“You haven’t written enough wedding announcements yet, to take on a big story like that.”
“I haven’t taken it on. I just intend to sit and watch it.”
“You’ve never
“Well, maybe
“Does anyone know you’re sticking your nose into this story?”
“Barbara—”
“We’re getting married Saturday, Fletch. First, you don’t have time for any such story. Second, it really would be nice, when we come back from our skiing honeymoon, if you had a job. I’m pretty sure Cecilia won’t have offloaded all her jodhpurs by then.”
“Relax. If I turn up something interesting, something useful, you think the newspaper would turn the information down?”
“Fletch, have nothing more to do with this story. Get away from it. Jealousies on a newspaper can’t be any different from anywhere else.”
“Anyway, I’ve been assigned to a different story altogether.”
“What is it?”
“I’d rather not tell you, just now.”
“Why not?”
“Well, it’s not too far removed from wedding announcements, births, deaths. A travel story. You might say it’s a travel story. It might even turn into a medical story.”
“You’re not making much sense.”
“That’s because I haven’t really got ahold of the story yet. I’m writing it for the society pages.”
“Fletch, I don’t think there have been any society pages in this country for half a century.”
“You know what I mean: the life pages, living, style. You know, the anxiety pages.”
“You should be all right doing a piece for the anxiety pages.”
“Sure. Anxieties, we all have ’em. You see, I was using my new influence to feed Cecilia’s jodhpurs into Amelia Shurcliffe’s column.”
“Nice of you. When will you get to the beach house?”
“Soon as I can.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means I have to run off some copies from a file. And then make one phone call.”
“Only one?”
“Only one.”
“And it has nothing to do with Habeck?”
“No, no,” said Fletch. “Nothing to do with Habeck. Has to do with this other story. The one for the anxiety pages.”
Fletch hesitated, just slightly, before pushing the button which would make selected copies from Habeck’s file.
Sitting at his borrowed desk, he hesitated again, just slightly, before picking up the phone and dialing an in- house number.
“Carradine,” the voice answered.
“Jack? This is Fletch.”
“Who?”
“Fletcher. I work for the
“Are you sure?” The financial writer’s tone was mildly curious. “Oh, yeah. You’re the guy who committed that headline a couple of months ago, what was it? Oh, yeah: WESTERN CAN CO. SITS ON ITS ASSETS.”
“Yeah, I’m that one.”
“That one, eh? Guess we’re all young, once.”
“Don’t know why everybody objected to that.”
“Because we’d all heard it before. Did you call for forgiveness, Fletcher, or do you have a hot tip for me on the international debt?”
“You know that guy who was murdered this morning?”
“Habeck? No. I didn’t know him. Saw him once at a lunch for the Lakers.”
“A couple of guys here are saying he was very rich.”
“How rich is very rich?”
“That he was about to give away five million bucks.”
“I doubt it. He was a worker. A high-priced worker, but a worker. I doubt he had more than he’d earned. What were his assets? A partnership in an admittedly prosperous law firm. What’s that worth, year by year? Also, whatever he had been able to accumulate over a lifetime of work. Maybe he invested in something and struck it rich, but, if he had, I expect I would have heard of it. He was too much of a street person ever to have inherited anything much. And, again, if he had married great wealth, we would have known about it.”
“What about the mob?”
“You think he was associated with the mob?”
“A criminal lawyer—”
“Sure, he probably had mob clients. But the mob doesn’t make anybody rich but the mob. Despite what you read, the mob’s biggest problem is financial constipation. The riskiest thing they do, at least regarding their own safety, is dispersing money. In fact, it’s such a problem for them I don’t know why they bother making so much.”
“What’s your guess as to how much money Habeck had when he died this morning?”
“Just a guess?”
“Take your time.”
“Working hard all his life, paying his taxes reasonably well, giving little away, not making any big, stupid investments, not running through too many wives, which are a lot of big
“So,” Fletch said. “Sam wins the office pool.”
“Who’s Sam?”
“Oh,” Fletch said. “He drives one of the
Fletch gathered the selected copies from the Habeck file. On top of the stack he put the volume Morton Rickmers had loaned him,
Then he hesitated a long moment before picking up the phone and dialing the number he had once thought belonged to a pizza-delivery establishment.
The voice that answered was young, female, strong, clear, healthy, and, friendly. “Ben Franklyn Friend Service. You want a friend?”
Putting thoughts of anchovies and pepperoni out of mind, Fletch said, “I just might.”
“Well, we’re an escort service. Available twenty-four hours a day. Your place or ours. But first, will you tell me who recommended you to Ben Franklyn?”
Fletch swallowed. “My father.”
The girl hesitated. “You have any problems, son?”
“Not that I know of.”
“Nice guy, your dad.”
“Yeah, he’s a good old guy.”
“Doesn’t want you to be alone in the big city, huh?”
“He doesn’t—uh—want me making friends—uh—I can’t get rid of. Uh.”
Suddenly, he had become very warm in the city room.
“I see. What’s your dad’s name?”
“Oh, I doubt he ever used your services himself. I mean, personally.”
“You’d be surprised. What’s his name, anyway?”
“Uh. Jaffe. Archibald Jaffe. Never mind about him. My name is Fletcher Jaffe. I’m the one who’s coming. I
