Michael Connelly - The Poet

"We have three-point camera surveillance beamed to a mobile dish on our roof here. We also have the field office's critical response unit and LAPD's top surveillance squad watching Thomas around the clock. No one can get near him. Even at the station. He's perfectly safe."

"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.

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."