The Poet (1995)

by Michael Connelly

  "Wait until it's over and then tell me that."

  "I will. But in the meantime, you have to step aside, Jack."

  I turned back to him, my best puzzled look on my face.

  "You understand what I'm telling you," Backus said, not buying the face. "We are at the most critical stage. He is in our sights and, frankly, Jack, you have to get out of the way."

  "I am out of the way and I'll stay out of the way. The same deal, nothing I see goes into the paper until you okay it. But I'm not going back to Denver to wait. I'm too close, too . . . This means too much. You've got to let me back inside."

  "This could take weeks. Remember the fax. All it said was that he had his next man in sight. It didn't say when it would happen. There was no time frame. We have no idea when he'll try to hit Thomas."

  I shook my head.

  "I don't care. Whatever it takes, I want to be part of the investigation. I've kept up my end of the deal."

  An uneasy silence settled over the room, during which Backus stood up and began pacing on the carpet behind my chair. I looked over at Rachel. She was looking down at the table in a contemplative way. I threw my last chip into the pile.

  "I have to write a story tomorrow, Bob. My editor's expecting it. If you don't want it written, bring me in. That's the only way I can convince him to back off. That's the bottom line."

  Thorson made a derisive sound and shook his head.

  "This is trouble," he said. "Bob, you give in to this guy again and where does it end?"

  "The only time there's been trouble," I said, "is when I've been lied to or kept out of the investigation, which, by the way, I started."

  Backus looked over at Rachel.

  "What do you think?"

  "Don't ask her," Thorson interjected. "I can tell you right now what she's going to say."

  "If you have something to say about me, say it," Rachel demanded.

  "All right, enough," Backus said, holding his hands out like a referee. "You two don't quit, do you? Jack, you're in. For the time being. Same deal as before. That means no story tomorrow. Understood?"

  I nodded. I looked over at Thorson, who had already stood up and was heading out the door, defeated.

  36

  The Wilcox Hotel, as I learned it was called, had room for one more-especially when the night clerk learned I was with the government people already staying there and was willing to pay the top price, thirty-five dollars a night. It was the only hotel I'd ever checked into where I felt a nervous sense of foreboding about giving the man behind the front counter my credit card number. This one looked like he was halfway through a bottle on this shift alone. It also appeared as though he had decided on the last four successive mornings that he wasn't quite ready for a shave yet. He never looked at me during the entire check-in-process-which took an unusually long five minutes as he hunted for a pen and then accepted a loan of one from me.

  "What're you people doin', anyway?" he said as he slid a key with the stamped room number almost worn off it across the equally worn Formica counter.

  "They didn't tell you?" I asked, feigning surprise.

  "Nope, I'm just checkin' people in is all."

  "It's a credit card fraud investigation. A lot of it going on around here."

  "Oh."

  "By the way, which room is Agent Walling in?"

  It took him a half minute to interpret his own records.

  "That'd be seventeen."

  My room was small and when I sat on the edge of the bed it sank at least a half foot, the other side rising by an equal amount with the accompanying protest of old springs. It was a ground-floor room with spare but neat furnishings and the stale smell of cigarettes. The yellowed blinds were up and I could see a metal grate over the one window. If there was a fire, I'd be trapped like a lobster in a cage if I didn't get out the door fast enough.

  I took the travel-size toothpaste tube and folding toothbrush I had bought out of the pillowcase and went into the bathroom. I could still taste the Bloody Mary from the plane and wanted to get rid of it. I also wanted to be ready for all eventualities with Rachel.

  The bathrooms in old hotel rooms are always the most depressing. This one was slightly larger than the phone booths I used to see at every gas station when I was growing up. Sink, toilet and portable shower stall all complete with matching rust stains were set in a crowded configuration. If you were ever sitting on the toilet when somebody came in, you'd lose your kneecaps. When I was finished and had returned to the comparative spaciousness of the room, I looked at the bed and knew I didn't want to sit back down there. I didn't even want to sleep there. I decided to risk leaving the computer and my pillowcase full of clothes and left the room.

  My light knock on the door of room seventeen was answered so quickly I thought Rachel had been waiting on the other side. She quickly ushered me in.

  "Bob's room is across the hall," she whispered by way of explanation. "What is it?"

  I didn't answer. We looked at each other for a long moment, each waiting for the other to act. I finally did, stepping close to her and pulling her into a long kiss. She seemed as into it as I was and this quickly calmed many of the worries I had allowed to simmer in my brain. She broke the kiss off and strongly pulled me into an embrace. Over her shoulder I surveyed her room. It was bigger than mine and the furniture was maybe a decade newer but it wasn't any less depressing. Her computer was on the bed and there were some papers spread over the worn yellow spread where a thousand people had lain and fucked and farted and fought.

  "Funny," she whispered, "I just left you this morning and I found myself already missing you."

  "Same here."

  "Jack, I'm sorry, but I don't want to make love on that bed, in this room, or in this hotel."

  "That's okay," I said nobly, though I regretted the words as I spoke them. "I understand. Looks like you got a luxury suite compared to mine."

  "We'll have to wait but then we'll make up for it."

  "Yeah. Why are we staying here, anyway?"

  "Bob wants to be close. So we can move if they spot him."

  I nodded.

  "Well, can we leave for a little while? Want to get a drink? There's got to be someplace around."

  "Probably no better than this. Let's just stay and talk."

  She went to the bed and cleared the papers and the computer, then sat back against the headboard, propped on a pillow. I sat in the room's one chair, its cushion scarred by an ancient knife slash repaired with tape.

  "What do you want to talk about, Rachel?"

  "I don't know. You're the reporter. I thought you'd ask the questions."

  She smiled.

  "About the case?"

  "About anything."

  I looked at her for a long moment. I decided to start with something simple and then see how far I could go from there.

  "What's this Thomas guy like?"

  "He's fine. For a local. Not overly cooperative, but not an asshole."

  "What do you mean not overly cooperative? He's letting you use him as human bait, isn't that enough?"

  "I guess. Maybe it's me. I never seem to get along with the locals."

  I moved from the chair onto the bed with her.

  "So what? It's not your job to get along with anybody."

  "That's right," she said, smiling again. "You know, there's a soda machine in the lobby."

  "You want something?"

  "No, but you said something about getting a drink."

  "I was thinking of something stronger. It's all right, though. I'm happy."

  She reached over and did her finger drag through my beard. I caught her hand as she dropped it away and held it for a moment.

  "Do you think the intensity of what we're doing and what we're involved with is causing this?" I asked.

  "As opposed to what?"

  "I don't know. I'm just asking."

  "I know what you're saying," she said after a long moment. "I have to admit I've never made love to anybo
dy thirty-six hours after the first time I'd ever seen him in my life."

  She smiled and it sent a beautiful thrill through me.

  "Me neither."

  She leaned toward me and we kissed again. I turned and we rolled into a from-here-to-eternity kiss. Only our beach was the old bedspread in a ratty old hotel room three decades past its prime. But all of that didn't matter anymore. Soon I was moving my kisses down her neck and then we made love.

  We couldn't both fit in the bathroom or the shower so she went first. As she showered I lay in bed thinking about her and wishing for a smoke.

  It was hard to tell because of the sound of the shower but at one point I thought I heard a light knock on the door. Alerted, I sat up on the edge of the bed and started pulling on my pants as I stared at the door. I listened but heard nothing again. Then, I distinctly saw the doorknob move, or thought I did. I got up and moved to the door, pulling up my pants, and tilted my head to the jamb to listen. I heard nothing. There was a peephole but I was reluctant to look through it. The light was on in the room and if I looked through the peephole I would block it, possibly letting whoever was out there know that someone was looking at him.

  Rachel cut the shower off at that point. After a few moments of no noticeable sound from the hallway I moved to the peephole and looked. There was nothing out there.

  "What are you doing?"

  I turned. Rachel stood by the bed, attempting to show modesty with the tiny towel that came with the room.

  "I thought I heard someone knock."

  "Who was it?"

  "I don't know. There was no one there when I looked. Maybe it was nothing. All right if I take a shower?"

  "Sure."

  I stepped out of my pants and while walking past her stopped. She dropped her towel, exposing her body. She was beautiful to me. I stepped over and we held each other for a long moment.

  "Be right back," I finally said and then headed into the shower.

  Rachel was dressed and waiting when I came out. I looked at my watch, which I had left on the bed table, and saw it was eleven. There was a battered old television in the room but I decided not to suggest watching the news. I realized I hadn't eaten dinner but still wasn't hungry.

  "I'm not tired," she said.

  "Neither am I."

  "Maybe we could find a place for a drink after all."

  After I dressed, we quietly left the room. She looked out first to make sure Backus or Thorson or anybody else wasn't lurking about. We encountered no one in the hallway or the lobby and outside the street seemed deserted and dark. We walked south to Sunset.

  "You got your gun?" I asked, half kidding and half serious.

  "Always. Besides, we've got our people around. They probably saw us leave."

  "Really? I thought they were just keeping an eye on Thomas."

  "They are. But they should have a good idea who is on the street at any given time. If they're doing their job."

  I turned and walked backward for a few steps, staring back up the street at the green neon sign for the Mark Twain. I surveyed the street, the cars parked along both sides. Again, I saw no shadows or silhouettes of the watchers.

  "How many are out there?"

  "Should be five. Two on foot in fixed positions. Two in cars, stationary. One car roving. All the time."

  I turned back around and pulled the collar of my jacket up. It was colder outside than I had expected. Our breath came out in thin clouds, mingled together and then disappeared.

  When we got to Sunset I looked both ways and saw a neon sign over an archway a block to the west that said CAT & FIDDLE BAR. I pointed that way and Rachel started walking. We were silent until we got there.

  Going through the archway we entered an outdoor garden with several tables below green canvas umbrellas but they were all empty. Past these and through the windows on the other side we could see what looked like a lively and warm bar. We went in, found an empty booth on the opposite side from the dartboards and sat down. It was an English-style pub. When the barmaid came around Rachel told me to go first and I ordered a black and tan. Rachel then did the same.

  We looked around the place and small-talked until our drinks arrived. We clinked glasses and drank. I watched her. I didn't think she'd ever had a black and tan before.

  "The Harp is heavier. It always stays at the bottom, the Guinness on top."

  She smiled.

  "When you said black and tan, I thought that was a brand that you knew. But it's good. I like it but it's strong."

  "One thing the Irish know is how to make a beer. The English have to give them that."

  "Two of these and you'll have to call for backup to get me back."

  "I doubt it."

  We lapsed into a comfortable silence. There was a fireplace in the rear wall and the warmth from its fully engulfed fire extended across the room.

  "Is your real name John?"

  I nodded.

  "I'm not Irish but I always thought Sean was Irish for John."

  "Yes, it's the Gaelic version. Since we were twins my parents decided . . . actually my mother."

  "I think it's nice."

  After a few more drinks from my glass I started asking questions about the case.

  "So, tell me about Gladden."

  "There isn't a whole lot to tell yet."

  "Well, you met him. Interviewed him. You must have a feeling for him."

  "He wasn't exactly cooperative. His appeal was still pending and he didn't trust us not to use what he said to disrupt that. We all took turns trying to get him to open up. Finally, I think it was Bob's idea, he agreed to talk to us in the third person. As if the perpetrator of the crimes he was convicted of was somebody else."

  "Bundy did that, too, right?"

  I remembered that from a book I had read.

  "Yes. And others as well. It was just a device to assure them that we were not there to make cases against them. Most of these men have tremendous egos. They wanted to talk to us but they had to be convinced they were safe from legal reprisals. Gladden was like that. Especially since he knew he had a valid appeal still pending."

  "It must be a rare thing that you have a prior relationship, no matter how small, with an active serial killer."

  "Yes. But I have a feeling that if any one of the people we interviewed was set loose like William Gladden, we'd end up hunting for them as well. These people don't get better, Jack, and they don't get rehabbed. They are what they are."

  She said it like a warning, the second such intimation she had made. I thought about it a few moments, wondering if there was more she was trying to tell me. Or, I thought, was she really warning herself?

  "So what did he say? Did he tell you about Beltran or Best Pals?"

  "Of course not, or I would have remembered when I saw Beltran's name on the victim list. Gladden didn't mention names. But he did give the usual abuse excuse. Said that he was assaulted sexually as a child. Repeatedly. He was at the same age as the children he later victimized in Tampa. You see, that's the cycle. It's a pattern we often see. They become fixated on themselves at the point in their own lives when they were . . . ruined."

  I nodded but didn't say anything, hoping she would continue.

  "For a three-year period," she said, "from ages nine to twelve. The episodes were frequent and included oral and anal penetration. He didn't tell us who the abuser was other than to say it was a nonrelative. According to Gladden, he never told his mother because he feared this man. The man threatened him. He was a figure of some authority in his life. Bob made some follow-up calls about it but never got anywhere with it. Gladden wasn't specific enough for him to track it. Gladden was in his twenties by then and the period of abuse had been years earlier. There would've been statute-of-limitations problems even if we had pursued it. We couldn't even find his mother to ask her about it. She left Tampa after his arrest and all the publicity. We, of course, can now surmise that the abuser was Beltran."

  I nodded. I had finish
ed my beer but Rachel was nursing hers. She didn't like it. I signaled the barmaid and ordered an Amstel Light for her. I said I'd finish her black and tan.

  "So how did it end? The abuse, I mean."

  "That's the irony you so often see. It ended when he became too old for Beltran. Beltran rejected him and went on to his next victim. All the boys he sponsored through Best Pals are being located and will be interviewed. I'll bet they all were abused by him. He's the evil seed to all of this, Jack. Make sure you get that across in whatever you write about this. Beltran got what he deserved."