Private #1 Suspect (Private 2)

The bailiff called the next case. Caine said to me, “Don’t worry, Jack. I’m on it. You’ll be home tomorrow.”

Was Caine right? Or was he just giving me false hope?

A deputy was at my side. He jerked my arm, and I walked with him out the back door of the courtroom. I turned just as the door closed. I was hoping to see Justine, but I saw Fescoe.

He was in a huddle with Tandy and Ziegler and Eddie Savino. I could tell by the looks shot in my direction that they were discussing me.

It was a fair guess that the prosecution was disappointed that I might make bail.

I was loaded into the holding cell behind the courtroom, where I was chained again to three other men. I sweated in silence for six hours, then returned by bus to the men’s jail, where I was shooed into my cell.

We had a new cell mate.

Another talker.

The new guy’s name was Vincent, and he looked like he’d been sleeping over a grate. He got rolling fast and told me about what he called “an almost criminal imbalance in the real estate market” that wouldn’t straighten out until 2015 at the earliest. He talked about the boomers, the pressure they’d put on all things related to the economy and the current entitlement programs. We wouldn’t see a bull market until we were wearing orthopedic shoes, he said.

He still had a sense of humor. It was admirable.

“You’re in finance?” I asked politely.

“I drive.”

“Drive?”

“A cab. I didn’t pay a couple of tickets. They pulled me in here for that. You believe it?”

“I’m sorry to hear it.”

“When we get out of here, if you need a cab, just remember 1-800 Call Vin.”

I said, “Sure. I can remember that.”

I thought about Justine, the way she’d looked at me in the courtroom. I’d felt the pain and her deep disappointment. I thought about lying with her under cool sheets in a big bed.

Early the next morning, the first sound I heard was the loudspeaker, feedback screeching, the blasting voice echoing across the pods.

This time my name was called.

CHAPTER 62

CAINE WAS WAITING for me on the freedom side of the chain-link barrier. He put an arm around me and hurried me quickly through the seething throng of bikers and gangbangers outside the jail.

The car was waiting for us. Aldo sprang from the front seat and moved fast to open the back door for me.

“You okay, Jack?”

“No worse than if I got hit by a car and slept it off for a couple of days in a drainage ditch,” I said.

Aldo grinned. “Oh, man, that’s bad. But we’ve got you now. Listen, there’s coffee for you in back.”

Had it only been five days since Aldo had picked me up at the airport and driven me home? It felt like at least a decade had passed.

Caine got into the backseat beside me, and the Mercedes shot out into the stream of traffic.

“I want to stop home and change.”

“The hotel would be better, Jack. They just took down the tape around your house an hour ago. No one’s been inside to clean. Cody brought some clothes to the hotel.”