Fletch Reflected by Gregory McDonald Page A

hopelessness, I worked as a hotel maid from six in the morning until three, and after that in the hotel laundry to raise Amalie, send her through secretarial school. That was my duty, and I did it. My grandchildren just think all this is natural.” Mrs. Houston’s wave of her arm took in all Vindemia. “It just fell from the sky, as free as the sunlight and rain. They complain about their father, what he expects of them. I say, ‘What if you were born in the slums? What if you were hungry every day? Would you complain as much then?’ They say, ‘It didn’t happen.’”
    The clock in the peak of the pool cabana’s roof read twenty two minutes past twelve. He was due at the secretary’soffice at twelve thirty and he still didn’t know where it was.
    “Let me tell you,” Mrs. Houston said to Jack, or the azaleas. “Chester is a sainted man. Out of his own genius and hard work he has created all this, given them everything they could want, and how do they thank him? They never have a smile for him, a kind word, not a lick of appreciation or respect. I’d like to see one of them do ten percent of what he’s done. No, they think he’s some kind of a hard taskmaster just because he expects them to behave decently and do their duty. I tell you.”
    “Doctor Radliegh must expect a lot from himself,” Jack said.
    “He does indeed.”
    “Maybe too much from them?”
    “He expects something from them.”
    “I must go,” Jack said. “I don’t want to be fired on my first day of work.”
    Mrs. Houston said, “Here I am, hiding behind a hedge, digging around in a garden that doesn’t need digging. The garden doesn’t need digging, but I need the work of digging. I’ll be damned if I let myself become a petunia like the rest of them. You won’t tell on me?”
    “Never,” Jack said.
    “Thing is,” Mrs. Houston said to Jack, “I appreciate. I respect. I appreciate and respect Chester. I also respect myself.”
    “I see that,” Jack said. “Thanks for your help.”
    •
    On a bicycle assigned to him the night before when his car was locked in the compound, Jack coasted down a shaded slope to a wide and deep, well landscaped building he supposed housed the business offices. He had spotted what appeared to be the top of a transmitter tower over the trees and went to find its base.
    Beyond the big building was an airstrip with one big hangar next to a short control tower.
    Around the big, landscaped building was a driveway wide enough for cars to park on it, neatly, without giving the appearance of a parking lot. There weren’t that many cars anyway. There were more bicycles in bike stands than there were cars.
    He rode his bike to the front of the building, noticing there was no sign identifying the building. He slipped the front wheel of his bike into a stand. As all the bikes were alike, he noted that his was in the thirteenth slot from the left.
    “Hey, Jack!”
    One of the two men coming out of the front door of the building was the man who had hired Jack the day before.
    “‘Morning, Mister Downes.”
    Jack’s folded t-shirt hung out of the waistband at the back of his shorts.
    “Come meet Eric Beauville, Jack. This is the man who runs the world, as far as you’re concerned. Chief Executive Officer of most things named Radliegh.”
    Shaking hands with Jack, Beauville did not smile. “I don’t run the world. I follow orders like everybody else. There’s a computer list of new orders on my desk at six o’clock every morning.”
    “Well.” Downes hitched up his trouser waist. “Working for Doctor Radliegh never leaves the slightest doubt as to what is expected of one.”
    “At six a.m., six thirty a.m., eight a.m., eleven a.m.,” Beauville said, “two p.m., four p.m., eight p.m., eleven p.m.”
    Downes laughed. “Yes. Well.”
    “Saturdays and Sundays included,” Beauville concluded.
    “You here to see Ms. Dunbar?” Downes asked Jack.
    “I’m afraid I’m late. I—”
    “No excuses