“You take that one,” he said. “I’ll take the one over here. Get some sleep. We won’t be here long.”
Harry was awakened at three that afternoon. Walter nudged him gently. Nevertheless, he jumped out of bed-scared, or ready for the fight? Who knew? Walter was pleased. In circumstances like these, it was better to travel with someone on edge. He was sure of that. But he didn’t want to pursue the thought for fear it might be fear, not readiness that put the spring in his companion’s step. He had enough to worry about without that.
“Take a shower,” he told Harry. “Might be awhile before you get another one. It’ll help wake you up too.”
Refreshed, and with a change of clothes, Harry saw that Walter had ordered lunch. The tray sat on the low coffee table in the living room. Salads and pasta with some grilled shrimp, water with ice. No coffee or tea. Through the open windows off the terrace, cool air blew in from the plaza. They ate, then left the hotel.
At six o’clock Harry and Walter buckled themselves in, in seats A and B in the second row of First Class on AeroMexico flight #4, nonstop from Madrid to Mexico City. “Drink as much water as you can,” Walter told Harry. “It’ll help.” Favorable winds got them in forty-five minutes early. Still, it was a twelve-hour trip. Harry had difficulty sleeping on airplanes and even in First Class, twelve hours was enough to drive him nuts. Time was starting to really get away from him. It was early in the evening in Mexico City, around eleven, when they arrived, but for Harry and Walter it was already past breakfast time the next day. Walter seemed untroubled. Harry was trying desperately to accommodate. That was when Walter told him not to get comfortable. “We’re going straight to the bus station,” he told him. Seeing the bewilderment in Harry’s face, Walter said, “Ciudad Juarez.” With a light clap of his hands, like a magician freeing a white dove and, with what he hoped was a comforting smile, he added, “We’re bound for Texas.”
Like the flight from Madrid, the bus to Juarez was nonstop. A second driver slept in a sort of cubbyhole of a seat directly behind the driver at the wheel. A heavy curtain enclosed him. Whoever was in there was already hidden away when Harry and Walter boarded. At some point in the trip, he would emerge, take the wheel and allow the first driver to get some sleep himself. Harry wondered how many turns they took for a thousand-mile trip. The bus would stop only for gas and, while doing that, to let the passengers stretch their legs. “Why are we taking a bus?” Harry had asked as they left the airport. “Isn’t it a long trip? A thousand miles or so?” It was, Walter told him. “Eleven hundred and three miles,” he said. “I need the time to think. Nobody’s looking for us on a bus in Mexico. We’re safe here and I need the time.” Harry asked no more questions.
Rolling along the Mexican highway, Harry tried to put it all together. What day was it? It all began on Saturday-Sir Anthony-McHenry Brown-The President of the United States and some guy named Louis Devereaux-Tucker Poesy. Christ, where was she now?-Sean Dooley. How many days had gone by? What’s next? Who’s next? And, of course, Frederick Lacey. My God! Harry closed his eyes, hoping to fall into a dreamless sleep.
They crossed the border into El Paso on foot. It was some ungodly hour, early in the morning, still dark. Walter bought a newspaper from a street corner box. It didn’t seem to bother him that it was yesterday’s. Harry watched him turn quickly to the pages advertising car dealers. After looking for just a minute or so, he tossed the paper into a trashcan and began searching for a cab. Harry followed. Walter asked the taxi driver something Harry couldn’t hear. He spoke in Spanish. They hopped in and the cab drove for a while before pulling into a La Quinta Inn.
“Is this one okay?” the driver asked.
“Yes, this is fine,” said Walter.
Inside, Walter registered for both of them, paid cash and handed Harry a key.
“Get some sleep,” he said. “Meet me here, in front, at noon.”
Four or five hour’s sleep and a hot shower gave Harry a whole new attitude. He was getting his bearings at last. Holland, Spain, Mexico and now Texas. Tia Chita said to trust this guy. What choice did he have? The girl at the front desk called them a taxi. At a used-car lot, with a large sign reading Texas Monster Motors, he told the driver to let them out. “Let’s go,” he said to Harry.
“What do you have in a four-wheel drive?” Walter asked the kid who came bounding out of the tiny, one-room mobile office building, sprinting to meet them.
“Lonnie P. Meecham,” the kid said with a smile meant to charm a snake. He wore electric blue pants and a red golf shirt with a Monster Motors logo on the front. Naturally, he had on the obligatory cowboy boots. He stuck out his hand toward Walter.
“Four-wheel drive,” said Walter without shaking hands.
“And you are?” asked Lonnie P. Meecham, still grinning from ear to ear.
“Four-wheel drive.”
“Absolutely. Why yes, absolutely.” Walter, with Harry trailing just behind, followed as the used-car salesman showed them to a section of the lot filled with SUVs. They walked down the line, stopped a couple of times and Harry observed as Walter gave a once-over, to first one vehicle then another. Walter paid no attention at all to whatever Lonnie P. Meecham was saying about the cars. The young Mr. Meecham, who talked endlessly, took no notice of Walter’s disinterest.
“That one,” Walter said, pointing at a 2002 black Isuzu Rodeo. “You have a key?” A few minutes later, after a quick spin around the block to see if the car actually ran, Walter said, “I’ll take it.”
“That’s great,” said Lonnie. “That’s great. Y’all made a great selection.”
“How much?”
“Well now, this particular one here is priced at seventeen, seven-fifty, but I…”
“I’ll take it,” said Walter.
“Seventeen, seven-fifty?”
“Look Lonnie-can I call you Lonnie?”
“Why sure, you sure can, Mister…?”
“I’m in a real big hurry, Lonnie.”
“Un huh.”
“And I just don’t have the time to take care of all the paperwork I know you have to do on a transaction like this.”
“Un huh.”
“So here’s what I’d like to do, if it’s okay with you. I’d like to take this Isuzu, right now, and drive it out of here, and let you do all the paperwork without me.”
“But…”
“No, no,” Walter interrupted him. “I’m aware of how much trouble this puts you to. Believe me, I know. Why, you don’t even know my name, do you? So, I’m going to pay you the seventeen, seven-fifty and I’m going to throw in another two thousand two hundred and fifty just for you.”
“Two thousand two hundred and fifty?” Lonnie P. Meecham was flabbergasted.
“Twenty thousand altogether,” said Walter. “Cash.”
“Twenty thousand?” The kid could hardly swallow properly.
“Give me the keys, Lonnie.”
It’s a straight shot on I-25, about 325 miles, less than five hours, from El Paso to Santa Fe. They would stay there overnight and in the morning, as Walter planned, they would drive the last hundred miles or so, to a small cabin in the middle of nowhere, near the tiny town of Albert, New Mexico.
The fire provided all the heat they needed. The twigs Walter placed under the four heavy logs in the fireplace burst into flame as soon as he touched the match to them. The wood crackled as it burned, hot splinters spitting and bouncing off the screen in front. A large stack of firewood was piled high behind the cabin. Walter knew it had been there for years. The small cabin was pushed into the side of a hill. It overlooked a dirt road winding and bending a full quarter mile from the main road. The cabin was well built and someone had gone to a lot of trouble, once, to make sure it was comfortable in winter. The windows and doors had been carefully insulated sometime after they were installed. The three small space heaters Walter and Harry bought before leaving Santa Fe were plugged in but not turned on. Everything in the place worked. The water, the toile
t, the stove, even the small refrigerator under the counter in the kitchen. The cabin had been empty for a long time and it was dirty, dusty. They cleaned it once the fire was going.
Walter remembered the one time he’d been here before. How could he forget? Michael DelGrazo had greeted him. Michael DelGrazo, The Cowboy . It was of course, Leonard Martin, pretending to be the slow-witted Michael. “Can I use your restroom?” Walter had asked him. That always worked, always got him inside. After Michael DelGrazo let him in, he walked back to the small bathroom, opened its window and peered out, looking for something, anything, a sign to tell him Leonard Martin had been there. All the while, he was right there, sitting on the couch in the living room near the front door. He flushed the toilet even though he hadn’t used it and on his way back to the front room, Walter took a good look into the cabin’s only bedroom. He saw nothing remarkable except for the fact there was no bed, only a bedroll stacked against the far wall. No bed, just a closet and a small, three-drawer dresser. Back in the living room, Michael talked about “Mr. Marteenez.” His boss, he said he was. Marteenez. Shit! It was Leonard Martin all along. It still pissed Walter off. He had missed him, missed him completely. He spent more time looking at the cabin than at the man. He’d been made the fool. He stood in front of the warm fire with Harry Levine, thinking, unable to drive the past from his mind. “Now look at me,” he said, half out loud. The cat had become the mouse.
“What?” asked Harry.
“Nothing. Nothing.”
This was the perfect place to put Harry. No doubt about it. Leonard Martin had hidden here for two years. The whole country-Jesus, the whole world-searched for him. Walter was the only one who had found him. And when he did, he didn’t know it. He fell for the Michael DelGrazo act and drove off that day thinking he had not yet seen Leonard Martin. Now, he struggled to keep his attention on the matter at hand. He knew it was a personal risk coming here. He’d replay it all. He was afraid of that. But this was the best place he had ever seen to hide out. This was the place where Harry Levine would be safe. Walter was sure nobody would discover him here.
It wasn’t just Leonard, of course. He couldn’t think of him and not think of Isobel. Isobel was part of it then and part of it now too. He checked before leaving for Europe. Through her organization, The Center for Consumer Concerns, she had handled all the expenses since Leonard left. She paid the taxes, the electricity, the water, everything, and why had she done that? Was it sentimentality? He didn’t know. Somewhere in the back of his mind, behind those heavy metal doors, he wondered if Isobel thought someday Leonard might need to come back. Was that possible? Was he only dreaming? He didn’t know. And what would Leonard say if he could see Walter now, if he could see he had come here, again, this time not to find, but to hide? Where was Leonard Martin? Alive, or dead? Did Isobel know? What Walter didn’t know-couldn’t know-was that Leonard’s last instructions for Isobel told her to pay the bills, keep the place. She did not know why and Leonard didn’t say. What Walter did know, however, was that Leonard Martin had never returned to New Mexico. Not after the day Walter drove up and drove off. Walk on the other side, Conchita Crystal had asked him. What side was more other than Leonard Martin’s?
After dinner Walter and Harry sat outside on the front porch. It was freezing, but they wore the heavy, down-lined jackets they bought back in Santa Fe and they were bundled up against the night air. The cold wind on their faces was compromised by the hot tea they held in their gloved hands. The steam warmed their cheeks. Neither man had seen a sky like this one before. Pitch-black, deep and wide beyond measure, tipping their sense of perspective, forcing them to look upward. With no nearby lights illuminating the horizon, nothing masked the stars. In the distance, only the abrupt absence of a million sparkling lights indicated the demarcation line separating land and sky, planet and space. All those bright shining spots in the highest regions of the night sky-the sheer number of stars they could plainly see-was enough to make both men gawk like teenage boys at the sight of their very first naked girl.
“Harry, I need you to do something while you’re here.”
“You don’t get to see this, do you?-not in a city anyway.”
“The stars?” said Walter. “No. You’re right.”
“Can you just imagine life before electricity? Everyone, everywhere on the Earth saw-this-every day, every time the sun set. It’s no wonder we’re a spiritual species.”
“I need for you to read the document you have, carefully. And I need for you to figure out who would kill to keep it secret. I don’t mean, who wants to keep it quiet. That’s not enough. I mean who would kill for it. That’s a decision you’ll have to make. Maybe it’s a list. I don’t know. Maybe it’s just one.”
“The Kennedys?”
“No,” said Walter. “Not the Kennedys. They sent Sean Dooley. I’m not making a judgment about how much the Kennedy family might want to keep this confession from ever reaching the public. I suppose they have a strong desire. But they sent Dooley and he’s no killer.”
“That’s why you let him go?”
“He wanted the document, and he might have pushed somebody around if he needed to. But he was unarmed and not skilled or experienced enough to beat anyone to death.”
“You know that? How?”
“His hands. Did you see them? No marks. No scars. His fingers were never broken. Same for his face. He’s no fighter. Bust and grab, break and enter maybe. But no fighter.”
“Still, the Kennedys…”
“No, Harry. Sending Sean Dooley, when they were absolutely sure the document would be there, makes no sense, no sense that is if they killed Sir Anthony and McHenry Brown trying to find it. You don’t send a killer to find something and a civilian to get it. Forget the Kennedys. Find me somebody else.”
“Well, so far anyway, I haven’t read about any other world leader Frederick Lacey assassinated.”
“Don’t be a smart ass, Harry.”
“How did Dooley know where we were staying?”
“I don’t know, yet. I have a few ideas. Your list might help me. Harry, let me ask you a question.”
“Shoot.”
“Why didn’t you go to Scotland Yard or the Police? Why didn’t you just walk into the American Embassy and give yourself up? You could have. You hadn’t committed a crime of any kind. Screw Lacey’s confession. Hand it over. Wash your hands of the whole mess. Why not?”
“I did what Devereaux told me to do.”
“And you never thought about what I just asked? Never occurred to you?”
“I suppose not. The President of the United States told me to listen to Devereaux. I suppose I never thought of doing anything different. Should I have?”
“Not for me to say,” Walter said. “Not for anyone to say, except you. Anyway, we should look ahead of us, not behind.”
“What about you?” Harry asked. “What are you going to do while I try to make a definitive list of the people who want to kill me?”
“Kill us, you mean.”
“Us? Why us?”
“Recall what happened to McHenry Brown’s companion?”
“Oh, I forgot. Sorry about that. You’re right. I really am sorry. I know you’re in danger just being around me. However, I’ll ask you again, Walter, what do we do next?”
“I don’t know yet,” Walter answered. “You’re safe here and,” he added, “for now that’s good enough. I can’t stay here with you. You know that?”
“I guessed as much.”
“I have work to do, Harry. People to see and places to go. But you’re safe here.”
Walter’s cell phone rang at seven-fifteen the next morning. It woke him from his hard, wooden sleep, but whoever was calling would have had a hard time figuring that out from his voice. Decades of such calls had fine-tuned his senses. He sounded like the middle of the afternoon.
“Hello,” he said.
“Abby O’Malley. How are you doing?”
“Fine. Just fine.
And yourself, Ms. O’Malley?”
“I like a man who’s up early, Mr. Sherman. Especially a man who sounds like it.”
“So you woke me,” he said, surprised she caught it. “It’s okay. And please call me Walter.”
“Very well, Walter. Where do we begin?”
“I’ll be home in the next day or two. What day is it today?”
“Thursday. I know, it gets a little confusing when you fly halfway around the world, doesn’t it?”
“Come see me Sunday. You know where I live?”
“I do. St. John.”
“Good. Get off the ferry, walk across the square to a place called Billy’s. Look for an old black man sitting at a table closest to the front. He’ll tell you where to go. See you Sunday?”
“See you Sunday.”
“Dress comfortably,” he said before cutting the connection.
Harry had been given very specific instructions. Walter wanted everything understood. No screwups. He was to use the prepaid, use-and-lose cell phone to call Walter every day. “I have to assume someone is bugging my phone. You call me with that prepaid phone and there’s no way to trace it back here. Just remember not to ever say anything about where you are. Not a word. Call me at eight o’clock in the morning on the first day,” Walter told him. Then he was to add an hour for each day thereafter. “So, four days from now you’ll call me at noon. And, on the fifth day-at one o’clock. Got it?” Harry assured him he knew how to tell time. “Don’t call at any other time, unless it’s an emergency.”
“An emergency?”
“Someone shows up. And if that happens you know what to do?”
The Lacey confession l-2 Page 24