The Poet (Jack McEvoy, #1; Harry Bosch Universe, #5)

by Michael Connelly

Prosecution of the Poet in a courtroom had never entered my mind. I realized that I had assumed that he would not be taken alive. And this assumption, I knew, was based on my own desire that he not be allowed to live after this.

“Well,” Backus said, “I have to admit we were trying a little misdirection there. We just thought it would be best if we could work this out without any distractions.”

“You seem measurably more cynical than when we last met this morning, Jack.” “I guess that’s because I am.”

“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.”

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.

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.

“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.”

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.

“You are damn right I sympathize. It doesn’t mean I condone a single thing he’s done or that I wouldn’t drop him with a bullet if I got the chance. But he didn’t invent the monster that is inside of him. It was created by someone else.”

I wasn’t sure what love was but I knew acceptance was part of it. That’s what I sensed from Rachel. It was a quality that had been a rarity in my life and I found its nearness thrilling and disquieting in the same instant.

“Well, if you’re with Rachel, then you’re there now. She’s the Painted Desert. Beautiful to look at, yeah. But, man, once you’re there, she’s desolate. There’s nothing there past the beauty, Jack, and it gets cold at night in the desert.”

Pedophiles are networkers. They like to surround themselves with their own kind. They have phone nets, computer nets, a whole support system. They view it as them against society. The misunderstood minority, that kind of bullshit.

He was juiced and it was contagious. I had caught his excitement and was beginning to look at Thorson in perhaps a truer light. I knew these were the moments he lived for. Moments of understanding and clarity. Of knowing he was close.

What we see here is the offender, in effect, seeking out his replacement. That is, the boy, Gabriel Ortiz, who currently held the attentions of Clifford Beltran, the father figure who abused him and then discarded him.

“I think of a little child that could have been a lot of different things until that man did what he did. Beltran set the child on the path. He’s the real monster in all of this. Like I said before, if anybody got what he deserved, it was him.”

Sometimes the root is more evil than the cause, though it’s the cause that is usually the most vilified.”

I wanted him to see me. Without disguise. I wanted him to see my brother.

I was more interested in the fact that Thorson, or whoever had made that call early Sunday morning, knew about the PTL Network and even had access to it at least four days ago.

While Thorson was buying a box of condoms, of which he wouldn’t even use one, someone was in his room making phone calls.

Why would someone call the general number in the middle of the night? I knew now that the answer could only be that the caller did not want to call a direct number at the center, thereby revealing knowledge of that number.

Subtracting the three-hour time difference, the fax came in at Quantico one minute after the call to the general number had been placed from Thorson’s room.

“He said that he thought that bed was made because it never was slept in. Never used. He said he thought the father was sleeping with the daughter in the king-size and one morning she drew the line.

“Tell me about the moon, Jack.” “What do you mean?” “The Poet’s moon. You’ve told me the end of the story. What’s the beginning?

Knowledge of someone’s secrets is an intoxicating power.

Besides, the real trial had already been held in my heart and the verdict was in.

I couldn’t accept what you offered without some suspicion, some kind of cynicism.

All you know is that it was there inside them. The seed. And then one day it metastasized… and he began doing what he was probably only fantasizing about before.”

Each piece reflects a part of the subject. But if the subject moves, so does the reflection.

Not for what was in them but for what was missing, what was not there. Behind them was only darkness.