“You still don’t know what I’m saying.”
“Do I have to sleep in the living room?”
“You don’t know what you’re doing,” Carol said. “You can’t”
“Carol.…”
“Giving March’s murder all this publicity—all you’re doing is inciting some other kook—maybe hundreds of publicity-hungry kooks—to see if they can stick a knife, or scissors, or whatever, into the back of some other quote great American journalist unquote.”
“Carol, for God’s sake!”
There was another long silence.
Then Carol Litwack’s voice said, “I just hope the next quote great American journalist unquote murdered isn’t you.”
Fletch switched to Station 22, and heard only one “Errrrrrr” in three minutes of snores.
He discovered that if he depressed a station button, and shoved it up a little, it would catch and remain on that station.
On Station 23 he heard the shower running and Fredericka Arbuthnot singing a little ditty that apparently went, “Hoo, boy, now I wash my left knee; Hoo, boy, now I wash my right knee.…”
Fletch said, “Hoo, boy. Nice knees. Treacherous heart.”
Fletch scanned the other stations.
There was conversation on Station 8, in syndicated humorist Oscar Perlman’s suite.
“… like this and five dollars and you couldn’t even get a good dollar cigar.”
“There’s a good dollar cigar now?”
“I’m in. Two.”
“Three little words. Make ’em nice.”
“Nice? One, two, three. Those are nice?”
“You’re asking? You dealt ’em.”
“I deal without prejudice.”
“… Litwack.”
Oscar Perlman had written a play and a few books and had been on television often and his was the only voice Fletch recognized.
Listening, Fletch could not even be sure how many men were in the room.
He presumed they were all Washington newspapermen.
“Fuckin’ phony.”
“Who’s talking about Litwack?”
“You recognized the description? I’m out.”
“He’s just good-lookin’,” said Perlman.
“He’s no journalist. He’s just an actor.”
“All us plug-uglies are jealous of him,” said Perlman, “‘cause he’s good-lookin’.”
“He’s no actor, either. Anybody see him jerking himself off over March’s death on the evening ersatz news show?”
“Ersatz? Wha’s’at, ersatz?”
“There’s no business, like show business,’ that’s news.…”
“How much of Litwack’s income comes from his face, Walter?”
“His face and his voice? Thirty percent.”
“Ninety percent, Oscar. Ninety percent.”
“He looks like everybody’s father. As last seen. Laid out in the coffin.”
“Whose deal?”
“Something all you guys are too jealous to recognize,” said Oscar Perlman, “is that Hy Litwack is a good journalist.”
“A good journalist?”
“Don’t bother. I’m folding right now. Your dealing has driven me to drink.”
“Shit.”
“Oscar, I thought I saw you sitting downstairs listening to Hy Litwack’s speech. In fact, I thought I saw you sitting next to me?”
“I was there.”
“You heard that speech and still tell us you think Hy Litwack is a good, honest, no-bullshit journalist?”
Someone else said, “That speech was written for some afternoon ladies’ society out in Ohio. Not for his colleagues, Oscar.”
“That’s true. Hit me once, and hit me twice, and hit me once again, it’s been a long, long time.”
“Fuckin’ superior bastard.”
“So?” Oscar Perlman said. “He’s not the first speaker who misjudged his audience. What are you going to do, wrap a coaxial cable around his neck and turn on the juice?”
“At least he might have asked one of his three thousand staff members to write a new speech for us.”
“Another reason you’re all jealous of him,” said Oscar Perlman, “is because Hy Litwack has a big, six-figure income.”
There was a momentary silence.
Someone said, quietly, “So have you, Oscar.”
“Yeah. But you bastards have figured out a way of taking it away from me—over the poker table.”
There was a laugh.
“Oscar’s defending Hy because they’re both establishment. The two richest men in journalism.”
“That’s right,” said Oscar. “Only Litwack’s smarter than I am. He doesn’t play poker.”
“You going to do a column on Walter March’s death, Oscar?”
“I don’t see anything funny about getting a pair of scissors up the ass. Even I can’t make anything funny out of that.”
“You can’t?”
“Pair of deuces. Pair of rockets.”
“And the devils are up and away, Five-Card Charlie.”
“No,” said Oscar Perlman. “I can’t.”
“How much money has Walter March cost you, Oscar?”
“It’s not the money. It’s the grief.”
“Sizable bill. First, when you were working for him in Washington, for years March refused to syndicate you. He wouldn’t even let your column run in other March newspapers.”
“He said what was funny in Washington no one would think funny in Dallas. He was wrong about Dallas.”
“Then when the syndicate picked you up, he sued you, saying you had developed the column while working on his newspaper, and he had the original copyright.”
“No one ever got rich working for Walter March.”
“How much did all that cost you, Oscar?”
“Nothing.”
“Nothing?”
“You can’t sue talent.”
“You didn’t buy him off?”
“Of course not.”
“Legal fees?”
“There were some.”
“Grief?”
“A lot. I’ll never forgive him. Frankly, I’ll never forgive him. Never.”
“Then immediately he started nudging, saying if your column was going to run, it had to run in his newspapers. Right?”
“The bastard threatened about every contract I’ve had with every newspaper in this country.”
