Fletch Won (24 page)

“I thought so.” Biff closed the door. “I’m not even sure I remember precisely what it is one does to a wise guy.”

“On the police, we break his balls,” Gomez offered. “Do all the guys in journalism have balls?”

Biff stood closer to Fletch. “Hi, kid. I heard you were incarcerated.”

“Case of mistaken identity,” Fletch said. “Robber named Liddicoat. Apparently his picture had been circulated to all the liquor stores, pizza parlors—”

Biff said to Gomez, “Can we make the charge stick awhile?”

“Awhile,” said Gomez.

“You can’t,” Fletch said. “Booking desk has already checked the identity in my wallet. That’s how you know I’m here, right?”

“Wallet?” Biff asked Gomez.

“He didn’t have a wallet,” Gomez said. “Just a stolen wristwatch.”

Biff nodded at Fletch.

“We were talking about a gun,” Fletch said.

Biff looked at Gomez. “What gun?”

“A gun I found,” Fletch said. “Outside the
News-Tribune
. I turned it in to Sergeant Wilhelm Rohm last night, with instructions to give it to Gomez.”

“I don’t know about a gun,” Gomez said.

“You’re a good boy.” Biff stroked Fletch’s leg with the palm of his hand. “A real good boy.”

Fletch moved his leg.

“Muscle.” Biff dug his fingers into Fletch’s thigh. “Look at that muscle, Gomez.”

Fletch got off the table and moved away.

“And what do those shorts say?” Biff squinted. “I can’t quite read it, can you, Gomez? Some high-school track team?”

“Ben Franklyn Friend Service,” said Gomez.

“Football,” said Biff. “I think that means a football team.”

“That’s another story,” Fletch said.

“I sure would like to know what you’ve found out,” Biff said.

“Lots,” Fletch said. “You write lousy obituaries, Biff.”

“Why do you say that, Liddicoat?”

“For one thing, Jasmine and Donald Habeck never married. He never divorced Louise.”

“Yeah? What else?”

Fletch looked from Gomez to Wilson and shook his head.

“What else?” Biff asked.

“Have you talked with Gabais yet?”

“Who?”

“Felix Gabais. Child molester. An ex-client of Habeck. Served eleven hard years. Released from prison last week.”

“Have you talked with him yet?”

“Not yet.”

“You’ve been bird-doggin’ me all week, kid. Talked with everybody in the Habeck family, as far as I know, even the brother in the monastery. You’re stealin’ our thunder. What for, Liddicoat?”

Again, Fletch shook his head. “This was no gangland slaying, Biff. You’re on the wrong track.”

“You know better than we do, uh? The newspaper assign you to this story?”

“The museum angle.”

“Oh. The museum angle. That make sense to you, Gomez?”

“No sense whatever, Biff.”

“I think this kid ought to get lost.”

Gomez said, “We can lose him.”

“Some sort of bureaucratic tangle,” Biff said. “You know, kid, once you get entangled with the cops, any damned fool thing’s liable to happen.”

“Sure,” said Gomez. “We’ll put him in the van for the funny farm this morning. It will be a good ten days before anyone straightens out that bureaucratic tangle.”

“What will that get you?” Fletch asked. “A few days. You think I’d shut up about it?”

“Can’t blame us for a bureaucratic tangle,” Biff said.

“I’m not even in this building this morning. You’re not here either, are you, Gomez?”

“Naw. I’m never in this early.”

“This is a real wise guy. Our offer of a few days’ vacation at the funny farm doesn’t frighten him. We should stick a real charge on him, Gomez. Get him off my back forever. Is that what you do with wise guys? I forget.”

“Generally, Biff, if you’re going to hit somebody, you should hit him so hard he can’t get up swinging.”

“Yeah.” Although speaking softly, the veins in Biff’s neck and temples were pulsing visibly. His eyes glinted like black pebbles at the bottom of a sunlit stream. “I’ve heard that somewhere before. Let’s hit him with a real charge, so he can’t get up again swinging. Let’s see. He was picked up as Alexander Liddicoat. While he was being booked, it was discovered he had a seller’s quantity of angel dust in his pocket. You got any spare PCP, Gomez?”

“Sure,” said Gomez. “For just such an occasion.”

Fletch was hot. “All because I’m bird-dogging your story, Biff?”

“Because you’re a wise guy,” Biff said. “There’s no room for wise guys in journalism. Is there, Gomez?”

“You were always an altar boy,” Gomez said to Biff.

“We play by the rules, kid. You get convicted for possession of a seller’s quantity of PCP, Fletcher, and somehow I doubt John Winters and Frank Jaffe are going to want to see you around the
News-Tribune
emptying wastebaskets anymore. Or any other newspaper.”

“What am I supposed to say?” Fletch asked. “That I’ll back off and be a good boy?”

“Too late for that,” Biff said. “I’ve decided you’re a real wise guy. We want you gone.”

“I’m supposed to say I’ll go away?”

“You’ll go away,” Gomez said. “At taxpayers’ expense. We’ll see to it.”

Fletch laughed. “Don’t you think I’ll ever come back, Biff?”

Biff glanced at Gomez. “Maybe. Maybe not. Who cares?”

“You’ll care.”

“I doubt it. You spend a few years inside now, and, what with one thing and another, you won’t even be able to walk straight when you get out. Not much of a threat.” Biff said to Gomez: “Find out about this gun he’s talking about. Where’s the PCP?”

“Got some in the locker.”

“Get it. We’ll go to your office and rewrite this kid’s booking sheet.”

“Got some real coffee in the office. We’ll have some real coffee.”

“I could use some.”

Fletch said, “Jesus, Biff! You’re serious!”

“Have I ever made a joke?”

“Ann McGarrahan said you’re a shit.”

“She should know. Biggest mistake of her life was marryin’ me. Everybody says so.”

Gomez laughed. “You the reason she never had any kids, Biff?”

“Had something to do with it. The lady didn’t like to be screwed by anybody with whiskey on his breath.”

Fletch said, “Jesus!”

“Guess I won’t be seeing you around anymore, kid,” Biff said. “Can’t say I’ll miss ya.”

“Biff—”

“Someone will come get you in a while,” Gomez said. “Enjoy waiting. It will be a lot of years before you ever get to spend any time alone again.”

“We’re going to go cook your papers, kid.” Biff held the door open for Gomez. “And, believe me, Gomez and I are the greatest chefs in the world.”

Fletch stood alone in the fluorescent-lit room. The door had thwunked closed. Wilson’s and Gomez’s footsteps faded down the corridor. Muffled shouts came from the cellblock.

Louise Habeck crossed his mind.

Fletch looked up at the dirty, barred window. Even with the bars on the outside, an electric wire ran from the closed window into the wall.

There was no air-conditioning/heat vent.

The walls were painted cement.

Green sneakers, blued hair, and a flowered dress…

It was crazy. Fletch went to the door and turned the knob. He pushed.

The door opened.

He looked out. The corridor was empty.

His heart going faster than his feet, he ambled along the corridor and up the stairs.

There was no one at the counter of the booking office.

In the lobby the same black woman who had been weeping there the night before was now sitting quietly on a bench. The sergeant at the reception desk was reading the sports pages of the
News-Tribune
.

It took Fletch a moment to get the sergeant’s attention. Finally, he looked up.

“Lieutenant Gomez and Biff Wilson are having coffee in the lieutenant’s office,” Fletch said. “They’d like you to send out for some doughnuts. Jelly doughnuts.”

“Okay.” The sergeant picked up the phone and dialed three numbers. “The lieutenant wants some doughnuts,” he said into the phone. “No. He has his coffee. You know Gomez. If it ain’t mud, it ain’t coffee.”

“Jelly doughnuts,” Fletch said.

The sergeant said, “Jelly doughnuts.”

“News-Tribune
resource desk. Code and name, please.”

“Hiya, Pilar. How’re you doin’?”

“Good morning. This is Mary.”

“Oh. Good morning, Mary.”

“Code and name, please.”

Still ravenously hungry, Fletch was glad at least to be back in his own car, headed for his own apartment. “Seventeen ninety dash nine. Fletcher.”

Jogging to the bus stop, his eyes scanning the storefronts for a place open for breakfast, Fletch then realized he had no money. The police had stolen his wallet and keys. The thought amused him that if he robbed a convenience store, Alexander Liddicoat would be blamed.

His car was in the parking lot of a pizza store way out at the beach. He hitchhiked. The first driver who picked
him up was a middle-aged man who sold musical instruments. He tried to interest Fletch in the roxophone. He was then picked up by a van filled with kids headed for the beach. At that hour of the morning they were passing around a joint of marijuana and already had finished one quart of white wine. A group of youngsters headed for the beach on a fine morning, each was near tears. It was past nine o’clock by the time Fletch arrived at his car, removed the parking-violation notice from it, hot-wired it, and started the drive back to his apartment.

“Messages for you,” said the resource desk’s Mary over the car phone. “Someone named Barbara called. Sounds like a personal message.”

“Yes?”

“We’re not supposed to take too many personal messages, you know.”

“Ah, come on, Mary. Be a sport.” Fletch’s hunger, the morning’s heat, the bright sunlight, made his eyes and head ache.

“Message is, ‘Did you eat all the pizza yourself? All is forgiven. Please phone.’ ”

The reference to pizza made his tum-tum beat a tom-tom.

“Well?” Mary asked.

“Well what?”

“Did you eat all the pizza yourself?”

“Mary, that’s a personal question. No personal questions, please.”

“You did. I think you ate the pizza yourself. There’s nothing worse than expecting someone to bring you a pizza and that someone eats it all himself.”

“Mary, have you had breakfast this morning?”

“Yes.”

“I haven’t.”

“You don’t need breakfast, with all the pizza you ate.”

“Is there another message?”

“I wouldn’t forgive you. Yes. Ann McGarrahan wants to hear from you. Message is, ‘Fletch, know you have your hands full with present assignment but please phone in. Beware B.W. and other social diseases.’ ”

“Okay.”

“What’s B.W.?”

“Mary, that’s another personal question.”

“I never heard of B.W.”

“You’re lucky.”

“I thought I knew all the social diseases. I mean, I thought I knew of them.”

“Fine. Now I need the address of Felix Gabais.” He spelled the name for her. “In the St. Ignatius district.”

“Aren’t you going to warn me about B.W.?”

“Mary? Stay away from B.W.”

“I mean, how do you catch it?”

“Sticking your nose in places it doesn’t belong.”

“Oh, we never do things like that. There’s only one Gabais in the St. Ignatius district. First name, Therese.”

“That’s it. He lives with his sister.”

“That’s 45447 Twig Street. Mapping shows the address to be a half-block west of a car dealership on the corner.”

“Thank you. One more: I need the address of Stuart Childers.” Again he spelled the name.

“That’s disgusting,” she said. “Anyone who does that deserves B.W.”

“Mary…”

“That’s 120 Keating Road. Mapping shows that to be Harndon Apartments. Swank.”

“Okay. Thanks.”

“I shouldn’t tell you this, I suppose, but Mr. Wilson called in a while ago. He wanted that address, too.”

“Which address?”

“The one in St. Ignatius. Therese Gabais.”

“Mary, you’ve already got B.W.”

“Oh, don’t say that.”

“Be careful, Mary. B.W. can lay you up a long time.”

“This is an answering machine,” Fletch said into his apartment phone on the third ring. “I am not able to come to the phone just now—”