They focused on what they did not yet know.
Outside the back door, Fletch waited for Jack to turn off the hose before handing him a plate of ham and eggs. Standing in the morning sunlight, Jack proceeded to eat his breakfast.
When Fletch handed Leary his breakfast, Leary sat cross-legged on the grassy slope, naked and wet, to eat. Obviously he had lifted weights at one time. Most of his bulk had slipped into his gut, ass, thighs. His skin was pure white. He seemed to wrap his whole body around his plate of food.
He looked like a huge, hairless, white baby.
Fletch dropped a big garbage bag on the ground. He said to Jack. “Put everyone’s clothes and boots in this.”
“Then what do I do with it?”
“I haven’t figured that out yet. The cops will be here later. To collect Moreno.”
Jack looked up at him. “Just Moreno?”
“The rest of you will be gone by then. By the way, where are we really going?”
“Uh? South.”
Fletch repeated, “Where are we really going?”
“Tolliver, Alabama. There’s a camp there. In the woods. You know where Tolliver is?”
“Yes. Are you expected there?”
“Kriegel is.”
“What kind of a camp? Boy Scout?”
“The Tribe.” Jack watched Fletch’s face.
“The Tribe? What’s that when it’s at home?”
“If you don’t know,” Jack said, “you’ll find out. I want you to find out.”
“A grand bunch of sterling chaps, I’m sure.”
“Sure,” Jack said. “Like a hunting camp, you know?”
“Paramilitary? Do they have a good marching band?”
“By the way, may I bring the guitar?”
“That will be nice. You can lead the singing around the campfire. I’ll bring the marshmallows.”
In the morning light, Jack was squinting at Fletch’s face.
Fletch asked, “If you’re Kriegel’s lieutenant, what’s Leary’s function?”
“Bodyguard.”
“Kriegel’s bodyguard?”
“Yeah.”
Fletch nodded at the big baby sitting naked on the grass. He had dropped scrambled egg onto his stomach. With his hand he had slathered it up onto his chest. “I can see he would be good at that. Who wouldn’t want to stay away from him? Did he kidnap someone because he was lonely?”
“I think you’re about right,” Jack said.
“Whom did he kidnap?”
“A teenaged girl. I think he thought they were eloping.”
“She didn’t think so?”
“No. And he carried her across a state line.”
“The Mann Act. Did he rape her?”
“I think he thought he was making love. He kept her three weeks in a school bus. When he finally understood she didn’t like him, he went to a pool hall and tried to sell her.”
“His feelings were hurt.”
“Again I think you’re right.”
Leary must have been hearing them talking about him. He never even looked up. He kept scoffing his food with his fingers.
Jack said, “You might say he just didn’t know how to do things right.”
Watching Leary eat, hearing about him, Fletch’s stomach churned. “Not properly brought up, you might say.”
Jack said, “You might say that.”
“And Moreno?” Fletch asked. “What was his role in this scheme?”
“Money. He had a stash of it. In Florida.”
“Drug money?”
“Yeah.”
“You all were going to rob him?”
“Rob him? He owed us.” Jack grinned. “Then we were going to rob him. Once we knew how to get to his money.”
“For a guitar picker, you sure know some different scales.” Avoiding the puddles, Fletch walked toward the smokehouse.
“Hey,” Jack said. “Don’t I get any coffee?”
“You drink coffee?”
“Sure.”
“You can go in the house. Ask Carrie to help you find some clothes for your traveling companions. White shirt, decent slacks for Kriegel, maybe a necktie. Overalls for Leary. I don’t want Leary wearing a shirt.”
Glancing at Leary’s blubber, Jack muttered, “I do.”
“WE ARE SORRY, but due to seismic disturbances, your telephone call to this exchange in California cannot be completed at this time. Please try your call at a later time.”
“Wow.” Fletch was in the smokehouse, with the door closed, using his cellular phone. “‘Seismic disturbances’! They’re so used to California rockin’ and rollin’ they’re ready with a recorded message! A recorded message about seismic disturbances! So cool! We are sorry, Fletch imitated the computer voice, as California has just crumbled into the ocean and whoever you are calling doubtlessly has just been swallowed by earth, fire, or water, we are unable to complete your call. Have a nice day! Should have called Andy Cyst in the first place. Last night.”
While punching in Alston Chambers’s home telephone number, Fletch had felt a twinge of guilt. He was sure he would be waking Alston and his whole family. He assuaged his guilt by telling himself that matters had gotten to such a point at the farm, his inferences had been so unsettling, especially regarding a son, Crystal’s son—to say nothing of his having a murderer, a rapist-kidnapper, an attempted murderer, and a corpse underfoot; that he was apparently aiding these fugitives from justice; that he was going somewhere, being taken somewhere of which he was distinctly unsure; that now Carrie was involved, however gladly, whimsically in his reaching out to his son, Crystal’s son, his trying to discover the truth about him, perhaps irrationally risking too much for someone essentially a stranger with a poor resume, desperately he needed factual information. From the telephone company’s recorded message, Fletch now assumed Alston and his family were up. Or down. Or in or out.
Now punching in Andy Cyst’s home telephone number in Virginia, California passed before Fletch’s eyes: some of his life, experiences there; some of his friends, people he loved, others.
What was happening to them?
Andy answered on the first ring. “Hello?”
“Andy, what’s happening in California?”
“Aftershocks?” Andy answered. “Foreshocks? Another of the big ones? Geologists, as you know, Mister Fletcher, are slow to commit to their jargon.”
“Any real damage reported?”
“Many communication lines aren’t working. So we don’t know. This series started just an hour ago. Where are you?”
“At the farm. I’m not really calling about California.”
“Good.” Andy’s voice was always eager. Not this morning. “Ask me something I know.”
“Andy, you don’t sound like your old self.”
“I’m fine.”
“A little irascible?”
“Just fine.”
Having been a print journalist, and someone who had written a book, Fletch persisted in believing there was not much future in electronics, generally. Therefore, in an effort to dispose of some money he never was sure he deserved, many years previously he had invested in a start-up business called Global Cable News.
On his last visit to their offices three years previous, he discovered that since Global Cable’s move from Washington, D.C., to deep in the Virginia countryside, their headquarters had grown to airport-hangar size. Besides the studios, there were rows and rows of young people frowning at computer workstations. There were whole sections of medical doctors working as journalists, lawyers working as journalists, people with doctors of philosophy in the various disciplines working as journalists, athletes working as journalists. They did not seem to talk to each other, NO SMOKING signs were everywhere. There were neither wads of chewing tobacco nor chewing gum on the floors. The windows were clean. The facility had a health spa, including trainers, handball courts, and an Olympic-sized swimming pool, and a day-care center. Just the parking lot was acres big.