Ten
As it was late (and as Fletch had just discovered he was apparently invisible in a restaurant, anyway) he did not go out to dinner. Tiredly, he searched the kitchen cupboards and came up with a can of hash.
The telephone rang three times while he fed himself.
The first, while he was working the can opener, was a cable from Cagna.
“Connors nice hurt man. Nothing new on father. Much love—Andy.”
So Connors was in Italy. Nice, hurt at this moment were irrelevant. He was definitely in Italy.
The second call came before Fletch put the frying pan onto the burner.
“Is this really the hot-shot journalistic-wizard, cogent writer non pareil, the great I. M., the one And only, now-you-see-him, now-you-don’t Irwin Maurice Fletcher?”
“Jack!” The voice of his old boss, his city editor when he worked in Chicago, Jack Saunders, was too familiar to Fletch ever to confuse with any other voice in the world. For more than a year he had had to listen to that voice, on and off the telephone, for hours at a time. “Where are you?”
“So you’ve been passing yourself off as Peter Fletcher, eh? I just found an identity-correction advisory from the Boston Police Department on my desk.”
“In Chicago?”
“No, sir. Right here in Beantown. You are talking, to the night city editor of the Boston Star.”
“You left the Post?
“If I had realized that murder story involved the great I. M. Fletcher I never would have put it on page seven.”
“Page five.”
“I would have run it front page with photos linking you and the murdered girl indelibly in the public mind.”
“Thanks a lot. So I do know someone in Boston.”
“What?”
“How come you left the Post?”
“Boston offered more money. Of course, they didn’t tell me it costs a lot more to live here in Boston, Taxachusetts. And after you left the Post, Fletch, the old place wasn’t the same. All the fun went out of it.”
“Yeah, sure.”
“You made me look real good. Hey, you went a job?”
“Not at the moment. How are Daphne and the kids?”
“Still Daphne and the kids—face powder and peanut butter. Why do you think I work nights?”
Fletch had never known why Jack had remained married. He didn’t even like to look at his wife. He considered his kids a big noise.
“Hey, Fletch, they going to indict you?”
“Probably. Who’s this Flynn character?”
“You got Frank Flynn? You’re in luck. That’s, why you’re not in the slammer already.”
“I know.”
“They call him Reluctant Flynn. He’s very slow to make an arrest. But he’s never made a mistake. If he arrests you, boy, you know you’ve had it.”
“What’s some b.g. on him?”
“Don’t have much. He showed up here in Boston about a year and a half ago, which is very unusual. Cops hardly ever change cities, as you know. I don’t even know where he came from. He bas the rank of Inspector. Family man. Musical. He plays the violin or something.”
“He’s good, uh?”
“Cracked about a dozen major cases since he’s been here. He’s even reopened cases people never expected solved. If you’re guilty, he’ll get you. By the way, are, you guilty?”
“Thanks for asking.”
“Free for lunch?”
“When?”
“I was thinking I better get you tomorrow. Visiting people in prisons depresses the hell out of me.”
“Working nights you probably want a late lunch, right?”
“About two o’clock. Can you make it?”
“Sure.”
“If you have necktie, we can go to Locke-Ober’s.”
“Where’s that?”
“You’ll never find it. It’s in an alley. Just ask the taxi driver for Locke-Ober’s. Want me to spell it?”
“I’ve got it.”
“There are two dining rooms, Fletch. Upstairs and downstairs. I’ll meet you downstairs.”
“Okay.”
“Stay loose, kid. Please don’t knock anyone else off without calling the Star first. We’ve got: the best photographers in town.”
“Bye, Jack.”
The third call came while he was eating the hash.
“Fletcher. Darling.”
It was Countess de Grassi. The Brazilian bombshell. Sylvia. Andy’s stepmother.
“Hello, Sylvia.”
“You didn’t return my call, Fletcher.”
“What call? Where are you?”
“In Boston, darling. I called earlier and left a message.”
“Oh, that Mrs. Sawyer,” Fletch said.
He took the message off the desk, crumpled paper, and threw it hard against a drape.
“I’m at the Ritz-Carlton.”
“You can’t afford the Ritz-Carlton, Sylvia.”
“I’m the Countess de Grassi. You can’t expect the Countess de Grassi to stay in, what do you call it, fleabag.”
“However, the Ritz-Canton will expect the Countess de Grassi to pay her bill.”
“You’re being very unkind, Fletcher. This is none of your business.”
“What are you doing here, anyway, Sylvia?”
“What did Angela tell me? You came to Boston to visit your family in Seattle? Even I have a map, Fletcher. I came to visit your family in Seattle, too.”
“Sylvia, what I’m doing here doesn’t concern you even a little.”
“I think yes, Fletcher. You and Angela are, how do you say, pulling some game on me.”
“What?”
“You aim to deprive me of what is rightfully mine.”
“What are you talking about?”
“First that terrible thing happens to Menti darling, and then you two conspire about me.”
“As the grieving widow, aren’t you supposed to be in Rome? Or Livorno?”
“You and Angela plan to rob me. Cheat me. Menti would be so mad.”
“Nonsense.”
“You come over to the hotel right now, Fletcher. Tell me it’s not true.”
“I can’t, Sylvia. I’m miles from the hotel.”
“How far? How many miles?”
“Eighteen, twenty miles, Sylvia. Boston’s a big city.”
“Come in the morning.”
“I can’t. I’m tied up.”
“What does that mean, you’re tie-up?”
“I have appointments.”
“Lunch, then.”
“I have a lunch date.”
“Fletcher, I come here to catch you. I’ll call the police. They’ll listen to the Countess de Grassi at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel.”
“I’m sure they would. Sylvia, did Menti ever tell you you’re a bitch?”
“You’re a son of a bitch, Fletcher.”
“That’s no way for a Countess to talk.”
“I can say worse things in Portuguese and French.”
“I’ve heard them. All right. I’ll come to the hotel.”
“When?”
“Tomorrow. Late afternoon. Six o’clock.”
“Come to my room.”
“I will not. I’ll meet you in the bar. Six o’clock.”
“Six-thirty I call the police if you’re not here.”
“Don’t use their business phone. It upsets them.”
“What?”
“Shut up.”
The rest of the hash he flushed down the toilet.
Eleven
“Look what some son of a bitch did to my truck!”
Fletch, dressed in jeans, sweater, and boots, led the manager of the auto body repair shop through the door.
Now that he knew he was to be followed, Fletch had unbolted the kitchen door and used the back stairs. Actually, the back alley had been a shortcut to the garage on River Street.
He drove the smeared van to the auto body shop feeling as conspicuous as a transvestite at a policemen’s ball.