Fletch and the Man Who

“You know the governor couldn’t possibly have made a statement,” Fletch said. “He’s in the factory!”

“Are you playing with us?” Ira Lapin yelled.

“No,” Fletch said. “Here are the statements.” He tried to hand them out, but they were grabbed from him.

Bill Dieckmann said to Betsy Ginsberg, “You I can outrun.”

“With a strong tail wind,” Betsy said.

“You must have wires screwed into your heads,” Fletch muttered.

Andrew Esty scanned the statement, then looked up at Fletch. There was rage in his face. “There’s no religious consolation in it! In the statement!” Esty wore a Daily Gospel button even in the lapel of his overcoat.

“God,” Fletch said.

At varying speeds, the members of the press slid through the snow and wind to the telephones inside the factory’s main gates.

Except Freddie Arbuthnot. She stood in the snow, grinning up at Fletch.

“Not interested?” Fletch asked.

“Already phoned it in,” Freddie said. “Such a statement has three parts. Compliment the deceased’s professional expertise. Consolation for family and friends. Offer of help to opposing campaign. Did I miss anything?”

Fletch watched as a dirty, old taxi pulled up at the factory’s main gate. The factory was an expensive taxi ride from anywhere.

“Amazing bunch of savages. Screaming for the governor’s statement on a matter they knew the governor couldn’t even know about yet.”

“Ah, Fletch,” Freddie said. “You’re turning establishment already.”

A man had lifted a battered suitcase out of the taxi. Money in hand, he was arguing with the driver.

“Who’s that?” Fletch asked.

Freddie turned around. “That,” she said definitely, “is bad news. Mr. Bad News, himself.” Turning back to Fletch, she said, “Mr. Michael J. Hanrahan, scourge of respectable journalists everywhere, lead dirt-writer for that chain of daily lies and mischief, the scandal sheet going under the generic name Newsbill.”

Carrying his suitcase in one hand, a portable typewriter in the other, overcoat hems flapping in the wind, the man was lumbering toward the campaign bus. The taxi driver was shouting something at him, which could not be heard in the wind.

“That’s Hanrahan? I hoped never to meet him.”

Hanrahan turned his head and spat toward the taxi driver.

“I thought Mary Rice was covering us for Newsbill.”

“Mary’s a mouse,” Freddie said. “Hanrahan’s a rat.”

“ ’lo, Arbuthnot.” With either a smile or a grimace, Michael J. Hanrahan tipped his profile toward her, looking at her out of the corner of his eye. “Made it with any goats lately?”

“Always a pleasure to witness your physical and mental degeneracy, Hanrahan,” Freddie answered. “How many more hours to live do the doctors give you?”

Hanrahan didn’t put down either his suitcase or his typewriter case. He shivered in his overcoat.

The skin of his face was puffy, flushed, and scabrous. Between the gaps in his mouth were black and yellow teeth. His clothes looked as stale as last month’s bread.

“Never, never use a toilet seat,” Freddie advised Fletch, “after Hanrahan has used it.”

Hanrahan laughed. “Where’s this jackass Fletcher?” he asked her.

“I’m the jackass,” Fletch said.

Hanrahan closed his mouth, tried unsuccessfully to breathe through his nose, then opened his mouth again. “Oh, joy,” he muttered. “This kid doesn’t even go to the bathroom, I bet. Probably been taught not to. It isn’t nice.” He put his chin up at Fletch, who was still on the stairs of the campaign bus, and tried to give Fletch a penetrating look with bloodshot eyes, each in its own pool of poison. “Boy, are you in trouble.”

“Why’s that?” Fletch asked.

“ ’Cause you’ve never dealt with Hanrahan before.”

“Dreadful stuff you write,” Fletch said.

“All you’ve had to deal with so far are these milksop pussycats mewing for your handouts.”

“Meow,” said Freddie.

“You’re gonna work for me,” Hanrahan said. “You’re gonna work your shavvy-tailed ass off.”

“What do you want, Hanrahan?”

“I want to sit down with your candidate. And I mean now.”

“Not now.”

“Today. Within a few hours. I need to ask him some questions.”

“About what?”

“About dead broads,” Hanrahan snapped. “That broad in Chicago. That broad last night. The brutally slain debutante your candidate leaves behind him everywhere he goes.”

“Newsbill’s electronics must be good as Newsworld’s,” Fletch said to Freddie.

“Newsworld’s doesn’t use such colorful words,” Freddie said. “Archaic though they may be.”

“Hell, Hanrahan,” Fletch said, “that matter’s already wrapped up.”

Hanrahan squinted. “It is?”

“Yeah. They took Mary Rice into custody an hour ago. Your own reporter. From Newsbill.”

“Bullshit.”

“He’s right, Hanrahan. We all know how far you Newsbill writers will go to make a story. Mary just got caught this time.”

“The police knew the murderer was Mary because she left someone else’s notes at the scene of crime,” Fletch added.

Even Hanrahan’s neck was turning red. “You know how many readers I got?” he shouted.

“Yeah,” Freddie said. “Everyone in the country who can’t read, reads Newsbill. Big deal.”

“They all vote,” Hanrahan insisted to her.

“More’s the pity,” Freddie said to the ground.

“I want to get together with your candidate now,” Hanrahan said. “And no more juvenile crap from you!”

“Doubt the candidate will have all that much time for you, Hanrahan.”

“What’s the matter?” Hanrahan took a step forward. “Doesn’t little boyums like the smell of big bad man’s breath?”

“Highly indicative, I’m sure,” Fletch said.

“You put me together with your candidate, let me work him over with my bare knuckles, or tomorrow Newsbill’s readers are going to be told Governor Caxton Wheeler refuses to answer questions about two recent murders on his campaign trail.”

“You just do that, Hanrahan.” Fletch turned to climb the bus steps. “It will be the first time you’ve ever written the truth.”

9

“Listen to this.” Dr. Thom was stretched out on the bed in the candidate’s stateroom at the back of the bus. He was reading a book entitled The Darwinian Theory as Fossil. “‘For thousands of years, we have been told perfection is not attainable, but a worthy aspiration. In this post-Freudian era, we are told normalcy is not possible, but a worthy aspiration. In one scheme, we might achieve excellence; in the other,