it. I just want to see if it checks out with what I know.”

“Oh, for God’s sake, Don! I’m being blackmailed.”

“I know that, but tell me again how.”

“Well.…”

“It won’t hurt to tell me, Fletcher. Don’t I already know?”

“Nice guy.” The floor of the phone booth was filthy. “Taxes.”

“You’ve never paid any?”

“Just whatever was withheld from my salary.” He was pressing the phone against his ear. “Even for those years I never filed a return.”

“Uh-uh. And what about the last year or two?”

“I’ve never filed a return.”

“It says here you have money you can’t account for. Is that right?”

“Yeah.”

“What?”

“Yes.”

“So why are you calling me?”

“You’re my friend in the American Intelligence community.”

“We’re not friends.”

“Acquaintance. I’m trying to report to someone in the home office—someone responsible—that your guys down the line are blackmailing me to bug the private lives of some of the most important members of the American press—newspapers, radio, and television.”

“Don’t you think our right hand knows what our left hand is doing?”

“No, I don’t. And if you do, you should be ashamed of yourselves.”

“I’m not ashamed of myself. Nobody’s blackmailing me.”

“Come on, Don! Jesus Christ!”

“How do you think we gather intelligence, Fletcher? By reading your lousy newspapers? From network news?”

“Don, this isn’t legitimate, and you know it.”

“I know lots of things.” Gibbs’ voice had risen again, slightly. “You said when you called from London that the guys who talked to you were particularly interested in getting information on old Mister March.”

“Yes. That’s right. Walter March. I used to work for him.”

“What does that mean to you?”

“That they single out March?”

“Yes.”

“He’s an incredibly powerful man. March Newspapers.” Fletch’s right ear was becoming hot and sore. “Listen, Don, I’ve only got a few minutes to make that plane, if I’m going to make it. Are you telling me…?”

“No, Mister Fletcher. I’m telling you.”

It was a much older, deeper voice.

“Who is this?” Fletch asked.

“Robert Englehardt,” the voice said. “Don’s department head. I’ve been listening in.”

“Man!” Alone in the phone booth, Fletch grinned. “You guys can’t do anything straight.”

“I guess you’re calling Don to ask if this assignment is something you have to take on.”

“You’ve got it.”

“What do you think the answer is?”

“It sounds to me like the answer is yes.”

“You have the right impression.”

There was another click on the line.

Fletch asked, “Don, are you still there?”

“Yes.”

“I know you guys are so wrapped up in your own mysteriousness you can’t answer a simple question yes or no, but why the extra degree of mysteriousness about this?”

“What mysteriousness?”

“Come on, Don.”

“We’ve just been trying to make absolutely sure that the A.J.A. convention is still on.”

“Still on? Why wouldn’t it be?”

“You journalists are always the last with the news, aren’t you?”

“What news?”

“Walter March was murdered this morning. At the convention. So long, Fletcher.”

Three

“Hello, hello,” Fletch said, as he buckled himself into the seat next to the girl with the honey-colored hair and the brown eyes, “I get along well with everybody.”

“You don’t even get along with plane schedules,” she answered. “They’ve been holding the plane for you for ten minutes.”

It was a twelve-seater.

“I was on the phone,” Fletch said. “Talking to an old uncle. He doesn’t talk as fast as he used to.”

The pilot slammed the passenger door and pulled the handle up.

“I forgive you,” the girl said. “Why are you so tan?”

“I just arrived from Italy. This morning.”

“That would have been excuse enough.”

The pilot had started the engines and turned the plane away from the terminal.

“Ask me if I had a nice flight.”

They had to shout. The plane had three propellers, one of them right over their heads.

“Did you have a nice flight?”

“No.” Taxiing to the runway, the small plane was very bouncy. “Ask me why I didn’t have a nice flight.”

“Why didn’t you have a nice flight?”

“I sat next to a Methodist minister.”

She said, “So what?”

“The closer to heaven we got, the smugger he got.”

She shook her head. “Jet lag affects different people in different ways.”

Fletch said, “My uncle didn’t think it was funny either.”

“Not only that,” the girl said, “but telling it to your uncle probably took up the whole ten minutes we waited.”

“I’m a loyal nephew.”

The plane stopped. Each of the three engines was gunned. With the left engine still running high, the brakes were released and the plane swung onto the runway. Gathering speed, it bounced and vibrated down the runway until the bounces got big enough, at which point the plane popped into the air.

The plane rose and banked over Washington and the sound of the engines diminished somewhat.

The girl was