my travel piece.”

“By now, I think, you’d have said everything there is to say about Italy.”

“You can never say enough about Italy. A gorgeous country filled with gorgeous people.…”

“All work and no play.…”

“Makes jack.”

“Why don’t you stop working, and come for a swim? We can have the pool all to ourselves.”

“What time is it in your room?”

“Midnight. Twelve-thirty-five. What time is it in yours?”

“My dear young lady. Crystal Faoni got very cold in that pool during the mid-afternoon.”

“And with all her insulation.”

“She was chilled.”

“I saw your efforts to warm her up.”

“Now, if she got cold in mid-afternoon, what do you think might happen to us at half-past midnight?”

“We might get warmed up.”

“You miss the point, Ms. Arbuthnot.”

“The point is, Mister Fletcher, you shot your wad.”

“The point is, Ms. Arbuthnot.…”

She said, “And I thought you were healthy,” and hung up.

There was a poker party, or the poker party, going on in Oscar Perlman’s suite, a whacky tobacky party in Sheldon Levi’s, silence in the Litwacks’; Leona Hatch was issuing her “Errrrrr’s” regularly; Jake Williams was on the phone to a March newspaper in Seattle, sounding very tired (something about how to handle a story about a fistfight among major-league baseball players in a downtown cocktail lounge); in her room Mary McBain appeared to be all alone, crying; Charlie Stieg was in the last stages of a seduction scene with a slightly drunk unknown; Rolly Wisham and Norm Reid were tuned to the same late-night movie in their rooms; Tom Lockhart’s room was silent.

Fletch switched back to Station 5, Suite 3.

“Switch!” Don Gibbs was shouting. “Everybody switch! Swish, swish, swish, I SAID!”

There was a considerable variety of background noises, some of which Fletch had difficulty identifying.

A girl’s voice sang, “Snow, beautiful snow.…”

“Everybody get your snow before it melts,” Don Gibbs said.

There was the sound of a hard slap.

Englehardt’s voice, low and serious, said, “When I pay money, I want to get what I pay for.”

“Cut that out,” Gibbs said. “I said, ‘Switch!’ Everybody switch!”

A young man’s voice said, “You’re not paying for that, bastard.”

“Switch! I said!”

Fletch listened long enough to make sure a second female voice was recorded by his marvelous machine.

Then Don Gibbs was saying, “Whee! We’re living like journalists! Goddamn journalists. Goddamn that Fletch! Live like this alla time. Disgusting!”

Fletch put his marvelous machine on automatic, for Station 5, Suite 3, and took a shower.

Twenty-nine

Wednesday

The sun was up enough to have dissipated the dew and, after a long but gentle gallop, make Fletch hot enough to stop and pull off his T-shirt and wrap it around his saddle horn.

When he stopped to do so his eye caught the sun’s reflection off a windshield between trees, up the side of a hill, so he rode to a point well behind the vehicle and then up through scrub pine level to it, where he found an old timber road. He rode back along it.

Coming around a curve in the road, he stopped.

A camper was parked in the road.

Behind it, lying on his back, blood coming from his mouth, was the man he had been looking for, the man the masseuse, Mrs. Leary, had mentioned, the man in the blue jeans jacket, the man with the tight, curly gray hair.

He was obviously unconscious.

Over him, on one knee, going through a wallet, now looking up at Fletch apprehensively, was none other than Frank Gillis.

Fletch said, “Good morning.”

“Who are you?” Gillis asked.

“Name of Fletcher.”

Gillis returned to his investigation of the wallet. “You work here?”

“No.”

“What then? Staying at the hotel? Hendricks?”

“Yes.”

“You a journalist?” There was a touch of incredulity in Gillis’ voice.

“Off and on.” Fletch wiped some sweat off his stomach. “You’re Frank Gillis.”

“You got it first guess.”

For years, Frank Gillis had been traveling America finding and reporting those old, usually obscure stories of American history, character, odd incidents, individuals, which spoke of and to the hearts of the American people. During days when America had reason to doubt itself both abroad and at home, Gillis’ features were a tonic which made Americans feel better about themselves, even if only for a few minutes, and, probably, during the nation’s most trying days, did a lot, in their small way, to hold the nation together.

Fletch said, “And you just mugged somebody.”

Gillis stood up and dropped the wallet on the man’s chest.

“Yeah, but guess who,” he said. “Get down. Come here. Look at him.”

Gillis was a man in his fifties, with gentle, smiling eyes and a double chin.

Fletch got off his horse and, holding the reins, walked to