“Now, immediately.”
“You can do that? Don't you need to, you know, do a rough draft, process it for days and nights, talk to ravens and shit, invoke the muse, all that?”
“I already have. I've been giving thought to your poem for years, long before we ever met-on this plane. I know what to write, word for word. It's all in here.” He pointed to his heart.
As the Poet Lord had written across Maurice's back, the troubled youth talked about his childhood, his upbringing, school, the sister he loved, and how much pain and harassment he'd endured over being different.
Well, no more… No more pain and anguish, no more tauntings, no more regrets, no more harassment. Never again a thought of pain, never again to feel a moment's remorse for what God had wrought of flesh and bone and soul. Maurice was meant to be here, both to learn and to teach, but it had been revealed that he had suffered long enough and deeply enough, and that it was time for his eternal release. When and if the authorities came for the Poet Lord, this is what he would tell them. This is his mission. Daily, it comes clear that part of his purpose has always been to enlighten and inform. He thinks of all the Chosen Ones he has sent over. They constitute his spirit family now; he is never alone. He can never be alone as he has been in his own biological family, in this life.
He knows next with whom he must converse; he has found his next Chosen One. She does not live too far from his apartment. She will come to him, as the others have done; she will make the first overtures. Subconsciously, she wants to be among his pantheon of devotees. One never knows. He recalls how surprised he had been when young Maurice approached him at the Capuchin Coffeehouse the night he'd sent Maurice over. It had taken special eyes to see that Maurice was angelic, that a wand had been waved over him at birth. The Poet had seen it clearly enough.
Now his eye is set on another angel, barely Maurice's age but just as lovely and genuine in her own way. Her name plays over in his mind like the sound of marbles pleasantly knocking together: Selena Sonjata. Lovely name, lovely creature in need of setting free.
He has exactly the words for her. He has them memorized and with a blink summons them to his ear. Words like angels have a life of their own for him, and the words speak to him now.
Chance… whose desire is to have a meeting with stunned innocence… is eminent like wind, earth, fire, water, or the cool fall breath when it comes even, unrushed, surrendered like an ink mark to a page; one dot is all that is said.
Flickering light haunts a chamber formed of delirium left to feel out the evening, while an operaof soft words etch across a mile of skin
TWELVE
On a dark theme I trace verses full of light, touching all the muses'charm.
Two days later
Eriq Santiva forwarded a detailed analysis of the killer's handwriting to Jessica, along with a note to see a Professor Stuart Wahlbore at the University of Philadelphia's linguistics department. Apparently, a search of experts in the FBI files had settled on Wahlbore because he had a computer program that analyzed handwriting.
Jessica reread the most important portions of Santiva's report even as she and Kim made their way to the university to meet with Wahlbore. For Kim's benefit, Jessica read aloud the document, which Santiva had written out in longhand.
… killer is obsessive-compulsive; he will be neat to a fault. If he works at a desk, everything on it will be organized and aligned; if he works on a construction site, there will be no trash outside the Dumpster. In short, he's a neat freak. Upright anal-retentive are your watchwords. He plans ahead and he colors rigorously within the lines, never varying. This is evident in the control he wields with the poison pen-he writes on skin as if he were writing on ruled paper. No letter leans forward, none back. He's methodical and supremely organized. He premeditates his every step. In his handwriting, the lack of high points above the median line, and of low points and loops below said line, make it safe to assume this fellow has the sex life of a eunuch.
“So we're in search of a tight-assed eunuch possibly suffering a big identity crisis,” Kim said as they pulled onto the university campus's tree-lined, weaving paths. In a moment, they pulled to within inches of a sign that proclaimed a little house as the linguistics department. Professor Wahlbore stood on the steps, awaiting their arrival, an ear-to-ear grin making him look like Ichabod Crane in thick glasses, complete with bobbing Adam's apple.
“Welcome, welcome you are.” He spoke like the Star Wars character Yoda, Jessica thought, or was it merely because he was Hungarian and his English was imperfect? She took his outstretched hand in hers, and they shook, introductions all around. Seeing that Jessica was staring at him, he informed her, “Each summer takes me to archaeological dig, a wonderful site in Arizona on a Navajo reservation.” He wore a typical western-style shirt, a string tie fastened by a Navajo turquoise brooch. He also wore western-style boots and vest, all at odds with his scholarly appearance and Middle European accent.
“Coffee I have inside with biscuits my Grete makes. Come, talk we must. I took liberty to run Rocky against samples forwarded by FBI.”
“Rocky?”
“Name of my computer program; suggests like bull strong, yes? Sylvester Stallone, yes? But actual fact, it is flying-squirrel cartoon person I name him for.”
Jessica followed, making eye contact with Kim, each telegraphing her skepticism. Kim's shoulders and eyebrows lifted with her frown.
Soon they were seated before Professor Wahlbore's computer, and he demonstrated his alleged mathematically accurate handwriting analysis program. “I've used it to conclusively prove that Shakespeare was in fact Christopher Marlowe.”
“Really?” Jessica asked. “Have you conclusive proof of that?”
“No one wants to believe it, of course, especially others with ax to grind, in particular descendants of the Earl of Sussex, and the Sir Francis Bacon believers, but writings of Marlowe's and those of the Bard are identical on twenty-nine comparison points. I can show you, if you like.”
“Perhaps some other time. For now, what does Rocky say about the Killer Poet?”
“Rocky has no one to compare him to, of course, but I have continuously running program searching for comparison points, you see, so in time-”
“How much time?”
“Could be a day, a week, a month. Certain I can't be, no, as it is a tedious process, not unlike fingerprint- match search like I'm sure you use at FBI all the time. Saw it once in a Clint Eastwood movie. In the Line of Fire!'
“Does the program make any pronouncements on the killer's handwriting sample?” asked Kim.
“Yes, of course, but it does not know if subject has murdered anyone. Still, it senses a confused person, he is, under great stress with a disintegration of the self, an identity neurosis. This I suspect.”
“You got neurosis from a look at his handwriting?”
“Not me; Rocky. Programmed Rocky I did with every known variable in handwriting analysis-graphology if you like.”
Kim asked, “Are you saying, sir, that it-the program- can make assessments far more accurately than a handwriting expert?”
“Yes, because all the expert perspectives are seen atonce by Rocky; weighs them all up and makes his-its pronouncements, you see.”
“Perhaps the FBI ought to have a look at your program, Dr. Wahlbore.”
“One of my greatest fantasies, that your FBI will scrutinize my program and how effective it is they will learn in due course. Had it been used in the JonBenet Ramsey case, for instance-”
“What's this icon?” Kim pointed to the screen, where a stylized winged female free-floated, carrying a huge
