Saunders said something imaginative and rotten about his wife and she laughed and shook her head at Fletch.

“Say, Jack? You’d better slip me on the payroll pretty quick. My savings are about gone. This has been an expensive convention. Too much to eat around here.”

Fletch put the air conditioner dial back on MEDIUM.

Crystal would be on the phone a long time, and it would be hot work.

“Sure, Jack,” Crystal said. “I’m ready to dictate. Switch me over to the recorder. I’ll see you in Boston Monday.”

Fletch opened the door.

“Oh, boy!” Crystal, waiting for the Star to straighten out its electronics, cupped her hand over the telephone receiver. “Scoopin? Freddie.”

Absently, Fletch said, “What?”

“Scoopin’ this story will put me right up there in the big league with Freddie Arbuthnot.”

“Who?”

“Freddie Arbuthnot,” Crystal said conversationally. “Don’t you read her stuff? She’s terrific.”

“What?”

“Didn’t you read her on the Pecuchet trial? In Arizona? Real award-winning stuff. She’s the greatest Oh, yeah. You were in Italy.”

“You mean, Freddie.…”

Crystal, round-eyed, looked at him from the telephone.

Fletch said, “You mean, Freddie is.…”

“What’s the matter, Fletch?”

“You mean, Freddie Arbuthnot is.…”

“What?”

“You mean, Freddie Arbuthnot is… Freddie Arbuthnot?”

“Who did you think she is,” Crystal asked, “Paul McCartney?”

“Oh, my God.” Verily, Fletch did smite his forehead. “I never looked her up!”

As he began to stagger through the door, Crystal said, “Hey, Fletch.”

He looked at her dumbly.

Crystal said, “Thanks. Friend.”

Thirty-seven

“Nice of you to drop by.”

Having spent a moment banging on Freddie Arbuthnot’s door, Fletch scarcely noticed the door to his own room was open.

Freddie must have left for the airport.

Robert Englehardt and Don Gibbs were in Fletch’s room.

Gibbs was looking into Fletch’s closet.

Englehardt had opened the marvelous machine on the luggage rack and was examining it.

“I don’t have much time to visit,” Fletch said. “Got to pack and get to the airport.”

“Pretty classy machine,” Englehardt said. “Did you use it well?”

“All depends on what you mean by ‘well.’”

“Where are the tapes?”

“Oh, They’re gone.”

Englehardt turned to him.

“Gone?”

“Don, as long as you’re in the closet, will you drag my suitcases out?”

“Gone?” Englehardt said.

“Yeah. Gonezo.”

Fletch took the two suitcases from Gibbs and opened them on the bed.

“Hand me that suit from the closet, will you, Don?”

Englehardt said, “Mister Fletcher, you’re suffering from a misapprehension.”

“I’m sure it’s nothing aspirin and a good night’s sleep can’t fix. What about those slacks, Don. Thanks.”

“Those men. In Italy. Fabens and Eggers.…”

“Eggers, Gordon and Fabens, Richard,” helped Fletch.

“They aren’t ours.”

“No?”

“No.”

Through his horn-rimmed glasses, Englehardt’s eyes were as solemn as a hoot owl’s.

Fletch said, “Gee. Not ours.”

“They are not members of the Central Intelligence Agency. They don’t work for any American agency. They are not citizens of the United States.”

“Anything in that laundry bag, Don?”

“Mister Fletcher, you’re not listening.”

“Eggers, Gordon and Fabens, Richard are baddies,” said Fletch. “I’ll bet They’re from the other side of the Steel Shade.”

Englehardt said, “Which is why Mister Gibbs and I came down here to Hendricks. Foreign agents had set you up to provide them with information to blackmail the American press.”

Fletch said, “Gee.”

Englehardt said, “I don’t see how you could think the Central Intelligence Agency could ever be involved in such an operation.”

“I checked,” said Fletch. “I asked you.”

“We never said we were involved,” Englehardt said. “I said you had better go along with the operation. And then Gibbs and I came down here to figure it out.”

“And did you figure it out?” Fletch asked.

“We’ve been working very hard,” Englehardt said.

Fletch said, “Yeah.”

He took off his shirt and stuffed it into the laundry bag.

After riding and walking around the countryside he needed a shower, but he didn’t have time.

Englehardt was saying, “I don’t see how anyone could think the C.I.A. would be involved in such an operation.…”

In the bathroom, Fletch sprayed himself with underarm deodorant.

Don Gibbs said, “Fletch, did you know those guys weren’t from the C.I. A.?”

“I had an inkling.”

“You did?”

“I inkled.”

“How?”

“Fabens’ cigar. It really stank. Had to be Rumanian, Albanian, Bulgarian. Phew! It stank. I mentioned it to him. American clothes. American accent. People get really stuck with their smoking habits.” Fletch lifted clean shirts from the bureau drawer to his suitcase. “Then, when the Internal Revenue Service wallah paid me a visit, I figured there were either crossed wires, or no wires at all. There was no good reason for putting that kind of pressure on me at that moment.”

He was putting on a clean shirt.

Sternly, Englehardt said, “If you knew—or suspected—Eggers and Fabens weren’t from the C.I.A., then why did you give them the tapes?”

“Oh, I didn’t,” Fletch said.

“You said They’re gone.”

“The tapes?