“He plays the harp.”
“I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone play the harp.”
Across the dark living room, the door to the bedroom opened.
“You haven’t lived,” Fletch said.
Walsh sighed. “Just like the old days, Fletch.”
“What old days? I thought all days are twenty-four hours. Do some get to be older?”
“Bending my brain,” Walsh said.
She came across the room like a specter. She was in a long, gray robe. Her blond hair hung to her shoulders.
Doris Wheeler was much bigger than Fletch expected. Her true size had not come across to him on television or still pictures, maybe because she was usually seen standing next to the governor, who was also a big person. She was tall with extraordinarily big shoulders for a woman.
Fletch stood up.
“Walsh? What are you doing at this hour of the night?”
“Dropping off your schedule for tomorrow.” Walsh shot his thumb toward the piece of paper on the coffee table. “Why are you back from Cleveland so early?”
“Had Sully make me an earlier plane reservation. Left the symphony benefit at intermission. I’ve heard Schonberg.” Walsh had not stood up. Doris Wheeler’s eyes fastened on Fletch’s shirt collar. “Who’s this?”
“Fletcher,” Walsh said. “Here to help handle the press. Just making sure he’s housebroken.”
“Why are you up talking so late?”
“War stories,” Walsh answered. “Haven’t seen each other since the Texas-Oklahoma game. That right, Fletch?”
Doris leaned over her son. She kissed him on the mouth.
“Walsh, you’ve been drinking.” She stood up only partway.
“Had to spend some time in the bar, Mother. Something happened. This girl—”
Doris Wheeler slapped her son, hard. Her hand going down to his face looked as big and as solid as a shovel.
“I don’t care about any girl, Walsh. I care about you walking around with liquor on your breath.” Walsh did not move. He did not look up at her. “I care about getting your father elected President of the United States.”
Fully, stiffly erect, she walked back across the living room. “Now, go to bed,” she said.
The door to the bedroom closed.
Fletch stood there quietly.
Walsh’s face was two kinds of red. It was dark red where his mother had hit him. It was bright red everywhere else.
Walsh kept his eyes on the papers in his lap.
“Well,” Walsh finally said, “I’m glad I gave you my lecture on loyalty, before you saw that.”
6
“Good morning, ladies and gentlemen of the press,” Governor Caxton Wheeler said heartily.
From the back of the bus, a man’s voice snarled: “
“Women and men,” corrected the woman sitting next to Freddie Arbuthnot.
“Persons of the press …?” offered the governor.
Fletch was standing next to the governor at the front of the bus. At six-thirty in the morning the governor apparently was slim, tanned, bright-eyed, and fully rested. He did not use, or need to use, the tour bus’s microphone. Also, he did not leave much room for the person standing beside him at the front of the bus.
As a politician will, he filled whatever space was available to him.
“Don’t forget the photographers,” wire service reporter Roy Filby said. “They don’t quite make it as persons.”
“Dearly beloved,” said the governor.
“Now you’re leaving out Arbuthnot!” said Joe Hall.
“All creatures great and small?” asked the governor.
“Why’s that man up there calling us a bunch of animals?” Stella
Kirchner asked Bill Dieckmann loudly. “Trying to get elected game warden or something?”
“It gives me great pleasure,” the governor said, “to introduce one of your own colleagues to you—”
“Hardly,” said Freddie Arbuthnot.
“—I. M. Fletcher—”
“Politicians will say anything,” said Ira Lapin.
“—whom we’ve employed to hand out press releases to you—”
“He spelled Spiersville wrong already this morning!” shouted Fenella Baker. “It’s
“—do your research for you, free of charge, dig out an answer to your every question, however obtuse and trivial, and generally, to say things about me I’d blush to have to say myself.”
“He’s a complete crook,” said the man wearing the
“Now, I know some of you miss ol’ James,” continued the governor. “I do too… more than you’ll ever know.” The governor pulled his touch-of-sentiment face. To Fletch, seeing the expression in profile, it seemed the governor was too obviously clocking the seconds he held the expression. “But, as you know, ol’ James decided he wanted to go somewhere more agreeable.”
“Yeah,” Lansing Sayer said. “When anyone goes to play tennis, James wants to go play tennis.”
“So,” said the governor, coloring slightly behind the ear, “I’ll leave ol’ Fletch in your hands.” Walsh had told Fletch to ride the press bus that morning. “Try not to chew him up and spit him out this morning. Can’t promise you that lunch is going to be that good.”
“Hey, Governor,” shouted Joe Hall. “Any response yet to the President’s statement on South Africa last night?”
Waving, the governor left the bus.
Fletch picked up the microphone. The bus driver turned on the speaker system for him.
“Good morning,” Fletch said. “As the governor’s press representative, I make you the solemn promise that I will never lie to you. Today, on this bus, we will be passing through Miami, New Orleans, Dallas, New York, and Keokuk, Iowa. Per usual, at midday you will be flown to San Francisco for lunch. Today’s menu is clam chowder, pheasant under glass, roast Chilean lamb, and a strawberry mousse from Maine. Everything the governor says today will be significant, relevant, wise, to the point, and as fresh as the lilies in the field.”
“In fact,” Fenella Baker said, trying to look through the steamy window, “it’s snowing out.”
The other side of the motel’s front door, Doris Wheeler was climbing into the back of a small, black sedan. Today the campaign would head southwest in the state; the candidate’s wife would go north. The governor would ride the campaign bus, in front of the press bus.
“Any questions you have for me,” Fletch continued, “write backwards and offer to your editors as think- pieces. Just ask your editors to label such fanciful essays as ‘Analysis.’”
“Fletch, is it true you’re a crook?” Roy Filby asked.
“No,” said Fletch, “but if any of you run short of cash, just ask me and I’ll put you in contact with people who will supply you with all you want at a modest charge of twenty-percent interest daily.”
“Oh, you work for a credit card company, too?”
“Is it true you saved Walsh Wheeler’s life overseas?” Fenella Baker asked.
“That’s another thing,” Fletch said. “I will never evade any of your questions.”
He turned the microphone off and hung it up.
7
“How does it feel to be an adversary of the press?” From her seat on the bus, Freddie Arbuthnot grinned up
