The Poet

50

Pretty soon after Rachel left I passed out on the couch. The sound of a close helicopter invaded my dreams but not enough to wake me. Finally, when I awoke on my own, it was three in the morning. I was taken to the thirteenth floor of the federal building and placed in a small interview room. Two dour-faced agents I had never met before asked me questions for the next five hours, going over my story again and again until I was sick of regurgitating it. For this interview they did not have a stenographer sit in the corner of the room with her machine because this time we were talking about one of their own and I had the feeling that they wanted to sculpt my story into the form that could best serve them before putting it down on the record.

Sometime after eight they finally said I could go down to the cafeteria for breakfast before they brought the stenographer in and made a formal record. By then we had been over the story so many times I knew exactly how they wanted me to answer nearly every question. I wasn't hungry but I wanted out of that room and away from them so badly I would have said yes to anything. At least they didn't escort me down to the cafeteria like a prisoner.

I found Rachel sitting there, alone at a table. I bought a coffee and a sugar doughnut that looked like it was three days old and went over.

"Can I sit here?"

"It's a free country."

"Sometimes I wonder. Those guys, Cooper and Kelley, they've held me in that room up there for five hours."

"You've got to understand something. You're the messenger, Jack. They know you are going to go out from here and tell the story in newspapers, on TV, probably a book. The whole world will know about the FBI's one bad apple. It doesn't matter how much good we do or how many bad guys we stop, the fact that there was a bad guy among us is going to be a big, big story. You are going to be rich and we are going to have to live with what comes after. That, in a nutshell, is why Cooper and Kelley aren't treating you like a prima donna."

I studied her for a few moments. It looked like she had eaten a full breakfast. I could see egg yolk smeared on her empty plate.

"Good morning, Rachel," I said. "Maybe we can start over."

That just got her mad.

"Look, Jack, I'm not going to treat you gently, either. Just how do you expect me to react to you now?"

"I don't know. The whole time with those guys I've been answering their questions but doing nothing but thinking about you. About us."

I studied her face for reaction but got none. She was looking down at her plate.

"Look, I could try to explain to you all the reasons I thought it was you but it wouldn't matter. It all comes down to me, Rachel. Something in me is missing and… I couldn't accept what you offered without some suspicion, some kind of cynicism. It was from that small doubt that everything grew and got blown out of proportion… Rachel, you have my apology and my promise that if I were given a new chance with you I would work to overcome it, to fill that void. And I promise you that I would succeed."

Still nothing, not even eye contact. I became resigned. It was over.

"Rachel, can I ask you something?"

"What is it?"

"Your father. And you… Did he hurt you?"

"Do you mean did he fuck me?"

I just looked at her, silently.

"That's part of me and my life I don't have to talk to anyone about."

I turned my coffee cup on the table, staring at it like it was the most interesting thing I'd ever seen. Now I was the one who couldn't look up.

"Well, I've got to get back up there," I finally said. "They only gave me fifteen minutes."

I made a move to stand up.

"Have you told them about me?" she asked.

I stopped.

"About us? No, I've been trying to avoid that."

"Don't hold back with them, Jack. They already know, anyway."

"You told them?"

"Yes. There was no point in trying to hide anything from them."

I nodded.

"What if I tell them and they ask if we still are… if we still have a relationship?"

"Tell them the jury's still out."

I nodded again and stood up. Her use of the word jury reminded me of my own thoughts of the night before when in my mind, as the jury of one, I had reached a verdict about her. I thought it was only appropriate now that she should be weighing the evidence against me.

"Let me know when you reach a verdict."

I dropped the doughnut into the trash can by the cafeteria door on my way out.

It was almost noon before I finished with Kelley and Cooper. It was also not until then that I heard about Backus. Walking through the field office I noticed how empty it was. The doors to all the group rooms were open and the desks empty. It was like a detective bureau during a cop's funeral, and in a way it was. I almost walked back to the interrogation room where I had left my inquisitors to ask them what was going on. But I knew they didn't like me and wouldn't tell me anything they didn't want or have to tell me.

As I passed the communications room, I heard the chatter of two-way radio talk. I looked in and saw Rachel sitting alone in the room. She had a microphone console in front of her on a desk. I walked in.

"Hey."

"Hey."

"I'm done. They told me I could leave. Where is everyone? What's going on?"

"They're all out looking for him."

"Backus?"

She nodded.

"I thought…" I didn't finish. It was obvious now that he hadn't been found at the bottom of the drop-off. I hadn't asked before because I just assumed that his body had been recovered. "Jesus. How could he have…"

"Survived? Who knows? He was gone by the time they got down there with their flashlights and dogs. There was a tall eucalyptus tree. They found blood in the upper branches. The theory is that he fell into the tree. It broke his fall. The dogs lost his scent on the road further down the hill. The helicopter was pretty much useless except for keeping everybody on the hillside up half the night. Everybody but you. They're still out there. We've put everybody out on the street, the hospitals. So far, nothing."

"Jesus."

Backus was still out there. Somewhere. I couldn't believe it.

"I wouldn't worry," she said. "The possibility that he would go after you, or me for that matter, is considered very remote. His goal now is to escape. Survival."

"That's not what I meant," I said, though I guess it was. "It's just scary. Someone like that out there… Have they come up with anything about… why?"

"They're working on it. Brass and Brad are on it. But he's going to be a tough one to crack. There was just no sign at all. The wall between his two lives was as thick as a bank vault's door. On some of them we just never get through. The unexplainable ones. 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."

I didn't say anything. I just wanted her to continue, to talk to me.

"They'll start with the father," she said. "I heard Brass was going up to New York to see him today. That's one visit I wouldn't want to have to make. Your son follows you into the bureau and turns out to be your worst nightmare. What's that line that Nietzsche said? 'Whoever fights monsters…' "

" 'Should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster.' "

"Yeah."

We were both quiet for a few moments, thinking about that.

"Why aren't you out there?" I finally asked.

"Because I've been assigned to desk duty until I'm cleared on the shooting… and my other actions."

"Isn't that academic? Especially since he isn't even dead."

"It should be, but there are other factors."

"Us? Are we one of those factors?"

She nodded.

"You could say my judgment is being questioned. Getting involved with a witness and journalist is not what you'd call standard FBI practice. Then there's this that came in this morning."

She turned over a sheet of paper and handed it to me. It was a faxed copy of a grainy black-and-white photo. It was a picture of me sitting on a table and Rachel standing between my spread legs, kissing me. It took me a moment to place it and then I realized it was the hospital emergency room suite.

"Remember that doctor you saw looking in on us?" Rachel asked. "Well, he wasn't a doctor. He was some freelance piece of shit who sold the photo to the National Enquirer. Must've snuck in there in his disguise. It will be on the cashier stand at every supermarket in the country by Tuesday. In keeping with their aboveboard journalistic ethics they faxed this over and asked for an interview or at least a comment. What do you think, Jack? How about 'fuck you' for a comment? Think they'll print that?"

I put the fax photo down and looked at her.

"I'm sorry, Rachel."

"You know, that's all you can say now. 'Sorry, Rachel. Sorry, Rachel.' It doesn't look very good on you, Jack."

I almost said it again but instead just nodded. I looked at her, brooding for a moment about how I could ever have made the mistake I made. I knew then it had cost me my chance with her. Feeling sorry for myself, my mind ran through all the parts that had made the whole and had convinced me of something my heart should have known was wrong. I was looking for excuses but knew there weren't any.

"Remember that day we met and you took me down to Quantico?"

"Yes, I remember."

"That was Backus's office you put me in, wasn't it? To make my calls. Why'd you do that? I thought it was your office."

"I don't have an office. I have a desk and work space. I put you in there so you'd have some privacy. Why?"

"Nothing. It was just one of the parts that seemed… to fit so well before. The calendar on the desk, it showed he was on vacation when Orsulak… So I thought you lied to me about not having a vacation in so long."

"We're not going to talk about this now."

"Then when? If we don't talk about it now we never will. I made a mistake, Rachel. I've got no acceptable excuse. But I want you to know what I knew. I want you to understand what I-"

"I don't care!"

"Maybe you never cared."

"Don't try to put it on me. You're the one who fucked up. I wasn't the one who-"

"What did you do that night, the first night, after you left my room? I called and you weren't there. I knocked on your door and you weren't there. I went out in the hall and I saw Thorson. He was coming from the drugstore. You sent him didn't you?"

She looked down at the desk for the longest time.

"At least answer that, Rachel."

"I saw him in the hallway, too," she said softly. "Earlier. After I left you. It made me so angry that he was there, that Backus brought him out. It all boiled up. I wanted to hurt him. Humiliate him. I needed… something."

So with a promise that she'd be waiting, she sent him out to the drugstore for a condom. But she was gone when he got back.

"I was in my room when you called and knocked. I didn't answer because I thought it was him. He must've done the same because twice people knocked. Twice they called. I never answered."

I nodded.

"I'm not proud of what I did to him," she said. "Especially now."

"Everybody has things they're not proud of, Rachel. It doesn't stop them from going on. It shouldn't."

She didn't say anything.

"I'm going now, Rachel, I hope things work out for you. And I hope you'll call me sometime. I'll be waiting."

"Good-bye, Jack."

As I moved away from her I brought my hand up. With one finger I traced the line of her jaw. Our eyes briefly met and held. Then I walked out.