would ask me who was my connection and how much was I going to get for the dope, as if I had said one story but he had heard another. Then he would have me go through my story again. The room was bugged and there were probably a couple of guys listening in. They would be taking notes and a tape recorder would be recording everything I said. They'd be looking for discrepancies and Micelli would be waiting for my body language to change. He'd keep trying out scenarios until I seemed comfortable with one, even if it was one I denied. Then he'd know he struck pay dirt. Of course, since I was telling the truth, he wasn't going to get the body language when and where he wanted it. He probably wasn't too concerned about that, though. Time was on his side. Maybe I shouldn't have passed on the lawyer.
After about the sixth time through, the door opened and Stilwell came back, only this time Eric Dees was with him. Micelli said, 'You been listening to this stuff?'
Dees grinned. 'Yeah. He's pretty good at this.'
Stilwell said, 'You arrest the guy in the park?'
Dees nodded. 'Sure. He's down in cell four.'
'Cole said you ripped off his dope.'
Dees smiled wider. 'Gathered it for evidence, duly logged and checked in.'
I said, 'Come off it, Stilwell. He knew I was going to be in here. He knew I was going to be talking.'
Stilwell stayed with Dees. 'You got anything going with these gangbangers?'
Dees spread his hands. 'Trying to bust' m. Cole's been nosing around and I tried to warn him off and maybe that's when he got the idea for the dope deal. I don't know. I don't want to talk about an ongoing investigation in front of a suspected felon.'
Stilwell said, 'Sure.'
Dees said, 'I've got to go wrap it up with my guys. You need anything else?'
'That's it, Eric. Thanks.'
Dees left without looking at me.
I said, 'Jesus Christ, Stilwell, what do you expect him to say?'
'Just about what he said.'
'Then what are you going to do about it?'
Stilwell grabbed my upper arm and lifted. 'Book you on three murder counts and a dope. I think you're guilty as sin.'
They took me out into the detectives' squad room and began the booking process. Dees wasn't around, and after Micelli spoke to a couple of uniforms, he and Stilwell left.
The processing cops had already begun with Pike and, as I watched, they used paraffin on his hands and took his picture and fingerprinted him and asked him questions so that they could fill out their forms. He nodded once and I nodded back. It was strange to see him without the glasses. He seemed more vulnerable without them. Less inviolate. Maybe that's why he wears them.
They led Pike away through a hall toward the jail and then they started with me. A uniform cop named Mertz led me from station to station, first using the paraffin, then getting my prints, and then taking my picture. I crossed my eyes when they took the picture and the cop who worked the camera said, 'No good, Mertz. He crossed his goddamned eyes.'
Mertz picked up a baton and tapped it against his thigh. 'Okay, smart ass. Cross'm again and I'll smack you so hard they'll stay crossed.'
They took the picture again but this time I didn't cross them.
When Mertz was filling out my personal history form, I said, 'When do I get a bail hearing?'
'Arraignment's tomorrow. One of the detectives ran over to the court to get a bail deviation so we could bind you over.'
'Jesus Christ. Why?'
'You see the crowding down there? You're lucky they'll arraign you by next Monday.'
When the processing was finished, Mertz turned me over to an older uniform with a head like a coyote squash and told him to take me to felony. The older uniform led me back along a hall to a row of four-by-eight-foot cages. Each cage had a seatless toilet and a sink and a couple of narrow bunks, and it smelled of disinfectant and urine and sweat, sort of like a poorly kept public men's room. 'No place like home.'
The older uniform nodded. Maybe to him it was home.
There were two black guys in the first cage, both of them sitting in the shadows of the lower bunk. They had been talking softly when we approached, but they stopped when we passed and watched us with yellow eyes. Once you were in the cells, there was no way to see who was in the next cell, and no way to reach through the bars and twist your arm around to touch someone in the next cell, even if someone in the next cell was reaching out to touch you. I said, 'Which one's mine?'
The uniform stopped at the second cell, opened the gate, and took off my handcuffs. 'The presidential suite, of course.'
I stepped in. A Hispanic guy in his early thirties was lying on the lower bunk with his face to the wall. He rolled over and squinted at me, and then he rolled back. The uniform closed the gate and locked it and said, 'You wanna make a call?'
'Yeah.'
