Fletch Won (5 page)

Fletch asked, “Isn’t that what society writers do?”

“Probably,” answered Biff. “I wouldn’t know.”

“Where are your clothes?” Gomez asked.

“Mrs. Habeck took them.”

“ ‘Mrs. Habeck took them,’ ” Biff repeated. He sighed.

“Where is she?” Fletch asked. “Didn’t she let you in the house?”

“The cook let us into the house,” Gomez said. He added, “She had just returned that moment from grocery shopping.”

“You haven’t talked to Mrs. Habeck?”

“Mrs. Habeck isn’t here,” Gomez said.

“She isn’t? Where are my clothes?”

“I think that’s something we’d all like to know,” Gomez answered.

“She couldn’t have left with my clothes,” Fletch said.

“Maybe this Mrs. Habeck wanted to make another donation to a museum.” Biff chuckled. “An example of late-twentieth-century bummery costumery.”

Gomez laughed.

“I didn’t get much out of her anyway,” Fletch said.

“Oh, you didn’t,” said Biff. “She got your clothes off you.”

“Frankly, she seemed a little off-the-wall. Weird, you know what I mean?”

“Weird, uh? She got your clothes off you and disappeared with them, and you say
she’s
weird?”

“Come on, Biff,” Fletch said.

Down the grassy slope Fletch saw the gardener’s sombrero rise, move a few meters, and lower from sight again.

Biff said, “You’re not supposed to be here, and you know it.”

“There’s still the story of the donation, Biff. What happens to it now?”

“Your name is Fletcher?” Biff confirmed.

“Spelled with an
F.”

“Get out of my face, Fletcher. Get out of it, and stay out of it.”

Dripping and naked, Fletch stood over the gardener. “Any idea where I can get a towel?”

The gardener looked up at him. His face was younger than Fletch had expected.

Slowly the gardener stood up. He took off his denim shirt and handed it to Fletch.

“Gee, thanks. I really mean it. Those guys just said the cook is in the house.” He wrapped the shirt around him. “I’ll get it back to you as soon as I find some clothes. Nice guy. Give someone his shirt right off his back.”

The gardener knelt down and resumed weeding the flower bed.

“You have any idea where Mrs. Habeck went?”

“La señora no es la señora.”

“What?”

“La señora no es la mujer, la esposa.”

“What? ‘The lady is not the wife.’ You speak English better than I do. What are you saying?”

“You mean that broad you were talking to, right?” the gardener asked.

“Right.”

“She’s not Mrs. Habeck.”

“She’s not?”

“Mrs. Habeck is young and pretty.” The gardener sketched a shapely form in the soil with his finger. “Like that. Blond.”

“She said she was Mrs. Habeck.”

“She’s not.”

“She the cook?”

“The cook is Hispanic. Forty years old. She lives two blocks from me.”

“Then who was she?”

“I dunno,” the gardener said. “Never saw her before.”

As Fletch was going through the Habecks’ kitchen, the cook shrieked at the sight of a strange man naked except for a denim shirt hanging from his waist.

As Fletch was going up the stairs, Biff Wilson came out of the living room and said, “I’ve just talked to Frank Jaffe. He says you’re a dumb kid who misunderstood your assignment. You’re to get your ass back to the office and report to Ann McGarrahan in Society double quick time.”

“Right,” said Fletch. “Double quick.”

He began taking the stairs two at a time.

“Why are you going upstairs?” Biff yelled.

Fletch yelled back, “I parked my car up here.”

As Fletch handed the denim shirt back to the gardener, Fletch said, “Sorry I can’t give it back to you washed, dried, and pressed, but that’s how I lost my last clothes. They were headed for a wash.”

As the gardener stood up and put back on his shirt, his eyes crinkled at the sight of the clothes Fletch was wearing.

Fletch shrugged. “Found this suit in Habeck’s closet. He’ll never miss it.”

“The suit is short and fat.”

“I got a belt. Nice tie. The necktie should distract the eye from the rest of the ensemble, right?”

“You’re ready to boogie, man.”

“Thanks again. The cook yelled at me.”

“I heard. I thought it was the noon whistle.”

“What would she have done if you hadn’t lent me your shirt?”

“Scrambled eggs while they were still in the refrigerator.”

“Where did you learn your Spanish?” Fletch asked.

“BHHS.”

“BHHS?”

“Yeah,” the gardener said, stooping to his work. “Beverly Hills High School.”

“Cecilia’s Boutique. Cecilia speaking. Have you considered jodhpurs?”

“I’m thinking very seriously about jodhpurs,” Fletch said into his car phone.

“They’re just coming in, sir. In another month they’ll be all the rage. I’m sure your wife would be really impressed if you bought her jodhpurs now. Impressed by your prescience.”

“So should the jodhpurs be impressed. I haven’t got a wife.” Waiting at the red light at the intersection of Washington and Twenty-third, Fletch saw that all was peaceful at the liquor store. Plywood had been nailed over the shattered breakproof glass of the door. They were ready for their next attack. “May I speak with Barbara Ralton, please?”

Cecilia hesitated. “Sales personnel are not to take personal phone calls. May I take a message for her?”

“Sure. This is Fletcher. Tell her I can’t see her for lunch today. Please also tell her I look forward to buying her a pair of jodhpurs, at Saks.”

“Here I am,” Fletch said.

“Here who is?” Ann McGarrahan, society editor of the
News-Tribune
, was a tall, broad-shouldered woman in her forties. She sat behind a desk that was too small for her in an office that was distinctly too small for her.

“I thought you people in Society knew everyone.”

“Everyone who is anyone,” Ann said softly. The corners of her mouth twinged with a smile. “Which obliges me to repeat: Who are you?”

“I.M. Fletcher.” Fletch looked at the dead, brown fern on Ann’s windowsill. “A nobody. Beneath your attention. May I go now?”

“Where have you been?”

“Oh, I changed clothes.” Fletch held out the skirts of Donald Habeck’s suit coat. “Frank said something about my needing a suit and tie for this job.”

Ann studied him over her half-lenses. “And that’s the suit? That’s the tie?”

“Good material in it.”

“I daresay. Clearly you made your investment in the material, and not the tailoring.”

“I’ve lost weight.”

“Gotten taller, too. Your trouser cuffs are a half-foot above your ankles.”

“Have you heard that in another month jodhpurs will be all the rage? Lord, what I bring to this department.”

“I see. Your sleeves are modified knickers, too, are they? They stop halfway down your forearms.”

“I’m ready to cover the social scene.”

“The young women around here call you Fletch, don’t they?”

“When they call me at all.” Fletch sat in a curved-back wooden chair.

“Why don’t they use your first name?”

“Irwin?”

“What’s wrong with Irwin?”

“Sounds like a hesitant cheer.”

“Your middle name then. Don’t you have a middle name?”

“Maurice.”

“I know lots of nice people called Maury.”

“I’m not one of ’em.”

“Okay. You’re a Fletch. It just sounds so much like a verb.”

“To fletch, or not to fletch: that is the copulative.”

“Guess I’ll have to fletch. Well, Fletch. Not only has Frank Jaffe sent me you, with warnings regarding your appearance which, however dire, were still insufficient, he also sent me a strong suggestion as to what your first assignment might be.”

“I know what it is.”

“You do?”

“Yeah. Stay on this story concerning the five million dollars Donald Habeck and his wife decided to donate to the art museum. To stay right on it until I get to the bottom of it and everything else concerning the Habecks. Right?”

“Wrong. Of course.”

“That was my assignment, for about a minute and a half this morning.”

“Wasn’t Donald Habeck the man murdered in our parking lot this morning?”

Fletch shrugged. “Just makes the story more interesting.”

“Oh, we have an interesting story for you to work on, Fletch. It was Frank’s suggestion. In fact, he mentioned the suggestion originally came from you.”

“From me? A story for the society pages?”

“We don’t really think of this section as being society anymore, Fletch. Although, of course, there’s always the social aspect of it. We think of it more as human interest, with the emphasis on women’s interests.”

“That’s why I brought up the latest scoop on jodhpurs.”

“It’s not just fashion anymore, it’s more lifestyle. It’s not just beauty, it’s health.”

“Right: women’s healthy lifestyles.”

“You’d be surprised at some of the topics some of our younger women writers want to discuss these days.” Ann picked up some copy off her desk. “Here’s an article comparing the relative merits of manufactured dildos. With pictures, supplied by the manufacturers, I expect. Do you think we should run an article comparing dildos, Fletch?”

“Uh…”

“Which do you think is the best dildo in the world today?”

“I can’t tell you.”

“Why not?”

“I couldn’t be disinterested. I’m attached to it. It would be a subjective opinion.”

“I see.” Again Ann McGarrahan struggled to keep the corners of her mouth straight. She dropped the copy onto her desk. “Ah, the woes of being an editor. Needless to say, I’ve had that story on my desk for some time.”

“Dildo?”

“Yes.”

“I’m sure you’ll find space for it.”

“So, you see, we’re into all sorts of areas of interest to you. We are not just concerned with little old ladies who slip vodka into their tea.”

“Big-mouth Frank.”

“So you haven’t yet figured out what your assignment is? I was hoping it would come to you, on your own.”

“Something about sexual aids? I know: you want me to do a report on what sexual aids do two out of three gynecologists recommend.”

“You ran in the Sardinal Race yesterday.”

“Oh, no.”

“Didn’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Frank told me you ran behind a group of about a dozen women you couldn’t bring yourself to pass.”

“Oh, no.”

“These same women received rather wide publicity, it seems, on this morning’s sports pages of the
News-Tribune.”
As she was saying this, Ann McGarrahan opened the
News-Tribune
to the sports section and looked at the two large photographs, on facing pages, of this group of women, coming, and going. “My, they are attractive, healthy young women, aren’t they?”

“Not too shabby.”

“For some reason, Frank takes this spread on his sports pages as some sort of personal affront. Also, I suspect he is in his office right now getting considerable flak for it, from the usual groups.”

“Oh, boy.”

“ ‘Ben Franklyn Friend Service. A service company,’ ” Ann appeared to read from the newspaper. “What sort of service do you suppose they provide, Fletch, to have Frank so upset?”

“You’re kidding.”

Ann jutted her large face across the desk and asked, “Does it have something to do with men?”

“I suspect so.”

“Tell me what.”

Fletch felt the back of his chair pressing against his
shoulder blades. “It’s an escort service of the traveling-whorehouse variety, and I suspect you know that.”

“Ah! Sounds like there’s a story here.”

“What? No story …”

“As I’ve outlined to you,” Ann said, “on these pages we’re concerned with women’s interests, their health, how they make their livings—”

“This is a family newspaper!”

“Nice to hear you say so. Your investigation, of course, will be discreetly reported.”

“You want me to investigate a whorehouse?”

“Who better?”

“I’m getting married, Saturday!”

“Have you already passed your blood test?”

Fletch took a deep breath.

Ann held up the flat of her hand to him. “This is a new thing, as I understand it: prostitutes who are obliged to stay in prime physical condition. Goes along with several articles we’ve run on organic gardening, I think. How does this Ben Franklyn Friend Service operate? What is the source of their discipline? How do they entertain men professionally without having to drink a lot themselves? If they are not dependent upon drugs themselves, why are they prostitutes? How much money do they make?” Ann continued to hold up her hand. “Of most importance, who owns Ben Franklyn Friend Service? Who derives the profit?”

Fletch let out his breath, and said nothing.

Ann said, “I think we could have a story here.”

“Best way to do it,” said Fletch, “might be to send one of your young women writers in to apply for a position with Ben Franklyn Friend Service.”

“Ah, but it was your story idea, Fletch. Frank said so himself. It wouldn’t be right for us to take it away from you. Of course, we may send a young woman in, too, for a preliminary investigation, that side of the story.”