“Hello, hello?” Fletch heard his car phone buzzing while he was unlocking the door.
“This is the News-Tribune resource desk. Name and code, please.”
“Oh, hi, Mary.”
“This is Pilar. Code, please.”
“Seventeen ninety dash nine.”
“Mr. Fletcher, you’re wanted at a meeting in Frank Jaffe’s office with Biff Wilson at three o’clock.”
“Oh. That’s what’s happening.”
“That’s what’s happening.”
The dashboard clock said two-twenty. “Doubt I can make it.”
Pilar said, “The rest of the message from Mr. Jaffe is, ‘Either be in my office at three o’clock for this meeting, or don’t bother coming back to the News-Tribune, period.’ ”
“Life does offer its choices.”
“So does the News-Tribune. Any last words?”
“Yeah,” Fletch said. “ ‘And that was all he wrote.’ ”
Glancing time and again at the clock on his dashboard, Fletch sat in the parked car and thought, for as much time as he had.
When it became too late to make the News-Tribune reasonably by three o’clock, he started the car.
Slowly, he pulled into traffic and headed toward his apartment.
“Alston? I know you haven’t had the time…”
“Sure, I’ve had the time, ol’ buddy.” Fletch’s car was slouching down the boulevard’s slow lane toward home. “As soon as I announced my resignation from Habeck, Harrison and Haller this morning, a woman came by and took all the folders from my desk. Even the case I was working on! What do you think of that?”
“Oh, yeah. You resigned. Tell me about that.”
“I didn’t become a lawyer to become a crook. I don’t think they’d mind right now if I went home and only came in Friday to pick up my final paycheck. Maybe I will. Want to meet at Manolo’s for a beer?”
“Alston, I don’t think there’s going to be anyone at my wedding on Saturday who is employed.”
“Don’t tell the caterer. By the way, ol’ buddy, wedding present from your best man will be forthcoming, never fear, but, obviously, a bit late.”
“Aren’t I supposed to give you a present, for being best man, or something?”
“Are you?”
“That will be late, too.”
“As long as the wedding comes off on time, and it’s a rollicking affair.”
“Yeah.” Fletch stopped the car to let a pigeon investigate a cigar butt in the road. “Rollicking.”
“So, for the last hour or so, using the considerable resources of Habeck, Harrison and Haller, I’ve been working for you. Don’t worry: you can’t afford it.”
“About those companies you asked me to look into… Are you ready?”
“Yeah.”
“Lingman Toys and Cungwell Screw seem to exist for the sole purpose of each owning half of Wood Nymph, Incorporated. In turn, Lingman Toys and Cungwell Screw are owned by one corporate body called Paraska Steamship Company. All this is a typical structuring of corporations designed to discourage curiosity and conceal interests. The purpose of all these corporations seems to be none other than owning a single business called the Ben Franklyn Friend Service, essentially a whorehouse, situated at…”A woman in chartreuse shorts, halter, and high-heeled shoes was walking a poodle on a leash along the sidewalk. The gray of the woman’s hair matched the poodle’s. The woman’s shorts were cut halfway up her ass cheeks. Alston was reciting the names of the officers of the various corporations. Names kept being repeated, Jay Demarest, Yvonne Heller, Marta Holsome, Marietta Ramsin. The woman and the dog turned into a passport-photo shop.
“Alston, okay, stop. Who the hell owns Paraska Steamship, or whatever it is?”
“Four women.” Alston then began to repeat, recite a mishmash of names.
Fletch stopped at an orange traffic light. The car behind him honked. “Say what? Say again?” A police car drew alongside Fletch. The cop studied Fletch’s features carefully.
Alston repeated the names.
“’Bye, Alston!” He dropped the phone in his lap.
Fletch stomped on the accelerator.
He went through the red light, made a U-turn in the middle of the intersection, and went through the red light again.
The police car pursuing him did the same thing.
“Lieutenant Francisco Gomez, please. Emergency!”
It certainly was an emergency. There were now two police cars pursuing him through city streets. His trying to outdrive them while talking on the car telephone clearly was a traffic hazard.
“Who’s calling?”
Fletch hesitated not at all: “Biff Wilson.”
He put on his left directional signal and turned right from the left lane. Not a good enough trick to throw off his pursuers, but it did cause noisy confusion at that intersection.
“Yeah?” Gomez sounded as if he were in the middle of a conversation instead of beginning one.
“Gomez, Biff Wilson’s in trouble.”
“Who is this?”
“Fletcher, a.k.a. Alexander Liddicoat. Remember us?”
“Shit! Where are you?”
“Hell, don’t you know?” Fletch spun his wheel mid-block and scurried down an alley. “I thought the police were the eyes and the ears of the city.”
“What are you talking about? What’s all that noise I hear? Sireens? Screeching tires?”
“Yeah, thanks for the police escort. I am in a hurry. Have you got the forensics report on that gun yet?”
“What gun?”
“The gun I gave you. The gun I told you about.”
“Who cares about that? Kid tryin’ to make a name for himself…”
“You haven’t even looked into it?”
“You’re as bad as Charles, what’s his name, Childers, Stuart Childers. Want to play cops and robbers. You want to be the cop, he wants to be the robber.”
“The ballistics report ought to be ready by now, too.” Fletch had a moment of comparative peace as he went wrong-way up a one-way street.
“I’ve got a warrant out for you, Fletcher. Possession of a seller’s quantity of angel dust. I’ve got the evidence right here on my desk.”
“I look forward to seeing it.” Three police cars spotted Fletch at the corner. They accelerated after him. “Aren’t you hearing me, Gomez? Your pal Biff is in trouble.”
“Yeah?”
“At the newspaper. He’s in Frank Jaffe’s office. On the carpet, you might say. In danger of losing his job.”
“No way.”
“You know it’s possible.”
Gomez said nothing.
Fletch turned on his lights and pulled into the middle of a funeral cortege. Demonstrating little respect, the three police cars screamed by the cortege.
“He needs your help,” Fletch said. “He needs the ballistics and forensics reports on that gun. Immediately.”
“Yeah?”
“Would I lie to you?”
“What is this?”
Fletch turned off his lights and ducked down a side street. “As soon as you’ve got the reports, call the News-Tribune. Ask for Frank Jaffe’s office. Biff’s in Frank’s office.”
Two blocks up from the next corner, a police car hesitated in the middle of the intersection. As soon as the police saw Fletch’s car, they turned and came after him, lights flashing, sirens screaming.
“Gomez, you want to see Biff out on his rear?”
The line went dead.
Fletch dropped the phone in his lap again. He could see the roof of the News-Tribune building. The three police cars were back in V formation pursuing him.
There were only two more corners to skitter around….