“Thanks, Mister Poynton.”
Fletch got out of the long chair and introduced Fredericka Arbuthnot and Stuart Poynton by saying, “Ms. Blake, I’d like you to meet Mister Gesner.”
As they shook hands, Poynton gave Fletch a glance of gratitude and Freddie gave him her usual
After Poynton ambled away, Freddie said, “You get along well with everybody.”
“Sure,” Fletch said. “I’m very amiable.”
“That was Stuart Poynton,” she said.
“Are you sure?”
“Why did you introduce him as whatever?”
“Are you Ms. Blake?”
“I am not Ms. Blake.”
“Are you Freddie Arbuthnot?”
“I am Freddie Arbuthnot.”
“Are you sure?”
“I’ve looked it up.”
“You have nice knees. Very clean. Hoo, boy!”
She blushed, slightly, beneath her tan.
“You’ve been listening through my bathroom wall.”
“Whatever do you mean?”
“That was a little song I was taught. As a child.” She was blushing more. “The ‘Wash Me Up’ song.”
“Oh!” Fletch said. “There is a difference between boys and girls! I was taught the wash-me-down song!”
She put her fist between his ribs and pushed.
“There’s a difference between people and horses,” she said. “People and weirdos.”
“Playing tennis?” he asked.
“Thought I might.”
“You have a partner, of course.”
“Actually, I don’t.”
“Odd,” said Fletch. “There seems to be a court reserved in my name. Eleven o’clock.”
“And no partner?”
“None I know of.”
“That is odd,” she said. “One ought to have a partner, to play tennis.”
“Indeed.”
“Makes the game nicer.”
“I suspect so.”
“Would you please go get dressed?”
“Why are people always saying that to me?”
“I suspect people aren’t always saying that to you.”
“Oh, well,” said Fletch.
“Ms. Blake is waiting for you,” Freddie Arbuthnot said softly. “Patiently.”
Fifteen
12:00 Cocktails
“Hi, Bob? Is this Robert McConnell?
“This is Crystal Faoni… Crystal Faoni. We sat at the same table last night. I was the big one in the flower- print tent.…Yeah, isn’t she gorgeous? That’s Fredericka Arbuthnot. I’m the other one. The one twice the size people spend half the time looking at.…
“Say, I really dig you, Bob. I think you’re great. I read your stuff all the time.…
“Yeah, I read your piece this morning. On the murder of Walter March. You mentioned Fletcher, uh? Fletcher. We used to work together. On a newspaper in Chicago. You really put it to him, didn’t you… what was it you wrote? Something about Fletch’s already having figured prominently in two murder cases but never indicted … and he used to work for Walter March … ?
“Let me tell you something about Fletch.…
“Useful information? Why, sure, honey.…
“Just a funny story, really.…
“See, there was this guy in Chicago Fletch didn’t like much, a real badass named Upsie… a pimp running a whole string of girls in Chicago, real young kids, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen-year-olds, pickin’ ’em up at the bus station the minute they hit town, pilling them up, then shooting them up, putting them straight on the street sometimes the same damn’ night they hit town.
“As soon as the kids got to the point where they couldn’t stand up anymore, couldn’t even attract fleas— which was usually a few months, at most—like as not they’d be found overdosed in some alley or run over by a car. You know?
“A big, nasty business Upsie was running. This fast turnover in girls meant there was very little live evidence against him, ever. What’s more, he could pay off heavy, in all directions, up and down the fuzz ladder.…
“This was a very slippery badass.
“Fletch wanted the story. He wanted the details. He wanted the hard evidence.
“’Course he got no cooperation from the police.
“And the newspaper wasn’t cooperating, either. The editors, they said, you know, what’s one pimp? It isn’t worth the space to run the story. Typical.
“And Fletch wasn’t doing this precisely right, either.
“Every time he talked a girl into his confidence and began getting stuff he could use as evidence, he’d realize what he was doing, what he was asking them to do, in turning state’s evidence—allow themselves to be dragged through the newspapers and television and courts for months, if not years.
“Upsie had already badly damaged their lives in one way.
“Fletch saw himself badly damaging their lives in another way.
“These kids were so young, Bob.…
“Anyway, as soon as Fletch got the story from each girl, instead of using it, he found himself getting her to a social service agency, a hospital, or getting up the scratch to bus her home—whatever he thought would work.
“He did this six, eight times maybe.
“Well, Upsie got upset. He was pretty sure, I guess, Fletch wasn’t going to be able to print anything on him, ever, what with no police support, no newspaper support, and while Fletch kept sending his best sources of evidence home on a bus … but nevertheless, Fletch was hurting Upsie’s business by continually taking these girls away from Upsie before they were ready to be wiped.
“Get the point?
“So Upsie sends a couple of goons out, and they find Fletch, drag him out of his car—a real honey, a dark
