“I would rather have taken it in pay.”
“He couldn’t believe.… Who were you married to then?”
“I don’t remember.”
“He said, ‘Either all of it’s true, or none of it’s true.’”
“None of it’s true,” Fletch said. “At the age of eleven, if you want the truth.…”
“Stories,” Junior said. “Used to get stories about you. At dinner.”
Fletch said, “This is very uncomfortable. What a lousy bar. The barman has dirty elbows. No music. What’s that noise? ‘Moon River.’ That’s what I mean. No music. Look at that painting. Disgusting. A horse, of all things. A horse over a bar. Ridiculous.…”
Junior was blinking over his drink.
“It was me Dad hated.”
“What?”
“All my life … I grew up.…”
“Most of us did.”
“… being Walter March, Junior. Walter March Newspapers, Junior. The inheritor of enormous power.”
“That can be a problem.”
“What if I wanted to be a violinist, or a painter, or a baseball player?”
“Did you?”
Junior closed his eyes tight over his drink.
“I don’t even know.”
Someone at the table in the corner said, “Walter marched.”
Someone else said, “And about time, to boot!”
Fletch looked over at them.
Junior hadn’t heard.
“You know, the first day I was supposed to report for work,” Junior said. “September. The year I graduated college. They’d let me have the summer off. I walked to the office. Stood across the street from it, staring at it. Twenty minutes. Maybe a half-hour. Then I walked back to my apartment. I was scared shitless. That night, Jake Williams came over to my apartment and talked to me. For hours. Next morning, he picked me up and we walked into the March Newspapers Building together.” Junior went through the motions of drinking from his empty glass. “Good old Jake Williams.”
Fletch said nothing.
“Fletcher, will you help me?”
“How?”
“Work with me. The way Dad wanted.”
“I don’t know anything about the publishing side of this business. The business end.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“It does to me.”
Junior tightened his right fist and let it down slowly on the bar, as if he were banging it in slow motion.
“Help me!”
“Junior, I suspect you missed lunch.”
“My father loved you so much.”
“Come on, I met the bastard—I mean, your father—I mean, your father the bastard, the big bastard five minutes in his office.…”
“I can’t esplain. I can’t esplain.”
Fletch, on his bar stool, was facing Walter March, Junior.
There were tears on Junior’s cheeks.
Fletch said, “Nappy time?”
Junior straightened up immediately. Suddenly, no tears. No whining voice. No quivering. Princeton right down the spine. Hand firmly around the empty glass. Not deigning to answer.
“Hey, Walt,” Fletch said. “I was thinking of a sauna and a rub. They’ve got this fantastic lady hidden away in the basement, a Mrs. Leary, she gives a great massage.…”
Junior looked at him. He was the President of March Newspapers.
“Good to see you again, Fletcher,” he said. He cleared his throat. “I guess I just said I’m sorry you didn’t stay aboard.” He dipped his head to Fletch. “Can I have a drink sent to your room?”
“No, that’s all right.” Fletch stood up from the bar stool.
He looked at Junior, closely, through the dark of the bar.
“As a matter of fact, Walt.” Fletch put his hands in his trouser pockets. “I would like you to send a drink to my room.” He drawled, “I’d appreciate it. Room 79.” He spoke slowly, softly, deliberately. “A couple of gin and tonics. Room 79. Okay? I’d appreciate it. Room 79.”
Fletch wasn’t sure how well Junior was hearing him, if at all.
“Thanks, Walt.”
Twenty-one
“… Yeah.”
“May I say, Mister Perlman, how much my wife enjoys your columns.”
“Fuck your wife.”
“Sir?” Captain Neale said.
“Fuck your wife. It’s always, ‘My wife likes your columns.’” Clearly, Oscar Perlman was talking through a well-chewed cigar. “Everytime I do anything, a book, a play, it’s always, ‘My wife likes it.’ I go to a party and try to get the topic of conversation off me and my work, because I know what to expect all ready. I say, ‘What did you think of Nureyev last night at the National Theater?’ ‘My wife liked it.’ Always, ‘My wife liked it.’ You saw the latest Bergman? ‘My wife liked it.’ What about Neil Diamond’s latest record—isn’t it somethin’ else? ‘My wife liked it.’ You read the new Joe Gores novel? ‘My wife.…’ What about
“Mister Perlman, I am just a normal veteran.…”
“You do fuck your wife, don’t you?”
“I have never met such a bunch of strange, eccentric, maybe sick people.…”
“Does she say she likes it?”
“Mister Perlman.…”
“Do you believe everything your wife says? Who should believe everything his wife says anyway? Why don’t you say you enjoy my column? I work just for wives? Fred Waring worked for wives. And look at him. He invented Mixmasters. No, he invented Waring blenders. Maybe there’s a man who’s pleased to have everybody come up to him saying, ‘My wife likes your work.’ He sold plenty of Waring blenders. Jesus Christ, why don’t you just shut up and sit down.
“I have a terrible feeling I’ve just blown a column on you,” Oscar Perlman said. “So already you owe me seventeen thousand dollars. Relax. You want a cigar? Play cards? A little up and down? I don’t drink, but there’s
