The Poet (8 page)

A woman sitting on a nearby bench with a young boy looked at Gladden with baleful eyes when she and the boy heard the exclamation.

“Sorry,” Gladden said.

He turned and looked around the rest of the pier. He had to think quickly. He knew cops usually worked in pairs while in the field. Where was the other one? It took him thirty seconds but he picked her out of the crowd. A woman about thirty yards behind the man in the tie. She was wearing long pants and a polo shirt. Not as formal as the man.

She blended in, except for the two-way radio down at her side. Gladden could see that she was trying to hide it. As he watched, she turned so that her back was to him and began talking into the two-way.

She had just called for backup. Had to be. He had to stay cool but come up with a plan. The man in the tie was maybe twenty yards away. Gladden stepped away from the railing and started walking at a slightly faster pace toward the end of the pier. He did what the woman cop had done. He used his body as a shield and pulled the duffel bag around so that it was in front of him. He unzipped it and reached in and grabbed the camera. Without pulling it out, he turned it over until he found the CLEAR switch and erased the chip. There wasn’t much on there. The girl on the carousel, a few kids at the public showers. No big loss.

That done, he again proceeded down the pier. He took his cigarettes out of the bag and, using his body as a shield, turned around and huddled against the wind to light one. When he had the smoke lit, he looked up and saw the two cops were getting closer. He knew they thought they had him bottled. He was going to the dead end of the pier. The woman had caught up to the man and they were talking as they closed in. Probably deciding whether to wait for the backup, Gladden thought.

Gladden quickly walked toward the bait shop and the pier offices. He knew the layout of the end of the pier well. On two occasions during the week he had followed children with their parents from the carousel to the end of the pier. He knew that on the other side of the bait shop were stairs that led to the observation deck on the roof.

As he turned the corner of the shop out of sight of the cops, Gladden ran down the side to the back and then up the steps. He could now look down on the pier in front of the shop. The two cops were there below, talking again.

Then the man followed Gladden’s path and the woman stayed back. They weren’t going to take a chance on letting him slip away. A question suddenly occurred to Gladden. How did they know? A cop in a suit just doesn’t happen by the pier. The cops had gone there for a purpose. Him. But how did they know?

He broke away from those thoughts to the situation at hand. He needed a diversion. The man would soon figure out he wasn’t with the fishermen at the end of the pier and come up to the observation deck looking for him. He saw the trash can in the corner by the wooden railing. He ran to it and looked in. It was almost empty. He put the duffel bag down, lifted the trash can over his head and with a running start moved to the railing. He threw it out as far as he could, then watched it go over the heads of two fishermen below and down into the water. It made a large splash and he heard a young boy yell, “Hey!”

“Man in the water!” Gladden yelled. “Man in the water!”

He then grabbed the duffel bag and quickly moved back to the rear railing of the deck. He looked for the woman cop. She was still there below him but had clearly heard the splash and his yelling. A couple of children ran around the side of the bait shop to see what the yelling and excitement were about. After what seemed to be a physical hesitation, the woman followed the children around the corner of the building to the source of the splash and ensuing commotion. Gladden hooked the duffel over his shoulder and quickly climbed over the railing, lowered himself down and then dropped the final five feet. He started running down the pier toward land.

About halfway to land Gladden saw the two beach cops on bikes. They wore shorts and blue polo shirts. Ridiculous. He’d watched them the day before, amused that they even considered themselves cops. Now he ran right toward them, waving his hands to make them stop.

“Are you the backup?” he yelled when he got to them. “They’re at the end of the pier. The perp’s in the water. He jumped. They need your help and they need a boat. They sent me to get you.”

“Go!” one of the cops yelled to his partner.

As one started pedaling away, the other pulled a two-way off his belt and started radioing for a lifeguard boat.

Gladden waved his thanks for their speedy reaction and started walking away. After a few seconds he looked back and saw the second cop pedaling toward the end of the pier. Gladden started his run again.

On the crest of the bridge from the beach up to Ocean Avenue, Gladden looked back and could see the commotion at the end of the pier. He lit another cigarette and took his sunglasses off. Cops are so stupid, he thought. They get what they deserve. He hurried up to the street surface, crossed Ocean and walked down to the Third Street Promenade, where he was sure he could lose himself in the crowds at the popular shopping and dining area. Fuck those cops, he thought. They had their one chance and blew it. That’s all they get.

On the promenade he walked down a corridor that led to several small fast-food restaurants. The excitement had left Gladden famished and he went into one of these places for a slice of pizza and a soda. As he waited for the girl to warm up the pizza in the oven, he thought of the girl on the carousel and wished he hadn’t cleared the camera. But how could he know he’d so easily slip away?

“I should have known,” he said angrily out loud. Then he looked around to make sure the girl behind the counter hadn’t noticed. He studied her for a moment and found her unattractive. She was too old. She could practically have children herself.

As he watched, she used her fingers to gingerly pull the slice of pizza out of the oven and onto a paper plate. She licked her fingers afterward-she had burned them-and put Gladden’s meal on the counter. He took it back to his table but didn’t eat it. He didn’t like other people touching his food.

Gladden wondered how long he would have to wait until it was safe to go back down to the beach and get the car.

Good thing it was in an overnight lot. Just in case. No matter what, they must not get to his car. If they got to his car, they would open the trunk and get his computer. If they got that, they would never let him go.

The more he thought about the episode with the cops, the angrier he became. The carousel was now lost to him. He couldn’t go back. At least not for a long time. He’d have to put out a message to the others on the network.

He still couldn’t figure out how it had happened. His mind bounced along the possibilities, even considering someone on the net, but then the ball stopped on the woman who took the tickets. She must have made the complaint. She was the only one who saw him each of the days. It was her.

He closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the wall. In his mind he was at the carousel, approaching the ticket taker. He had his knife. He was going to teach her a lesson about minding her own business. She thought she could just He sensed someone’s presence. Someone was looking at him.

Gladden opened his eyes. The two cops from the pier were standing there. The man, drenched in sweat, raised his hand and signaled Gladden to stand up.

“Get up, asshole.”

The two cops said nothing of value to Gladden on the way in. They had taken the duffel bag, searched him, handcuffed him and told him he was under arrest but they refused to say what for. They took his cigarettes and wallet. The camera was the only thing he cared about. Luckily, he hadn’t brought his books with him this time.

Gladden considered what was in the wallet. None of it mattered, he decided. The Alabama license identified him as Harold Brisbane. He had gotten it through the network, trading photos for IDs. He had another ID in the car and he’d kiss Harold Brisbane good-bye as soon as he got out of custody.

They didn’t get the keys to the car. They were hidden in the wheel well. Gladden had been prepared for the eventuality that he might be popped. He knew he had to keep the cops away from the car. He had learned from experience to take such precautions, to always plan for the worst case scenario. That was what Horace had taught him at Raiford. All those nights together.

In the detective bureau of the Santa Monica Police Department, he was roughly but silently ushered into a small interview room. They sat him down on one of the gray steel chairs and took off one of the cuffs, which they then locked to an iron ring attached by a bolted clamp to the top center of the table. The detectives then walked out and he was left alone for more than an hour.

On the wall he faced there was a mirrored window and Gladden knew he was in a viewing room. He just couldn’t figure out for sure whom they would have on the other side of the glass. He saw no way that he could have been tracked from Phoenix or Denver or anywhere else.

At one point he thought he could hear voices from the other side of the glass. They were in there, watching him, looking at him, whispering. He closed his eyes and turned his chin down to his chest so they couldn’t see his face. Then suddenly he raised his face with a leering, maniacal grin and yelled, “You’ll be fucking sorry!”

That ought to put a stutter in the mind of whoever the cops have in there, he thought. That fucking ticket taker, he thought again. He went back to his daydream of revenge against her.

* * *

In the ninetieth minute of his cloistering in the room, the door finally opened and the same two cops came in. They took chairs, the woman directly across from him and the man to his left side. The woman put a tape recorder on the table along with the duffel bag. This was nothing, he told himself over and over like a mantra. He’d be kicked loose before the sun was down.

“Sorry to make you wait,” the woman said cordially.

“No problem,” he said. “Can I have my cigarettes?”

He nodded toward the duffel bag. He didn’t really want a smoke, he just wanted to see if the camera was still in there. You couldn’t trust the fucking cops. He didn’t even need Horace to teach him that. The detective ignored his request and turned on the tape recorder. She then identified herself as Detective Constance Delpy and her partner as Detective Ron Sweetzer. Both were with the Exploited Child Unit.

Gladden was surprised that she seemed to be taking the lead here. She looked to be about five to eight years younger than Sweetzer. She had blond hair kept in an easily managed short style. She was maybe fifteen pounds overweight and that was mostly in her hips and upper arms. Gladden guessed she worked out on the pipes. He also thought she was a lesbian. He could tell these things. He had a sense.

Sweetzer had a washed-out face and a laconic demeanor. He had lost hair in a pattern that left him with a thin strip of growth down the center of his pate. Gladden decided to concentrate on Delpy. She was the one.

Delpy took a card from her pocket and read Gladden his constitutional rights.

“What do I need those for?” he asked when she was done. “I didn’t do anything wrong.”

“Do you understand those rights?”

“What I don’t understand is why I’m here.”

“Mr. Brisbane, do you under-?”

“Yes.”

“Good. By the way, your driver’s license is from Alabama. What are you doing out here?”

“That’s my business. I’d like to contact a lawyer now. I’m not answering any questions. Like I said, I do understand those rights you just read.”

He knew that what they wanted was his local address and the location of his car. What they had was nothing. But the fact that he had run would probably be enough for a local judge to find probable cause and give them a warrant to search his premises and car if they knew where those were. He couldn’t allow that, no matter what.

“We’ll talk about your lawyer in just a moment,” Delpy said. “But I want to give you the chance to clear this up, maybe even walk out of here without wasting your money on a lawyer.”

She opened the duffel bag and pulled out the camera and the bag of Starburst candy the kids liked so much.

“What is all of this?” she asked.

“Looks pretty evident to me.”

She held the camera up and looked at it as if she had never seen one before.

“What is this used for?”

“Takes pictures.”

“Of children?”

“I’d like a lawyer now.”

“What about this candy? What do you do with that? Do you give that to children?”

“I’d like to speak to a lawyer.”

“Fuck the lawyer,” Sweetzer said angrily. “We’ve got your ass, Brisbane. You were taking pictures of kids at the showers. Little naked kids with their mothers. You fucking disgust me.”

Gladden cleared his throat and looked at Delpy with dead eyes.

“I don’t know anything about that. But I do have a question. I have to ask, where is the crime? You know? I’m not saying I did it, but if I did, I didn’t know taking photos of children at the beach was against the law now.”

Gladden shook his head as if confused. Delpy shook her head as if disgusted.

“Detective Delpy, I can assure you that there are numerous legal precedents that have held that observation of acceptable public nudity-in this case, a mother cleaning up a young child at the beach-cannot be transcribed as prurient interest. You see, if the photographer who took such a picture committed a crime, then you’d have to prosecute the mother as well for providing the opportunity. But you probably know all of this. I’m sure one of you spent the last hour and a half consulting the city attorney.”