“Chief,” I said.
“You’ve been read your rights?”
“Yes.”
“That’s good,” he said. “That’s good.” He pulled a chair over from the far wall. It might have been the same chair I sat in myself when I came here to see Vinnie. He pulled out a pack of cigarettes and a silver lighter. “Cigarette?”
“No, thanks,” I said.
He lit the cigarette in his mouth, snapped the lighter shut and blew a thin stream of smoke through the bars. “It’s starting to snow again,” he said.
I looked down at the floor.
“Just thought you might want to know,” he said.
I didn’t look at him. “Thanks for the weather report,” I said.
“If I ask you a question,” he said, “you know you don’t have to answer it.”
I didn’t say anything. Maven’s smoke hung in the air.
“I was in bed, you know that? When they called me and told me you got stopped on the bridge, I got up and got dressed and came all the way down here in the cold to ask you one question. Are you ready for it?”
I kept looking at the floor.
“Here’s my question, McKnight. Do you believe in reincarnation?”
I finally looked up at him.
“Like if you do something bad in a past life,” he said. “You might pay for it in this life? Or on the other hand, if you do something good in a past life… You know what I mean?”
I kept looking at him. I didn’t say a word.
“You may not have thought about it too much,” he said. “I admit, I never thought about it either.” He took a long drag on his cigarette. “Until tonight.”
He blew the smoke out. The lights kept humming.
“You see,” he said, “I think I’ve led a pretty good life. Helped out some people along the way. I’ve been a good father and a good husband. I’m sure I have some points stored up. But damn it, McKnight, to be sitting here looking at you in this cell. It’s just too much, I swear.”
He took another drag from his cigarette and squinted at me through the smoke.
“What do you think, McKnight? I’m thinking maybe in my last life, I saved a schoolbus full of children from going over a cliff. Something like that.”
I kept looking at him.
“Maybe in the war,” he said. “Maybe I saved a whole town from the Germans. It’s gotta be something big like that, I think. This is just too good.”
I didn’t even blink.
“My cup runneth over, McKnight. I can barely contain myself.”
“Are you done?” I said.
“Seriously,” he said. “I gotta ask you a real question. Because I thought I had you pegged. You were a failure as a baseball player. You were a failure as a cop. You’re a broken-down, lonely, miserable man. So you compensate for that by acting like a bigshot and shooting your mouth off at everybody. That much I got. But this business with the drugs. I don’t get that. I mean, I knew you weren’t even half as smart as you think you are. But I never dreamed that you were this fucking stupid.”
“The drugs are not mine,” I said.
“Of course not,” he said. “Neither is the gun.”
“The gun is mine,” I said.
“The gun you admit to,” he said. “Of course you don’t have a hell of a lot of choice there. It’s got a registration number on it. The drugs, on the other hand…”
“Are not mine.”
“Right. We covered that.”
“What will the charge be?” I said. “And when do I get out of here?”
The chair scraped against the floor as he leaned back in it. “What do you think the charge will be?” he said. “The only question is whether it’s a felony. They’re measuring it right now, I’m sure. Although to tell the truth, it didn’t look like there was a full gram in that bag. Maybe I didn’t save a whole town after all, eh? Maybe it was just three people and a dog.”
“I want a lawyer,” I said. “And I want out of here.”
“You can have a lawyer if you want,” he said. “And we’ll get you out of here just as soon as the judge shows up to arraign you.”
“What will the bail be?”
“The judge sets the bail. You know that. Your boyfriend Prudell is in the lobby waiting to pay it, whatever it is.”
“Tell him to go home,” I said. “Tell him I’ll call him.”
“That’s very thoughtful of you,” he said. “I’ll go tell him. In the meantime, as long as we’re waiting for the judge, I think there are a couple of gentlemen who’d like to speak with you.”
“Who?”
“You’ll see,” he said. “I’ll be back in a little while.”
“What’s going on?” I said.
“Patience,” he said. “Just relax.” He got up from the chair and replaced it against the wall. “Make yourself at home.” He walked back to the door, opened it, and stepped out. The door shut behind him with a metallic clang that went right through me.
I tried to lie down on the wooden bench, but the blood pounded in my head. When I sat back up, my ribs started to ache again. I got up and paced around the cell for a while, then I felt like I needed to throw up again. I went to the corner and leaned over the toilet, one hand against the cement wall. Nothing came up.
I tried to sit down. I hugged myself as I leaned over and hung my head over my knees. This might work, I thought. I’m almost comfortable this way. I started to doze off. Then the door opened again.
Maven came down the hallway. Two men followed him.
It was the men who had been following me. One had his red hunting cap still on his head. The other held his blue hunting cap in his hands.
“Alex McKnight,” Maven said, “I’d like you to meet Agents Champagne and Urbanic. They’re from the DEA.”
The men looked at me. I looked back at them. “You’re not Molinov’s men,” I said. “You’re not Pearl and Roman.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” Maven said. “They’re not Laurel and Hardy, either. Agent Champagne-” He gestured to the man holding the blue cap, as if introducing me at a party. “And Urbanic.” The man wearing the red cap.
“We need to have a little chat, Mr. McKnight,” Champagne said. “Perhaps we can use one of your interview rooms, Chief?”
“We have one interview room,” Maven said. “I’ll show you the way.”
Maven pulled out a set of keys and opened the cell door. “What do you think, McKnight?” he said. “Can we do this without the handcuffs?”
“What do you think I’m going to do?” I said. “Try to run away?”
“Ordinarily I’d say no,” he said. “But drugs make a man do strange things.”
“For God’s sake,” I said. But before I could say anything else I was led out of the cell and down the hallway. As we passed through the doorway, I looked out the windows. The sun was just starting to come up. A light snow was falling.
Maven led us to the interview room. I had been in the room before. Since my last visit somebody had taken down the fishing map and repainted the walls a light green. I sat in a chair on one side of a long table. Champagne and Urbanic sat directly across from me, with Maven on the end. Urbanic had finally taken his hunting cap off.
“We’d like to ask you some questions, Mr. McKnight,” Champagne said. I remembered his dark eyes from our little meeting on the road.
“Go ahead,” I said.
“First of all, we’d like you to tell us the whereabouts of Dorothy Parrish.”
“I don’t know where she is,” I said.
“She spent Friday night in your cabin.”
“In the cabin next to mine,” I said. “The next morning, she was gone.”
“She just disappeared?”
“Yes.”
“And you have no idea what happened to her.”
“No,” I said. “I thought Bruckman might have taken her. Bruckman is her… boyfriend, I guess.”
“Yes, Lonnie Bruckman,” Champagne said. “We’re familiar with the man.”
“I went to see him last night,” I said. “To ask him questions.”
“To ask him questions.”
“Yes.”
“You were in the hospital recently,” he said.
“Yes,” I said. “I saw you there. Your partner, anyway.”