“You had my number,” she said. “You just never used it.”

With that, she closed the door, and I walked back down the hill to the Muddy Brook Café, where Walter was waiting to take me to the airport.

I WAS FRUSTRATED TO be forced to leave New York with questions unanswered about Jimmy Gallagher’s whereabouts on the day my father became a killer, but I had no choice: I owed Dave Evans, and he had made it clear that he needed me at the Bear for most of the coming week. I also had only Eddie’s word that Jimmy and my father had met that day. It was possible that he could have been mistaken, and I wanted to be sure of the facts before I called Jimmy Gallagher a liar to his face.

I picked up my car at the Portland Jetport, and got back to my house in time to shower and change my clothes. For a moment, I found myself walking in the direction of the Johnson house to pick up Walter, but then I remembered where Walter was and it put me in a black mood that I knew wouldn’t lift for the rest of the night.

I spent most of the evening behind the bar with Gary. Business was steady, but there was still time for me to talk with customers and even get a little paperwork done in the back office. The only moment Che „[1]0%" of excitement came when a steroid jockey, who had stripped down his winter layers to only a wife beater and a pair of stained gym pants, came on to a woman named Hillary Herman who was five two, blond, and looked as if a soft breeze would carry her away like a leaf. When Hillary turned her back on him and his advances, he was dumb enough to lay a hand on her shoulder in an effort to regain her attention, at which point Hillary, who was the Portland PD’s resident judo expert, spun and twisted her would-be suitor’s arm so far behind his back that his forehead and his knees hit the ground simultaneously. She then escorted him to the door, dumped him in the snow, and threw his clothes out after him. His buddies seemed tempted to make their displeasure known, but the intervention of the other Portland cops with whom Hillary was drinking saved her from having to kick their asses as well.

When it was clear that everything had calmed down, and nobody was hurt who didn’t deserve to be, I started bringing cases to the bottle coolers from the walk-in. It was still an hour before closing, but it didn’t look as if we were about to be hit by an unanticipated rush, and it would save me time later. It was as I was bringing out the third case that I saw the man who had taken a seat at the far end of the bar. He was wearing the same tweed jacket, and he had a notebook open beside his right hand. It was Gary ’s end of the bar, but as he moved to serve the new arrival I indicated to him that I wanted to take care of it, and he went back to talking to Jackie Garner, for whom he seemed to have developed a worrying fondness. Even though Jackie was trying to talk to a pretty but shy redhead in her forties, he seemed grateful for Gary ’s company. Jackie didn’t do well with women. In fact, I couldn’t recall Jackie even dating a woman. Usually when a member of the opposite sex spoke to him, he developed a confused expression, like an infant being spoken to in a foreign language. Now he was blushing, and so was the redhead. It looked as if Gary was acting as a go-between in order to keep the conversation flowing. If he hadn’t been helping them along, they might have lapsed into total silence or, if they blushed any more, simply exploded.

“How you doin’?” I said to Notebook Man. “Back for more?”

“Guess so,” he replied. He was shrugging off his jacket. His shirtsleeves were rolled up to his elbows, his tie was loose, and the top button of his white shirt was undone. Despite the casualness of his attire, he gave the impression that he was about to get down to some serious work.

“What can I get you?”

“Just coffee, please.” When I came back with a cup of fresh brew, and some creamer and sweeteners, there was a card beside the notebook, facing me. I placed everything on top of the card without looking at what was written on it.

“Beg your pardon,” said the man. He lifted his cup, then picked up the card and handed it to me. I took it, read it, then put it back on the bar.

“Nice card,” I said, and it was. His name, Michael Wallace, was embossed on it in gold, along with a box number in Boston, two telephone numbers, an email address, and a website. The card named his profession as writer and reporter.

“Hold on to it,” he said.

“No thanks.”

“Seriously.”

There was a set look on his face that I didn’t much B Hip>< like, the kind that cops wore when they were door-stepping a suspect who wasn’t getting the message.

“‘Seriously’?” I didn’t care for his tone.

He reached into his satchel and removed a pair of nonfiction paperback books. I thought that I recognized the first from bookstores: it detailed the case of a man in northern California who had almost managed to get away with killing his wife and two children by claiming that they had drowned when their boat got caught up in a storm. He might have succeeded had a lab technician not spotted tiny chemical traces in the saltwater found in the lungs of the recovered bodies, and matched it to solvent stains found in the sink of the boat’s galley, indicating that the husband had drowned all three victims in the sink before tossing their bodies overboard. His reason for the killings, when he eventually confessed, was that “they were never on time for anything.” The second book seemed to be an older work, a standard serial-killer volume concentrating on sex murderers. Its title was almost as lurid as its subject matter. It was called Blood on the Sheets.

“That’s me,” he said, somewhat unnecessarily. “Michael Wallace. This is what I do. I write true-crime books.” He reached out a hand. “My friends call me Mickey.”

“We’re not about to become friends, Mr. Wallace.”

He shrugged, as if he had expected as much, and nothing more.

“Here’s the thing of it, Mr. Parker. I’ve read a lot about you. You’re a hero. You’ve brought down some real bad people, but until now nobody has written the full history of what you’ve done. I want to write a book about you. I want to tell your story: the deaths of your wife and child, the way you hunted down the man responsible, and the way you’ve hunted down others like him since then. I already have a publisher for it, and a title. It’s going to be called The Avenging Angel. Good, don’t you think?”

I didn’t reply.

“Anyway, the advance isn’t huge-mid-five-figure sum, which still isn’t too shabby for this kind of work-but I’ll split it with you fifty-fifty in return for your cooperation. We can negotiate on the royalties. My name will be on the cover, but it will be your story, as you want to tell it.”

“I don’t want to tell my story, sir. This conversation is over. The coffee is on me, but I wouldn’t advise you to linger over it.”

I turned away, but he kept talking.

“I don’t think you understand, Mr. Parker. I don’t mean to be confrontational, but I’m writing this book whether you choose to help me or not. There’s a lot that’s already public record, and I’ll find out more as the interview process goes on. I’ve already done a degree of background work, and I’ve lined up a couple of people in New York who are willing to talk. Then there’ll be folks from your old neighborhood, and from around here, who can provide insights into your life. I’m giving you the chance to shape the material, to respond to it. All I want is a few hours of your time over the next week or two. I work quickly, and I won’t intrude any more than is absolutely necessary.”

I think he was surprised by how fast I Beadr tmoved, but to his credit he didn’t flinch, even when I was in his face.

“You listen to me,” I said softly. “This isn’t about to happen. You’re going to get up, and you’re going to walk away, and I’m never going to hear from you again. Your book dies here. Am I clear?”