The Poet (42 page)

I nodded, realizing he was talking about the FBI agents.

“Yes,” I said. “They got a head start, though.”

He smiled.

“I saw you on TV the other night.”

At first perplexed, I then realized what he meant. The scene out at the funeral home. Me in the FBI shirt. I knew then that the clerk thought I was an FBI agent. I didn’t bother to correct him.

“The boss man wasn’t too happy about that,” I said.

“Well, you people must get that a lot when you swoop into town like that. Anyway, I hope you catch him.”

“Yeah, we do, too.”

He went about processing my bill. He asked if I had any room charges and I told him about the room service and the items I had taken from the bar.

“Listen,” I said. “I guess you also have to charge me for a pillowcase. I had to buy clothes here and didn’t have any luggage and …”

I held up the pillowcase in which I had packed my few belongings and he chuckled at my predicament. But figuring what to charge me caused confusion and finally he just told me it was on the house.

“I understand you people have to move quickly,” he said. “The others didn’t even have time to check out. Just blew out of town like a Texas tornado, I guess.”

“Well,” I said smiling. “I hope they at least paid.”

“Oh, yes. Agent Backus called from the airport and said just to keep it on the credit card and send him the receipts. But that’s no problem. We aim to please.”

I just looked at him, thinking. Deciding.

“I’m going to be catching up with them tonight,” I finally said. “You want me to take the receipts?”

He looked up at me from the paperwork in front of him. I could see his hesitation. I held my hand up in a not-to-worry fashion.

“It’s all right. It was just a thought. I’ll see them tonight and thought it might speed things along. You know, save the postage.”

I didn’t know what I was saying but I was already lacking confidence in my decision and wanted to back away.

“Well,” the clerk said, “I don’t really see the harm in it. I’ve got their paperwork in an envelope ready to go. I guess I can trust you as much as the mailman.”

He smiled and now I smiled back.

“The same guy signs our checks, right?”

“Uncle Sam,” he said brightly. “Be right back.”

He disappeared into a back office and I looked around the front desk and lobby, halfway expecting Thorson and Backus and Walling to jump out from behind the columns and scream. “See? We can’t trust your kind!”

But nobody jumped out from anywhere and soon the clerk was back with a manila envelope he handed across the counter to me with my own hotel bill.

“Thanks,” I said. “They’ll appreciate it.”

“No problem,” the clerk said. “Thank you for choosing to stay with us, Agent McEvoy.”

I nodded and shoved the envelope into my computer bag like a thief, then headed to the door.

34

The plane was climbing toward thirty thousand feet before I had a chance to open the envelope. There were several pages of bills. One itemized breakdown for each agent’s room. This was what I counted on and I immediately was pulled to the bill with Thorson’s name on it and began to study the phone charges.

The bill showed no calls to the Maryland area code, 301, where Warren lived. However, there was a call to the 213 area code. Los Angeles. I knew it was not inconceivable that Warren had gone to L.A. to pitch his story to his former editors. He then could have written it from there. The call had been made at 12:41 A.M. Sunday, just an hour or so after Thorson had apparently checked into the hotel in Phoenix.

After using my Visa card to pop the air phone from the seatback in front of me, I slid the credit card through and punched in the number listed on the hotel bill. The call was answered immediately by a woman who said, “New Otani Hotel, may I help you?”

Momentarily confused, I recovered before she hung up and asked for the room of Michael Warren. I was connected but there was no answer. I realized it was too early for him to be in his room. I depressed the receiver button and called information to get the number of the Los Angeles Times. When I called that number I asked for the newsroom and then asked for Warren. I was connected.

“Warren,” I said.

It was a statement, a fact. A verdict. For Thorson as well as Warren.

“Yes, can I help you?”

He didn’t know who it was.

“I just wanted to say fuck you, Warren. And to let you know, someday I’m going to write about all this and what you did is going in the book.”

I didn’t know exactly what I was saying. I only knew that I felt the need to threaten him and had nothing to do it with. Only words.

“McEvoy? Is this McEvoy?” He paused to inject a sarcastic laugh. “What book? I’ve already got my agent on the street with a proposal. What’ve you got? Huh? What’ve you got? Hey, Jack, do you even have an agent?”

He waited for an answer and I only had rage. I was silent.

“Yeah, I thought so,” Warren said. “Look, Jack, you’re a nice guy and all, and I’m sorry how this worked out. I really am. But I was in a jam and I just couldn’t take that job anymore. This was my ticket out. I took it.”

“You fucking asshole! It was my story.”

I said it too loud. Though I was by myself in a row of three seats, a man across the aisle looked at me angrily. He was seated with an elderly woman who I guessed was his mother and who had never heard such language. I turned away toward the window. There was only blackness out there. I put my hand over my other ear so I could hear Warren’s reply above the steady thrum of the plane. His voice was low and steady.

“The story belongs to whoever writes it, Jack. Remember that. Whoever writes it, it’s their story. You want to go up against me, that’s fine. Then write the fuckin’ story instead of calling me up and whining about it. Go ahead, kick my ass. Try it. I’m right here and I’ll see you on the front page.”

Everything he had just said was dead right and I knew it the moment he said it. I felt embarrassed that I had even called, and as angry with myself as I was with Warren and Thorson. But I couldn’t let it go.

“Well, don’t count on getting anything from your source anymore,” I said. “I’m going to put Thorson in the ground. I got him by the balls. I know he called you late Saturday at the hotel. I got him.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about and I don’t talk about sources. With anyone.”

“You don’t need to. He’s mine. Cut and dried. You want to call him after this, you might want to try the bank squad in Salt Lake City. That’s where he’ll be.”

Using Rachel’s reference to a Siberian assignment did not dull the anger much. My jaw was still clenched as I waited for his reply.

“Good night, Jack,” he said finally. “All I can say is get over it and get a fucking life.”

“Wait a minute, Warren. Answer one question for me.”

There was a pleading whine to my voice that I hated. When he didn’t reply I pushed on.

“The page from my notebook that you left in the file room at the foundation, did you leave it on purpose? Was it a setup from the start?”

“That’s two questions,” he said and I could hear the smile in his voice. “I gotta go.”

He hung up.

Ten minutes later, as the plane began to level off, I finally began to smooth out inside, too. Largely with the help of a strong Bloody Mary. The fact that I could now back up my accusation against Thorson with some evidence also served to mollify me. The truth was, I couldn’t blame Warren. He had used me, but that’s what reporters do. Who knew that better than me?

However, I could blame Thorson and I did. I didn’t know how or when I was going to do it but I was going to make sure Thorson’s hotel bill and the significance of the phone call came to the attention of Bob Backus. I was going to see Thorson go down.

After I finished the drink, I went back to the bills, which I had stuffed into the seat pocket. With nothing more than idle curiosity at that point, I began with Thorson’s and studied the calls he had made before and after the call to Warren.

He had made only three long distance calls during his two-day stay in Phoenix, all of them within a half hour’s time. There was the call to Warren at 12:41 A.M., Sunday, a call placed four minutes before to a number with a 703 area code, and a call to a 904 area number at 12:56 A.M. I assumed the 703 number was to the FBI center in Virginia, but because I had nothing else to do, I used the phone again. I keyed in the number and it was answered immediately.

“FBI, Quantico.”

I hung up. I had been right. Next I called the third number, not even knowing where the 904 area code was. After three rings the call was answered with a high-pitched squeal-the language only computers knew. I listened until the electronic wail ended. Its mating call unanswered, the computer disconnected me.

Puzzled, I called information for the 904 area and asked the operator what the largest city in the zone was. Jacksonville, I was told. I then asked if the zone included the town of Raiford and was told that it did. I thanked her and hung up.

I knew from the library stories on Horace Gomble that the Union Correctional Institute was located in Raiford. UCI was where Horace Gomble was currently incarcerated and where William Gladden had once been imprisoned. I wondered if Thorson’s call to a computer in the 904 area code zone had any connection to the prison or Gladden or Gomble.

One more time I called information for the 904 area. This time I asked for the general number for UCI in Raiford. The exchange prefix I got was 431, the same as the number Thorson had called from his hotel room. I leaned back and brooded about this. Why had he called the prison? Could he have made a direct connection with a prison computer in order to check on Gomble’s status there or to look at a file on Gladden? I recalled Backus saying he would have Gomble’s status at the prison checked. Possibly, he had given the assignment to Thorson after he picked him up at the airport Saturday night.

I thought of one other possibility for the call. Thorson had told me less than an hour earlier that Gladden had been checked out and dropped as a suspect. Perhaps his call was in some way part of that check. But what part, I couldn’t guess. The only thing that seemed clear to me was that I had not been made privy to everything the agents had been doing. I’d been in their midst, but on some things I had simply been kept in the dark.

The other hotel bills provided no surprises. The bills for Carter’s and Thompson’s rooms were clean. No calls. Backus, according to his bill, had called the same Quantico number at about midnight on both Saturday and Sunday. Curious, I called the number from the plane. It was answered immediately.

“Quantico, Operations Board.”

I hung up without saying anything. I was satisfied that Backus had called Quantico as Thorson had done to return or check messages or take care of other bureau business.

Lastly, I was down to Rachel’s bill and an odd feeling of trepidation suddenly came over me. It was a sense I didn’t have as I had studied the other bills. This time I felt like a suspicious husband checking on his wife’s affairs. There was a voyeuristic thrill to it as well as a sense of guilt.

She’d made four calls from her room. All were to Quantico exchanges and twice she had called the same number as Backus. The Operations Board. I called one of the new numbers she had called and a machine answered the call with her voice.

“This is FBI Special Agent Rachel Walling. I am not available at the moment but if you leave your name and a brief message I will return your call as soon as possible. Thank you.”

She had checked her own office line for messages. I keyed in the last number, which she had called on Sunday evening at 6:10 and a female voice answered.

“Profiling, Doran.”

I disconnected the call without speaking and felt bad about it. I liked Brass, but not enough to possibly tip her off to the fact that I was checking out the calls her fellow agents had made.

Done with the hotel bills, I folded them and put them back in my computer bag, then I snapped the air phone back into its cradle.

35

By the time I pulled up in front of the LAPD’s Hollywood Division it was nearly eight-thirty. I didn’t know what to expect as I looked at the brick fortress on Wilcox Street. I didn’t know whether Thomas would still be there this late, but I hoped that because he was the lead detective working a fresh case-the motel maid killing-that he was still on the clock, preferably behind the bricks working the phones instead of out on the street looking for Gladden.

Inside the front door was a lobby of gray linoleum, two green vinyl couches and the front counter, behind which three uniformed officers sat. There was an entry to a hallway on the left and on the wall above it a sign that said DETECTIVE BUREAU above an arrow pointing down the hall. I glanced at the only desk officer not on a phone and nodded as if I was making my nightly visit. I got to about three feet from the hallway when he stopped me.

“Hold on there, partner. Can I help you?”

I turned back to him and pointed up to the sign.

“I need to go to the detective bureau.”