“Oh?”
“Drugs. Goddamn it. Drugs everywhere. On the beach, of all places. Hard drugs. Heroin. Opium. Let alone these pills and amphetamines. Sending a youngster to the beach these days is equal to sending him to hell.”
“People literally selling drugs to children. Pushing drugs on them. Can you imagine anything worse than that?” Joan said. “What sort of an insane, evil person would actually urge children to take drugs for just a few bucks?”
“I’ve had several conversations with the chief of police, Chief Cummings,” John Collins said, “urging him to crack down more actively on this business. I’ve even offered to pay to have special investigators come in, to clean the whole thing up. That’s a bill I wouldn’t mind paying at all. He tells me he’s doing everything he can. He has an informer on the beach, he says, but it’s very difficult, as young people drift in and out, live on the beach, go by phony names. Apparently it’s much too fluid a situation to control. There are no constants. He said special investigators wouldn’t do a darn bit of good.”
“I didn’t know you made that offer, Dad. How sweet.”
“It’s not sweet. It’s necessary. With the rate of burglaries we’re having here at The Beach, muggings and robberies, something has to be done. There’s going to be a murder soon, and then people will sit up. But what really bothers me is all these young people staggering around, destroying their brains, destroying their bodies, killing themselves. How very awful for them. They don’t know better. Their lives must be just hell.”
Fletch said, “I quite agree with you, sir.”
“However, the esteemed chief of police is retiring soon, and a man close to retirement isn’t apt to be at his most energetic. That’s what I keep telling Alan: retire the old farts; give them their money and let them go. They’re not doing anything for the company anyway. Chief Cummings is busy setting up some retirement home. He’s not paying attention to police business here in town. Might as well get rid of him. Perhaps after he retires, we’ll have a better chance to wipe out this nest of vipers and sickies.”
Fletch said,”You never can tell. The thing might break by itself, somehow.”
“I’d like to see it,” John Collins said. “And I’d like to know who is going to do it.”
“Well,” Fletch said. “The club is just great.”
“There are no drugs here,” John Collins said, “except for martinis imbibed before lunch by certain dopes.”
14
Using his telephone credit card, Fletch spent an hour in an overstuffed chair in the playroom of the Racquets Club. The room was dark and cool, and no one was at the billiard tables or the ping-pong tables or watching the television.
First, he called the home number of Marvin Stanwyk in Nonheagan, Pennsylvania.
“Mr. Stanwyk?”
“Yes.”
“This is Sidney James of Casewell Insurers of California.”
“How are you, boy? What did you decide about picking up that Bronze Star?”
“I haven’t decided yet, sir.”
“Doubt you’ll ever be offered another one.”
“I didn’t expect to be offered this one.”
“I say you should pick it up. Never know. You might have a son, someday, who’d have some interest in it, or a grandson.”
“I don’t know, sir. Women don’t seem to be having children these days.”
“You know, you’re right about that. I wouldn’t mind Alan and his wife producing a child.”
“What?”
“Don’t you think it’s time they had a child? Been married how long? Six, seven years?”
“They don’t have a child?”
“Indeed not. That would get us to come out to California. Boy, girl, anything. We wouldn’t miss seeing our grandchild.”
“I see.”
“Well, Mr. James, I imagine you called to ask how we are again. Mrs. Stanwyk and I are both well. Just beginning to think about lunch.”
“Glad to hear it, sir.”
“You must be a pretty ambitious fellow, working on a Saturday. I have to go back to the hardware store myself after lunch, but I thought I was the only man left alive who still works on a Saturday. Of course, in your case, you may have to work on Saturday because you spend so much time the rest of the week calling up people.”
“We’re trying to pin down just how much flying your son does.”
“Too much.”
“You say he comes to see you every six weeks or so.”
“About that.”
“How long does he stay with you?”