"Pack it up. You're going all the way," he said.

"What happened?"

"Somebody went bail for you. Strip your sheets and throw them into the corridor. Pick up that plastic spoon off the floor and drop your soap in the toilet."

"What?"

"You still drunk or something? Clean out your cell if you want to leave here today."

We walked down the corridor to the hydraulically operated double-barred doors that gave onto the booking room, where two black women were being fingerprinted. I signed at the possessions desk for the large brown envelope tied with string that contained my wallet, car keys, pocket knife, and belt.

"Happy motoring," the trusty clerk said.

Out in the visitors' area I saw Annie sitting on a wooden bench with her hands pinched together in her lap. She wore blue tennis shoes, Clorox-faded jeans, and a print shirt covered with purple flowers. The tables in the room were filled with inmates and their families who had come to visit them, and each group tried to isolate themselves in their intimate moment by bending their heads forward, never focusing their eyes beyond their own table, holding one another's forearms tightly in their hands. Annie tried to smile at me, but I saw the nervousness in her face.

"Are you all right?" she asked.

"Sure."

"My car's right at the curb. We can go now."

"Sure, let's get out of here."

"Dave, what's wrong?"

"The bastards took my piece. I ought to get a receipt fork."

"Are you crazy?" she whispered.

"Forget it. Let's go."

We went through the glass doors onto the street, and the afternoon heat hit me like somebody opening a furnace door next to my skin. We got into her car and she started the engine, then looked across at me with a cloud in her face. My arm jerked when it touched the burning metal on the window.

"Dave, are you okay? Your face is white," she said.

"I'm running on some weird fluids. Just consider the source and don't take everything I say to heart today. How did you know I was in jail?"

"Your partner, what's his name, Clete, called. He said something strange, but he told me to tell it to you just like he said it—'You still own yourself, Streak. That's a big victory. Disconnect from this dogshit while there's time.' What's he talking about?"

"It means part of him is still intact. I'm not sure if the same is true of me. I think I felt all the stitches pop today. "

She steered into the traffic. The yellow haze, the heat off the concrete, the hot leather against my back, the acrid gasoline fumes around me, filled my head with a sensation that was like breathing over a tar-roofer's pot on a summer day.

"I don't know much about alcohol and drinking problems, Dave. Do you want to stop for a beer? I don't mind. Isn't it better to taper off sometimes?"

She had made it very easy, and at that moment I think I would have cut my fingers off one at a time with tin snips for a frosted quart of Jax beer.

"I'd just appreciate it right now if you'd drive me to my houseboat. Did you have to put up a thousand for the bondsman?" I said.

"Yes."

"I'll make it good tomorrow. I'm suspended from the credit union, but I'm going to take a loan out on the boat."

"I'm not thinking about that. Last night you tried to make amends, and I sent you away."

"You had someone coming for dinner."

"He was just a friend from the music school. He would have understood."

Tags: James Lee Burke Dave Robicheaux Mystery
Source: readsnovelonline.net