Too long to end it intellectually wrestling with a certified genius.
“And my football hero, Phi Beta Kappa son, Chet, is screwing the boy next door. Next door to your son, that is. And I’ve arranged rehabilitation for Duncan, which will begin Monday, in a cottage here at Vindemia.”
“And your thrice married daughter is blackmailing you.”
“It’s the maturing process, Mister Fletcher. These days.”
“Is that the way you see it?”
“Certainly. Childish rebellion. They do everything they know is abhorrent to me. Unfortunately, I gave them nothing to rebel against… except me. I am prayerfully waiting for them to grow up, mature, develop the appreciation, respect, and usefulness I expect from them.”
“Will you live to see it?”
“They have the best chance of surviving here at Vindemia.” The light on Radliegh’s glasses prevented Fletch from seeing his eyes. “They shall grow up. They have to.”
“Doctor Radliegh, someone murdered, by mistake, we think, Doctor Jim Wilson.”
“I will not hear one word against my family, not my wife, my mother-in-law, my sons or daughters. What you and your son have learned here you are to carry away in silence, or I guarantee you …”
“What?”
“Or your son will go back to federal prison again for a crime he did not commit, only this time he will spend his life there. I can arrange it.”
“I’m sure you can.”
“Nevertheless, in the morning, we shall enjoy the Bierstadt together. I do appreciate your book. And your well-meant efforts on my behalf.”
“Eric Beauville—”
Radliegh raised the palm of his right hand to the vertical. “Enough! I feel about my employees as I feel about my family.”
“It’s how they feel about you, idiot, that matters.”
Radliegh laughed. “I’ve never been called an idiot before. How refreshing.”
“Sorry. You are exasperating. You are not God, Doctor Radliegh.”
“I’ve been told that before. I have never made such a claim. I do not think of myself as such. It’s just that…”
“What?”
“If one has certain large capacities …”
“Why not use them to control people of lesser capacities? Is that it?”
“Why not use them to help others fulfill themselves? That’s all I’m doing, Mister Fletcher. For example, you were about to mention Eric Beauville. No one else would have him as Chief Executive Officer. He’s a second-rate brain with second-rate energies: a number two man. He thinks he’d be happier somewhere else. He wouldn’t be.”
“So you block his every effort to get away from you.”
“For his own good, and the good of his family. He and they are much happier here than they would be anywhere else. And far more prosperous. And,” Radliegh said with a smile, “keeping him here keeps him down to only two cigars a day.”
Fletch shook his head. “Well, Jack asked me to talk with you. I’ve talked with you.”
Radliegh nodded. “Thanks for coming.”
Fletch put his brandy snifter on the desk. He hesitated. “Whoever killed Doctor Jim Wilson is going to be discovered. I guarantee you that.”
“I have arranged for an investigation by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. A Lieutenant Corso is due here tonight.”
“You spent this much time picking a man you can control. Right?”
Radliegh said, “One way or another, Mister Fletcher, in this matter I shall see that justice is done. See you in the morning. At seven in the gymnasium?”
“Okay.” Fletch headed toward the door.
“Mister Fletcher?”
Fletch turned.
Standing where he was when Fletch first entered the room, Radliegh said, “One moment please.” He paused. “Mister Fletcher, I am about to have a massive coronary occlusion.”
“What?”
Radliegh fell forward. His chest, head hit the edge of the side of the desk. He continued falling sideways. As he fell to the floor, the globe of the world fell over.
He lay on his back between the desk and the toppled globe.
Fletch said, “My God!”
He rushed forward.
Lifting the globe aside, he knelt on one knee beside Radliegh.
Radliegh’s eyelids fluttered. Then were still.
Fletch felt for pulse in Radliegh’s neck, then his left wrist.
Aloud, Fletch said, “You were right again, Radliegh.”
21
“Jack?”
Leaving the door open, Fletch had entered Jack’s half of the cottage in the dark and turned on the bedside lamp.
Jack sat up straight on the bed and squinted at Fletch.
“What time is it?” he asked.
“Quarter to one.”
Jack shook his head. “I was asleep.”
Fletch said, “That’s a good way to spend time in bed, too.”
“What’s the matter?” Jack asked. “You’re still in black tie.”
“Radliegh’s dead.”
“Doctor Chester Radliegh?”
“The one and only.”
“Who killed him?”
“I did.”
“What?”
Fletch said, “I killed Chester Radliegh.”
“Tell me the one about why the turtle crossed the road.”
“To get to the Shell station.”
“You’re kidding.”
“Not kidding.”
“You killed him with what? How?”
“Talk. You asked me to talk with him. I talked with him. I think you were right: no one has ever really talked with, at Chester Radliegh before. It was a stressful conversation. In retrospect, I realize I questioned his entire modus vivendi. I called him a dictator. I even called him an idiot.”
“You called Doctor Chester Radliegh an idiot?”
“It just slipped out. An obdurate man, no matter how brilliant, is an idiot.”
“Calling him an idiot killed him?”
“He had a massive coronary occlusion. He said no one had ever called him an idiot before.”
“A heart attack.”
“Yes.”
“He was poisoned.”
“No. I was alone in the room with him. We drank from the same bottle of cognac. He had a heart attack.
