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"What's your name?"

"Matthew Scudder"

"What's your wife's name?"

"Elaine Mardell Elaine Mardell Scudder"

"Do you love her?"

"Do you have to ask?"

"Just answer the question Do you love her?"

"Yes"

"Who'd you drea to…"

"Yes?"

"I'll be a son of a bitch"

"So? Are you going to tell me?"

"Pleased with yourself, aren't you?"

"Pleased beyond measure, and-now stop that!"

"I just want to touch it for a minute"

"Say the naain"

"It won't," I said "Nohy in the hell would I dream about him?"

"Fine, keep me in suspense"

"Glenn Holtzmann," I said "How did you do that?"

"Ve haff vays ofyou remember"

"So it would seem Glenn Holtzmann Why Glenn Holtzmann, for Christ's sake?"

I was no closer to the answer an hour later when I went downstairs for the papers Then I forgot Glenn Holtz

There had been another letter from Will

9

"An Open Letter to the People of New York"

That's how Will headed it He had addressed and mailed it, like all the others, to Marty McGraw at the Daily News, and they were the ones with the story They gave it the front-page headline and led with it, under McGraw's byline His column, "Since You Asked…" ran as a sidebar, and the full text of Will's letter appeared on the page opposite It was a long letter for Will, running to just under eight hundred words, which th as McGraw's colu responsibility) for the murder of Adrian Whitfield His tone was boastful; he talked at first about the elaborate security set up to protect Whitfield, the burglar alaruards, the arlass "But no ainst the Will of the People," he proclaimed "No man can run from it No man can hide from it Consider Roswell Berry, who fled to Omaha Consider Julian Rashid, behind his fortified walls in St Albans The Will of the People can reach across vast space, it can slip through the stoutest defenses No man can resist it"

Whitfield, Will went on, was by no means the worst lawyer in the world It had simply been his lot to serve as representative of an ineradicable evil in the legal profession, an apparent willingness to do anything, however abhorrent and immoral, in the service of a client "We nod in approval when an attorney defends the indefensible, and even tolerate behavior in a client's interest which would earn the lawyer a horsewhipping were he so to act on his own behalf"

Then Will launched into an evaluation of the legal syste startlingly original about any of the points he raised, though he argued theet you were reading the words of a serial murderer

He ended on a personal note "I find I'rateful to have been the instruery But there is a heavy toll taken on hiood I'll rest now, until the day coain called to act"

I had a question, and I et an answer Eventually I got around to calling the News I gave my name to the woman who answered and said I'd like to talk to Marty McGraw She took

"Marty McGraw," he said "Matthew Scudder, you're the detective Whitfield hired, right? I think we o"

"Most of ot for me?"

"A question Did the letter run verbati held back at the cops' request?"

"No could I tell you that?" He sounded aggrieved "For all I know, you could be Will yourself"

"You're absolutely right," I said "On the other hand, if I were Will, I'd probably knohether or not you cut my copy"

"Jesus," he said, "I'd hate to be the one to do so desk cuts my copy, and I'm not a homicidalat As far as I can tell, there's nothing in the letter to disprove the suicide theory"

"There's Will's word on the subject He says he did it"

"And he's never lied to us in the past"

"As far as I know," he said, "he hasn't With Roswell Berry in O cute"

"He mentioned that Berry'd been stabbed, if I reht, and that was inforested he'd had a hand in it"

"Well, is there anything like that in the latest letter? Because I couldn't spot it That's why I wondered if anything had been cut"

"No, we ran it verbati when I said I'd hate to be the one to cut his copy I'uy"

"I can see where it h was like a terrier's bark "In that respect," he adet this rolling before ets nervous being Will'son the world I have to figure he's reading me three ti I want to do is piss off an original thinker like him"