of underclothes, loosened as much as he could manage, and flipped the sheet and blanket over her.

“Good night, sweet Princess.” He turned out the bedside lamp. “Dream sweet dreams, and, when you awake, think kindly on the Bumptious Bandit! ‘Daughter, did you hear hoofbeats in the night?’” He left a light on across the room, to orient her when she awoke. “‘Father, Father, I thought it were the palpitations of my own heart!’”

Letting himself out, the telephone information sheet firmly in hand, Fletch said, “‘It were, Daughter. Booze does that to you.’”

Ten

9:00 P.M. Welcoming Remarks

TERRORISM AND TELEVISION

Address by Hy Litwack

“I was afraid you’d show up,” Bob McConnell said.

Dinner was half over when Fletch arrived to take his assigned seat, at a corner table for six.

McConnell—a big man, fortyish, heavy, with sideburns and a mustache—had been alone at the table with Crystal Faoni and Fredericka Arbuthnot.

“I knew a table for six, empty except for two girls and myself, was too good to last.”

“Hi, Bob.”

“Hi.”

“They put us together,” Fredericka Arbuthnot said to Fletch. “Isn’t that chummy?”

“Chummy.”

Fletch glanced at the considerable distance to the head table.

“I guess none of us is considered too important,” he said. “Another few feet to the right, through that wall, and we could stack our dishes in the dishwasher without leaving the table.”

Bob said, “Yeah.”

A few years before, Robert McConnell had left his job at a newspaper and spent ten months as press aide to a presidential candidate.

It would have been the chance of a lifetime.

Except the candidate lost.

His newspaper had taken him back, of course, but begrudgingly, and at the same old job.

His publisher, Walter March, had considered his mistaken judgment more important than his gained experience.

Walter March’s judgment hadn’t been wrong.

He had had his newspapers endorse the other candidate—who had won.

And it had taken Robert McConnell the interim years to work himself out of both the emotional and financial depression taking such a chance had caused.

Crystal said, “How was your massage, sybarite?”

Bob said, “You had a massage?”

To a good reporter, everything was significant

“I was sleepy, afterwards,” Fletch said.

“I should take massages,” Crystal said. “Maybe it would help me get rid of some of this fat.”

“Crystal, darling,” Fletch said. “You’re a bore.”

“Me?”

“All you do is talk about your fat.”

Because he was late, the waiter placed in front of Fletch—all at one time—the fruit cup, salad, roast beef, potato, peas, cake with strawberry goo poured over the top, and coffee.

“You want a drink?” the waiter asked.

Fletch said, “I guess not.”

“My fat is all anybody ever talks about,” Crystal said.

“Only in response to your incessant comments about it.” Fletch chewed the pale slices of grapefruit and orange from the fruit cup. “Historic Hendricks Plantation,” he said. “Even their fruit cup is antebellum.”

“I never, never mention my fat,” Crystal said.

Purposely, humorously, she began to fork his salad.

“You never talk about anything else.” Fletch pulled his roast beef out of her range. “You’re like one of these people with a dog or a horse or a boat or a garden or something who never talk about anything but their damn dog, horse, boat, or, what else did I say?”

“Garden,” said Freddie.

“Garden,” said Fletch. “Boring, boring, boring.”

Crystal was sopping up the salad dressing with a piece of bread. “It must be defensive.”

“Stupid,” Fletch said. “You have nothing to be defensive about.”

“I’m fat.”

“You’ve got beautiful skin.”

“Meters and meters of it.”

She reached for his dessert.

Fredericka Arbuthnot said to Robert McConnell, “This is I. M. Fletcher. He gets along well with everybody.”

“This stupid American idea,” Fletch said, “that everybody has to look emaciated.”

Crystal’s voice was muffled through the strawberry-goo-topped cake. “Look who’s talking. You’re not fat.”

“Inside every slim person,” Fletch proclaimed, “is a fat person trying to get out.”

“Yeah,” muttered Freddie. “But through the mouth?”

“If you’d stop telling people you’re fat,” Fletch declaimed, “no one would notice!”

Her mouth still full of cake, Crystal looked sideways at Fletch.

She could contain herself no longer.

She and Fletch both began to laugh and choke and laugh and laugh.

With her left hand Crystal was holding her side. With her right, she was holding her napkin to her face.

Not laughing, Fredericka Arbuthnot and Robert McConnell were watching them.

Crystal began to reach for his coffee.

Fletch banged her wrist onto the table.

“Leave the coffee!”

Crystal nearly rolled out of her chair—laughing.

Robert McConnell had signaled the waiter.

“Bring drinks, all around, will you? We need to catch up with these two.”

The waiter scanned the dead glasses on the table, and looked inquiringly at Fletch.

Bob said, “Fletch?”

“I don’t care.”

“Bring him a brandy,” Bob said. “He needs a