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I'm living in Montana the local Humane Society gets a call and uh it's from a Clark Rockefeller of New York who wants
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to adopt a dog in the animal shelter that he's found out about over the internet and it's a crippled dog it's in
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a wheelchair and uh the shelter people come to me and say Walter you went to Princeton we've got this Rockefeller uh
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who wants to adopt an animal um maybe you could talk to him and I get on the phone with him and he reveals himself as
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the craziest eccentric I've ever met he tells me that he has another dog that has um three course meals every night
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and he faxes me a menu of the meals he tells me that uh his job is he's a freelance Central Banker he's like Allen
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Green span for tiny countries that can't afford their own Allen greenpan he runs
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the economy of Thailand off his personal computer he tells me now rather than putting you off that made him more
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believable well here's a strange thing I I did go to Princeton I'd been exposed to these aristocratic blue blood types
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all my life they had eccentricities they tended to be boastful and uh unbelievable in certain ways and he was
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no more unbelievable than most of them but worse I'm a writer and curiosity killed the cat and when I talked to him
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to make arrangements for this dog's delivery to New York I came up with the bright idea of driving it myself 2,000
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miles from Montana just so I could meet him because I thought hey I'm a novelist
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I've got to meet a character like this uh I don't I hardly know Walter Kar no I've met Walter Kar twice in my life
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right but you spent considerable time with Walter Kar the first time I met him uh we spent about 15 minutes at the
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airport and then the next day I took him out to dinner and I paid for that I had
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to buy a plane ticket I had to drive a truck halfway across the country stay in motels it probably cost me $2,000 to
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deliver that dog he gave me a check and at dinner and I refused to open it because I didn't want to lower the tone
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of dinner you know anything so crash but then later I opened the check it was $500 you know $500 500 bucks not even on
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his account the check was written on his wife's account did I ever say anything no gentlemen don't I mean he got me
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to uh suppress my own instincts in favor of his version of things and after a while you know I was totally
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in did you ever tell him who you really was he never he well he thought you were
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Clark he thought you were Clark Rockefeller did you ever tell him oh no I'm not really I don't I didn't really
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know him he's a perfect stranger I still don't really know Walter Kar very well at all he's a perfect stranger we talked
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in the phone occasionally a couple of times maybe over 15 years perhaps uh 10 times something like that we traded
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emails back and forth over over 15 years perhaps uh 20 30 emails he considered you a
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friend did you consider him a friend not really we went and had dinner at a private club high in a skyscraper in
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Midtown and you could see Rockefeller Center out the window all lit up and uh as we were finishing dinner Clark said
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why don't we go down and run around in the basement of the of of the place and I said the place yeah Rock Center I said
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how do we get into the basement he says oh I have the key I have the master key and uh he sort of reached in his pocket
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and pulled it out I said there's a master key to Rockefeller Center oh yes of course you know and I knew in the
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back of my mind that I think at that point the Japanese owned Rockefeller Center but whatever I mean I didn't
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question it why is a stranger it's a total stranger it's like someone who delivered a dog to me it's
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very nice of him but uh it's you know he's a total stranger but you with this total stranger you kind of put on this
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image of Clark Rockefeller telling him you had a key you could take him to a private tour through the Rockefeller
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Center you really played the Rockefeller card didn't you with him to what ends what do you think well I wonder do you
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did you enjoy the idea of pulling the wool over the eyes of a good writer I think it's just dinner conversation you
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run out of things to say you resort to something silly I don't know what do you mean well if dinner conversation kind of
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slows down if dinner conversation gets kind of boring you resort to something that uh that livens up the conversation