almost fell asleep at the wheel. A nap was what he needed. He awoke around seven, washed his face, changed his shirt, and strolled toward the restaurant. The dining room was half filled. Syrupy recorded music, heavy on the strings, played too loudly. Walter found a table next to the window as far from the smokers as he could. A young Korean girl brought him a menu. For a moment Walter wondered how an Indian or Pakistani ends up a hotel clerk in a place like this, and how a Korean woman gets to be a waitress in a Holiday Inn in rural Tennessee. Then he remembered that Clarksville was an Army town. Fort Campbell, Kentucky was just up the road. In his sleepiness he must have missed the billboards. There are probably wives around here from every place on earth graced with the presence of U.S. troops in the last half century. He assumed this girl was married to a soldier in the 101st. When she brought him his Diet Coke, he asked, “Do you always work the dinner shift?” The Korean girl didn’t know what to make of this question. Walter saw her reticence and added quickly, “Have you seen this man?” He showed her a photo of Carter Lawrence.
“No,” the girl said.
“You’ve never seen him before?”
“No. I am just filling in tonight. I don’t usually work this late.”
“Oh, I see,” Walter said. “Thank you. Is there anyone else here who does who might have seen him?”
“I don’t know. You can ask someone else. Maybe Melissa. I can ask her to come over.”
“Please do. Thanks.” Walter ordered a chef salad and some french fries. Maybe a gut as hard as a rock wasn’t completely out of the question. When his waitress had taken the order, she walked over to where another waitress stood, killing time, hoping for a larger crowd later in the evening. Walter saw the Korean woman point to him as she said something to the other woman, who then looked in his direction too. Then the other waitress, a chunky, middle-aged white woman, walked over to his table. The little plastic pin above her right breast read “Debra Melissa.”
“Thanks, Melissa. Thanks for coming over.”
“You looking for somebody?” she asked, keeping her distance.
“No. Not exactly. But I am looking for someone who might have seen this man.” Walter showed her the photograph of Carter Lawrence.
“You a cop?” she asked, then answered her own question. “You’re no cop.”
Her eyes gave her away, and Walter saw it. Of course he saw it. He’d seen that same expression many times before in many places. She recognized the picture. “Of course I’m not a cop,” he said. “You’ve seen this man, haven’t you? You served him, right?” She said nothing. It appeared she was mulling it over, trying to decide if she ought to reveal anything to this stranger. “Where the hell is he from?” he imagined her asking herself. He was exactly correct. She was thinking, “Nobody comes in here with a tan like that just before Christmas.” She remained silent.
“Look,” said Walter, taking a hundred dollar bill and laying it down on the table, putting its edge just under his Diet Coke. “I just want to know if you saw him last month sometime.” Melissa looked at the hundred; a sight she saw not often enough to please her. She looked again at the photo. It was the skinny one, the one with the long wrists and geeky neck, the young one who sat next to the cowboy.
“What if I have?”
“I take that as a ‘yes.’ The hundred is yours, if I’m right.”
As she reached to take the money off the table, Walter’s hand fell on top of it. “And did he have dinner with this man?” He showed her a photo of Leonard Martin, the one printed on the front page of the New York Times. The woman was startled. She hesitated momentarily, then said, “I’ve never seen him before.” She put her finger on the picture of Leonard Martin.
“You’re sure?” Walter said.
“Yeah, I’m sure. The younger one, the skinny one, was here. He was here.” Poor Melissa was worried she wouldn’t get the money.
“He had dinner with someone, didn’t he?”
“Yes, he did, but not this one.” Again she pointed to Leonard. “He and three other men. They ate right over there. Stayed until after we closed. I remember them. They had a lot of papers and things. Talked a lot, ate a little. This one,” she tapped Carter’s photo with her index finger, “but not this one.”
“What about these two? Walter laid pictures of Nicholas Stevenson and Harvey Daniels on the table. All four photos were lined up in a row, facing Melissa. Walter removed his hand from the hundred and motioned for her to take it. She did. She recognized the silver-haired gentleman who’d left her the extra tip and the nervous one who sat next to him.
“Both of them. They were here with the first one.”
“The three of them? Did you get any names?”
“No,” she said. “There was another man who came later.”
“The younger one paid, right?”
“How’d you know that?”
“Just a guess.”
“You know,” she said, “I’ll never forget when they left. Hugged each other like there was no tomorrow. It was weird, like a movie.”
“I know,” Walter said. “I’m sure they did. Thank you, Melissa. You’ve been very helpful.”
“Why are you looking for these guys?”
“Just routine. Our company checks the expense accounts of people who travel for us on a regular basis. I’m just confirming they were here, that’s all.”
“Bullshit,” she thought. No one checks expense accounts like this, not with hundred dollar bills and photographs. And for damn sure not with any guy as tan as this one.
“One more thing,” he said. “Who was the fourth man? What can you tell me about him?”
Melissa said, “You mean the cowboy?”
“Cowboy? What did he look like?”
“Well, he wasn’t a real cowboy, you know. It’s just he didn’t wear a suit like the others, and he had on a hat, a floppy kind of cowboy hat, you know? Tall, thin, good-looking man. Short hair, sort of salt-and-pepper beard. Good-looking man. Forties, I’d say. That’s all, but he sure wasn’t this guy.” This time she tapped the photo from the New York Times again. “He wasn’t here.”
A chill gripped Walter’s gut and moved like electric current outward. It made him lightheaded, nauseated. Respect the obvious. He hadn’t looked, hadn’t seen, and now it was too late. The missing piece crashed into place and a second wave of nausea rose. He should have known all along. Instead he’d been blind as a bat. The Indian woman’s pendant had shown him the mysteries of altered shapes and he missed it. Was he was losing it? Had he lost it already? His eyesight wasn’t what it had been, nor was the hair on his head. And whatever Isobel told him, neither were his hydraulics. Henry Broomfield’s punchline roared, an angry, reproachful, soundless voice, an unforgiving scold. They all got sisters.
New Mexico
Leonard was gone within an hour. He’d practiced playing the slow-witted Michael, planned on using it in case anyone made a wrong turn and stumbled onto his property. No one had until now. The business about Mr. Marteenez had been a spur-of-the-moment thing. It worked pretty well, he thought. Walter Sherman had been an unnerving surprise. Sure, Leonard heard the car approaching long before it reached the cabin, but he never thought someone would actually find him there; someone whose intention it was to seek him out. That frightened him. How could he have come to this place? And who are these people from New York? What was he talking about? Had this man been sent by Nathan Stein? And if so, how in the world did he know where to find him? Leonard knew he didn’t have the luxury of contemplating these questions. He had to hurry.
He knew this man calling himself Walter Sherman was trouble when he asked to use the bathroom. It was obvious he wanted to look inside the cabin. Leonard didn’t like it, but considering the circumstances he had little choice in the matter. How could he refuse? He didn’t fear exposure. Clearly he was convincingly unrecognizable. The weapons and ammunition were all locked away securely. That was an arrangement Leonard had come up with at the very beginning. He was going to be away for long stretches of time: Boston, Houston, Tennessee, Nevada, and who knows where else. He couldn’t risk someone finding his equipment, so he devised a storage compartment in his bedroom. To the naked eye it appeared as a closet, but behind the plain closet door was another locked door, this one made of steel protecting a safelike box four feet square and eight feet high. Inside were racks of rifles, shelves
