Part 17 (2/2)
”The library.”
”A nice bit of intelligence to stumble on. We'd been keying in on the warehouse ever since we found a bag inside the southwest wall. We'll get a camera on the library tonight and see if we can figure out the drop-and-pick patterns.”
A few hours later and it might have been me. I could picture the video of a blue-uniformed CO in the library, looking nervous, stumbling through a handoff.
”Will you talk with him? He's scared and doesn't want to say any more to us. But I want to find out what he knows, see what kind of trouble he's in. We might be able to turn him into a regular informant.”
I didn't want the a.s.signment. Not this way. I wanted to walk.
”I know it's not in your job description,” Melinda said, ”but I figured you wouldn't mind helping out. We won't record it, so you'll never have to worry about it showing up. Just a friendly chat, and maybe you can prime him to cooperate with us. He's insistent on you.”
”Okay,” I said. I didn't mean yes. I wanted time to think, but Melinda misinterpreted.
”Fantastic. I knew you'd be into it. Here's the two-second course on interrogation. Say little, listen a lot. It's difficult for people to stay quiet. It makes them uncomfortable. It's human nature to want to fill the gaps. Good interviewers use that. You know what I mean?”
Nod.
”Then let's get it over with. Do you need to pee?”
I said I did. I wanted the drugs out of my body, even if that was the worst idea in the world.
32.
His face was puffy, a black eye and a thick lip you could put a steak on. Older than before, and younger, too. Our time in the car, so imprinted on my memory, seemed hazy to me now, different people in different times.
I needed to show him kindness. A mercy and decency I didn't feel. ”How is your face?” I asked. ”Are you all right?” My head tilted with caring. My heart was stone. I hoped no one was watching. Melinda had said the camera was off, but a precise red-lettered sign on each wall stated, ”You are being recorded.” I didn't know whether to trust Melinda or the sign.
He looked up, blinking through the swelling. ”Thanks for coming to see me.” His voice was tight with the hoa.r.s.eness of exhaustion. ”It's not easy in here sometimes.”
”They don't make it easy for a reason.” I kept my own tone dry and reasonable, but the harshness had crept back.
”I could use a little help,” he said. ”I think I'm in over my head.”
Was it a con? The ones who were good at lies fooled you so completely you questioned reality in the aftermath.
”I don't know, Josh. You seem to be handling yourself pretty well. Making friends.”
”What do you mean, friends?”
”Josh, they found enough cocaine in your cell to keep a range going for a week.”
”You think I knew that was coming?”
”Oh, someone forced it on you?”
”Yeah, as a matter of fact.” A genuine laugh. Then his face got heavy again, and he lifted a shaky hand to his forehead.
”What is it?” I asked, irritated at the joke I didn't understand.
”I need to get out of the infirmary and into population. I want to start my real time. I want to be on B-three. There's some people there who will look out for me.”
I must have looked surprised.
”Crowley thought I was crazy to want out of the infirmary, too. He said I didn't know how good I had it. But they got me in there for a reason.”
”Who's they?”
He said nothing. I waited.
”Keeper Wallace, for one. Roy.”
”What are you talking about?” I wanted and didn't want to know about Wallace.
Josh showed a sullen hurt.
”Roy isn't sick. His ears bleed sometimes when he bangs his head. But he can do it whenever he wants, and the doctors can't figure out what's wrong, so they can't let him out. But he's really in there to put the squeeze on me. He's always asking about Crowley. About the comic book I showed you in the car. He wants me to remember what was in it. And whether I tell him or not, I'm afraid I'm going to end up like Crowley or Elgin.”
”What do you mean like Elgin?”
Josh's face tightened, a flinch of anxiety or fear. He didn't answer.
”Josh, I don't understand any of this. What does that comic book have to do with anything? Why would Roy or anyone hurt you for it?”
”Roy says the comic book is a treasure map.”
I sat back, the tired lines around my thirty-nine-year-old face a little heavier. I was flattened by the craziness of it, this silly boy's adventure.
”A treasure.”
He nodded.
”Maybe that's why your friend Crowley wrote 'dig' on the door of the old segregation hole.”
”He wrote dig?” His eyes widening.
”A treasure. Do you know how ridiculous you sound?”
”I don't care if you don't believe me,” he said.
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