But this guy wasn’t raising the specter of a federal transfer just to pass the time.

“Unless,” I said.

The detective nodded at me. “Right, unless.”

Unless he cooperated, DePrizio meant. Traded up the chain. Was Pete part of a chain? Was he really selling cocaine? I couldn’t believe it, which is to say, I was literally incapable of putting together a set of facts that had my little brother selling drugs and running guns.

“Maybe we should talk about that,” I said.

“Maybe we should. But not tonight.” The detective checked his watch. “I’m on in four hours. I’m going home. You want to see your brother?”

To be continued. I didn’t know what kind of hand I had to play yet, anyway.

“Please,” I said. I followed a uniform down to the basement. I was buzzed past two sets of barred doors, and he directed me to the final cell, with cinder-block walls and metal benches bolted to the floor. There were over a dozen people inside. Most of them were black, and most of them looked like it wasn’t their first time in a cell. A guy in the corner, a white kid strung out and in the midst of obvious withdrawal, had recently thrown up, and the others were either heckling him or yelling at him to clean it up.

Pete was sitting on the floor, against the wall, his arms wrapped around his knees. He was keeping his eyes straight forward, an obvious attempt to avoid any confrontation. He was wound as tight as I’d ever seen him.

Jesus, I thought. Pete couldn’t hold up for one week in a penitentiary.

When I stopped at the cell bars, some of the attention turned my way. I caught a couple of hoots and hollers. More than one of them was hoping, I gathered, that I was here for them, that their family had hired them a private attorney to handle their case.

“I gotta take a piss!” one of them said.

“Lawyer man, you comin’ to set me free?” another called out.

At that, Pete looked up and saw me. His eyes were blood-red, his hair matted, all standing in stark contrast to the lively blue shirt and khakis and polished loafers he was sporting.

“Motherfucker white boy gets the lawyer.”

Pete approached the bars tentatively. I raised a hand, to keep his voice down, to keep it cool while he was sharing a cell with anyone.

“Jason, I swear . . .”

I took his hand and gripped it. Tears welled up in his eyes, and I struggled not to return the favor. My little brother. I was supposed to protect you.

“We’ll figure this out,” I promised. I leaned against the bars, so that we were almost nose to nose. “Pete, listen to me. Don’t you say a word to anyone in here, okay? These guys trade on that sort of thing all the time. Don’t be telling your story to anyone, right?”

He closed his eyes, swallowed hard, and nodded.

I leaned in closer. “Who were you arrested with?”

Pete shook his head and answered in a whisper. “I was with two people,” he said. “I think one of them got away. The other guy, I don’t know him.”

“Is he here?” I whispered.

He shrugged his shoulders. “No.”

I looked behind Pete at the occupants again. Most of these guys were bigger than Pete, and all of them were meaner. Three guys in particular caught my attention, looked like Tenth Street muscle, but I’d have to see their bicep to know for sure. These guys were the ones to watch. They would be calling the shots. Two of them had their hair done up high and were calling after the junkie who had vomited, but the guy in the middle, the bald guy with arms that bulged out of his sweatshirt, eyed the others in the cell without comment. He was the leader.

“Okay,” I said gently. “One step at a time, Pete. We’ll figure this out. I will figure this out.” I gripped his hand as tight as I could, trying to shake him out of what looked, to me, like the first signs of my brother completely falling apart. “You stay tough tonight, and I’ll get you out of here within twenty-four hours. We can talk about your case then.”

He took a minute with that, squeezing my hand back. He wanted to hold on to my hand for the next twenty-four hours but knew that he couldn’t. “God, Jase, I’m sorry,” he whispered. “You gotta know, what happened here isn’t—”

“Later,” I said. “Later, Pete.”

I looked past him again to the guy I made for Tenth Street, the big bald guy. Most people eventually catch on when they’re being eyeballed, and soon enough he turned in my direction. I nodded to him. “You got a law yer?” I asked him.

He looked at me like I’d asked him if he was enjoying the surroundings. I removed a business card from my pocket and held it, with two fingers, through the bars.

He took a long time with that before speaking. “Ain’t gettin’ no lawyer.”

He wasn’t planning on a private attorney, he meant. “Have I got a deal for you,” I said.

I could see that this guy wanted to dismiss me, but he was interested. He decided to make me wait, but finally he got off the bench and approached me. He got within a few feet of the bars and looked down at my business card without taking it.

“What-choo sayin’ now?”

“You want a lawyer who gets paid by the same people who pay the prosecutor and the judge?” I asked. “Or do you want me?”

“I ain’t got it.”

The money, he meant. “What’s the collar?”

“Dime bag.”

I nodded. “Not your first?”

He shook his head, no.

“I’ll take your case,” I said. “No cash. Just one favor.”

He cocked his head. I pointed to Pete. “My guy here gets through processing clean. Not a hair out of place. Okay?”

This guy took my card and read it. “Kola-rich. Kolarich.” He wagged the card in his hand. “Hey, boss, can’t nobody make that kinda guarantee.”

“You can,” I said. “If you say so, they’ll listen. Right?”

He acknowledged as much and seemed to appreciate the respect. This whole batch of prisoners would be together for the rest of today, from this cell to transport to the basement of the courthouse to bond court. It was the courthouse basement that troubled me the most—that was where the county guards were known, on occasion, to look the other way—and I could only hope that, with this guy’s say-so, Pete would be okay.

“What’s your name?” I asked.

“Cameron,” he said.

“We got a deal, Cameron?”

He stared at me a long time, then at Pete, who seemed to shrink in the glare. “Yeah, lawyer-man, okay,” he said. “White boy stays clean and I got me a law-yer.”

I took some information from him—family members, job, the kinds of things I’d need to know to try to secure him bond later today—and shook his hand. When he returned to the bench, muttering something to his buddies, I was alone with Pete again. I repeated my earlier admonitions—mouth closed, eyes down—and struggled to pull myself away from that cell, secure in the knowledge, at least, that he’d be okay until I could spring him later today.

If I could spring him.

20

I DROVE HOME on empty roads as the sun came up. I took a shower and threw on a suit, hoping bond court for Pete would be today, a single thought repeating itself as I did so: This was wrong. Though I’d been posturing for the cop at the station, I’d spoken the essential truth. I couldn’t believe Pete would be involved in this. But the longer I played it out, the more my mental defenses dissolved. Once you started with the proposition that Pete was using cocaine recreationally, the rest became a familiar tale. Recreational usage becomes addiction. An addict can’t hold down reliable work, while at the same time more and more of his money, discretionary or otherwise, goes into that sweet nectar that increasingly becomes his sole focus. Suddenly he is out of money and looking for any way to come up with funds for the next score. Next thing he knows, his supplier decides that Pete might be useful for his purposes, that maybe he could introduce him to a new group of clients.