Fletch and the Widow Bradley

“You’re serious about this.”

“Entirely.”

“Do you intend to spend the money?”

“I will if I want. If there’s something I want that costs a thousand dollars, I’ll spend it.”

“Is there something you want that costs a thousand dollars?”

“Not that I know of. Probably I’ll think of something. I didn’t really steal the money to spend it.”

“Oh, no. Of course I believe that.”

“You make me sound like a suspicious person.”

“You’re not suspicious. You’re a crook.”

“Fletcher, if you’d lost twenty-five thousand dollars in cash, do you think anyone else would drive all around the country trying to get it back to you?”

“I certainly hope so.”

“Then you’re an idealist slightly more demented than Icarus.”

“Which Icarus is that?”

“The guy who flew toward the sun with wings attached by wax. The melting kind of wax.”

“Oh, that Icarus. That kind of wax.”

“Demented.”

“Moxie, there’s such a thing as a social contract. It makes the world go ‘round.”

“I don’t notice Frank Jaffe, or your newspaper, observing any social contract with you.”

“Of course they have. It appears I goofed, and they fired me. That’s perfectly agreeable.”

“You were lied to by someone at Wagnall-Phipps.”

“Charles Blaine. And Enid Bradley did try to observe the social contract with me. She offered me money to make up for the damage I’ve suffered at the hands of Wagnall-Phipps.”

“Did you accept?”

“No.”

“More likely she offered you money to make you go away.”

“I think so, too.”

“It’s also written into the social contract, Loosers weepers, Finders keepers.”

“Where is that written?”

“Page 38. Clause 74.”

“That’s the social contract for young readers. Ages four to seven.”

“Really, Fletch.”

“Moxie, what am I going to do if I find the man, this James St. E. Crandall, and I haven’t got the full twenty- five thousand dollars?”

“I have just given you reason—necessity, you might all call it—to stop looking for James St. E. Crandall. Don’t you get the point? You’re such a slow boy.”

“You’re a crook. You’ve stolen a thousand dollars.”

“I’ve done you a favor.”

“Stop doing me favors. At seven o’clock you’re doing me the favor of trying to get me a job as a male stripper. At eleven o’clock you tell me you’ve done me the favor of stealing a thousand dollars from me. What’s the next favor you’re going to do me? Give me whooping cough?”

“I’ll think about it.”

“Jeez!”

“You think about it, too.”

“Think about what?”

“All the nice favors I’ve been doing you. You’ll feel much better in the morning. You’ll wake up and realize you have twenty-four thousand dollars to spend. You’re so rich you can even afford to work in the theater.”

“Good night, darling.”

“ ‘Night, lover. Sweet dreams.”

22

F L E T C H   O P E N E D   H I S apartment door to the corridor and found himself looking down at himself, his face streaked with grime and sweat, on the front page of the News-Tribune.

“Oh, no.”

MOTORIST PREVENTS BRIDGE SUICIDE ATTEMPT was the headline over the photograph.

Towel wrapped around his waist, he picked up the newspaper, closed the door, and sat down on the divan in his livingroom.

An observant passerby with a willingness to risk his life to save the life of another climbed out onto the superstructure of the Guilden Street Bridge after dark last night and talked a middle-aged female potential suicide victim back to safety.

“In this life we’re all in the same car together,” said Irwin Maurice Fletcher, 24.

Until Friday of last week, Fletcher was a member of the News-Tribune editorial staff.

Fletcher said his eye happened to be caught by the potential victim’s skirt fluttering in the breeze as he drove onto the bridge…

The telephone rang. Absently, still reading, Fletch picked up the receiver.

“Hello?”

“Fletch? Janey. Frank wants to talk to you.”

“Frank who?”

“Hey, Fletch!” Frank Jaffe’s voice sounded too cheery for a Monday morning. “You made the front page.”

“Not the first time, Esteemed Managing Editor.”

“The News-Tribune gave you quite a spread.”

“I have it in my lap. Nice of you guys to report in the third paragraph you fired me last week. Really helps in the care and feeding of Irwin Maurice Fletcher.”

“Makes us look like shits, don’t it?”

“It do.”

“Had to report it. Journalistic honesty, you know?”

“You had to report it in the lead?”

“Yeah, well, I agree—that stinks. Some of the people around here are pretty burned off at you, in case I didn’t tell you before. One old desk man wondered aloud this morning why you didn’t let the woman jump so you could then interview her. After she drowned, that is.”

“I got the point, Frank.”

“Some of these guys have a truly vicious sense of humor.”

“Tell them if they don’t restrain themselves I won’t interview them after they’re dead.”

“I don’t suppose you want to hear the headline they really wanted to run.”

“I don’t suppose I do.”

“You might.”

“I doubt it.”

“I mean, with your irrepressible sense of humor?”

“Okay, Frank. Give it to me. I haven’t had breakfast yet.”

“The headline they wanted to run was GUILDEN STREET BRIDGE HERO FIRED BY THE NEWSPAPER YOU TRUST.”

“Too long for a headline. Why did you call, Frank? To congratulate me?”

“Hell, no. I’ve always known you could talk the bark off a tree. No big feat, talking a woman off a bridge. Not for you.”

“So why did you call?”

“It’s Monday morning. I’m in the office.”