He wrote down a few questions, thought about how he was going to play this, and then found a contact number for the public relations department of Kathleen Ford’s enterprise.
He was put in touch with a woman named Florence Highgold. Lewis couldn’t believe it was a real name, but she did actually work there, so what the hell. Lewis explained that he was doing a freelance business piece on Ford’s new Web site for the Wall Street Journal. He was particularly interested in the kind of talent pool Ford was intending to draw from.
“This whole serialized novel thing,” Lewis said. “I’d heard that the guy who wrote The Da Vinci Code had been talked into writing something.”
Florence laughed. “Even with the resources Ms. Ford has, I’m not sure she could afford him.”
“Well, if she can afford King and Grisham—”
“We’re not confirming that either of those men have in fact been commissioned to do anything for the Web site,” Florence said.
Lewis asked her about the launch date for the site, how many visits they expected it to receive. Would it be a site you had to pay to read? And if not, would all their income be derived from advertising?
He made it sound like an afterthought when he asked, “And what about artists? Does a site like that need a lot of illustrators?”
“Well, you certainly need Web artists to come up with a concept for the site,” Florence said. “You need a distinctive graphic design. But once you have that up and running, it kind of runs itself.”
“So it’s not like you’d have contributing artists in the way you would contributing writers.”
“That’s not entirely true. We’ve already said we’d like to do animated political cartoons.”
“You have someone for that?”
“We do,” Florence said. “Are you familiar with Ray Kilbride’s work?”
Even as she said the name, Lewis was tapping it into a search engine. When the results popped up, he hit Images.
The screen filled with dozens of postage-stamp-sized pictures.
“Yeah, I believe I have,” Lewis said. He clicked on an illustration of Newt Gingrich that had appeared in a Chicago magazine, credited to Ray Kilbride. “He did that Gingrich drawing, didn’t he?”
“He may have. He’s done so many,” Florence said.
Lewis clicked again and up came a caricature of noted New York crime boss Carlo Vachon, sticking up the Statue of Liberty. “And I remember one he did of that mob guy.”
“Maybe,” Florence said. “Like I said, he’s got a pretty comprehensive portfolio.”
“Uh-huh,” Lewis said, clicking to a second full page of images.
One of them was not an illustration, but a photograph. He clicked on it. Up popped a photo of a man leaning over a drafting table, sleeves rolled up, an airbrush in his hand, smiling at the camera.
The photograph was from an art magazine’s Web site, and accompanied a short article about Ray Kilbride, who lived in Burlington, Vermont.
“Are you there?” Florence said.
“Yeah, yeah, I’m here,” Lewis said, holding alongside his computer monitor the printout he’d been showing around the art store, comparing the two faces.
“Was there anything else you needed to know?” she asked.
“No, I think I’ve found the answer to my question,” Lewis said.
“Do you know when the article will be running in the Journal?” Florence asked. “Because Ms. Ford will want to—”
Lewis ended the call, then went to the online phone directories. He found a listing for an R Kilbride in Burlington.
He picked up the phone again, dialed Howard.
“Yes, Lewis,” Howard said.
“Found him,” Lewis said.
FORTY-SIX
OCTAVIO Famosa couldn’t decide what to do.
Should he tell Allison Fitch—and that was how he thought of her now, not as Adele Farmer—he had been in touch with her mother in Ohio? That Doris Fitch would be flying in today to be reunited with her? Or should he say nothing, and let her be surprised?
Even though he suspected she would be angry with him, he believed that, ultimately, she would be grateful. Yes, he had snooped about in her purse, and called her mother behind her back. But it was often stubbornness and pride that kept family members apart, even when they desperately wanted to be together. Pride was a terrible thing, Octavio mused. It stood in the way of so much happiness.
One reason he didn’t want to tell her was that he wanted to see the look on Allison’s face when her mother arrived at the hotel. Octavio had seen many shows on television, especially on Oprah, where people who had not seen one another in years were reunited. He loved to see the people’s expressions when a long-lost son or daughter walked onstage to embrace them.
Octavio had to admit that he was a bit of a sentimentalist.