Fletch and the Man Who

the campaign (Lansing Sayer, Fenella Baker, Stella Kirchner). Asking him to contact other journalists calling in from around the country (plus one from Mexico City and one from the Times of London). There were three messages asking him to return the calls of Rondoll James in Iowa.

He had returned Alston Chambers’s call.

Alston said, “Thought I’d tell you I followed up on that question I asked you last night.”

“What question?”

“About Walsh’s sudden departure from the field. After our three days hanging in the trees.”

“Sure. He was tired. He’d had enough of it. His poppa had the political pull to bring him home. I would have gotten out of there at that point, too, if I could have. Any of us would have.”

“Yes, but not quite. Walsh sassed a superior officer.”

Fletch blinked. “Who didn’t?”

“I talked to Captain Walters. He runs a book distribution center in Denver now, by the way.”

“Nice man. Used to get reading books for all of us. Never lost his cool.”

“Yeah, well he says that at one point, Walsh did.”

“You’re kidding.”

“Laced into Major Leslie Hunt.”

“First time I ever heard her name pronounced with an H.”

“That she was. You remember her.”

“Awful bitch. Resented soldiers being men.”

“Remember the thing she was always going on about?”

“Yeah. Mess tent had to be in the middle. Regulations. Forget the snipers. Mess tent in the middle to impress the enemy. As they shot at us. Impress them with our stupidity.”

“Two guys from K Company got shot on their way to breakfast. One in the leg, not bad; one in the back, pretty bad.”

“I don’t remember that.”

“Walters says that’s what started it off. Walsh yelled at Major Hunt in staff meeting.”

“He got sent home for that? Should have gotten a free night at the Officers’ Club.”

“No. Later he threatened her.”

“Good.”

“With a rifle butt. That’s where his dad’s pull came in. There were two or three witnesses. Captain Walters said that charges might have been brought against Walsh, probably would have been, if his dad weren’t in Congress on some military appropriations committee.”

“Hell, Walsh had been through three of the worst days in any man’s life. The major was a stupid bitch. Never been to the front herself, so she wanted to make heroes in the chow line.”

“All true. Thought I’d tell you.”

“So Walsh lost his temper at her. Good for him.”

“Walters remembers you. Asked for stories about you. I said there weren’t any.”

“Walsh isn’t so stupid,” Fletch said. “Scared the shit out of a bitch, and got a quick ride home. His momma didn’t have no fools.”

31

“I agreed to meet with you two against my better judgment,” Walsh said.

They sat at a small round table in a dark corner of a bar a block from Melville’s First Hotel. Peanuts glistened in a bowl in the center of the table. A glass of beer had been placed in front of each of them: Walsh, Fletch, Michael J. Hanrahan, and Fredericka Arbuthnot. Hanrahan had been served a shot of rye as well.

The jukebox was playing “Limpin’ Home to Jesus.”

Hanrahan downed his rye.

“Fletch, here, insisted upon it, apparently because of the shit you published in Newsbill this morning, Hanrahan,” Walsh continued in a low tone. “A few hours after you join the campaign, apparently you can make headlines in your rag by writing no one would talk to you about some murders or something that happened sometime, somewhere.” Walsh rolled his eyes upward and shook his head. “I expect there are a few examples of breaking and entering that have happened around us you also might ask us about. And don’t forget sodomy. A lot of sodomy goes on in these motels.” His voice was almost a tired drone. “What we’re really meeting about is very simple. You’re not political writers, either of you. Fletcher tells me you’re crime writers. There’s no reason I can think of why we should make room for you on the press bus. You’ve asked for this meeting, and I’m going to give it to you. But at the moment, I can’t think of any reason why I shouldn’t ask Fletch to deny press credentials to you both.”

“Speech over?” Hanrahan asked.

Freddie had glanced at Fletch. “Denying us press credentials wouldn’t do you much good. Riding the press bus isn’t the most pleasurable experience of my life.”

“Yeah,” Hanrahan said. “Newsworld would supply Arbuthnot with a limousine and driver. Me, I’d get a helicopter. In other words, stuff it, Wheeler.”

Walsh popped some peanuts into his mouth. “Fletch and I have to be at a staff meeting in a few minutes.” Chewing, Walsh’s neck muscles were visibly tight through his opened shirt collar. “If you’ve got any questions, you’d better roll ’em out.”

Hanrahan had downed his beer. For a moment, his eyes sparkled. “How long had you known Alice Elizabeth Shields?”

“I never knew her,” Walsh answered.

“You met her in Chicago?”

“I did not know her.”

“Who did—your dad?”

“My father did not know her.”

“Then, how come she ended up dead outside his motel room window?”

Walsh snorted. He didn’t answer.

“Walsh,” Freddie said. “It might help matters if we had a list of the people who were in your father’s suite the night Alice Elizabeth Shields was murdered.”

“A specific list would be impossible, Ms. Arbuthnot. There were some of the local press. I do not know their names. A couple of local political coordinators. One was named William Burke, the other something-or-other Blackstone. There was national press: Fenella Baker, Lansing Sayer, your own Mary Rice”—he nodded to Hanrahan—“Dieckmann, O’Brien, a few others.”

“Were you there?” Hanrahan asked.

“I was there. In and out.”

“Was Solov there?” Fletch asked.

“I don’t remember.”

“Was Dr. Thom there?” Freddie asked.

“I don’t remember. I doubt it. He avoids the press, for the most part.”

“Back home,” Hanrahan announced, “your Dr. Robert Thom is known as a Dr. Feelgood. Writes more prescriptions than anyone in the county. How come he’s your dad’s private physician?”

“Dr. Thom is the physician traveling with the campaign, available to all.”

“How much of a drug addict is your dad?” Hanrahan asked. He reached over and took Freddie’s beer.

“My father is not addicted to anything,” Walsh answered. “Never has been.”

“Then how come they have to cart him away three or four times a year to clean out his head?”

Walsh said, “I’m not going to dignify that with an answer.”

“Where does your father go?” Freddie asked. “You know, when he suddenly disappears.”

“He doesn’t ‘suddenly disappear.’ He takes advantage of breaks in his schedule, when they occur. He goes fishing. He reads history. Even Caxton Wheeler gets to take a few days off, now and again. During last calendar year, my father took exactly fifteen days away from his desk. Make a scandal of that, if you can.”

“Specifically, where does he go?” Hanrahan asked.