Fletch and the Widow Bradley (3 page)

“Self-importance?”

“Damned near pomposity.”

“You’re not famous for getting up early in the morning, Moxie.”

“I’m not famous for anything. Yet. Sleeping late was the first thing I learned in Drama School.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. All the classes were in the afternoon.”

“You theater people have to be different.”

“I don’t know what time the night shift on a newspaper starts, Fletch, but that red frog crapping on the ocean over there is the setting sun. And I figure we’re a good seven hours’ drive from your precious newspaper.”

“I’m a changed man.”

“What changed you?”

“I got fired.”

Fletch watched the shallow crease in her stomach breathe in and out a few times. She said, “Oh.” Then she said, “Hey.” She resumed chewing. “You like that job.”

“It gave paychecks, too.”

“You can get a job on another newspaper. Can’t you?”

“I really doubt it.”

“What happened?”

“Long story. Sort of complicated.”

“Make it simple. If I don’t understand first time round, I can ask questions. Right?”

“Well, I was assigned to do an unimportant story on an unimportant business company and I guess I got sold a big, fat lie.” Fletch spoke rapidly. “My main source was a guy named Blaine. Charles Blaine. Vice-president and treasurer. He gave me a file of memos back and forth between him and the Chairman of the company, a guy named Tom Bradley, and said I could quote from them. So I did.”

“So what went wrong?”

“Tom Bradley died two years ago.”

“Died?”

“Died.”

“Died dead?”

“Deader than romance.”

“You quoted a dead man?”

“Very accurately.”

Moxie giggled. “Jeez, that’s pretty good, Fletch.”

“I could have done worse,” Fletch said. “I suppose I could have quoted somebody who’d never existed.”

“I’m sorry.” Moxie rubbed her nose.

“What for?”

“For laughing.”

“It’s funny. Wake me in the morning.”

“Were these recent memos you quoted? They couldn’t have been.”

“They were recently dated memos. I put their dates in the story I wrote.”

“I don’t get it.”

“That makes at least two of us.”

Her eyes went back and forth over the sea. They were purple flecked with yellow in the setting sun. “Was it some kind of a mean joke?”

“Pretty mean. I guess someone meant to do mischief.”

“Who? Why?”

“Blaine, I guess. He had to know what he was doing, giving me memos from a dead man. Maybe he’s crazy.”

“Have you gone back to him? Tried to get in touch with him?”

“Tried this morning. He’d left his office. Sick with the flu.”

“No.” Moxie shook her head. “That’s too crazy. No one would do a thing like that. As a joke.”

“Not a joke,” Fletch said. “Maybe you’ve heard that some American businesses are waging a clever campaign to get back at the press. Make the newspapers and television look silly.”

“How would I have heard that?”

“It’s a growing thing. They say there are too many liberals in the press. Anti-business liberals.”

“Are there?”

“Probably. More specifically, the
News-Trib
worked this particular corporation, Wagnall-Phipps, over pretty good two or three years ago.”

“For what?”

“Influence buying. Wining and dining congressmen, mayors and others on the public payroll in a position to buy shovels and toothpicks from Wagnall-Phipps.”

“Did you write those stories?”

“I wasn’t even working for the
News-Trib
then. I was in Chicago.”

“You’re the fall guy.”

“My own fault. I didn’t care about this Wagnall-Phipps story. I was working on that football story, you know, at the same time. I cared a lot more about that story. I scanned the clips on Wagnall-Phipps, saw the key question was whether the corporation still owned that big ski house in Aspen they used to lend to congressmen
and their families, and went off to interview Blaine. I remember I had a hard time staying awake listening to him. He finally put me in an office by myself and let me take notes from this sheaf of memos.”

“So you don’t have the memos, or copies of the memos yourself.”

“No. I don’t. Simple, stupid, unimportant story I didn’t even think the newspaper would print, it was so boring. Who cares about Wagnall-Phipps?”

“I guess Wagnall-Phipps does.”

“I was only assigned the story ’cause the reporter originally assigned to it, Tom Jeffries, broke his back hang-gliding.”

“That’s terrible.”

“That is terrible. I’m no business writer. Shit, I don’t even know how to read stock tables. I’d never heard of Wagnall-Phipps before.”

“But why dump on you?”

“Nothing personal. They weren’t dumping on me. They were making the newspaper look silly. They did a pretty good job.”

“They took advantage of your ignorance.”

“Sure. Along comes bushy-tailed Peter Rabbit with his mouth open and they feed him loaded carrots. They refer to the Chairman of the board, Thomas Bradley, show me memos from him, and I write down,
In a memo dated April 16, Chairman of the Board, Thomas Bradley, directed etc., etc
. I mean, wouldn’t you believe the Vice-president and treasurer of a corporation regarding who was the Chairman of the company?”

Moxie shook her head. “Poor Peter Rabbit.”

“Poor Peter Rabbit nothin’. He’s a dope.”

“So you’re fired.”

“Well, the managing editor is breaking it to me gently. He’s talking about a three-months suspension, but that’s only so he can insist later he tried to save my job.”

“No chance?”

“I wouldn’t hire me. Would you?”

“More orange juice? There’s another quart.”

“We’ll need it in the morning.”

“So what were you doing this morning at the Park Worth Hotel?”

“Oh, that’s another story. We’ve got to stop by and see a guy about it in Wramrud tomorrow. Found his wallet.”

“Fletch, I’m cold. If you glance westward, you’ll notice even the sun has found a better place to go.”

Fletch said, “I’ll build a fire.”

She stared at him. “You mean to spend the night here?”

“Sure. Romantic.”

“On the beach?”

“How much money you got on you, Moxie?”

“I don’t know. Maybe fifty dollars.”

“I thought so. You begin rehearsing for the new play Monday. When do you get your first paycheck?”

“End of next week.”

“So you’ve got fifty bucks to live off for a week and I’ve got about the same amount to live off for the rest of my life. Dig?”

“Credit cards, Fletch. You used one last night. At dinner. Even I’ve got a credit card.”

“I’ve got a sleeping bag in the car.”

“You’re getting me to spend the night on the beach with you.”

“I told you. I’m very romantic.” Standing, Fletch brushed the sand off his skin.

“And I told you romance is dead.”

“That’s just wishful thinking,” Fletch said. “I’ll get the sleeping bag.”

“
T 
R Y I N G   T O   F I N D
my uncle,” Fletch said.

It had taken the creaky old policeman a long moment to stand up from his padded swivel chair and walk across the main room of the Wramrud Police Station to the counter. There was a hearing aid in his left ear.

“His name is James Crandall.” Fletch spoke slowly and distinctly.

“Live here in town?”

“Supposed to.”

“What do you mean ‘supposed to’? Nobody’s ‘supposed to’ live anywhere. Haven’t you heard this is a free country?”

“My mother gave me this address.” Fletch handed the policeman the piece of note paper he’d had from Jacques Cavalier’s desk.

“I can’t find Courier Drive,” Fletch said.

“47907 Courier Drive, Wramrud,” the old policeman read aloud.

“The man in the drugstore doesn’t seem to know where it is.”

The policeman looked at Fletch sharply. “Bob doesn’t know where it is?”

“I guess not.”

“This Crandall fellow. He your mother’s brother?”

“Yes,” said Fletch.

“You know you have sand on your face?”

Fletch brushed his face with his hand.

“Why do you have sand on your face?”

Fletch shrugged. “I was playing in a sandbox.”

“You ought to shave before you see your uncle.”

“Yeah. I guess I should.”

The policeman looked again at the piece of paper in his hand. “Bob don’t know where Courier Drive, Wramrud, is because there is no Courier Drive, Wramrud.”

“There isn’t?”

“Your mother lie to you often, son?”

“First time ever.”

“Far as you know. Nope. No Courier Drive. Fact is, we don’t have anything called a Drive around here. Lots of roads and streets but nothing as fancy as a Drive.”

“You have any street like Courier?”

“How do we know?”

“I mean, a street that sounds like Courier, or might look like Courier written out.”

The man’s rheumy eyes gazed through the plate glass window. “Century Street. Cold Water Road. We don’t have any address numbers that run that high, either. Forty-seven thousand something. We only got nineteen hundred households this whole town.”

“You know a man named Crandall?”

“You mean, your uncle?”

“Yes.”

“Nope. Man named Cranshaw, not your uncle.”

Fletch smiled. “How do you know?”

“ ’Cause I’m Cranshaw and my sister don’t lie.”

“Okay,” Fletch said. “I give up. You’ve never heard of a man named Crandall in this town.”

“Nope. And we’re the only town named Wramrud I ever heard of, too. You ever heard of another town named Wramrud?”

“No.”

The policeman’s eyes were inspecting Fletch’s neck and sweater. “You got sand all over you, boy. You want a shower?”

“What?”

“You want to take a shower? Shave?”

“Where?”

“Back in the lock-ups. I can give you a fresh razor.”

“Mighty nice of you.”

“Well, seems to me you have a long way to go to find your uncle.” The policeman lifted a section of the counter to let Fletch through. “Any boy whose mother tells whoppers like your’s—ain’t no tellin’ where you might end up.”

Fletch followed the policeman toward the door to the jail cells.

“Why do you suppose your mother would tell you a lie like that?” the old policeman asked. “Do you suppose you have an uncle at all? ’pect she told you he’s rich …”

“Your hair is wet,” Moxie said. She was waiting by the car. “And you shaved.”

“I got cleaned up.”

“Where?”

“In the jailhouse. Want a shower? Nice old policeman.”

“How’d it smell?”

“Terrible.”

“No, thanks. I’d rather shower at your apartment.”

Fletch started the car and took the road back toward the freeway. “There is no James St. E. Crandall in Wramrud. Never has been.”

Moxie rubbed her back against the back of the car seat and then scratched her elbow. “I am itchy. We are going straight to your apartment, aren’t we?”

“No.”

“Oh, lord. Fletch, I can understand your natural reluctance to get back to the city—we can hear the general laughter from here—but I do want a proper meal and a proper shower.”

“Thought we’d stop at Frank Jaffe’s house first.”

“Who’s he? Does he exist, or did he die?”

“He’s my managing editor. My ex-managing editor.”

“You think you can find his house?”

“I know where he lives. We go right by it.”

“Boy, Fletch. Someone told me you’re a great reporter. Can’t even find a person in a little town like Wramrud, or wherever we just were.”

“Who told you I’m a great reporter?”

“You did.”

Coming onto the freeway, Fletch stepped on the accelerator, hard. “Guess I was wrong.”

“M 
Y
   G 
O D
.”   M 
O X I E
stood on the front walk looking at the lit facade of the house. It was an English tudor styled house with established shrubs. “This is where the managing editor of the
News-Tribune
lives?”

“Yeah.”

“I’ll bet those wooden beams are fake.”

Fletch was ringing the doorbell.

“Moxie? Where are you going?”

Clara Snow opened the door. She had a half-empty martini glass in her hand.

“Fletch!”

“Evening, Clara. Didn’t expect to find you here.”

Clara did not smile. “Didn’t know you were expected, Fletcher.”

“You know, when Frank gives an at-home party for his employees—”

“This is not an at-home party.”

“Well, Frank must be home, and you’re at home with him, and you are an employee …”

“Come in, Fletch.”

“Wait a minute. I have a friend.”

Fletch looked along the side of the house, to the right, where Moxie was coming out of the established shrubbery.

“How do you do?” she said, shaking hands with Clara. “So nice to meet you, Mrs. Jaffe.”

“This isn’t Mrs. Jaffe,” said Fletch.

Closing the door behind them, Clara said, “Fletch, you’ve got some balls.”

“I’ve got Moxie,” Fletch said.

Frank was in the livingroom, dressed in a ski sweater. He was putting another log on the fire. Fletch could feel the air-conditioning in the house was on.

“Evening, Frank,” he said.

Frank looked over his glasses at Fletch. “You’re fired, Fletcher. If
you weren’t before, you certainly are now.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s Friday night and this is my home and fired employees aren’t supposed to come to their boss’s home uninvited on Friday nights. Or ever. It just isn’t polite.”

“Even if I’m in pursuit of a story?”

“What story?”

“That’s what you’re going to tell me.”

Frank was staring at Moxie. “You’re a beautiful girl,” he said.

“Thank you, sir,” Moxie said prettily.

“Really beautiful.”

Clara Snow moved around the coffee table and sat on the divan.

“This is Moxie Mooney,” Fletch said. “She’s an actress. Starting rehearsals Monday for a play at the Colloquial Theater.”

“As long as you’re here,” Frank said. “You might as well have a drink. Least I haven’t lost my manners.”