We were the sort that when we were nervous we couldn’t help but run our mouths to show we weren’t nervous. It’s not a good habit, but it’s ours. That comment shut us up, though. We sat there in silence, brooding in our pink jumpsuits, until the door opened and Drake came in and looked at us and sighed. He stood there for a long moment, just studying us, like we were a species formerly thought extinct. I thought any moment the rubber hose would appear, maybe a blowtorch and some pliers and a couple of angry German shepherds. He turned to Kelso. “Take their handcuffs off.”
21
After our handcuffs were off, Drake and Kelso went out, leaving us alone. We sat and waited, looking in the mirror that most likely had someone on the other side. At first I counted smears on the glass, boogers on the wall, anything to keep me busy. But that grew boring.
We turned and looked at one another, as if one of us might offer some sort of solution. No great answers unfolded. The nature of the universe was still safe. Stephen Hawking still had the inside track.
We sat there for a long time, then finally began to talk. Brett said, “What’s the point of this?”
“They want whoever is on the other side of the glass to take a good look at us,” Leonard said.
“Why?” Brett asked.
I patted her knee. “Because you are so pretty.”
“Oh. Well, of course,” she said, “duh, there
“I got a joke,” I said.
“Not now,” Leonard said.
“It’s pretty good.”
“Not now,” Brett said, and I knew that was the end of that.
“I don’t know about you two,” I said, “but I miss Kelso already. He had such sweet, if electrified, eyes.”
“You’d think they’d wipe these boogers down,” Brett said. “I don’t know who they think that intimidates. It’s just nasty.”
“I hear that,” Leonard said.
“And that piss smell,” she said. “It could hold your coat.”
“It could wear it,” Leonard said.
The door opened and Drake came in, and there was a guy with him that had a head like a concrete block. His haircut had something to do with that, gold as an Aryan dream, waxed up in front, flared out on the sides. He had a big hooked nose and thin lips and seemed to have more teeth than a human ought to, something a crocodile might envy, only straighter. His eyes were big and dark brown, like two unwiped butt holes. He reminded me of a villain out of those old
Drake went over and leaned against the wall, got a whiff of the piss, moved to another corner. The guy with the square head leaned back against the mirror. He said, “There’s nobody on the other side.”
“You say,” Leonard said.
Drake said, “No. He’s right.”
“Damn, glad we got your word on that,” Leonard said. “That makes it all right, then.”
“I locked the door leads into the investigation room,” Drake said.
“You got the only key?” I asked.
“No.”
“Ah,” I said. “No one else would of course use their key and go in there and look at us. … But frankly, we don’t care. Ask what you want. It was self-defense.”
“I know,” Drake said.
That sort of stunned us, but lawmen are tricky.
The door opened and two guys came in. One of them was the guy who had been in Tanedrue’s trailer, the one who wasn’t with the batch we shot up today, the guy whose profile was gone, whose nose was splinted now and taped over good with tape so thick he looked like the Mummy. His forehead looked as if someone had broken in his ball bat on it. A shock of thick hair poked up from the top of the bandages like a rooster’s comb. He went over and leaned against the wall and looked at Leonard. It wasn’t a look of adoration.
I thought, What the hell?
The other guy was a short fat guy in a black suit with a black tie and some black shoes that needed a shine. He looked like an undertaker in a pet cemetery. He blew some breath out between his fat lips, went over and leaned on the wall next to our friend with the tape and the bruises.
The room was starting to get tight. If one more person came in we’d all be wearing the same suit of clothes, and I was sure I needed to change my underwear.
Brett looked at the two leaning on the mirror, said, “There’s boogers on the wall and there’s something on the mirror I don’t think will pass for mayonnaise. Just a word to the wise.”
They stopped leaning.
Leonard glared at the taped-up man, said, “What the hell is the Phantom of the Opera doing here?”
Drake said, “We’ll come to that. But first, we got a little deal for you guys.”
“A deal?” I said. “Think we’re going to rat each other out? There’s people saw what happened. We didn’t go
