"Right now," Garth said curtly, walking briskly to the door and motioning with his hand for me to follow him. He looked at Moby Dickens, and his manner changed abruptly. He smiled easily, and his tone was positively sweet as he continued, "Just stay where you are, Mr. Dickens. The good doctor will be back in his office in a couple of minutes."
Even more puzzled, I followed Garth out of my office and into the larger office in front of it that served as our reception area. Garth nodded to Francisco, who quickly rose from where he sat before his computer terminal and walked out into the hallway, closing the door behind him.
"I should kick your ass," Garth said as he turned to me. His voice had become soft and even, the tone he used when he was seriously upset about something. "In fact, I think I'm going to. Definitely. I don't see how I can stop myself."
"Huh?"
"What have we got to do that's more important than putting a stop to the theft of a man's soul?"
"Uh. . helping to bury the CIA? You know how I hate these trick questions."
"You've been spending too much time taking fifteen hundred dollars a day of the taxpayers' money, Brother. It's made you arrogant and insensitive. You'd better run your own soul check. I remember a time not so long ago, when I was still a cop and you were a college professor your colleagues laughed at for trying to moonlight as a private investigator, when you'd have slobbered with gratitude over anybody who walked through that door to offer you some business."
"Garth, this is no time to get squirrelly on me. We're involved in the most important investigation of our lives, and we've got less than three weeks to wrap it all up and submit a comprehensive report."
"The CIA business is important, but it's not important. It's only important because we've chosen to make it seem so."
"Well, thank you, Carlos Castaneda."
"Not Carlos Castaneda-Mongo Frederickson. And you got the notion from our mother. Who was it who always used to say that, finally, the only thing an individual can do to make the world a better place is to lead a life of honesty and good deeds? Remember Mom telling us how failing to do the right thing at the moment it must be done puts a little crack in the world where good leaks out and evil seeps in? There was a time when you understood that. It's not some outfit called the CIA that's a problem, but certain people in the CIA. How many of those people do you really think we're going to nail? Even if the CIA were completely demolished, most of the bad folks over there are just going to end up doing bad things someplace else. Take the last election."
"You take the last election."
Garth ignored the remark and stepped closer. "If a significant number of Americans keep kicking over rocks and electing to office whatever crawls out from under, what do you think you're going to do about it? The people we have now in Washington have managed to poison the atmosphere in this country, and the change could be permanent-CIA or no CIA. It wasn't the CIA that elected those creeps."
"It was CIA money that helped elect a lot of them."
"It was ordinary Americans who pulled the levers in their voting booths. But who knows? Maybe the changes aren't permanent. Before those fools totally dismantle the government, people may get tired of their right-wing bullshit and elect people to office who'll give us the kind of left-wing bullshit you and I love to hear. The point is that there's nothing you can really do about it, which means it's not important. Thomas Dickens' problem, however, is important, because it matters, and because there is something you can do about it. There's a great white whale, of sorts, sitting back there in your office, and you'd best not let it swim away with its wounds unattended."
"Jesus, you're really pulling out all the oratorical stops. That's outrageous."
"It's true."
"Dickens' problem really is important to you, isn't it?"
"You noticed. It should also be important to you."
"Garth, do you really think our role in the CIA investigation is so unimportant that we should risk missing a tight deadline to go off chasing after some poem-robber?"
"Hey, the company has fucked me over every bit as much as it has you-maybe more. And, in the final analysis, I still say Dickens' problem is more important. But it doesn't have to be that complicated. What's the big deal? Call a couple of his editors and see if one of them has a submission envelope with this Jefferson Kelly's return address on it, and we proceed from there. Francisco can do it."
I thought about it for a few seconds, shrugged. "Hey, when you're right, you're right."
"Damn right I'm right. You wouldn't have needed me to explain it to you if you hadn't become such a self-important little prick whose ass I'm probably still going to have to kick."
"Garth, I really hope this doesn't mean you're losing enthusiasm for our other little task at hand."
Garth smiled thinly. "Not in the least. Now that we've addressed Moby Dickens' concerns, serious thumping on the CIA suddenly seems very important to me again. It's what Mr. Castaneda would call 'controlled folly.' Among other things, I still owe them for costing me a career I wasn't ready to give up at the time, and almost getting the both of us killed on more than a few occasions. Now go do some good before I thump on you."
"Yes, sir. Thank you, sir."
I went back into my office and found Moby Dickens sitting on the edge of the couch staring at the floor, nervously rubbing his enormous hands together. I walked over to him and put a hand on his shoulder. "We're going to,see what we can do for you, Moby."
"Thank you," he rumbled, then got to his feet and reached for his wallet.
"You don't have to give us any money now, Moby. We'll bill you for our hours after we get the job done. Here's what you can do for us. Give me copies of all the poems you've written that you know Kelly has plagiarized, along with the magazines that have his versions in them. I need the dates each poem appeared."
"I've already done that, Dr. Frederickson," he said quickly, picking up his portfolio from the couch and holding it open for me to see. "It's all in here. I've catalogued and cross-referenced everything."
"Good. Then I want the names and addresses-and telephone numbers, if you have them-of every editor who's ever published your work, and the same for the editors who've published Kelly's smudge jobs. I'm particularly interested in the editors you've communicated with and who might help us track down Kelly. The editor who first put you on to Kelly should be at the top of the list."
"I've done that too, sir," he said, hefting the leather pouch in his hands. "It's all in here, along with a copy of Poet's Market. That lists the names of editors and addresses of all the magazines that publish poetry. I've highlighted the editors I've dealt with, and cross-indexed them with my poems and Kelly's plagiarisms."
"Outstanding."
"If you can just find this man, talk to him and make him see how important my work is to me. I'm afraid that, someday, people who've read both my work and his versions will look at me and believe I plagiarized his poems, not the other way around. All I want is for him to stop doing it, sir."
"You've got it. And accomplished poets like yourself get to call me Mongo-in fact, it's required."
For the first time since he'd entered my office, Moby Dickens smiled. He must have received reasonably good dental care in prison, because his teeth were white and even, with a gap between the two front ones. "Okay, Mongo. This means a great deal to me."
"Drop your portfolio off with Francisco at the front desk on your way out, along with your address and a telephone number where we can reach you. I'll be in touch."
He shook my hand again, then, still grinning, turned and walked out. I went back to my computer to call back up the notes and data I had been working on, then went out into the hallway to look for Garth. He must have gone back up to his apartment to work, because there was no sign of him. I went into the front office, and Francisco looked up from his computer terminal. Moby Dickens' worn leather portfolio was on the desk beside him.