Fletch and the Man Who Read Online Free PDF

the dark living room, the door to the bedroom opened.
    “You haven’t lived,” Fletch said.
    Walsh sighed. “Just like the old days, Fletch.”
    “What old days? I thought all days are twenty-four hours. Do some get to be older?”
    “Bending my brain,” Walsh said.
    She came across the room like a specter. She was in a long, gray robe. Her blond hair hung to her shoulders.
    Doris Wheeler was much bigger than Fletch expected. Her true size had not come across to him on television or still pictures, maybe because she was usually seen standing next to the governor, who was also a big person. She was tall with extraordinarily big shoulders for a woman.
    Fletch stood up.
    “Walsh? What are you doing at this hour of the night?”
    “Dropping off your schedule for tomorrow.” Walsh shot his thumb toward the piece of paper on the coffee table. “Why are you back from Cleveland so early?”
    “Had Sully make me an earlier plane reservation. Left the symphony benefit at intermission. I’ve heard Schönberg.” Walsh had not stood up. Doris Wheeler’s eyes fastened on Fletch’s shirt collar. “Who’s this?”
    “Fletcher,” Walsh said. “Here to help handle the press. Just making sure he’s housebroken.”
    “Why are you up talking so late?”
    “War stories,” Walsh answered. “Haven’t seen each other since the Texas-Oklahoma game. That right, Fletch?”
    Doris leaned over her son. She kissed him on the mouth.
    “Walsh, you’ve been drinking.” She stood up only partway.
    “Had to spend some time in the bar, Mother. Something happened. This girl—”
    Doris Wheeler slapped her son, hard. Her hand going down to his face looked as big and as solid as a shovel.
    “I don’t care about any girl, Walsh. I care about you walking around with liquor on your breath.” Walsh did not move. He did not look up at her. “I care about getting your father elected President of the United States.”
    Fully, stiffly erect, she walked back across the living room. “Now, go to bed,” she said.
    The door to the bedroom closed.
    Fletch stood there quietly.
    Walsh’s face was two kinds of red. It was dark red where his motherhad hit him. It was bright red everywhere else.
    Walsh kept his eyes on the papers in his lap.
    “Well,” Walsh finally said, “I’m glad I gave you my lecture on loyalty, before you saw that.”

6
    “Good morning, ladies and gentlemen of the press,” Governor Caxton Wheeler said heartily.
    From the back of the bus, a man’s voice snarled: “
Men
and
women
of the press.”
    “Women and men,” corrected the woman sitting next to Freddie Arbuthnot.
    “Persons of the press …?” offered the governor.
    Fletch was standing next to the governor at the front of the bus. At six-thirty in the morning the governor apparently was slim, tanned, bright-eyed, and fully rested. He did not use, or need to use, the tour bus’s microphone. Also, he did not leave much room for the person standing beside him at the front of the bus.
    As a politician will, he filled whatever space was available to him.
    “Don’t forget the photographers,” wire service reporter Roy Filby said. “They don’t quite make it as persons.”
    “Dearly beloved,” said the governor.
    “Now you’re leaving out Arbuthnot!” said Joe Hall.
    “All creatures great and small?” asked the governor.
    “Why’s that man up there calling us a bunch of animals?” Stella
    Kirchner asked Bill Dieckmann loudly. “Trying to get elected game warden or something?”
    “It gives me great pleasure,” the governor said, “to introduce one of your own colleagues to you—”
    “Hardly,” said Freddie Arbuthnot.
    “—I. M. Fletcher—”
    “Politicians will say anything,” said Ira Lapin.
    “—whom we’ve employed to hand out press releases to you—”
    “He spelled Spiersville wrong already this morning!” shouted Fenella Baker. “It’s
ie
, everybody, not
eel”
    “—do your research for you, free of charge, dig out