Sherman looked away, toward the guards at the doors, the prisoners’ door and the lawyers’ door. Then he looked at Parker and nodded. “I can do that.”
“Thank you.”
What Sherman gave him was a yellow lined sheet of paper from a long legal pad, and a pen, and an envelope with Sherman’s office address on it for the return. Parker wrote, “This place is called Stoneveldt. I’m here as Ronald Kasper. Get me a mouth I can use.” No heading and no signature. He folded the paper, put it in the envelope, sealed it, wrote “Claire Willis, East Shore Rd., Colliver’s Pond, NJ 08989” on the front, then said, “You got Scotch tape in there?”
“I think so.”
Sherman rooted around in the briefcase, came up with a roll of tape, handed it over. Parker taped the flap, then folded a length of tape along all four edges. Now it couldn’t be opened without leaving traces. He pushed the envelope and the roll of tape over to Sherman, saying, “I appreciate it. I’ve been worried about her.”
Sherman looked at the envelope. “New Jersey. Long way from here.”
“Yes.”
“You’d have been better off staying there.”
“I didn’t know that then,” Parker said.
“No.” Sherman tapped the return address on the envelope. “If your friend has questions, she can get in touch with me.”
“She probably will.”
Putting letter and tape away, Sherman said, “We haven’t talked about the arraignment. I assume you want to plead not guilty.”
“Sure. When is it?”
“It’s scheduled now for a week from Thursday.”
Parker frowned at him. “That long? For an arraignment?”
“The courts are really quite clogged,” Sherman told him. “But it doesn’t matter that much, whatever time you do in here counts on your sentence.”
“Yeah, there’s that,” Parker said. “And it gives us more time to argue the extradition thing. They can’t start that until after the arraignment.”
“We’ll do what we can,” Sherman said. “Do you have any other questions? Anything else I should do? People to contact?”
“No, if you just send that to Claire so she knows I’m alive, then I won’t worry about things.”
“Good.” Sherman stuck his hand out. “Nice to chat with you, Ronald.”
“Thank you, Mr. Sherman.”
They both stood, and Sherman said, “See you at the arraignment.”
“Right,” Parker said, knowing he’d never see Mr. Sherman again.
5
The first week is the hardest. The change from outside, from freedom to confinement, from spreading your arms wide to holding them in close to your body, is so abrupt and extreme that the mind refuses to believe it. Second by second, it keeps on being a rotten surprise, the worst joke in the world. You keep thinking, I can’t stand this, I’m going to lose my mind, I’m going to wig out or off myself, I can’t stand this now and now and now.
Then, sometime in the second week, the mind’s defenses kick in, the brain just flips over, and this place, this impossible miserable place, just becomes the place where you happen to live. These people are the people you live among, these rules are the rules you live within. This is your world now, and it’s the other one that isn’t real any more.
Parker wondered if he’d be here that long.
The stolid regularity of the routine helped in this process of turning the inmate into a con. In Stoneveldt, the day began at six, when the cell gates were electrically rolled open, loudly, but then nothing happened until seven-twenty, when everyone on three was to line up by the door to the stairs. It was opened, and in single file they thudded down the flights and through the corridor with the white line on the floor into the main building and on into the mess hall there. They arrived at seven-thirty and had to be out by seven fifty-five. The inmates on four had breakfast there at seven, those from two at eight, and those on the ground floor at eight-thirty.
After breakfast they were trooped back up to their floor, but the cell gates were left open, and there was a game room with playing cards and board games and a television set down at the opposite end from the stairs. This was the time when those who felt sick could be escorted to the dispensary.
At ten-thirty they were led downstairs again, but this time down the long concrete floor between the outer wall and the ground floor cells to iron doors at the rear that opened onto the exercise yard. Armiston wasn’t on the ground floor, those cells being given to the nondangerous sad sacks, the drunk drivers, domestic disputes, deadbeat dads. The exercise yard, enclosed by high unpainted concrete block walls, was packed dirt, with a weight-lifting area and one basketball hoop.
Three’s lunch period was twelve forty-five to one-thirty, and afternoon outside time three-thirty to four-thirty. Also in the afternoon was the time when the prisoners could go off to the library to find something to read or to work on their case.
Morning and afternoon, after breakfast and after lunch, a group of names was called on the loudspeaker, and those cons went off on assignments. The way it was structured, everybody was given work to do, a half day three times a week, in the kitchen or the laundry or paint detail or mopping the floors. Skilled men fixed toilets and television sets. During those times, Parker found people to talk with, get a sense of, remember for later.
Dinner six-thirty to seven-thirty. At nine, everybody had to be back in his cage. The cell gates rolled shut. The lights went out.
6
The fifth day, the loudspeaker said, “Rasper,” and the guard said, “Lawyer visit,” but it wasn’t wrinkled Jacob Sherman, looking to duck the work of fighting extradition. It was an older man, Asian, hair sleeked back and flesh gleaming, who rose in Armani and pastels on his side of the table. “I am Mr. Li,” he said, and extended a card without being asked.
The card was full of names and addresses, all in blue print on ivory, with “Jonathan Li” in gold on the bottom right. Parker put it away and said, “You’ve got me now.”
“Transfer complete.” Li was amused, not by Parker in particular but by his own entire life; it made him easy to be around, but suggested there were circumstances when he might not be completely reliable. “We should sit,” he said. “For the quiet.”
They sat, and Parker waited, watching him. His smoothly sheathed forearms on the tabletop, wrists delicately crossed, Li leaned a bit forward as he talked, to keep the conversation within their space. “Your friend Claire wants me to assure you she’s fine.”
“Good.”
“And that she expects to see you soon.”
“We can only hope,” Parker said.
“Oh, we can do more than hope,” Li told him.
“I understand California wants me,” Parker said.
“California must wait its turn.”
“That’s what I thought.”
“Oh, yes,” Li said. “My professional opinion is, you should not leave this place until you want to leave this place.”
“That’s good,” Parker said.
“Also, as you may know,” Li went on, “if you are to have any visitor other than immediate members of your family, you must put in the request yourself, from this end, and the authorities will or will not approve of it. Unfortunately, you have no immediate family nearby—”
“No.”