"Who, Mr. Blaine?"
"Yes. He says he wants me to remember him as he was. When we were young and full of hope, as he puts it." Mrs. Dobbs fell silent again and Marlene saw that her eyes were brimming. "You know," she said in a strained voice, "I am suddenly quite tired. I wonder if we could continue this at some later time."
"Of course, Mrs. Dobbs. I'd like to come back, if I may, to look through any material in Mr. Dobbs's study that may be relevant."
The older woman nodded and said, "Yes, yes, as you like, although I imagine Hank took everything years ago."
Marlene rose and put her pad and pen away in her purse. "One last thing. What you just now mentioned, that all the people involved are dead. That's what makes it so hard to collect information on this project. I was wondering, do you know what happened to the Russians? Reltzin. And Gaiilov."
"Gaiilov? I have no idea. Reltzin probably lives right here in Washington."
"He does?" asked Marlene with surprise. "How do you know that?"
"Because I see him nearly every week during the concert season. He is a music lover, as am I. We have been nodding to each other for almost twenty-five years, although we have never exchanged a word. He even sent me a card when Richard died. I think Richard would have found that amusing. Harley certainly does."
"He knows you've seen Reltzin?"
"Of course. He would have told you if you'd asked him."
But Marlene had, and he hadn't.
Driving back to Virginia in the yellow VW, Marlene considered what she had learned so far and her options. It was clear that Blaine had lied to her, about being CIA, and about how he had learned about Gaiilov, and about Reltzin being returned to the Soviet Union, and she didn't know why. He was dying, apparently. Why bother hindering the amateur investigation of an ancient case? Maybe his mind was going and he couldn't keep the old lies straight anymore. In any event, she had gone as far as she could with the accessible material and informants. Moving further would take serious investigative work, full-time work, and that, she had to admit, she could not really accomplish all by herself, and certainly not as an unpaid hobby. It was a lot easier doing investigations when you had a couple of thousand cops behind you.
"How did it go?" asked Maggie when Marlene at last arrived at the Dobbs home. "You don't seem to have any visible claw marks."
"I think it went well," said Marlene. "We had a nice conversation about the case, and about your late father-in-law. And Harley Blaine. Tell me, do you know Blaine at all?"
"Mmm, I'm not sure. He's a hard man to know. He has that perfectly opaque front that guys of that generation cultivated, charming, hail-fellow, slightly boozy, courtly manners. He used to come into town every Christmas with crates of expensive presents. Now the birthday and Christmas presents come by mail. I got the feeling he wanted to be sort of a foster dad and grandparent around here, but he didn't have the… I don't know, emotional energy, or whatever. We haven't seen him for a couple of years, although Hank flew out there a couple of months ago. He's very ill, I think." Then she asked, hesitantly, her voice thin and nervous, "Was she angry that I gave you his number?"
"It didn't come up," Marlene lied.
Parking her car in the Federal Gardens lot, Marlene noticed that the next bay was empty. She recalled that she had not seen the old pickup truck owned by Thug 'n' Dwarf for several days. Now that she thought about it, she hadn't seen either of the pair around since an unusually violent fight three nights ago, and she hadn't heard any country music through the party wall either. This was odd, because their dog had whined throughout the previous night. Holding Lucy's hand, she walked from the parking area to the back door of the couple's apartment and pressed her ear against the peeling paint of the door. All she could hear was a faint mewling sound and a rhythmic scratching thump. She peered through the back window into the small kitchen, a dirtier replica of her own, except that several of the cabinet doors hung open and one of the kitchen chairs was lying on its side. She put her ear to the window. No sounds but the persistent scratch-thump-scratch-whine.
Entering her own apartment, Marlene settled the napping Lucy in her bed, then dialed the manager's office. The manager was a lazy redneck who had a reputation for shakedowns and hustling single mothers short on the rent. The phone rang fifteen times before she slammed it down. Federal Gardens was not a high-service establishment. She could, of course, hear the same lugubrious noises through her walls. The dog was obviously still there.
She bore it for ten minutes, pacing, smoking, and then with a curse she grabbed a table knife from a drawer and dashed out. It took less than a minute to pop the cheap lock on the back door of Thug 'n' Dwarf's apartment. She slipped inside.
As she had suspected, the place was abandoned. The refrigerator held only a few condiments, a moldy package of sliced bologna, and half a stick of butter. The living room was merely filthy and disordered, but the large bedroom bore the signs of serious fighting: a smashed lamp, holes in the plaster, chairs broken, and the bed torn apart. All the drawers had been pulled out of the bureau, and one of them had been flung against the wall hard enough to smash it. If Marlene had been made to guess, she would have said that the couple had engaged in an ultimate argument, Dwarf had cleared out while Thug was at work, and he had come home, observed this fact, taken out his rage on the place itself, and then made his own escape. Leaving the dog.
Who was locked in a closet in the small bedroom.
"Ah, you poor baby!" she cried when she opened the door, and then she drew back, gagging. The beast was lying in its own filth, ribs staring, its black coat matted and dull. It had obviously been half-starved for a long time and deprived of water for days at least. Marlene ran back to the kitchen, put the bologna and the butter in a bowl, filled a small pot with water, and carried both back to the dog. It lapped up the water. The food disappeared in two great gulps. Then it stood up and walked slowly on shaky legs out of the closet.
Marlene drew in her breath. The animal was huge, well over two feet high at the shoulder, with a great, sad-eyed slobbering head. She judged it to be the result of some ill-advised mating between a St. Bernard and a black retriever.
Cautiously, Marlene patted its head. It licked her hand, coating it all over with hot dogspit.
"Come on, Buster, let's get you cleaned up," she said, tearing the cord from the shattered lamp and tying it to the dog's chain collar. It followed her docilely next door. She found Lucy awake and curious.
"What's his name?" was her first question when she saw the dog, and then, "Why does he smell so yucky?"
"I don't know his name, dear, and he smells bad because he hasn't had a bath in a long time. That's what we're going to do now. Go run and get your baby shampoo."
Marlene tied the dog to a pipe outside the kitchen and washed it with bucket, scrub brush, and Johnson's No More Tears, and dried it with a cheap chenille bath rug she found in a closet. The dog bore this with admirable patience, lapping at puddles, but otherwise staying still. After the bath, it looked a lot better, shiny and bearing, absurdly, the scent of a clean, small child. When it shook itself, its skin flopped about in a peculiar and disconcerting manner, as if it had been sold a suit two sizes too large at the dog store. Its damp coat steamed in the chilly air, giving it the appearance of a hellhound, albeit a sweet hellhound. Big too, very big, and from the disproportionate size of the paws, planning on becoming bigger still. Marlene wondered if she was making one of her famous mistakes.
"Is he our dog now, Mommy?"