The Poet (17 page)

I didn’t tell Washington I was going to the FBI myself. I knew I had to get there first. I pushed my plate aside, looked at Washington and shook my head. This story was incredible.

“What’s your feeling on this? What are we talking about?”

“Only a few possibilities,” Washington said. “One, we’re talking about one guy, somebody out there killing people, then doubling back and taking out the lead cop working the case.”

I nodded. I was with him.

“Second, the first killings are unrelated and our doer just comes into town, waits for a case he likes or sees on the TV and goes after the cop who heads up the investigation.”

“Yeah.”

“And third is we have two killers. In both cities one does the first killing and the second comes in and does the second, takes out the cop. Of the three, I don’t like this one. Too many questions. Do they know each other? Are they working together? It gets pretty far out there.”

“They would have to know each other. How else would the second guy know where the first one has been?”

“Exactly. So we are concentrating on possibilities one and two. We haven’t decided whether Denver is coming here and we’ll send some people there but we’ve got to look at the boy and the college kid. Look for any connection and if we find one we go from there.”

I nodded. I was thinking of the first possibility. One person, one killer doing all of this.

“If it is just one guy, who is the real target?” I asked, more to myself than Washington. “Is it the first victim or the cop?”

Washington put the V back in his brow.

“Maybe,” I said, “we’ve got somebody who wants to kill cops. That’s his objective, okay? So he uses the first killing-Smathers, Lofton-to draw out his prey. The cop.”

I looked around the table. Saying it out loud, though I had been thinking it since I was on the plane, sent a chill through me.

“Spooky, huh?” Washington asked.

“Yeah. Real spooky.”

“And you know why? Because if this is the case, there’s got to be others. Every time a cop supposedly kills himself the investigation is quick and quiet. No department wants that kind of story. So they go through the motions quick and then that’s it. So there’s gotta be more of them out there. If the first possibility is the correct one, then this guy didn’t begin with Brooks and end with your brother. There’s more. I’d bet on it.”

He pushed his plate away. He was finished.

A half hour later he dropped me at the front of the Hyatt. The wind off the lake was chilling. I didn’t want to stand outside but Washington said he wasn’t coming up to the room. He gave me a business card.

“I got my home and beeper on there. Call me.”

“I will.”

“Okay then, Jack.” He put his hand out and I took it.

“And thanks, man.”

“For what?”

“For making believers out of them. I owe you one for that. So does Jumpin’ John.”

13

Gladden stared at the bright blue screen for several seconds before starting. It was an exercise he routinely followed to help clear his mind of the pressures and the hatred. But this time it was hard. He was full of rage.

He shook it off and pulled the computer onto his lap. He cleared the screen and rolled the ball with his thumb until the arrow moved from window to window on the screen and stopped on the TERMINAL icon. He clicked the ENTER button and then chose the program he wanted. He clicked on DIAL and then waited while listening to the harsh screech of the computer’s uplink. It was like birth, he thought, every time. The horrible screech of the newly born. After the connection was complete, the welcome template appeared on the screen.

_________________________

WELCOME TO THE PTL CLUB

_________________________

After a few seconds the screen moved up and there was a coded prompt for Gladden’s first password. He entered the letters, waited while they were acknowledged, then entered the second password when he got the prompt. In a moment his entry was approved and the warning template appeared on the screen.

_________________________

PRAISE THE LORD!

_________________________

RULES OF THE ROAD

1. NEVER EVER USE A REAL NAME

2. NEVER PROVIDE SYSTEMS NUMBERS TO ACQUAINTANCES

3. NEVER AGREE TO MEET ANOTHER USER

4. BE AWARE THAT OTHER USERS MAY BE FOREIGN BODIES

5. SYSOP RESERVES THE RIGHT TO DELETE ANY USER

6. MESSAGE BOARDS MAY NOT BE USED FOR DISCUSSION OF ANY ILLEGAL ACTIVITIES-THIS IS FORBIDDEN

7. PTL NETWORK IS NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR CONTENT

8. PRESS ANY KEY TO CONTINUE

_________________________

Gladden pressed ENTER and the computer informed him he had a private message waiting to be read. He lightly touched the appropriate keys and the message from the systems operator filled the top half of the laptop’s screen.

_________________________

THANKS FOR THE WARNING. HOPE ALL IS WELL AND MOST SORRY TO HEAR OF YOU IN HARM’S WAY. ALL IS WELL ON THIS END. IF YOU ARE READING THIS THEN I ASSUME YOU ARE OUT AND ABOUT. BRAVO! GOOD LUCK AND STAY IN TOUCH WITH YOURSELF AND OTHERS. (HEH, HEH)

… … … . PTL

_________________________

Gladden typed in an R and hit ENTER and a reply message template appeared on the screen. He typed out a message to the sender of the first message.

_________________________

NOT TO WORRY ABOUT ME. ALL IS TAKEN CARE OF. YOURS TRULY IS NOW OUT AND ABOUT

… … … . PTL

_________________________

That done, Gladden typed in commands so that he could move to the main bulletin board directory. Finally, the screen filled with the directory of message boards. Each board was listed with the number of active messages available to be read.

_________________________

1. General Forum 89

2. B+9 46

3. B-9 23

4. G+9 12

5. G-9 6

6. All’s fair 51

7. Musings & Whinings 76

8. Legal Beagles 24

9. Services by city 56

10. Barter Board 91

_________________________

He quickly typed in the necessary commands to move to the Musings & Whinings board. It was one of the most popular boards. He’d already read through most of the files and had contributed a few himself. The writers were all ranting about how unfair life was to them. How maybe in a different time their tastes and instincts would be accepted as normal. It was more whining than musing, Gladden had always thought. He called up the file marked Eidolon and began reading.

_________________________

I think they will know about me soon. My time in the light of public fascination and fear is near. I am ready. Each one of my kind eventually assumes the mantle. Anonymity will be lost. I will be given a name, a designation not reflective of who I am nor of my many skills, but simply determined by its ability to fit nicely into a tabloid newspaper headline and stimulate the masses to thoughts of fear. We study what we fear. Fear sells newspapers and television shows. Soon it will be my turn to sell.

I will be hunted soon and I will be notorious. But they won’t find me. Never. That’s what they won’t realize. That I have always been ready for them.

I have decided it is time to tell my story. I want to tell it. I will input all that I have, all that I am. Through these windows you will see me live and die. My laptop Boswell makes no judgments, cringes not at a single word. Who better to hear my confession than Laptop Boswell? Who more accurate a biographer than Laptop Boswell? I will begin to tell you all now. Turn on your flashlights. I will live and die here in the dark.

Man is sometimes extraordinarily, passionately, in love with suffering.

I didn’t write that first but I wish that I had. But it doesn’t matter because I believe it. My suffering is my passion, my religion. It never leaves me. It guides me. It is me. I can see that now. I think what is meant by those words is that our pain is the pathway upon which we make our life’s travels and choices. It paves the way, so to speak, for all that we do and become. Therefore, we embrace it. We study it and, for all its harshness, we love it. We have no choice.

I have a great feeling of clarity about this, of complete understanding. I can turn and look back on my path and see how the pain made all my choices. I look forward and can see where it will take me. I don’t really walk along the path any more. It moves beneath me, carrying me, like a great ribbon through time. It carried me here.

My pain is the rock upon which I make my stand. I am the perpetrator. The Eidolon. True identity is pain. My pain. Until death do we part.

Drive safely, dear friends.

_________________________

He read it again and felt deeply moved by it. It touched his true heart.

He went back to the main menu and switched into the Barter Board to see if there were any new customers. There weren’t. He typed the G command for good-bye. He then turned off the computer and folded it closed.

Gladden wished the cops hadn’t taken his camera. He couldn’t risk going to claim it and he could barely afford to buy another one with the money he had left. But he knew that without a camera he could not fill orders and there would be no more money. The anger building inside him felt like razors moving through his blood, cutting him from inside. He decided to wire money out from Florida, then go shopping for another camera.

He went to the window and looked out at the cars slowly moving along Sunset. It was an endless moving parking lot. All that smoking steel, he thought. All that flesh. Where was it going? He wondered how many of them in those cars were like himself. How many had the urges and how many felt the razors? How many had the courage to follow through? Again the anger pushed through his thoughts. It was something palpable inside him now, a black flower spreading its petals in his throat, choking him.

He went to the phone and dialed the number Krasner had given him. Sweetzer picked up after four rings.

“Busy, Sweetzer?”

“Who’s this?”

“It’s me. How are the kids?”

“What-who is this?”

His instincts told Gladden to hang up right then. Don’t deal with their kind. But he was so curious.

“You have my camera,” he said.

There was a short moment of silence.

“Mr. Brisbane, and how are you?”

“Fine, Detective, thank you.”

“Yes, we have your camera and you are entitled to have that back since you require it to make a living. Do you want to make an appointment to pick it up?”

Gladden closed his eyes and squeezed the phone until he thought he would crush it. They knew. If they didn’t they would have told him to forget the camera. But they knew something. And they wanted him to come in. The question was how much did they know? Gladden wanted to scream but a higher thought was to keep cool with Sweetzer. No false moves, he told himself.

“I’ll have to think about that.”

“Well, it looks like a nice camera. I’m not sure how it works but I wouldn’t mind having it. It’s here if you want-“

“Fuck you, Sweetzer.”

The anger overtook him. Gladden spoke the words through a clenched jaw.

“Look, Brisbane, I was doing my job. If you got a problem with that come see me and we’ll do something about that. If you want your fucking camera then you can come and get that, too. But I’m not going to stay on the line while you-“

“You got kids, Sweetzer?”

The line was silent for a long moment but Gladden knew the detective was there.

“What did you say?”

“You heard me.”

“Are you threatening my family, you motherfucking son of a bitch?”

Now Gladden was silent for a moment. Then a low sound started deep in his throat and grew into a maniacal laugh. He let it out uncontrolled until it was all he could hear and think about. Then, suddenly, he slammed the receiver down on the phone and cut the laughter off like a knife in the throat. He had an ugly grimace across his face and he shouted to the empty room through clenched teeth.

“Fuck you!”

Gladden opened his laptop again and accessed the photo directory. The computer’s screen was state of the art for a laptop model but the graphics chip still wasn’t nearly the quality he’d have on a stationary PC. But the images were clear enough and he was able to make do. He went through the file photo by photo. It was a macabre collection of the dead and the living. Somehow, he was able to find solace in the photos, a sense that he had control over things in his life.

Still, he was saddened by what he saw before him and what he had done. These little sacrifices. Offered up so that he could salve his wounds. He knew how selfish it was, how grotesquely warped it was. And the fact that he turned these sacrifices into money tore away his comfort, turned it into the self-loathing and disgust that always came. Sweetzer and the others were right. He deserved to be hunted.