“You washed your hair?”
“And I waited and I waited. I slept on the couch.”
“Poor Linda.”
“It wasn’t very funny.”
“I told you I was stoned.”
“What happened to you.”
“I ended up at The Beach.”
“Couldn’t you have waited for me?”
“I didn’t know I was going.”
“Did you spend the night with a girl?”
“Yes.”
“You’re something else.”
“Linda, I’ve been thinking …”
“Doesn’t sound it.”
“I mean, since the other night. I had to go think.”
“I understand. You always had to go think.”
“I’ve been thinking about you since the other night. What I mean is, you know, I don’t earn much here on the newspaper.”
“I know. By the way, Mr. Gillett says there was something funny about your check.”
“I know. He has me in court Friday morning.”
“Poor Fletch.”
“I agree. We must do something, Linda.”
“Like what?”
“Well, I mean, I’m not earning much, and you’ve lost your job at the boutique, and it just doesn’t make sense for us to be running two apartments.”
“We’re divorced.”
“Who cares about that? You wanted to move back in last Friday night.”
“I still do.”
“So why don’t you? Give up your apartment, and move in?”
“I want to.”
“So okay. Do it.”
“When?”
“Friday morning. That way we can spend the weekend together.”
“You mean, move in permanently?”
“I mean, give up your apartment, get a moving van, and move your junk back into our apartment Friday morning, put everything away, arrange things as you like, and be there when I get back from court.”
“Really?”
“Really. Will you do it?”
“Sure. That’s a wonderful idea.”
“I think it makes great sense, don’t you?”
“I hate this place I’m living in, anyway.”
“Maybe you’ll even have lunch ready when I get back. Maybe we’ll go to The Beach for the weekend.”
“Wonderful idea. I really do love you, Fletch.”
“Me, too. I mean, I love you, too. See you Friday.”
24
“Clara Snow is an incompetent idiot. She knows nothing about this business. She is too stupid to learn.”
Frank Jaffe, editor-in-chief of the News-Tribune was sober only a few moments a day. Two o’clock in the afternoon was not one of those moments. At nine in the morning he was bleary-eyed and hung over. At eleven he was reasonable, but also reasonably nervous: he saw everyone as being in the way between him and his first luncheon martini. At eleven-thirty he would dash through the city room to commence drinking his lunch. From two to four-thirty he was coherently drunk. At five he was impatient, irascible. Evening drinking began at six. By nine he was incoherently drunk. In the evening he would phone the office frequently shouting orders no one could ever understand. He would spend much of the next day countermanding the orders he could remember which nobody had understood anyway. From the editor-in-chief’s office would flow daily a sheaf of oblique “clarifications” which disturbed everyone and made no sense to anyone.
Fletch wondered how he had the energy for Clara Snow.
From across his oak desk, Frank’s eyes behind glasses appeared to be trying to focus on him from the bottom of a jar of clam juice.
“What?”
“Clara Snow is an incompetent idiot. She knows nothing about newspapering. She is so stupid she can’t learn.”
“She’s your boss.”
“She is an incompetent idiot. She almost got me killed. She might yet.”
“What did she do?”
“I’ve been working on this drugs-on-the-beach story—”
“For too goddamn long a time, too.”
“Clara Snow reported to the chief of police at The Beach that I was there on an investigation and getting close to something.”
“What’s wrong with that? You might need police protection.”
“What’s wrong with it is that I believe the chief of police is the source of the drugs on the beach.”
“You’re kidding.”
“I’m not kidding.”
“Chief Graham Cummings? I’ve known him for ten years. Fifteen years. He’s a wonderful man.”
“He’s the drug source.”
“The hell he is.”
“The hell he isn’t.”
Frank found it difficult to focus on people. “Fletcher, I think I’m taking you off this assignment.”