"Listen… okay, okay. This isn't going like I had planned. I'm not smiling at the moment-you know what I'm saying? I'm just not a happy person when things don't go well at the beginning.

Whadya say we start over?" She didn't wait for me to concur with her request.

"Here goes. This is my new intro:

Hello, Mr. Gregory? I'm Dorothy Levin. I'm a reporter with the Washington Post.

How are you today?"

She was so out-there that I played right along with her.

"I'm fine, Ms. Levin.

How are you?"

"Great, great. Hey, what I need-" She caught herself falling back out of character.

"Sorry. Sorry. I'm doing well, thank you. I'm so sorry to interrupt your weekend, but I'm doing this story about fundraising practices in the early congressional campaigns of Representative Raymond Welle. Your name was brought to my attention as someone who-"

"How? How did you get my name?"

She slapped something. Hard. The sound cracked like a steak dropped on the counter.

"Oh, damn. And we were doing so much better the second time around.

That question really ruins things though. The momentum? It's a fragile thing in interviews. You know I can't tell you how I got your name. There are rules.

Journalism rules. You ever hear of Watergate? Confidential sources, stuff like that? Deep Throat ring a bell? Let me see-do you want to just back up and pretend you didn't really ask that question? Or do we need to start all over again?"

I laughed. She laughed. I heard her strike a match and light a cigarette. She sucked hard on it before she spoke again.

"You still there? You didn't hang up on me, did you? Can't stand it when that happens."

"I don't know anything about Welle's campaign financing."

It sounded like she was trying to spit a speck of tobacco out of her mouth. Was she really smoking non filters I tried to imagine a Camel hanging from her lips, smoke circling toward the heavens carrying the souls of dead smokers to their reunions with God.

She said, "Go on."

I laughed again.

"I'm not going on, Ms. Levin. I don't have anyplace to go on to. I don't know anything about Raymond Welle and his campaign financing." She didn't respond immediately. But I thought I could hear the squeaky sounds of someone writing quickly with a felt-tip pen.

She was jotting down everything I said.

I decided that it was prudent to either shut up or hang up. But I couldn't decide which. So I waited.

She did, too. Patiently. For about twenty or thirty seconds. Then she said, "Okay? Yeah?"

If this was her best attempt at conducting an interview, I decided that hanging up would make the most sense. Not even trying to hide my incredulity, I said, "

"Okay? Yeah?" That's your next question? Seriously?"

She broke into a mixture of coughing and laughter that caused me to pull the phone away from my ear. At the conclusion of her paroxysm she said, "That was kind of lame. I'll do better. I promise. Oh, please give me another try. And whatever you do, don't tell my editor. Deal?"

She was still laughing.

"What is it that you want, Ms. Levin? As entertaining as this conversation might be, I think we may both be wasting our time."

She had composed herself by the time she spoke again.

"I am doing a story… about fund-raising practices during Representative Welle's 1990, 1992, and 1994 congressional campaigns. I got your name. I'm calling for information."

"About…?"

"About what you know."

"But I don't know anything." She sighed before she took a deep drag on her cigarette and hummed a few bars of

"Will the Circle Be Unbroken?" She stopped the melody abruptly and asked, "Tell me this, then, Mister or Doctor Gregory. If you're so ignorant about Representative Raymond Welle, then why are you planning on meeting with him before his fund-raiser in Denver on Friday?"

How on earth did this reporter or the Washington Post know about that? I stammered, "Excuse me?"

Her voice turned slightly arrogant as she said, "Now please. You're going to have to help out a minute. With a small, small clarification. Was that an "Excuse me, I didn't hear you'? Or was that an

"Excuse me, I can't believe you know that I'm meeting with him'?"

"No comment."

I thought I heard her muffle a profanity before she said, "Ah jeez.

hate this. Suddenly something doesn't feel kosher to me. We go from

"I don't know anything' to

"No comment' in less time than it takes me to clean my contacts. What's happening with the world?"

I had a temptation to explain to her why I couldn't talk to her about Welle.

But I resisted.

"I don't have anything to say, Ms. Levin."

"That's a mite different from

"I don't know anything about Raymond Welle, Ms. Levin."

"She mocked me with a whiny rendition of my words.

I shrugged and opened my eyes wide, confident that she couldn't hear me shrug or open my eyes wide. I said, "I'm afraid that's where I'm going to have to leave it."

She made a noise that I didn't really want to know the source of.

"You may leave me no choice but to write a piece reporting what I do know.

Without any opportunity for your comment."

I laughed again, more nervously this time.

"What you know is too boring for the Washington Post."

Her lips popped as she exhaled. I imagined a cloud of pungent smoke around her head.

"So be it. We'll talk again. I'm sure."

She hung up.

I used directory assistance to get the number of the main switchboard at the Washington Post. I asked for Dorothy Levin and was immediately connected to her voice mail message, which she'd recorded herself. I'd have recognized that voice anywhere. I hung up before the tone.

She was for real.

"Who knows about your appointment with Raymond Welle besides us?" Lauren asked.

"Welle's office. And apparently the Washington Post."

"And A. J. Don't forget A. J. And whomever she might have told."

"You're thinking someone in Locard would intentionally mislead a Post reporter about the nature of my meeting with Welle?"

"No, that doesn't make any sense. Then it has to be someone in Welle's office who's been helping Levin with her investigation of his fund-raising practices.

She has to have a source inside Welle's congressional office or campaign office.

This person must have misinterpreted the reason for the meeting you have scheduled with Welle because its happening around one of his fund-raising events."

"That explanation makes the most sense. The next question is, do I need to tell A. J. and Kimber Lister about the press contact?"

Lauren considered it for a moment.

"No. I don't think so. This doesn't involve Locard. She didn't say anything about Locard, right? Or about the two girls or Steamboat?"

"Right"

"There, then."

I should have had an easier time clearing my conversation with Dorothy Levin from my head than I did. But the fact that a reporter from a big eastern newspaper wanted to talk with me made me nervous. It just did.

When I'm nervous, I do. I get decisive. I get focused.

My first decision was to go ahead and go to Canada. I chose Wednesday to fly to Vancouver. I called United Airlines and booked a round-trip on the flights that had been suggested by Mr. Hamamoto. When I heard the price for the ticket I prayed that A. J. would approve the expense. I left her a message asking for approval.

Next I left a message for Hamamoto confirming our meeting in the Air Canada lounge on Wednesday afternoon.

Five more phone calls later, I'd succeeded in rescheduling the five patients whose day would be inconvenienced by my impulsive decision to fly to Canada to meet with Taro Hamamoto. After the shuffling was over, Tuesday and Thursday were going to closely resemble psychotherapy marathons in my office and I was going to be working on Saturday, too.