“What about the women? What do they do?”
“Hookers,” said Walter after only a slight pause.
“All of them? It appears, perhaps, that some of your American dentists prefer hookers who are, shall we say, older and a twinge on the heavy side.”
“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.”
“No,” Isobel said. “Not for any amount. Not this man. Not a man who uses the name of Michael DelGrazo. It’s love, Walter. Don’t you see that? There’s no price on love. It’s too important.” Walter stirred his second cup of coffee, wondering what Ike would say to that.
“You’re right. I don’t need you to find Leonard,” he said. “Now that I know what I know, a second time is only a matter of where and when. That’s what I do, you know. I find people no one else can.” He was looking down into his coffee or at his napkin or checking out the brand name carved into the blade of his steak knife. He avoided Isobel’s eyes. He felt the rush of blood to his cheeks. He hadn’t experienced this kind of helplessness since high school. Isobel could see he was troubled. She leaned across the table and took his hands in hers. She knew there must be more than the lame excuse he offered. “What is it?” she said. “It’s something, but what?”
“I want to be with you,” he said, terribly afraid he sounded like a sixteen year old. “It has nothing to do with Leonard. You’re right. Find him or not. I really don’t care. It’s you, Isobel. I think about you all the time. I don’t sleep. Tonight’s the first time I’ve eaten a real meal since you left St. John. I want you.”
Walter’s needy desire, his awkward hesitation, his tender honesty-it all did the trick for Isobel. Her faucets ran wide open and red hot.
“You want to go to my place?” she said. The invitation and the promise it held thrilled Walter. Whatever disappointment he felt at her casual greeting at the Hilton was gone now.
“Would you like to see what a snow-covered Central Park looks like from high up?”
“Sure,” she said. “ The Mayflower’s close enough. Shall we walk?”
Bundled up to stay warm on the windy, cold night, they walked arm-in-arm toward Columbus Circle and the Mayflower Hotel. It was close to eleven o’clock, but this was New York, the city that never sleeps, where the streets were always crowded. Kids, couples in their twenties (kids to Walter, anyway), ran past them toward the park, tossing snowballs at each other. Many stores and all the bars and restaurants were still open. “In New York the magic never ends,” Walter thought. Tonight he was alive too. He pictured Isobel unbuttoning her blouse, slipping it off her back, her skirt dropping to the floor of his bedroom a few blocks away. His whole body tingled in anticipation. That was when the man standing by the window of an electronics store caught Walter’s attention. Something inside him stirred, and it had nothing to do with the thought of Isobel’s naked body against his own. Walter was sure he’d seen the same man near the Hilton. They passed the store and Walter glanced quickly behind him. He knew the man could easily see their reflection in the store window. Walter and Isobel continued walking. The man followed them.
At the corner of 60th Street, Walter put his hand on Isobel’s shoulder. She looked at him, and the look on his face frightened her. They stopped right in front of the Trump Hotel. The man who had been behind them kept walking, past them. He stopped at the next corner. And he waited. Walter watched the traffic light at 61st Street go from red to green, and then to red again and once more to green. Walk… don’t walk… walk. The man did not cross the street.
“Don’t say anything,” Walter said. “We go to this corner and turn left. Trust me.” They resumed walking, and at the corner of 61st Street, where the man who followed them was still standing, they turned west, heading toward Broadway. That block is a dark and empty one. The side of the Trump Hotel has no customer entrance. The other side of the street is the southern face of the Mayflower. It also has no public entrance. There is only a solitary apartment building with its awning entrance well down the street on the other side. Halfway down the block, on their side, there was a service entrance to the Trump Hotel. It was an unlit, windowless metal door set back slightly from the sidewalk. Walter could make out the icy walkway in front of the doorway. He and Isobel were a few feet past that door, firmly on a patch of dry cement, when Walter turned.
“Got a match?” he said to the man, who now stood squarely on the icy spot. He was clearly startled by Walter’s unexpected action. For just an instant the man seemed paralyzed. Then his feet moved, but all he could manage was an uncertain slip.
Walter lunged and grabbed him. He spun him around and slammed him face-first against the metal service door. He ripped the man’s coat off from behind and seemed to jam his hand into the man’s ass.
“You know what you’re feeling?” Walter demanded. The man shook his head nervously.
“No,” he said, the word barely escaping his mouth.
“Who are you?” demanded Walter. The man did not respond. “What you’re feeling is the barrel of a small twenty-two caliber pistol. If you don’t answer my questions, quickly and truthfully, I’m going to shoot you. Do you know what that means?” This time Walter didn’t wait for an answer. “It means a twenty-two magnum cartridge will literally cut you a new asshole. It probably won’t kill you. But the damage it does to your colon and your intestines will take years to fix. Maybe decades. You’ll shit in a bag until you’re an old man, and every time you so much as pass gas you’ll think of me and regret whatever impulse you’re feeling now to withhold information. Have I made myself clear?” Walter reached into the man’s coat pocket and removed a pistol. He ran his hand across the man’s chest and took a second gun from his shoulder holster. “You hear me, asshole!”
“Yes,” the man said. Isobel could taste the fear in his voice. She too was imagining the lifetime of pain and discomfort that awaited the wrong decision.
“Who are you?” Walter asked. He pushed harder into the man’s rectum.
“Jack Allen,” the man said.
“And?” said Walter, pushing even harder.
“I’m a New York City police detective.”
Isobel was shocked, certain they had stumbled into something that meant trouble for both of them. Holding a gun to the asshole of an NYPD detective…
“Name,” Walter commanded. This time he took the man’s wallet and flipped it open. The badge was there and the ID card. “You want me to start counting? Because when I get to one your ass is on fire.”
“Allen. Jack Allen. I already told you.” There was panic in the man’s voice. Isobel could feel how desperate he was to save himself.
“You’re not on the job, goddamn it! Your ID is old, shitface. You’re retired. Name who you work for, fuckhead!” said Walter.
“I’m an NYPD detective,” said the man claiming to be Jack Allen.
“Fuck you, detective!” Walter growled in his ear. “I don’t hear another name I shoot.”
“No!” the man cried out. “Don’t shoot me! I work for a man named Robert Wilkes. I really do. Wilkes hired me.”
“To do what? Follow me?”
“No, no. I don’t have any idea who you are, man. I’m following her.”
A chill ran through Isobel’s body, not unlike what she felt talking to Leonard Martin. She remembered. Leonard said she was being watched.
“Her?” Walter screamed. “Why? Hurry up now, Jack.”
“Wilkes thought she would lead me to Leonard Martin.”
“You fucking sonofabitch!” Isobel kicked him just below his knee. Allen stumbled, but Walter held him up, pushing the pistol as deep into his asshole as he could. He felt the man’s pants tear.
“Then what?” Walter asked in voice more at ease than anything he’d said before. “Then what, Jack?”
“Nothing. Just go back and tell Wilkes where he’s at.”
“You won’t hear the sound of this gun, you know that? When I p
ull the trigger you’ll feel it like a hot poker ramming up your ass into your gut.” The man, Jack Allen or whatever his name was, groaned and slumped to the ground. Urine was flowing on the sidewalk, steaming in the cold winter air as it inched its way to the curb. Walter had not shot him.
“You’re out of business, Jack. Tell that to Wilkes and whoever he works for. I ever see you again, you’re a dead man, got it?” Jack Allen didn’t say anything. He was pissing and sobbing at the same time. Walter threw the wallet down on the street but kept the badge, the ID, and the guns.
“Come on,” he said to Isobel. “Let’s go.”
“Sure,” she said, but Isobel Gitlin wasn’t sure of anything anymore.
New York
The smell of fresh coffee woke Isobel. The bedroom drapes were open and a brilliant morning flooded in through the glass. The city that never sleeps at least naps, and now its nap was over. It was wide awake once more. Horns blared. Traffic inched forward on the streets below. Darting through the bare limbs of trees in snowy Central Park, an occasional jogger could be seen. The sun was bright in a cloudless sky, although the air looked cold to her. Steam heat whistled from the pipes in Walter’s suite. He always asked for accommodations on the side of the hotel that had not been renovated. He told her that the first time, when she met him in the restaurant. He liked his hotels old. He preferred steam heat over hot air. She heard him on the phone in the living room where the coffee awaited, but she was unable to make out what he was saying. Isobel stretched and yawned. The sex had been fantastic, and the pendant he’d put around her neck when they were both naked was beautiful. Intrigue and danger, mixed with the sweat of their bodies, had driven them to furious heights. “Wartime sex must really be something,” Isobel thought. Violence, she already knew, went with sex like brandy with coffee. It made the moment more intense and the aftermath sweeter. She bent down and picked up the pillow on Walter’s side of the bed. Holding it close against her face, she inhaled, smiled, and tossed it back on the sheets. Then she headed for the shower.
The Knowland Retribution l-1 Page 28