Fletch(57)
In jeans, shoeless and shirtless, he started shortly after sunrise looking for Gummy.
It was a quarter to nine when July said he had just seen Gummy parking a Volkswagen minibus on Main Street.
Fletch found the flower-decorated bus and waited in the shadow of a doorway.
At twenty to ten Gummy appeared. While he had been waiting, Fletch had counted five police cars passing on Main Street.
Gummy was unlocking the driver’s door to the bus.
Fletch stepped beside him and said, “Take me around to my pad, will you, Gummy? I need to talk to you.”
Gummy’s face pimples twitched.
“Come on, Gummy. I’ve got to talk to you. About Bobbi.”
In the room, Fletch said, “Bobbi’s dead, Gummy.”
Gummy said, “Oh.”
Fletch smashed him in the face with his fist.
Gummy’s head snapped back and turned, his long hair twirling. His feet moved slowly. He did not fall. He turned back, his head low, looking at Fletch through watering eyes. The look was resentful. The kid had never been hit before.
“I said Bobbi is dead, Gummy, and ‘Oh’ is not a proper response. You killed her. And you know it.”
Gummy stepped toward the door.
Fletch said, “I’ve got bad news for you, Gummy. Bobbi’s death means the heat’s on. Fat Sam is turning state’s evidence.”
“Bullshit.”
“He has written me a nice little deposition naming Chief Graham Cummings as the source. Everything is in the deposition, including your Hawaiian shirt. He’s pinning the actual sale of drugs on you. He insists he was just a receiver.”
The kid had stopped moving toward the door. His eyes were wide and innocent.
“I never pushed. I was just carrying.”
“You were transferring, baby.”
Gummy had blood at the corner of his lip.
“I never sold any of the stuff.”
“Fat Sam is laying it on you.”
“The bastard.”
“And he has signed the deposition in big, flowing handwriting with his real name—which I forget for the moment.”
“Charles Witherspoon.”
“What?”
“Charles Witherspoon.”
“That’s right.”
“Where is this what-do-you-call-it?”
“Deposition. I left it in the city. Do you think I’d be crazy enough to bring it down here? He signed it Charles Witherspoon.”
“Shit.”
“Let me help you, Gummy.” Fletch opened the case of his portable typewriter. He placed an original and two carbon sheets in the carriage. “You need help.”
Gummy stood in the dark room with his hands in his back pockets.
“By the way, Gummy, I’m I.M. Fletcher of the News-Tribune.”
“You’re a reporter?”
“Yeah.”
“I knew there was something funny about you. I saw you riding in a gray Jaguar last week—I think Thursday night.”
“Did you tell anybody you saw me?”
“No.”
Gummy sat on the floor. He leaned his back against the wall.
“Does this mean I go to jail?”
“Maybe not, if you turn state’s evidence.”
“What does that mean? I fink?”
“It means you write a deposition and sign it. You say what role you played in supplying the beach people with drugs.”
“I carried the drugs from the chief of police to Fat Sam.”
Fletch was sitting on the floor cross-legged before his typewriter.
“You’ve got to tell us more than that. Tell me everything. I’ll write it down. And you sign it.”
“You know everything.”
“I need to hear it from you.”
“What are you going to do with the deposition?”
“I’m going to turn it over to a friend of mine who works in the district attorney’s office. We were in the marines together. He’ll know what to do.”
“I’ll get killed. Cummings is a mean son of a bitch.”
“I’m going to ask for police protection for you.”
“ ‘Police protection’? That’s funny.”
“Not the local police, Gummy. I agree Cummings is a dangerous man.”
“Who then? The state police?”
“Probably federal narcotics agents. Or the district attorney’s office. I don’t know. You’ll be taken care of. I want you to nail Cummings.”
“All right.” The light from the dirty window was white on Gum-my’s long face. “Cummings was the source of drugs.”
“All the drugs?”
“Yes. All.”
“What is his source?”
“I don’t know. He goes back and forth to Mexico every few weeks. He tells people he’s building a house down there, or something. For when he retires. He brings the drugs back with him. No one questions the chief of police going through customs.”