him, ever. What’s more, he could pay off heavy, in all directions, up and down the fuzz ladder.…

“This was a very slippery badass.

“Fletch wanted the story. He wanted the details. He wanted the hard evidence.

“’Course he got no cooperation from the police.

“And the newspaper wasn’t cooperating, either. The editors, they said, you know, what’s one pimp? It isn’t worth the space to run the story. Typical.

“And Fletch wasn’t doing this precisely right, either.

“Every time he talked a girl into his confidence and began getting stuff he could use as evidence, he’d realize what he was doing, what he was asking them to do, in turning state’s evidence—allow themselves to be dragged through the newspapers and television and courts for months, if not years.

“Upsie had already badly damaged their lives in one way.

“Fletch saw himself badly damaging their lives in another way.

“These kids were so young, Bob.…

“Anyway, as soon as Fletch got the story from each girl, instead of using it, he found himself getting her to a social service agency, a hospital, or getting up the scratch to bus her home—whatever he thought would work.

“He did this six, eight times maybe.

“Well, Upsie got upset. He was pretty sure, I guess, Fletch wasn’t going to be able to print anything on him, ever, what with no police support, no newspaper support, and while Fletch kept sending his best sources of evidence home on a bus … but nevertheless, Fletch was hurting Upsie’s business by continually taking these girls away from Upsie before they were ready to be wiped.

“Get the point?

“So Upsie sends a couple of goons out, and they find Fletch, drag him out of his car—a real honey, a dark green Fiat convertible, I loved it—and while they hold him at a distance, arms behind his back, they put a fuse in the gas tank and light it and the car blows all over the block.

“The goons say, ‘Upsie’s upset. Next time the fuse goes up your ass, and it won’t be just gas at the other end.’

“So next night—it was a Saturday night—Fletch finds Upsie getting out of his pimpmobile and goes up to him as smooth as cream cheese, hand out to shake, and says, ‘Upsie, I apologize. Let me buy you a drink.’ Just like that. Upsie’s wary at first, but figures, hell, Fletch is aced, he’s aced other people easily enough, maybe it might be nice to have someone on the newspaper he has in his pocket, whatever.…

“Fletch takes him into the nearest dive, buys Upsie a drink, tries to explain he was just doing his job, but, what the hell, what did the newspaper care, he could end up dead on the sidewalk for all the newspaper cared.

“He had brought a little pill with him—something one of Upsie’s own girls had given him—and when Upsie was nice and relaxed and beginning to tell Fletch about his having been a nine-year-old newspaper boy on the South Side, Fletch slips the pill into Upsie’s gin.

“In a very few minutes, Upsie’s swaying, doesn’t know what the hell he’s doing, begins to pass out, and Fletch, still as smooth as canned apple sauce, walks him out and puts Upsie in the passenger’s seat of the pimpmobile at the curb. See?

“He drives Upsie to this heavy, ornate Episcopal church Fletch knows about—knows how to get into that hour of Saturday night—and helps him into the church and sits him on the floor, where Upsie passes out.

“On the floor, Fletch strips Upsie of all his pimp finery.

“Then he places him spread-eagled on his back in the center aisle, bareass, badass naked, and ties his wrists and ankles to the last few pews—did I say spread-eagled?—in the dark.

“Then he takes a thin wire and ties it up around Upsie’s balls—around his penis, you know?—and runs that straight and fairly taut to the huge brass doorknob of the heavy front door of the church. There’s a purple velvet drape around the door, and the door is solid oak.

“He ties the wire nice and tight to the doorknob.

“Then Fletch goes up to the altar and drags the bishop’s chair over so he can sit in it and see Upsie ’way down the center aisle, but Upsie can’t see him.

“By and by, Upsie wakes up and groans, obviously not feeling too well, and tries to roll over and finds he’s tied to something, all four points, and wakes up more, and tugs at the ropes, and then raises his head to look down at himself