“Jesus, Fletch.”
“That’s what I say.”
“Can you still sing a few bars of the old Northwestern fight song?”
“Never could.”
In college, Don Gibbs had believed in the football team (he was a second-string tackle), beer (a case between Saturday night and Monday morning), the Chevrolet car (he had a sedan, painted blue and yellow), the Methodist Church (for women and children), and applied physics (for an eventual guaranteed income from American industry, which he also believed in, but which, upon his graduation, had not returned his faith by offering him a job). He had not believed in poetry, painting, philosophy, people, or any of the other
He and Fletch had been roommates in their freshman year.
“The only thing I learned in college,” Fletch said into the phone, “is that all our less successful classmates went to work for the government.”
“Who placed this call?” Gibbs’ throat muscles had tightened. “Tell me that, Fletcher. Did you call me, or did I call you? Are you asking me to help you, or am I asking you to help me?”
“Gee whiz, Don. You forgot to take your Insensitive Pill this morning.”
“I’m sick to death of you guys knocking us in the press whenever you feel like it, but whenever you have a problem that hurts even a little bit you’re crying over the phone at us.”
“Bullshit, Don. I’ve never knocked you in the press. You’ve never been important enough to knock.”
“Oh, yeah?”
They might as well have been seventeen-year-old freshmen arguing at eleven o’clock at night over who got to take a shower first. Fletch always hated to wait twenty minutes while Gibbs went through his shower routine; Gibbs hated the mirrors steamed by the time he got to take his shower.
Fletch said, “Yeah, Furthermore, I’m not asking you a favor. I’m asking you a question.”
“What’s the question, Irwin Maurice? Do you have the legal right to bug the entire American press establishment? No! Absolutely not.” His voice lowered. “But then again, Irwin Maurice Fletcher, I suspect you always have bugged the entire American press establishment.”
“Funny, funny.” He had to grant that; he had to give him something. “Since when are you a lawyer? I’m not asking for legal advice. I know it’s not nice to bug my friends with the intention of blackmail—even if I’m not the guy who’s going to be putting the screws to ’em—you shits are. My question is: Do I have to do this?”
There was a long silence from the other end of the phone.
Fletch said, “Hello? Don?”
The line clicked.
“Fletch?”
“Hello.”
“I’m trying to answer your question. Would you mind going over all the facts again?”
Don Gibbs’ voice had moderated. It had become more mature, reasonable, responsible. It also had lowered half an octave.
“I gave you all the facts when I called you from London, Don.”
“Just to make sure I’ve got everything straight.”
“You’re just trying to take advantage of a local phone call from an old friend to make you look busy at your desk,” Fletch said. “Bastard.”
Fletch knew it wasn’t a local phone call.
The number he had dialed supposedly was a Pentagon number. But he knew he was talking to Don Gibbs in that curious underground headquarters of American intelligence in the mountains of North Carolina.
“I have a plane to catch.”
“Just run it by me again, Fletch.”
“Okay. Two of your goons broke into my house in Cagna, Italy, yesterday morning, Sunday—”
“Names?”
“Gordon Eggers and Richard Fabens.”
“Eggers, Gordon and Fabens, Richard. Right?”
“You government jerks do everything backwards.”
“Did you get their identification numbers off their credentials?”
“No. But they had numbers. Lots of numbers.”
“Doesn’t matter. When you say they broke into your house, what precisely do you mean?”
“I think they entered through the French windows, doors, whatever you call them. The house was open.”
“Did they actually break anything?”
“Amazingly enough—no.”
“So they entered your house.”
“They entered it uninvited. Unexpected. Unwanted. They trespassed.”
“What are you doing with a house in Italy?”
“I live there.”
“Yeah, but why? I mean, are you working for a wire service or something?”
“No. I’m doing some writing on art. I had a piece in
“The cowboys-and-Indian artist?”
“Gee. You know something.”
“Wasn’t he a friend of Winslow Homer?”
“No.”
“Have you given up investigative reporting altogether?”
Fletch dropped a pause into the conversation. “I’m on a sabbatical.”
“Fired again, uh? I’m glad I’m not one of the more obvious successes in my class.”
“There’s no job security,” Fletch said, “without complete obscurity.”
“So what did these two gentlemen want?”
“They weren’t gentlemen.”
“Sorry to hear that. We usually send only our finest abroad. I haven’t made it yet.”
“Not surprised.”
“What did they want?”
Across the terminal the band was playing “The eyes of Texas are upon you.…”
“They told me to come to the A.J.A. convention, here in Hendricks, Virginia, and bug my ever-loving colleagues—get tape recordings of their bedroom conversations—and turn the tapes over to them, for blackmail purposes. They said there would be a suitcase full of bugging equipment here in a locker in Washington, and it is here.” Through the door of the phone booth Fletch noticed how badly the suitcase he had just taken from Locker 719 matched the rest of his luggage. “Are you telling me you don’t know all this already, Don?”
Don Gibbs said, “It’s not often we get another perspective on one of our operations.”
“When I called you from London last night, I asked you to look into all this.”
“I have,” Don said. “I’ve checked pretty thoroughly.”
“So why am I standing in a phone booth, late for a plane I don’t want to take anyway, going over it all with you again?”
“Tell me again why you agreed to do it. I just want to see if it checks out with what I know.”
“Oh, for God’s sake, Don! I’m being blackmailed.”
“I know that, but tell me again how.”
“Well.…”
“It won’t hurt to tell me, Fletcher. Don’t I already know?”
“Nice guy.” The floor of the phone booth was filthy. “Taxes.”
“You’ve never paid any?”
“Just whatever was withheld from my salary.” He was pressing the phone against his ear. “Even for those
