Perhaps not coincidentally, at this exact moment the servers started clapping and singing a birthday song that was not “Happy Birthday” and therefore did not owe royalties to the artist who wrote “Happy Birthday.” One of them carried a mound of chocolate and cream and high fructose corn syrup with a candle on top. They gathered around a corner booth near the window with the neon Blue Moon sign. An overweight woman in a flowered polyester blouse yelped and gushed, “I can’t believe you guys.”
Her friends—all similarly large women with similar polyester blouses—laughed and goaded the birthday girl. The servers continued to sing with bright smiles stuck on their faces. Suddenly, the madness of this big box restaurant made a little more sense. It was all a blend of performance and willful ignorance: the birthday girl acting like she was genuinely surprised when she likely came to this restaurant specifically for this song and dessert, her friends acting as if this were all spontaneous and not a repeat of previous birthday episodes, the servers trying to mask their humiliation with big smiles and an off-key song. Even the beer sign, Blue Moon, advertised one of those beers sold as a microbrew despite the fact it was made by a huge multinational corporation that owned half of Colorado.
The biggest performance, though, was enacted by me in my silly shirt and tie and slacks, acting as if I were anything but an aging punk rocker trying to find a way to keep his soul intact while making a living, as if I wasn’t a failure of a husband who gave up my second greatest passion to save my marriage. I wondered how much of this Walters could see, blind or not.
The servers finished their song. The birthday girl blew out her candle. About half of the diners in the half-full restaurant applauded. Walters applauded. I did, too.
I didn’t say anything about my little epiphany. I kept it to myself and let Walters talk and eat. I assumed that his more or less idle chatter was better than me giving away anything I didn’t want to give away. After Walters had polished off his Me Oh My-a Jumbo-laya and I finished my No Cheese Please Burger and fruit cup (without a cute name), Walters selected among the three credit cards in his wallet and handed one to the waitress. He then got back to the point.
“I know that you’re not a man for subtleties, so I’ll just say it. I’m personally interested in the research that Dr. Bishop is doing. Extremely interested. I’m in control of some discretionary funds at Dickinson and Associates, and I’m willing to use those funds to cover the complete expenditures of her experiments and make sure she has the necessary means to continue her work.”
This seemed the most random thing he’d said. I couldn’t imagine why a man like Walters would want to fund a batty old doctor investigating telepathy in dogs. I didn’t ask him why he was interested. I just said, “That’s very generous of you.”
“In exchange, I’d need access to any and all paperwork accompanying these experiments. And this is important: only I get access to her information.” He pointed at his chest with his thumb to emphasize the “I.” “No one else in my organization does.”
“I’ll pass your offer on to Dr. Bishop.”
Walters reached across the table and grabbed my hand. The arm of his tailored suit rested less than a quarter-inch from a clump of rice and tomato sauce that had fallen off his bowl of Me Oh My-a Jumbo-laya. “Make no mistake. Though we both represent larger agencies, this offer is between you and me. Exclusively between you and me.”
I gently slid my hand from underneath his. “I’ll think about it,” I said.
The waitress came back with the credit card slip and a pen for Walters. He asked her what the total had been. She read the number off the credit card slip. He said, “Can you put your finger by the lines where I add the tip and total?”
She did.
He set his finger on top of hers, softly enough for her to slide her hand out from underneath. He then added the fifteen-percent tip and total. As I watched him do this, the waitress handed me a slip of white, glossy cash-register paper. I unfolded it. Inside, in bubbly handwriting, were her phone number and her name. I smiled a false and inappropriate smile. I raised my left hand up to my chin and tickled my wedding ring with my left thumb, hoping she would get the hint. She just smiled and fluttered away.
I looked back to Walters. He pulled a thick, booklet-sized yellow envelope out of his pocket. The envelope was sealed. It had no names or markings of any kind. The paper was thick enough to prevent postal carriers or nosy roommates from peeking inside. He set it on the table in front of himself. He drummed his manicured fingers on it. “Look, I understand the situation from your perspective. You’re an idealist. You spent your twenties trying to save the world. You spent even longer than that, right? You worked for that nonprofit well into your thirties. A guy with your particular skill set, you could’ve made a lot of money during that time. You wouldn’t have to live in an apartment and ride the bus around town. You could own a home by now, your own car. And, I don’t mean to presume, but maybe that extra bit of money you could’ve been making would make things smoother between you and your wife.”
I stared at Walters, happy at this moment that he couldn’t see the surprise on my face. So he knew everything. Just like me, he’d done his research prior to this meeting. I said nothing. A few seconds ticked off the clock. Walters let the empty time pass. He drummed the envelope in front of him. “I hope I don’t offend you,” he finally said. “I don’t mean to bring your wife into this.”
Though, of course he did mean to do just that. He wanted me to know how much he knew about me. He wanted me to use my imagination to fill in the blanks left by his little hints. I waited for him to make his point.
“Like I said, I understand somewhat where you’re coming from. You’re reaching that point in your life when you realize that the world can’t be saved. You know now that idealism has its place, but a time comes when realism takes over. It becomes time to move on. It becomes time to start making the world better for yourself and for your wife. Maybe it’s time to settle into a comfortable life and have kids. Again, I don’t want to presume. I’m just letting you know that, if you work with me on this, you will reap financial rewards.” His manicured fingernails slid the envelope across the table. I did not pick it up.
“Of course, you’ll keep thinking about this,” Walters said. “You’ll wonder what I might want with Dr. Bishop’s research. Perhaps you’ll make some presumptions of your own. You’ll imagine sinister intentions. Understand that there’s nothing sinister here. I’m just a guy trying to get a jump on a discovery that I think I can make a buck on. You’re in a position to profit off it, too. That’s it.”
I said nothing in response. I didn’t take my eyes off his smoky dark glasses. I couldn’t let all the effluvia of this big box restaurant distract me. I couldn’t watch that waitress’s pale legs flutter by another time. I was too busy wondering whether or not I was being careful. And what the hell could this have to do with dogs knowing when their masters came home?
Walters didn’t wait for a response from me. He said, “There’s one more thing I want you to keep in mind. It is this: I am a very powerful man.”
I took a second to wonder how powerful. If he were genuinely big time, he wouldn’t be in this big box restaurant eating with me. Someone with real wealth would’ve sent a car to pick me up and would’ve taken me to a much nicer restaurant. He would have dazzled me with his wealth. He wouldn’t have had to tell me he was a very powerful man. He would have showed me. Or he would’ve sent a henchman to meet with me. So, at best, Walters was the henchman to a powerful man. Brandon had said Walters was only rich enough to bribe me or pay someone to put me in a hospital. And, well, there was a power in that I couldn’t ignore. I didn’t know who to believe or how to figure out what to believe. I asked Walters, “What does that mean?”
“It means, if you say no to me, you’re saying no to an extremely powerful man.”
“Okay,” I said. Or maybe it was, “Okay?”
Walters stood. He buttoned his jacket, transferred his folded overcoat from the back of the chair