Michael Connelly - The Poet

"I was just reading about Poe while taking a break," Perez explained. "My eyes get tired looking at a monitor too long."

"Lucky for us he decided to rest them looking at a book," Clearmountain said, regaining the narrative. "Joe, in the biographical section, comes across a reference to Poe having once used an alias to enlist in the army or something. Edgar Perry. We stuck it in and like I said, bingo! We were in."

Clearmountain turned and exchanged a high five with Perez. They looked like a couple of nerds in heat. Today's FBI, I thought.

"What did you find?"

"There are twelve message boards. Most are for discussion about specific tastes. In other words, girls under twelve, boys under ten, that sort of thing. There is a lawyer referral board. We found Gladden's lawyer, Krasner, listed on it. Then there's also a kind of bio board with a lot of strange shit on it, essays and such. There's a few that have to be by our man. Look at this."

He looked through the stack of papers again and pulled out a printout. He started reading from it.

"This is from one of them. 'I think they know about me. My time in the light of public fascination and fear is near. I am ready.' Then further down he goes, 'My suffering is my passion, my religion. It never leaves me. It guides me. It is me.' It's full of that kind of stuff and the author at one point calls himself Eidolon. So we think it's gotta be him. You BSS people are going to get a lot of stuff for the research banks out of this."

"Good," Rachel said. "What else?"

"Well, one of the boards is a barter board. You know, where people post things to sell or buy."

"Like photos or IDs?"

"Yup. There's somebody on there selling Alabama DLs. I assume we're going to have to shut that sucker down in a hurry. And there was a file for selling what Gladden had in his computer. Minimum price was five hundred dollars per picture. Three for a grand. You wanted something, you left a message with a computer number. You wired the money to a bank account and your pictures showed up in your computer. On the barter board, this advertiser said he could provide photos to meet specific tastes and desires."

"Like he was taking orders and then he'd go out and…"

"Right."

"You tell Bob Backus about this yet?"

"Yeah, he was just in here."

Rachel looked at me.

"That parade is sounding better and better all the time."

"You're forgetting the neatest part," Clearmountain said. "And what parade?"

"It's nothing. What's the neatest part?"

"The bulletin board. We traced the number to a location."

"And?"

"Union Correctional Institution, Raiford, Florida."

"Oh, my God! Gomble?"

Clearmountain smiled and nodded.

"That's what Bob Backus thinks. He's going to have somebody check it out. I already called the prison and asked the captain of the day where that line went to. He said it was to the supplies office. And, see, I had noticed that all of Gladden's calls to that number were placed after five P.M. eastern time. The captain told me that the supply office was closed and locked up every day at five. Opens up at eight every morning. I also asked him if there was a computer in that office for keeping track of orders and supplies and such and he said there sure was. I said what about a phone and he said there was one but it wasn't connected to the computer. But believe me, this is not a guy who knows a modem from a hole in the ground. This is a guy who volunteers to go to prison every day. Think about that. I told him to check again on the phone line, like some night after the office is closed up and-"

"Wait a minute. He isn't-"

"Don't worry, he's not going to do anything. I told him not to mess with things until he hears from us. For now, the network should remain on line, after five in the East, that is. I asked him who works in there and he told me Horace Gomble. He's a trustee. I see you are already familiar with him. I guess each night he sticks the phone line into the computer before he locks up and goes back to his cell."

Rachel canceled lunch with me because of the new developments. She said I'd have to grab a cab back to the hotel and that she'd call me when she could. She said she might be going back to Florida but would let me know. I wanted to stay, too, but fatigue was finally setting in from my sleepless night.

I took the elevator down and was walking through the lobby of the federal building, thinking about calling Greg Glenn and checking my messages, when I heard a familiar voice behind me.

"Hey, hot shot, howzit hanging?"

I turned around and Michael Warren walked up to me.

"Warren. I just tried to call you at the Times. They said you were out."

"I was here. Supposed to be another press conference at two. Thought I'd come early and see what I could dig up."

"Like another source maybe?"

"I told you, Jack, I'm not talking to you about that."

"Yeah, well, I'm not talking to you either."

I turned and started away. He called after me.

"Then why'd you call me? To gloat?"

I looked back at him.

"Something like that. I guess. But you know, Warren, I'm not really mad at you. You went after a story that was given to you and that's cool. I can't blame you. Thorson had his own agenda and you didn't know about that. He used you but we all get used. I'll see you."

"Wait a minute, Jack. If you're not pissed off, why don't you talk to me?"

"Because we're still competitors."

"No we're not, man. You're not even on the story anymore. I had the front page of the Rocky faxed to me this morning. They gave it to somebody else. Only place your name appears is in the story. No bylines, Jack. You're not on the story. You are the story. So why don't we go on the record here and let me ask you a few questions?"

"Like 'How do you feel?' Is that what you want to ask?"

"That's one of them, yeah."

I looked at him a good long moment. No matter how much I didn't like him or what he had done, I couldn't deny the empathy I had for his position. He was doing what I had done so many times before. I looked at my watch and out at the parking circle beyond the lobby. There were none of the waiting cabs I had seen the day before.

"You got a car?"

"Yeah, a company car."

"Give me a ride to the Chateau Marmont. We'll talk on the way."

"On the record?"

"On the record."

He turned on a tape recorder and put it on the dashboard. He just wanted the basics from me. He wanted to quote me about what I had done the night before rather than rely on a secondhand source like an FBI spokesman. That was too easy and he was too good a reporter to settle for a spokesman. Whenever possible he went straight to the source. I understood this. I was the same way.

Telling him the story somehow made me feel good. I enjoyed it. It wasn't anything I hadn't already given Jackson at my own paper, so it wasn't like I was revealing company secrets. But Warren had been around at almost the start of the trail and I liked being the one who told him where it had led and how it had ended.

I didn't tell him about the latest developments, about the PTL network and Gomble running it from a prison. That was too good to give away. I planned on writing that one myself, whether it was for the Rocky or one of those publishers in New York.

Finally, Warren drove up the short hill to the entrance of the Chateau Marmont. A doorman opened the door but I didn't get out. I looked at Warren.

"Anything else?"

"No, I think I got it. I have to get back to the federal building for the press conference anyway. But this is going to be great."

"Well, you and the Rocky are the only ones that got it. I'm not planning to go to 'Hard Copy' unless it's six figures."

He looked at me, surprised.

"Just kidding, Warren. I'd break into the records room with you at the foundation but, hey, I draw the line at selling my story to the tabs."