“Wives,” Walter said. “There’s a few of them too.”
“So, we’re here to see the dentist?”
“No, we’re here because the dentists do not want to see us-you, in particular. I don’t need to be ducking photographers, but you do. By the way, how did a photographer get that picture of you and whathisname in Tibet?” Isobel laughed, and so did Walter.
“It’s a hoot alright, Walter,” she said, “but honestly, I think it’s a tub of crap. Hard to imagine any person, no matter how well known, who can’t leave the makeup home, dress as casually as everyone does these days, and just walk about. I do it quite well, thank you.”
Walter said, “So, no cloak and dagger stuff for you? I’m overdoing it, you think?”
“Absolutely,” she smiled.
“We don’t need the dentists? Or anyone to cover our movements?”
“We don’t need no stinkin’ dentists,” she said.
Now he too was smiling. Isobel leaned over and kissed him on the cheek. This was more than a friendly kiss, and it thrilled him.
“No one knows who I am,” she said, using her father’s accent again. “I go anywhere and everywhere, just like the common folk.”
“Well, in that case,” Walter said, “let’s go get a good steak. I’m starving and don’t mind spending forty-five bucks for a piece of meat.” They left the Hilton and cabbed the short distance to Ben Benson’s, Walter’s favorite New York steakhouse.
When their salads arrived, Walter said, “I saw him, talked to him, used his bathroom.” Isobel was speechless. She knew he meant Leonard. A forkful of salad never made it to her mouth. Walter waited for something, but Isobel said nothing. Her eyes registered amazement.
“I found him in New Mexico. Way out in the middle of nowhere.”
“How?” she asked. And he told her everything: the guns, North Dakota, and Raleigh; the trip to New Mexico, the Pac-Mail store in Las Vegas, and the lonely cabin north of Albert. He told her how a tall, rock-hard, bearded man with some marked limitations named Michael DelGrazo said he worked for a Leonard Marteenez, not a Leonard Martin. He described the inside of the cabin. He told her how he decided to follow up the lead in Tennessee, how credit-card receipts told him Carter Lawrence had gone there to meet Nicholas Stevenson, Harvey Daniels, and a third man. He told her about Debra Melissa Wallis and the man she called the cowboy.
“My God,” said Isobel. “Michael DelGrazo is the cowboy.”
“No. Not quite. Michael DelGrazo was a man who lost his wife and children in an apartment fire in Detroit in 1962.” Isobel looked at him bewildered and confused.
“The apartment house was owned by a man named Robert Bass. It seemed Bass had paid off the fire department inspector, a man named Willard Cox, who, in turn, gave the building a clean bill of health. The place was, of course, a fire hazard, and it soon burned to the ground, taking DelGrazo’s family with it. When DelGrazo learned all this from a newspaper investigative expose, he hunted down both Bass and Cox and shot them dead. Michael DelGrazo died in prison in 1984, prostate cancer.”
“Wow,” Isobel said. “Then this Michael DelGrazo is…?” Her question hung in the air. She knew the answer already, but Walter obliged.
“Leonard Martin.”
“Oh, my God. B-but you said he looked like-”
“A man can change a lot of things in two years. Leonard did. I missed it, completely missed it.”
“The blindfold,” she said, remembering Kermit and her interview, in the dark, with Leonard. “That’s why the blindfold.” She felt bad saying it, but she said it nonetheless.
Walter described his misadventure in New Mexico again, this time in fine detail. Isobel strained to hear every word in the noisy restaurant. She asked, and he said he didn’t think there was much chance Leonard would call. Their steaks arrived, although they hadn’t touched the salads yet. The waiter insisted he would bring them new steaks, freshly cooked, whenever they were ready for them. Walter insisted the waiter leave the entrees. They would eat everything at the same time. The man was reluctant, but, as any good waiter would, he protested but consented. They ate everything he put in front of them.
“Don’t be disappointed,” Isobel said. “Don’t be hard on yourself.”
“I’m not,” Walter replied in his trademark easy manner. “I know where he’s been, where he’s gone, what he’s done. And I believe there’s no rush. He’s not killing anybody, is he?”
“I wasn’t aware he had a schedule.”
“There was a pattern to the intervals. Hopman, MacNeal, Ochs, and Grath. Then he stopped and what did he do?” Walter took a sip of his wine. He looked for a response. Finally, Isobel said, “I don’t know. Nothing.”
“Exactly. Nothing. Not yet anyway.”
“That means something?”
“Yes. I think it does.”
“What?”
“Now I’m the one who doesn’t know.” He smiled at her and she smiled back for lack of something better and smarter to do.
“You’ll find him again?” she asked.
“I think he’ll find you again before I find him. I have a feeling he’s got something in mind. Whatever it is, he’ll need you to tell it.” Isobel did not reply. After a moment of silence, Walter said, “I saw you with Ed Bradley.” She nodded. “You like him, don’t you? Sympathize with him, right?”
“Bradley?”
“Leonard. You’re inclined to think he’s righteous. Am I wrong?”
“How would you feel?” she asked. “What would you do?”
“No, no,” Walter said shaking his head, holding up his hands. “Don’t ask me how I feel. Tell me how you feel.”
“I do,” she said. “It’s not academic to Leonard Martin, not just numbers. They took everything from him. Can you imagine losing everything? It frightens me just to think about it-not only his family-everything. There’s a curse in being a survivor. Yes, I sympathize with him. I can’t help it.”
“And the people he’s killed? And those he means to kill? All of them?”
“I can’t say,” she said. “I can’t say. I said I sympathize with him. That’s not the same as saying I approve of what he’s doing.”
“It isn’t?” That question remained unanswered.
Over coffee and a glass of Spanish port, Isobel asked, “Walter, why are we still working together? You were correct. I could never have identified Leonard Martin on my own. You did, and you did it before he contacted me. However, now we’ve both met him, talked to him. I know who he is and my story is no longer questioned by anyone. You know who he is. You say finding him again is no trouble. Why are we still in this together, Walter? What’s left for us to do?”
“I represent the people who remain on his list-”
“Exactly my point. What’s in it for you or your clients? Why do you need me? And what’s in it for me?”
“And,” Walter continued, “that puts me in a position to arrange a negotiated settlement, an end to the killing. When he reaches out to you, I can put him in touch with Stein and Stein’s money.”
Isobel looked at Walter out of the corner of her eye, her mouth a frown, skepticism written all over her face. She had been impressed with Walter’s self-assurance and intelligence from the first time they met. She found his demeanor enchanting and not a little bit erotic. Now she began to question his approach and her own judgment.
“Stein’s money,” she said. “What in the world makes you think Leonard Martin wants any of it? And why are you still working for them after learning what they’re all about?”
“I got paid,” Walter said. Isobel shrugged her shoulders, recalling a film where Humphrey Bogart had a speech about some silly obligation he felt to his partner.
“That’s p-p-plain ridiculous.”
“I took the job. I got paid and I have an obligation to finish the job. That’s not ridiculous. That’s honorable. As for Leonard, don’t discount him so easily. Remember when I asked you to think of a dollar amount and then double it or triple it? You’d be surprised how much money might be involved here. It could be an offer Leonard Martin can’t refuse.”