Fletch Reflected (2 page)

She recited the main number of the estate. “There’s a switchboard,” she said. “I’m in the American Girl Rose Suite.”

Andy stepped into his workstation.

“What does that mean?” Jack asked.

“The suites don’t have numbers. Each is named after a particular flower, or plant. My suite is called the American Girl Rose Suite.”

“Ah. I see. Sounds homey enough. Does it come complete with pricks?”

“Homey enough if your last name is Windsor. Will you at least think about it?”

“I don’t see how I can.”

Shana Staufel sighed. “Okay. Well, it was nice meeting you. Nice talking to you.”

“Best wishes,” Jack said, “on your marriage.”

•

“A story?” Andy asked.

“A girl.”

Jack stood up.

“Alex Blair asked me to tell you to come to his office right away.”

“Who’s he?”

“His office is down the Central Corridor, right next to the C.E.O.’s.” Andy sat in his chair. “He’s waiting for you now.”

“Okay.”

“Jack?”

“Yeah?”

“You know, one of my assignments here is to answer the phone to Mister Fletcher. He’s a stockholder. A director. He has a past in this business, at least print journalism, I don’t know, was a respected journalist, I guess: I’ve heard he was; I’ve heard he wasn’t. Sometimes he calls me three and four times a day. Then weeks will go by when I don’t hear from him at all. When he has story ideas, needs some research done.”

“Sounds like a tough assignment.”

“No,” Andy said. “It’s interesting. I try to figure out what he’s doing, thinking, what he’s working on by the questions he asks. He’s very oblique. Almost never do his questions mean nothing. Usually something interesting results; sometimes something sensational. I’m learning a lot from him. I think I am. It was that way regarding The Tribe story. There were little questions about The Tribe I could have ignored, about a jailbreak in Kentucky, about a woman named Faoni. One huge story developed, and one very good story.”

“This guy Blair is waiting for me.”

“How did you meet Mister Fletcher, Jack? How did your paths cross?”

Jack said, “Ask him.”

“J
ack!” Rising from behind his massive mahogany desk, the slim, graying man in the form fitting blue suit seemed genuinely glad to see him. Smiling, he came around the desk and shook Jack’s hand with both of his. “I’ve been seeing you around the office all week, of course, but I haven’t had the chance to stop and say hello.”

His gray eyes were not smiling.

“Are you Mister Blair?” The smiling secretary had nodded Jack through the office door without speaking.

“Alex.” The man continued to hold Jack’s hand. “Call me Alex.”

Returning to his desk, Blair nearly sang, “What a wonderful story! So glad to nail those racist bastards! Wish we could rid the world of that scum for all time! We’re so damned pleased you brought the story to Global Cable News!” He sat in the tall leather swivel chair behind his desk. “Sit down, Jack, sit down!”

Sitting, Jack looked around the office. All the wood was mahogany, or appeared to be. Everything else Jack had seen in the GCN building was glass, steel, plastic—very good plastic, of course. In the mahogany bookcases were television screens, rows of them.

“So,” Jack said, “you’re the guy who fixes the t.v.’s?”

“What?” Blair followed Jack’s eyes to the rows of t.v. sets. “Oh!” He chuckled. “A little joke.”

Jack smiled his agreement with Blair’s assessment.

Blair stirred some papers around on the glass surface of his desk. “We need your Social Security number.”

Jack reached for his wallet. “I thought you’d never ask. Where are you going to assign me?”

“Where what?” The man kept his eyes on his desk.

“I’m free to take a foreign assignment,” Jack said. “Not married. Not entangled.”

“We have your name as John Faoni.” He spelled Faoni. “Have we been right about that?”

“Yes,” Jack answered. “J-O-H-N.”

“You know, we don’t even have your address.”

“I don’t have one here in Washington, yet. Will I need one? You’ve been putting me up in a motel down the highway.”

“Oh, yes. Is it comfortable?”

“I don’t know. I’ve been spending day and night in this building, getting these stories out. This is the first morning I’ve had nothing to do.”

“I had lunch in that motel once.”

“Was it good?”

Blair’s cheeks colored slightly. “Brunch, actually.”

“Oh,” Jack said. “You slept late.”

Jack handed his Social Security card to Blair and recited his mother’s address in Indiana.

Blair asked, “How did you happen to come across Mister Fletcher?” At Jack’s lack of response, Blair continued. “Very fortunate for us you did. Mister Fletcher is a great friend to all of us here at GCN. On the Board of Directors, a Consulting/Contributing Editor, but working as he does in his own unorthodox ways, well outside, away from the network, he brings great freshness to us. Keeps us honest, in some ways. However it happened, you were very lucky to cross paths with him.”

“Yes,” Jack said. “Lucky.”

“He worked with you on the Tribe stories, yet accepted no credit for them.”

Jack said nothing.

“What did you say your relationship is with Mister Fletcher?”

“Relationship?” Jack would be damned before he would state his “relationship” with the member of the Board of Directors of Global Cable News, Consulting/Contributing Editor Irwin Maurice Fletcher.

He would be damned if he would tell every turkey who gobbled, especially one who could influence his career positively, that the above described Irwin Maurice Fletcher was the real and natural father he had always heard about, read about, read, dreamed about…

And that Jack had arranged to meet for the first time ever only the week before …

That The Tribe exposé was Jack’s story …

And that Jack had gone well out of his way to suck the aforesaid Fletcher senior reluctantly into the investigation of the story, to see what his father was really like …

And so that his father could see what he, Jack, was really like.

Not his style.

“Yes. I mean, we’re puzzled as to why he gave you these stories on The Tribe, worked with you, then sent you to us. Why didn’t he use our own people?”

“This was my story,” Jack said. “I set it up. Mister Fletcher didn’t become involved until nearly the end of the investigation.”

“So.” Blair smiled knowingly. “You involved him in it so you could have access to Global Cable News.”

Jack said nothing.

“Very generous of him,” Blair insisted. “Typical of him, I must say.”

Blair handed a thick, folded paper across the desk to Jack.

“Lucky for us,” Blair said. “Lucky for you. I couldn’t stand the sight of those people, myself.”

Jack unfolded the paper. It was a check drawn on a
Global Cable News bank account for a large sum of money. It was made out to John Faoni.

“That’s nice,” Jack said.

“Commensurate with our appreciation,” Blair said. “Your stories on the Tribe made quite an international splash. Shouldn’t be surprised if they won us some prizes.”

“Let’s hope,” Jack said. He was puzzled by the large amount of the check. “So … I get one of these every week?”

“Pardon?”

“What, what…” First, Jack had asked what his assignment would be, and had had no answer. “Just what will my annual salary be?”

“From … ?” Blair let the preposition hang in the air.

Jack realized he had let a proposition hang in the air. A presumption. “Global Cable News.”

“You’re not an employee of Global Cable News, Mister Faoni.”

“But…”

“We looked at your work as a favor to Mister Fletcher. It just happened to work out. This time.”

“You’re not offering me a job?”

“Of course not. We don’t even know you. You arrived here looking like something washed up on the beach, carrying a sack of videotapes and computer disks, which we were able to use. I understand we had only one phone call from Mister Fletcher. If we hadn’t had that, you never would have gotten in the door.”

“I had the story!”

“And we gave you credit. And”—Blair’s gray eyes looked at the check in Jack’s hand—“payment.”

Jack looked down at the check. “You’re paying me off?”

“With thanks. Didn’t Andy tell me you’re still in journalism school somewhere?”

“I can’t go back there. Not at this point.”

“Well, wait till the term rolls ’round again. You have the money in your hands for a nice vacation. My wife and I are very fond of taking the train trip across Canada. Magnificent scenery. Excellent service.”

“You’re not offering me a job?”

“Things are tight here now, Jack. There’s so much competition in this business. We have difficulty, you see, in persuading all American businesses they should spend as much as eighty percent of their gross income on advertising. A few still resist the idea. We’re not exactly laying people off, but we are not replacing people who leave for one reason or another. What we need are young people with experience. Just because you’ve worked on one story we do not consider you experienced.”

“It was my story. My name was on it. It was a great story. You said it should be a prizewinner.”

“Yes.” Blair smiled. “We’re very grateful to Mister Fletcher.”

Jack tightened his jaw. He was sorely tempted …

He had to remind himself of what was his style, and what wasn’t.

“Naturally,” Blair said softly, “we hope that if you ever come across another story like The Tribe you’ll talk to us about it first. Maybe a little earlier in the investigation of the story…. We have more experienced people here. I mean, that story really should have been a team effort.”

“‘A team effort’?” Jack could not imagine a t.v. film crew swarming The Tribe’s encampment and getting much of a story. That wouldn’t have been journalism; that would have been publicity.

“We would have liked to have vetted some of the things you undoubtedly did to get that story with our legal department, for example. We can only hope that legal repercussions won’t develop from your work. I’m advised there are certain concerns that might be raised regarding privacy issues.”

“You’re worried about being sued by White Supremacists for my invading their privacy?”

“You were on private land. The computer system you broke into …”

“Lor’ love a duck,” Jack said. “You television wallahs just want pictures.”

“And of course you started the story while you were in prison, didn’t you?”

“You don’t understand that? I was placed in the prison—”

“I know what I’ve heard. One never knows what’s true.”

“One doesn’t?” Jack’s mouth was dry. “Isn’t that what this business is about?”

“Oh, sure.” Blair’s smile was sardonic. “That’s what I mean, Jack. You need experience. Go back to school. Go somewhere you can do lots of stories. Develop a first class resume. Right now … left school … prison … white supremacists … who knows what you are … a diamond in the rough, maybe …”

Check in hand, Jack rose from his chair.

“It’s been nice meeting you, Mister Blair.” He reached his arm across the mahogany desk. Blair rose and shook Jack’s hand.

“Hope you don’t mind my giving you a little fatherly advice,” Blair said. “You got credit for this big story, but it’s ours now. We bought it. It’s over. And essentially you are untried. You lucked out, once. This is over. It’s a big, dirty world out there, no one owes you a living, go back to school, get a job, get married, have kids, who knows, you might be happy in some other line of work altogether. …”

Still holding Blair’s hand, staring into his gray eyes, Jack said, “Sorry you fell overboard. My door is always closed to you.”

“What?” Uncertainly, Blair chuckled.

Jack said, “Bye.”

“V
indemia. Good morning. How may I help you?”

“Will you ring the American Girl Rose Suite, please?” Jack asked.

“Ringing.”

Again, Jack was using Andy Cyst’s phone.

“No answer, sir, in the American Girl Rose Suite.”

“I’m calling for Ms. Shana Staufel.”

“I doubt Ms. Staufel would be in her room at 11:30 in the morning, sir. Hold on.” Jack held on. At the moment he didn’t much care what this personal telephone call cost Global Cable News. “Sir? I’ve tried the outdoor pool, the spa, the skeet-shooting range, the golf house, and the stables. Is there anywhere else you think I should try?”

“Yeah. The phone outside the gas station in the village.”

“Sorry, sir. That’s a pay phone. We can’t plug into that.”

“May I leave a message?”

“Certainly, sir.”

“This is Jack Faoni. The message is, ‘Prepare the Cactus Suite, Coz’.”

•

“Fletch. Hello?”

“Hey, Dad.”

“Urmph.”

“What’s the matter?”

“Nothing. Something made my ears block.” Fletch wondered if he’d ever get used to the word “Dad.” There must be some alternative. The young man so enjoyed using it.

Until a week before, Fletch had never known he had a son.

He still hadn’t taken legal advice to prove that one John Fletcher Faoni was his son.

“Where are you?” Jack asked.

“Approaching Forward, Wisconsin, from the southeast.”

“I’m surprised you dare show your face in that burg.”

“Thought I’d better clean up the mess I helped make for your mother. Today is moving day for the denizens of Blythe Spirit.”

“Your story on GCN closed down Mama’s favorite fat farm?”

“As a journalist, never be the rooster who believes it is only his crowing which brings up the sun.”

“Now what will she do?”

“The State of Wisconsin is closing it down, for health reasons, while handing out fraud indictments to everyone involved they can find.”

“Are you going to pick her up?”

“Is that a joke?”

“You can’t pick up a woman who weighs over six hundred pounds? Mama done tol’ me you were always pickin’ up all kindsa wimmin.”

“I am driving a rented handicap van with an hydraulic lift.”

“She’ll be furious with you. Blythe Spirit has become her home away from home.”