in nomination. I never did. And he never won.” Graham pushed the coffee cup away from him. “Until last year. Both our names were placed in nomination.”

“I see,” Fletch said.

“Well,” Graham said, “I don’t have the advantage Walter March had—I don’t own my own network.” Graham looked a little abashed. “I have to retire the first of this year. There’s no way I can hang on.”

Crystal said, “And the A.J.A. bylaws say our officers have to be working journalists.”

“Right,” Graham said with surprising bitterness. “Not retired journalists.”

“Is that why you stopped considering Walter March a friend?” asked Freddie. “Because you opposed each other in an election?”

“Oh, no,” said Graham. “I’m an old man, now, with much experience. Especially political. There are very few things in the course of elections I haven’t seen. I’ve witnessed some very dirty campaigns, in my time.” Graham deferred to the younger people at the table. “I guess we all have. One just never expects to be the victim of such a campaign.”

A bellman was having Fletch pointed out to him by the headwaiter.

Graham said, “I guess you all know Walter March kept a whole barnyard full of private detectives?”

Crystal, Freddie, Fletch said nothing.

Graham sat back in his chair.

“End of story,” he said.

The bellman was standing next to Fletch’s chair.

“Telephone, Mister Fletcher,” he said. “Would you come with me?”

Fletch put down his napkin and rose from his seat.

“I wouldn’t bother you, sir,” the bellman said, “except they said it’s the Pentagon calling.”

Eighteen

“One moment, sir. Major Lettvin calling.”

Fletch had been led to a wall phone down the corridor from the entrance to the dining room.

Leaving the dining room, he had seen (and ignored) Don Gibbs.

Through the plate glass window at the end of the corridor, a couple of meters away, he could see the midday sunlight shimmering on the car tops in the parking lot.

“How do,” the Major said. “Do I have the honor of addressing Irwin Maurice Fletcher?”

The drawl was thicker than Mississippi mud.

“Right,” said Fletch.

“Veteran of the United States Marine Corps?”

“Yes.”

“Serial Number 1893983?”

“It was. I retired it. Anyone can use it now.”

“Well, sir, some sharp-eyed old boy here in one of our clerical departments, reading about that murder in the newspaper, you know, what’s his name? where you at?”

The drawl was so steeped in courtesy everything sounded like a question.

After a moment, Fletch said, “Walter March.”

“Walter March. Say, you’re right in the middle of things again, aren’t ya?”

Fletch said, “Middle of lunch, actually.”

“Anyway, this here sharp-eyed old boy—he’s from Tennessee—I suspect he was pretty well-known around home for shooting off hens’ teeth at a hundred meters—well, anyway, reading this story in the newspaper about Walter March’s murder, he spotted your name?”

Again, it sounded like a question.

Fletch said, “Yes.”

“Say, you aren’t a suspect or anything in this murder, are ya?”

“No.”

“What I mean to say is, you’re not implicated in this here murder in any way, are ya?”

“I wasn’t even here when it was committed. I was flying over the Atlantic. I was coming from Italy.”

“Well, the way this story is written, it makes you wonder. Why do journalists do things like this? Ask me, take all the journalists in the world, put ’em in a pot, and all you’ve got is fishbait.” Major Lettvin paused. “Oops. Sorry. You’re a journalist, aren’t ya? I forgot that for a moment. Sportswriters I don’t mind so much.”

“I’m not a sportswriter.”

“Well, he recognized your name—how many Irwin Maurice Fletchers can there be?” (Fletch restrained himself from saying, “I don’t know.”) “And checked against our files here at the P-gon, and, sure enough, there you were. Serial Number 1893983. That you?”

“Major, do you have a point? This is long distance. You never can tell. A taxpayer might be listening in.”

“That’s right.” The Major chuckled. “That’s right.”

There was a long silence.

“Major?”

“Point is, we’ve been lookin’ for ya, high and low, these many years.”

“Why?”

“Says here we owe you a Bronze Star. Did you know that?”

“I heard a rumor.”

“Well, if you knew it, how come you’ve never arranged to get decorated?”

“I.…”

“Seems to me, if a fella wins a Bronze Star he ought to get it pinned to his chest. These things are important.”

“Major, it’s nice of you to call.…”

“No problem, no problem. Just doin’ my duty. We got so many people here at the P-gon, everybody doin’ each other’s lazying, it’s a sheer pleasure to have something to do—you know what I mean?—to separate breakfast from supper.”

There was a man ambling across the parking lot, hands in the back pockets of his jeans.

“You going