"Might get your sentence reduced. Your period of treatment."
"Yeah, treatment. I'm cured, already." He followed the lawyer out and walked down the corridor between him and Bobon. Carefully. The trusty's stick was a neurotangler, and he liked using it. It didn't hurt much, depending on how you fell, but could be embarrassing.
In prison movies, the other prisoners would hoot obscenities and bang their tin cups on the bars. At Alachua Rehabilitation Center, they had Styrofoam cups and a point system, and few serious criminals. Most of them glanced up momentarily from books or games, if they reacted at all to the parade.
"Left here," the trusty said, and Ybor followed the lawyer through an unmarked door he'd never seen open before. He'd thought it was a storage room. It opened into a narrow damp corridor as long as a cell was deep, ending in another unmarked door. The lawyer held it open for Ybor and closed it behind himself. On the other side, the trusty locked it with a rattling of keys.
The room was white and spotless, starting to brighten with light from a picture window facing the horse pasture to the east. A door to the outside was open, metal screens keeping the bugs out.
Three hard chairs faced a plain white table. He recognized the man behind the table, and was startled. They'd never met face-to-face before, but everybody knew who he was.
"Willy Joe Capra," he said. "You're the mob guy."
"You buy that shit?" He smiled. "There ain't no such thing as a mob."
"This is still a funny place to make your acquaintance." He took the chair directly in front of the man. Moore stood behind him, silent, until Willy Joe pointed to the chair on his left.
"I wouldn't call this place funny," Willy Joe said. "I was here, I'd just want out."
" Si. It could drive you crazy."
Willy Joe just stared. "Mr. Moore said you might be able to help me."
"Yeah. You help me, I help you."
Anything you want, Ybor thought. But he just nodded and waited. Looking at the screen door.
"At your hearing," the lawyer said, "you testified that you were working on your own. A 'fishing expedition,' you called it."
"The woman was on the news," he said carefully. "I knew she had lots of money, or her husband did."
"So you figured you'd find something and squeeze her," Willy Joe said. "Just like that. Nobody put you up to it."
"I do it all the time," he said, which was true. "Usually just for fun." So far, he hadn't implicated his boss, figuring that silence would pay off in the long run.
"That's what you said at the hearing," Moore said, "and voice analysis indicates you were telling the truth, or some version of the truth. It also says that you lied later, when you said you didn't find anything interesting—I think 'useful' was the word."
"Yeah, well ... you know voice spectrum's unreliable. Not admissible in court."
"This ain't no court," Willy Joe said. "This is a fishing expedition, too. Look at the bait." He reached into a jacket pocket and withdrew a hypo popper. \
"That can't be mine," Ybor said, but he felt sweat suddenly evaporating on his forehead. "Nobody can get in there but me."
He twirled the cylinder, smiling at it. "I don't have to get into your private stash. Where do you think this shit comes from?"
"From you?"
"From a friend of mine. Not the guy you buy it from. What he's called, Blinky?"
"That's right, Blinky." He could smell his armpits now, sour.
"Blinky don't make the stuff. He just collects the juice and the money." He balanced it upright on the table. "Suppose I could get you this once a week. You spill your guts for that?"
"What ... what do you need to know?"
"You been followin' this alien bullshit?"
Oh, shit. "Not much, no. I got busted the day it all started."
"But you do know the Bell woman was behind it," Moore said. "You were going through her files, and that pulled down the wrath of God, or at least the chancellor."
"So what did you find?" Willy Joe said. "What wasn't 'useful'?"
Damn. It wouldn't be enough. "Look. I'll tell you all I know. But you got to get me out of here."
"As if you were in a position to bargain," the lawyer said.
"I'm worth a lot more to you on the outside. I can get more information where this came from."
"Sure," Willy Joe said. "Like you'll get your old job back and they'll let you hack their computer."
"You don't understand jaquismo," he said quickly. "I don't have to be at the same computer."
"Just you let me know what you got. I'll decide how much it's worth."
"Okay." What's the best way to put it? "Dr. Bell and her husband ... "
"Dr. Bell and Dr. Bell," Moore said.
"Yeah. They're living a lie. Covering up his past."
"He kill somebody?" Willy Joe straightened slightly.
"Worse than that. He got caught fucking a guy."
Willy Joe looked at Moore. "I told you he was a fucking mariposa." To Ybor: "This was after the law."
"After the state law. Before the federal one."
Willy Joe nodded. "This ain't much. I seen him hangin' around with Nick the Greek. If they ain't queer I ain't never met a queer."
"This wasn't Nick the Greek." Ybor paused long enough for Willy Joe to open his mouth. "It was a cop."
"A cop. Which one?"
Ybor stroked his chin. "Don't know yet."
"What is this 'yet'? You know it was a cop, but you don't know who?"
"That's right. I need more time on the computer."
"What did you find out?" Moore said.
Ybor stroked his chin harder. "You holdin' out on me," Willy Joe said quietly, "you don't get your DD. And I get you transferred to Raiford. You want to meet some fuckin' queers."
"All I know is the path of the data link, and the way it was stopped. And when and where he was picked up."
"Go on," Moore said.
"It was down at People's Park, three in the morning. Twelve April 2022."
"So what were they doin'? Blow job, cornhole?"
"The call-in didn't say. Just that it was a 547, sodomy. They identified Norman Bell, but the other guy didn't have an ID."
"So how you know he's a cop?" Willy Joe leaned forward. "Make it good."
"The whole record got erased, all the way back to the call-in. It was an 'administrative edit,' and the authorization came from a police-department internal-security unit."
Willy Joe tapped the DD popper on the desk, in a slow rhythm. "It got erased, but not to you."
"I saw the hole in the data. It's complicated. But there was an erased link to Norman Bell, and I followed it up to the hole, so to speak. From there, I just searched unencrypted chat mail for a half hour around that time. Found a guy who monitors police and emergency bands, and he was talking to somebody when the sodomy call came in."
"I don't see how the lack of data implicates a policeman," Moore said. "Sounds more like Norman Bell pulling strings. He has money, or she does."
"They did pull strings." Ybor allowed himself a smile. "Mrs. Bell did, anyhow. The cops were glad to take her money, but the erasure was complete a good eight hours before she paid."
"She didn't just pay," Willy Joe said. "Even a professor ain't that stupid."
"No ... I just looked for a big credit transfer. The guy she paid was the police dispatcher's father. She bought a new garage door. But no installation fee. Like she put it in herself."