Fletch’s Fortune by Gregory Mcdonald

Author:Gregory Mcdonald [Mcdonald Gregory]
Format: epub
Tags: Fletch
ISBN: 9780307523914
Publisher: Vintage Crime/Black Lizard, Vintage Books, A Division of Random House, Inc.
Published: 1978-06-24T05:00:00+00:00

Twenty

3:30 P.M.

COMPUTERS AND LABOR UNIONS

Seminar

Aunt Sally Hendricks Sewing Room

At three-thirty Wednesday afternoon all the tennis courts were in use, the swimming pool area was full, and on the hills around Hendricks Plantation House people were walking and horseback riding.

The bar (Bobby-Joe Hendricks Lounge) was dark and empty except for some people from the Boston press keeping up their luncheon glow with gin and tonics.

And Walter March, Junior, sitting at the bar.

Fletch sat beside him and ordered a gin and bitter lemon from the bored, slow-moving barman.

At the sound of his voice, Junior’s head turned slowly to look at him.

Junior’s eyes were red-rimmed and glazed, his cheeks puffy, his mouth slack. A small vein in his temple was throbbing. He looked away, slowly, thought a moment, burped, and looked back at Fletch.

He said, “William Morris Fletcher. I remember you.”

“Irwin Maurice Fletcher.”

“Tha’s right. You used to work for us.”

“Practically everybody used to work for you.”

“Flesh. There used to be a joke about you. ‘And the Word was made Fletch.’ ”

“Yeah.”

“There were lots of jokes about you. You were a joke.”

Fletch paid the barman.

Walter March, Junior, said, “You heard my father’s dead?”

“I heard something to that effect.”

“Someone stabbed him.” Junior made a stabbing motion with his right hand, his eyes looking insane as he did it. “With a scissors.”

Fletch said, “Tough to take.”

“Tough!” Junior snorted. “Tough for him. Tough for March Newspapers. Tough for the whole mother-fuckin’ world.”

“Tough for you.”

“Yeah.” Junior blinked slowly. “Tough for me. Tough darts. Isn’t that what we used to say in school?”

“I don’t know. I wasn’t in school with you.”

There was a long, slow, blinking pause.

Junior said, “My father hated you.”

Fletch said, “Your father hated everybody.”

Another three blinks.

“I hated you.”

“Anyone who hates me is probably right.”

“My Jesus father thought you were night and day.”

Fletch sipped his drink. “What does that mean?”

Junior tried to look at Fletch in the proper executive fashion. “You know, he wanted to make a thing with you. He loved your balls.” Junior’s eyelids drooped. “He wanted to bring you along, you know? Make something of you.”

“Gee, and I’m not even in journalism anymore. Just a hanger-on.”

“Do you remember his trying to frighten you once?”

“No.”

“He tried to scare you.”

“I don’t remember it.”

“Tha’s because you weren’t frightened, shit. You remember the story about the Governor’s secretary?”

“Yeah.”

“He sent memos to you. Directly. Telling you to blow the story.”

“Sure.”

“He came to town. Sent for you in his office.”

“Yeah.”

“Scared the shit out of you.”

“Did he?”

“Told you you’d be fired if you wrote the story.”

“Five minutes in an office.…”

Junior’s head swooped up toward Fletch. “You wrote the fuckin’ story! And then quit!”

“Yeah.”

There was a long pause, and two small burps.

“It wasn’t the Governor Dad cared about. Not the Governor’s secretary. Not the story.” This time Junior put the back of his hand to his burp. “It was you.”

“There was a long pause,” Irwin Maurice Fletcher said, “while Irwin Maurice Fletcher reacted.”

“You don’t get the point,” Junior said.

“I get the point,” Fletch said. “People are always shittin’ around, and I’m me. I always get the point.

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