Socrates' hands were freed and he was sitting in a fancy wooden chair. Detectives Biggers and Beryl stood around him while the captain sat behind a simple table before a window that looked out on a brick wall.
?What are we going to do now, Fortlow?? the commander asked.
Socrates, who felt like he was dreaming, said nothing.
?Answer the man,? Inspector Beryl, another old aquaintance, demanded.
?Where's my sign?? Socrates asked.
?It was destroyed during recovery,? Beryl said. ?Now answer the commander.?
?Commander,? Socrates repeated the word.
?You in some serious shit, Fortlow,? Biggers said. ?You better fly right.?
?What you want?? Socrates was looking directly into the black policeman's eyes.
?Have you ever been arrested by Officer Cardwell?? the commander asked.
?What's your name?? Socrates asked the man in charge.
?DeWitt,? the man said after a moment's silence. ?Commander DeWitt.?
?Your officer Cardwell killed a boy. He done raped, beat, stole from an' threatened black men and women all over your precinct. I ain't never had nuthin' to do with him, though I considered killin' 'im at one time.?
Beryl asked, ?But you didn't know him?? The short but well-built white man had his thumbs in his belt loops, which held back his jacket and revealed his shoulder holster and gun.
Socrates did not reply.
DeWitt stared at Socrates while Beryl and Biggers stared at him. Socrates wondered what they were doing when DeWitt said, ?Book him on inciting to riot. Tell Mackie to put him in the special vault on three.?
Socrates stayed in a cell called the vault on the third floor of the police station for three days without seeing anyone. He had a commode and a sink. There was a cot to sleep on and pizza three times a day.
He didn't mind. He'd known from the day he was let out of prison that he'd be back in a lockup somewhere. It was nice to be alone without responsibility or noise. It was a real vacation, just like he told Marty he'd take.
For the first time in his life Socrates had leisure time. There was light and food and there were no guards or fellow prisoners to negotiate. There was no job to go to, no cans to collect. There was no booze to get him hungover. And if there were screams in the night, they were too far away for him to hear them.
He didn't eat the pizza.
All he did was sit and think about what had happened.
?All them men and women, white and black, police and civilian ready to go to war,? he said to Darryl a few weeks later. ?It was so much power, like fire out of nowhere. There was somethin' to that. Somethin' I always knew was there but I never really thought about it.?
But he had three days to think and remember. Three days to reflect on the fire he'd sparked. Socrates never expected anything to change. All he thought was that he had to stand up without killing. Because killing, even killing someone like Cardwell, was a mark on your soul. And not only on you but on all the black men and women who were alive, and those who were to come after, and those who were to come after that too.
But there was power in his standing up. Power in words and pictures just like the crazy self-centered Lavant Hall had said. And he had swung that power like a baseball bat.
At night Socrates attended his dreams almost as if he were awake and watching a movie screen. He saw the images of his mind and questioned them or laughed at them. He never lost the strand of his investigations during the whole three days he was the guest of John Law.
And then the police came to the room and took him to another room where he found Marty Gonzalez's cousin, the lawyer Ernesto Chavez.
?Mr. Fortlow,? the well-dressed lawyer said. His smile was perfect and his mustache was a razor's edge. ?Looks like you're in the fire again.?
