop.”

  “I can lick you anytime.”

  “Ho, ho.”

  “My vast brain keeps turning to Junior.”

  “As the murderer?”

  “Walter March, Junior.”

  “I doubt it.”

  “Living under Daddy’s thumb all his life.…”

  “I’ve talked with him.”

  “That was a very heavy thumb.”

  “I don’t think Junior’s that eager to step into the batter’s box, if you get me. Mostly he seems scared.”

  “Scared he might get caught?”

  “He’s drinking heavily.”

  “He’s been a self-indulgent drinker for years, now.”

  “I doubt he could organize himself enough.”

  “How much organization does it take to put a scissors in your daddy’s back?”

  Fletch remembered the stabbing motion Junior made, sitting next to him in the bar, and the insane look in his eyes as he did it.

  Fletch said, “Maybe. Now, would you like to know who the murderer is?”

  Jack Saunders chuckled. “No, thanks.”

  “No?”

  “That night, during the Charlestown fires, you had it figured out the arsonist was a young gas station attendant who worked in a garage at the corner of Breed and Acorn streets and got off work at six o’clock.”

  “It was a good guess. Well worked-out.”

  “Only the arsonist was a forty-three-year-old baker deputized by Christ.”

  “We all goof up once in a while.”

  “I think I can stand the suspense on this one a little longer.”

  “Anyway, Christ hadn’t told me.”

  “If you get a story, you’ll call me?”

  “Sure, Jack, sure. Anything for ‘old times’ sake.’ “

  Twenty-eight

  From TAPE

  Station 5

  Suite 3 (Donald Gibbs and Robert Englehardt)

  “Snow, beautiful snow!”

  From his voice, Fletch guessed Don had had plenty of something.

  “Who’d ever expect snow in Virginia this time of year?”

  Fletch couldn’t make out what Englehardt muttered.

  “Who’d ever think my dear old department headie, Bobby Englehardt, would travel through the South with snow in his attaché case? Good thing it didn’t melt!”

  Another unintelligible mutter from Englehardt.

  “Well, I’ve got a surprise for you, too, dear old department headie,” Gibbs said. “‘What’s that?’ you ask with one voice. Well! I’ve got a surprise for you! ’Member those two sweet little things in Billy-Bobby’s boo-boo-bar lounge? ‘Sweet little things,’ you say together. Well, sir, I had the piss-pa-cacity to invite them up! To our glorious journalists’ suite. This very night! This very hour! This very minute! In fact, for twenty minutes ago.”

  “You did?”

  “I did. Where the hell are they? Got to live like journalists, right? Wild, wild, wicked women! Live it up!”

  “I invited someone, too.” Englehardt’s voice sounded surprisingly cautious.

  “You did? We gonna have four broads? Four naked, writhing girls? All in the same room?”

  “The lifeguard,” Englehardt said.

  “The lifeguard? Which lifeguard? The boy lifeguard? There weren’t any other type. I looked.”

  Englehardt muttered something. There was a silence from Gibbs.

  Then Englehardt said, “What’s the matter, Don? Don’t you like a change?”

  “Jesus. Two girls and a boy. And us. For a fuck party. An orgy. Bob….”

  “Take it calm, Gibbs.”

  “Where’s the bourbon? I want the bourbon. Back of my nose feels funny.”

  The doorbell in the suite was ringing.

  “And the Lord High Mayor ate pomegranates,” Don Gibbs said. “Surprising fellas, department heads. Lifeguards with snow on. Boy lifeguards.”

  “… Confront new situations,” Englehardt said. “Part of your training. Field training.”

  “Never saw anything about it in the manual.”

  Englehardt said, “You can do it that way, too.”

  Fletch’s own phone was ringing.

  “Hello?”

  He had turned the volume down on his machine.

  It was Freddie Arbuthnot.

  “Fletcher, I thought I’d be more subtle. Meet you for a swim? Or have you about had it for today?”

  “Are you in your room?”

  “Yes.”

  “Can’t you hear my tape recorder?”

  “That’s how I knew you were still awake.”

  “Then you should be able to figure out I’m working very hard. On my
travel piece.”

  “By now, I think, you’d have said everything there is to say about Italy.”

  “You can never say enough about Italy. A gorgeous country filled with gorgeous people.…”

  “All work and no play.…”

  “Makes jack.”

  “Why don’t you stop working, and come for a swim? We can have the pool all to ourselves.”

  “What time is it in your room?”

  “Midnight. Twelve-thirty-five. What time is it in yours?”

  “My dear young lady. Crystal Faoni got very cold in that pool during the mid-afternoon.”

  “And with all her insulation.”

  “She was chilled.”

  “I saw your efforts to warm her up.”

  “Now, if she got cold in mid-afternoon, what do you think might happen to us at half-past midnight?”

  “We might get warmed up.”

  “You miss the point, Ms. Arbuthnot.”

  “The point is, Mister Fletcher, you shot your wad.”

  “The point is, Ms. Arbuthnot.…”

  She said, “And I thought you were healthy,” and hung up.

  There was a poker party, or the poker party, going on in Oscar Perlman’s suite, a whacky tobacky party in Sheldon Levi’s, silence in the Litwacks’; Leona Hatch was issuing her “Errrrrr’s” regularly; Jake Williams was on the phone to a March newspaper in Seattle, sounding very tired (something about how to handle a story about a fistfight among major-league baseball players in a downtown cocktail lounge); in her room Mary McBain appeared to be all alone, crying; Charlie Stieg was in the last stages of a seduction scene with a slightly drunk unknown; Rolly Wisham and Norm Reid were tuned to the same late-night movie in their rooms; Tom Lockhart’s room was silent.

  Fletch switched back to Station 5, Suite 3.

  “Switch!” Don Gibbs was shouting. “Everybody switch! Swish, swish, swish, I SAID!”

  There was a considerable variety of background noises, some of which Fletch had difficulty identifying.

  A girl’s voice sang, “Snow, beautiful snow.…”

  “Everybody get your snow before it melts,” Don Gibbs said.

  There was the sound of a hard slap.

  Englehardt’s voice, low and serious, said, “When I pay money, I want to get what I pay for.”

  “Cut that out,” Gibbs said. “I said, ‘Switch!’ Everybody switch!”

  A young man’s voice said, “You’re not paying for that, bastard.”

  “Switch! I said!”

  Fletch listened long enough to make sure a second female voice was recorded by his marvelous machine.

  Then Don Gibbs was saying, “Whee! We’re living like journalists! Goddamn journalists. Goddamn that Fletch! Live like this alla time. Disgusting!”

  Fletch put his marvelous machine on automatic, for Station 5, Suite 3, and took a shower.

  Twenty-nine

  Wednesday

  The sun was up enough to have dissipated the dew and, after a long but gentle gallop, make Fletch hot enough to stop and pull off his T-shirt and wrap it around his saddle horn.

  When he stopped to do so his eye caught the sun’s reflection off a windshield between trees, up the side of a hill, so he rode to a point well behind the vehicle and then up through scrub pine level to it, where he found an old timber road. He rode back along it.

  Coming around a curve in the road, he stopped.

  A camper was parked in the road.

  Behind it, lying on his back, blood coming from his mouth, was the man he had been looking for, the man the masseuse, Mrs. Leary, had mentioned, the man in the blue jeans jacket, the man with the tight, curly gray hair.

  He was obviously unconscious.

  Over him, on one knee, going through a wallet, now looking up at Fletch apprehensively, was none other than Frank Gillis.

  Fletch said, “Good morning.”

  “Who are you?” Gillis asked.

  “Name of Fletcher.”

  Gillis returned to his investigation of the wallet. “You work here?”

  “No.”

  “What then? Staying at the hotel? Hendricks?”

  “Yes.”

  “You a journalist?” There was a touch of incredulity in Gillis’ voice.

  “Off and on.” Fletch wiped some sweat off his stomach. “You’re Frank Gillis.”

  “You got it first guess.”

  For years, Frank Gillis had been traveling America finding and reporting those old, usually obscure stories of American history, character, odd incidents, individuals, which spoke of and to the hearts of the American people. During days when America had reason to doubt itself both abroad and at home, Gillis’ features were a tonic which made Americans feel better about themselves, even if only for a few minutes, and, probably, during the nation’s most trying days, did a lot, in their small way, to hold the nation together.

  Fletch said, “And you just mugged somebody.”

  Gillis stood up and dropped the wallet on the man’s chest.

  “Yeah, but guess who,” he said. “Get down. Come here. Look at him.”

  Gillis was a man in his fifties, with gentle, smiling eyes and a double chin.

  Fletch got off his horse and, holding the reins, walked to where Gillis was standing.

  He looked down at the man on the ground.

  His was a much younger face than Fletch had expected—much, much younger than indicated by the gray hair.

  “My God,” Fletch said.

  “Right.”

  “Walter March.”

  Gillis was looking around at the tops of the trees, fists on his hips, still visibly provoked.

  “Why’d you mug him?”

  “I have a distinct dislike of people flicking lit cigarettes into my face.” He ran his hand over his cheek, left of his nose. “I only hit him once.”

  “You know him?”

  “Don’t care to. I stopped to ask for directions.” The great explorer of contemporary America smiled sheepishly. “I was lost. This guy was standing here behind the camper, rolling a cigarette. When I saw his face, I was astounded. I said, ‘My God, you’re the spitting image of…’ and a real rotten look, real pugnacious, came into his face, so I stopped, and he lit his cigarette, and he said, ‘Of who?’ and I said, ‘Old March, Walter March,’ and, flick, the cigarette went into my face and I’d hit him before I knew it.” He looked down at the much younger, inert man. “I only hit him once.”

  “You hit good,” Fletch said. “Glad I don’t smoke.”

  “No way to get a story,” Gillis said, rubbing his knuckles.

  On the ground, the man’s head and then his left leg moved.

  “What’s his name?” Fletch asked.

  “Driver’s license says Molinaro. Joseph Molinaro. Florida license.”

  The camper had Florida license plates.

  “Golly,” said Fletch. “This guy’s only twenty-eight years old.”

  Gillis looked at him sharply, and then said, “Young body. You’re probably right.”

  Suddenly, Molinaro’s eyes opened, immediately looking alert and wary, even before shifting to focus on Fletch and Gillis.

  “Good morning,” Fletch said. “Seems you took a nap before breakfast.”

  Molinaro sat up on his elbows, and then reacted to pain in his head.

  His wallet slipped off his chest onto the dry dirt of the road.

  “Take it easy,” Fletch said. “You’ve already missed post time.”

  Molinaro’s eyes glazed and he looked as if he were about to sink to the ground again.

  Fletch put his hand behind Molinaro’s arm.

  “Come on. You’ll feel better if you get up. Get the blood going again.”

  He helped Molinaro stand, waited while he wiped the blood off his lips, examined it on his hand.

  Molinaro looked sourly at Gillis.

  Throwing off Fletch’s hand, Molinaro staggered the few steps to the back of the camper and sat on the sill of the open door
.

  “You have some bad habits,” Gillis said. “And I have a quick temper.”

  “Your name Joseph Molinaro?” Fletch asked.

  The man’s eyes moved slowly from Gillis to Fletch without losing any of their bitterness.

  He said nothing.

  “What relation are you to Walter March?” Gillis asked.

  Still the man said nothing.

  “Are you his son?” Fletch asked.

  The man’s eyes lowered to the road, and then off into the scrub pine.

  And he snorted.

  Fists again on hips, Gillis looked expressionlessly at Fletch.

  A mosquito was in the air near Fletch’s face. He caught it in his hand.

  Gillis went to the side of the road and gathered up his horse’s reins and slowly returned to where he had been standing.

  He said to Molinaro, “You are Walter March’s son. With that face you have to be. Did you murder him?”

  Molinaro said, “Why would I murder him?”

  “You tell us,” Gillis said.

  “The son of a bitch is no good to me dead,” Molinaro said.

  Gillis watched him with narrow eyes, saying nothing.

  “What good was he to you alive?” Fletch asked.

  Molinaro shrugged. “There was always hope.”

  There was another silent moment while Molinaro rubbed his temples with the heels of his hands.

  Finally, Fletch said, “Come on, Joe. We’re not out to get you.” He had considered telling Molinaro that Poynton had reported there would be a national advisory issued that morning saying the police wanted to question him. He had also considered advising Captain Andrew Neale of the whereabouts of Joseph Molinaro. “We’re not even looking for a story.”

  Molinaro said, “Just nosy, uh?”

  Joseph Molinaro had been in the vicinity of the crime at the time the crime was committed.

  He had accosted Mrs. Leary in the parking lot Sunday morning, and Walter March had been murdered Monday morning.

  Clearly, Joseph Molinaro was a close relative of Walter March.

  Fletch said, “What good was Walter March to you alive?”

  “I wrote three or four polite letters when I was fifteen, asking to see him. No answers.” Molinaro’s fingers were touching his jaw, gently. “When I was nineteen, I took a year’s savings, working in a laundry, for Christ’s sake, went to New York, lived in a fleabag for as long as I could hold out, just to bug his secretary, asking for an appointment. First I gave my name, then I gave any name I could think of. He was always out of the country, out of the city, in conference.” He winced. “I had even bought a suit and tie so I’d have something to dress in, if he’d see me.”