They rushed him through the entrance doors and down a long hallway. He had finally stopped talking. He was on their turf. Cops were everywhere. Signs directed traffic to the DUI holding tank, the jail, the visitors’ room, the receiving room. Plenty of signs and rooms. They stopped at a desk with a row of closed-circuit monitors behind it, and Nassar signed some papers. Mark studied the surroundings. Klickman almost felt sorry for him. He looked even smaller.
They were off again. The elevator took them to the fourth floor, and again they stopped at a desk. A sign on the wall pointed to the juvenile wing, and Mark figured he was getting close.
A uniformed lady with a clipboard and a plastic tag declaring her to be Doreen stopped them. She looked at some papers, then at the clipboard. “Says here Judge Roosevelt wants Mark Sway in a private room,” she said.
“I don’t care where you put him,” Nassar said. “Just take him.”
She was frowning and looking at her clipboard. “Of course, Roosevelt wants all juveniles in private rooms. Thinks this is the Hilton.”
“It’s not?”
She ignored this, and pointed at a piece of paper for Nassar to sign. He scribbled his name hurriedly, and said, “He’s all yours. God help you.”
Klickman and Nassar left without a word.
“Empty your pockets, Mark,” the lady said as she handed him a large metal container. He pulled out a dollar bill, some change, and a pack of gum. She counted it and wrote something on a card, which she then inserted on the end of the metal box. In a corner above the desk, two cameras captured Mark, and he could see himself on one of the dozen screens on the wall. Another lady in a uniform was stamping papers.
“Is this the jail?” Mark asked, cutting his eyes in all directions.
“We call it a detention center,” she said.
“What’s the difference?”
This seemed to irritate her. “Listen, Mark, we get all kinds of smart mouths up here, okay. You’ll get along much better if you keep your mouth shut.” She leaned into his face with these words of warning, and her breath was stale cigarettes and black coffee.
“I’m sorry,” he said, and his eyes watered. It suddenly hit him. He was about to be locked in a room far away from his mother, far away from Reggie.
“Follow me,” Doreen said, proud of herself for restoring a little authority to the relationship. She whisked away with a ring of keys dangling and rattling from her waist. They opened a heavy wooden door and started through a hallway with gray metal doors spaced evenly apart on both sides of the corridor. Each little room had a number beside it. Doreen stopped at Number 16, and unlocked it with one of her keys. “In here,” she said.
Mark walked in slowly. The room was about twelve feet wide and twenty feet long. The lights were bright and the carpet was clean. Two bunk beds were to his right. Doreen patted the top bunk. “You can have either bed,” she said, ever the hostess. “Walls are cinder block and windows are nonbreakable, so don’t try anything.” There were two windows — one in the door and one above the lavatory, and neither was big enough to stick his head through. “Toilet’s over there, stainless steel. Can’t use ceramic anymore. Had a kid break one and slice his wrists with a piece of it. But that was in the old building. This place is much nicer, don’t you think?”
It’s gorgeous, Mark almost said. But he was sinking fast. He sat on the bottom bunk and rested his elbows on his knees. The carpet was pale green, the same type of commercial blend he’d been studying at the hospital.
“You okay, Mark?” Doreen asked without the slightest trace of sympathy. This was her job.
“Can I call my mother?”
“Not yet. You can make a few calls in about an hour.”
“Well, can you call her and just tell her I’m okay? She’s worried sick.”
Doreen smiled and the makeup cracked around her eyes. She patted his head. “Can’t do it, Mark. Regulations. But she knows you’re fine. My goodness, you’ll be in court in a couple of hours.”
“How long do kids stay in here?”
“Not long. A few weeks occasionally, but this is sort of a holding area until the kids are processed and either sent back home or to a training school.” She was rattling her keys. “Listen, I have to go now. The door locks automatically when it’s closed, and if it opens without my little key here, then an alarm goes off and there’s big trouble. So don’t get any ideas, okay, Mark?”
“Yes ma’am.”
“Can I get you anything?”
“A telephone.”
“In just a little while, okay.”
Doreen closed the door behind her. There was a loud click, then silence.
He stared at the doorknob for a long time. This didn’t seem like jail. There were no bars on the windows. The beds and floor were clean. The cinder block walls were painted a pleasant shade of yellow. He’d seen worse, in the movies.
There was so much to worry about. Ricky groaning like that again, the fire, Dianne slowly unraveling, cops and reporters glued to him. He didn’t know where to start.
He stretched on the top bunk and studied the ceiling. Where in the world was Reggie?
22
The chapel was cold and damp. It was a round building stuck to the side of a mausoleum like a cancerous growth. It was raining outside, and two television crews from New Orleans huddled beside their vans and hid under umbrellas.
The crowd was respectable, especially for a man with no family. His remains were packaged tastefully in a porcelain urn sitting on a mahogany table. Hidden speakers from above brought forth one dreary dirge after another as the lawyers and judges and a few clients ventured in and sat near the rear. Barry the Blade strutted down the aisle with two thugs in tow. He was properly dressed in a black double-breasted suit with a black shirt and a black tie. Black lizard shoes. His ponytail was immaculate. He arrived late, and enjoyed the stares from the mourners. After all, he’d known Jerome Clifford for a long time.
Four rows back, the Right Reverend Roy Foltrigg sat with Wally Boxx and scowled at the ponytail. The lawyers and judges looked at Muldanno, then at Foltrigg, then back at Muldanno. Strange, seeing them in the same room.
The music stopped, and a minister of some generic faith appeared in the small pulpit behind the urn. He started with a lengthy obituary of Walter Jerome Clifford, and threw in everything but the names of his childhood pets. This was not unexpected because when the obituary was over there would be little to say.
It was a brief service, just as Romey had asked for in his note. The lawyers and judges glanced at their watches. Another mournful lamentation started from above, and the minister excused everyone.
Romey’s last hurrah was over in fifteen minutes. There were no tears. Even his secretary kept her composure. His daughter was not present. Very sad. He lived forty-four years and no one cried at his funeral.
Foltrigg kept his seat and scowled at Muldanno as he strutted down the aisle and out the door. Foltrigg waited until the chapel was empty, then made an exit with Wally behind him. The cameras were there, and that’s exactly what he wanted. Earlier, Wally had leaked a juicy tidbit about the great Roy Foltrigg attending the service, and also that there was a chance Barry the Blade Muldanno would be present. Neither Wally nor Roy had any idea whether Muldanno would attend, but it was only a leak so who cared if it was accurate. It was working.
A reporter asked for a couple of minutes, and Foltrigg did what he always did. He glanced at his watch, looked terribly frustrated by this intrusion, and sent Wally after the van. Then he said what he always said, “Okay, but make it quick. I’m due in court in fifteen minutes.” He hadn’t been to court in three weeks. He usually went about once a month, but to hear him talk he lived in courtrooms, battling the bad guys, protecting the interests of the American taxpayers. A hard-charging crimebuster.