Free Fletch's Fortune by Gregory McDonald

there’s always someone waiting for me in thehotel lobby to see if I go up in the elevator alone. Nuisance value, you know?”
    “Dear old saintly Walter March operated like that?”
    “Dear old saintly Walter March. The president of your American Journalism Alliance. You voted for him? Give me one card, so long as it’s the King of Clubs.”
    “I’m very grateful to him,” said Oscar Perlman. “Kept me straight all these years. I’ve never had the opportunity to lie to my wife.”
    “Oscar, you don’t think dear old saintly Walter March getting a scissors up the ass is funny?”
    Oscar Perlman said, “Not worth a column.”
    “I take it we’re not sleeping together?”
    Fletch said into the phone, “Who is this?”
    It was 1:20 A.M . He had been asleep a half-hour.
    “Damn you!” said Freddie Arbuthnot. “Damn your eyes, your nose, and, your cock!” The phone went dead.
    It wasn’t that Fletch hadn’t thought of it.
    He knew she’d washed her knees.

Twelve

    Tuesday
    8:30 A.M . Prayer Breakfast
    Conservatory
    And in the morning, the phone was ringing as he entered his room.
    He took off his sweaty T-shirt before answering.
    “Have you seen the papers?” Crystal asked.
    “No. I went for a ride.”
    “Ride? You’re unemployed and you rented a car?”
    “I’m unemployed and I rented a horse. They use less gas.”
    “A horse! You mean one of those big things with four legs who eat hay?”
    “That’s a cow,” Fletch said.
    “Or a horse.”
    It took Crystal a moment more of exclamations before accepting the idea that someone would get up before dawn, find the stables in the dark, rent a horse, and ride over the hills eastward watching the sun rise, “without a thought for breakfast.”
    It had been a pleasant horse and a great sunrise.
    And taking the horse from the stables and bringing it back, Fletch had not seen the man in the blue denim jacket, with tight, curly gray hair, who had approached the masseuse, Mrs. Leary, in the parking lot two morningsbefore and asked her about the arrival of Walter March.
    “I want to read you just one’graf from Bob McConnell’s story in March’s Washington newspaper regarding the old bastard’s murder.”
    “Pretty extensive coverage?”
    “Pages and pages. Two pages just of photographs, going back to and including a shot of the bastard at the baptismal font.”
    “He deserves every line,” said Fletch. “Dear old saintly Walter March.”
    “Anyway, Bob nailed you.”
    “Yeah?”
    “I’ll just read the paragraph. First he names all the big names here at the convention. Then he writes, ‘Also attending the convention is Irwin Maurice Fletcher, who, although never indicted, previously has figured prominently in murder trials in the states of California and Massachusetts. Currently unemployed, Fletcher has worked for a March newspaper.’”
    Fletch was pulling off his jeans.
    He had listened to McConnell phoning in his story the night before.
    “A pretty heavy tat for tit, Fletcher. Methinks you’ll not jokingly accuse Bob McConnell of first-degree murder again. At least, not in his presence.”
    “Who was joking?”
    “There are some pretty vicious people around here,” Crystal said.
    “You didn’t know?”
    “Breakfast?”
    “Got to shower first.”
    “Please do.”

Thirteen

    9:30 A.M .
    I S G OD D EAD, OR J UST D E -P RESSED ?
    Address by Rt. Rev. James Halford
    Conservatory
    10:00 A.M .
    Is A NYONE O UT T HERE ?
    Weekly Newspapers Group Discussion
    Bobby-Joe Hendricks Cocktail Lounge
    Fletch had breakfast in his room, listening to Virginia State Police Captain Andrew Neale questioning Lydia March and Walter March, Junior, in Suite 12.
    There were the preliminary courtesies—Captain Neale saying, “I know this must be terribly difficult for you, Mrs. March”; Lydia saying, “I know it’s necessary”; his saying, “Thank you. You have my sympathy. I would avoid disturbing you at this point if it were at all possible”—while