other room and turn the television on and don't listen to what I need to tell Phil here."
Nora looked to Hunt.
"I'm trying to help you out here," Eddie said. "It's better if you don't know."
"Please, Nora," Hunt said.
She looked at both of them in turn, her deep eyes searching. Hunt knew she would ask him later about what Eddie had to say, and he knew he would tell her. She went out of the room and left them sitting there at the table. The television went on and they could hear the midday news.
THE KID SAT IN A HOLDING CELL WITH NINE OTHER men. He'd been in and out of the cell all morning, answering questions. At first it was a game to him. It was a tough man's game, it was like going to prison and putting up a good face and hoping it would all turn out okay. But there was no one to prove himself to.
They all knew him. They all knew what would come of him, either way. And he didn't like what they'd had to say. Christ, he thought, what am I doing here, what in God's name am I doing here again? He'd been stupid, thought he was smart. The kid had been told it was like playing the lottery. And he supposed he'd won, he'd won himself something real special, something to be proud of.
The back of his head hurt where the deputy had tagged him. He'd heard of cases getting dismissed over such things. It was bad PR. But it didn't seem to matter one bit to any of these guys. The DEA agent had listened. But nothing had come of it. At any point he expected to be pulled out of the holding cell and brought back into the interview room.
All morning he'd been watching as the men in the cell came and went. None of them talked to him. He'd leave, and when he came back, five of them would be gone and there were another five to take their place. He looked around the cell, careful not to meet anyone's eyes. This is how it had gone for him in Monroe. He wasn't a tough guy. He wasn't that at all, but he'd survived by not trying to be, by minding his own business and just trying to make it through his term.
During his second year he'd caught pneumonia and spent a week in the infirmary. The men talked there and it wasn't like how it was in the cells, with everyone divided by affiliation. He'd known things would all go back to being the same when he left, but it fascinated him then, and he'd thought things might be different.
Several of the men had come from other prisons and they shared stories about what they'd seen. Smuggling anal rock. Tattoo guns made from fan motors. Violence. From the comfort of his bed it had all seemed very safe, almost like entertainment. But when the men showed him their scars, it became real again. "Five inches," one man said, pointing to the sliver above his abdomen. "Just between the lung and the small intestine." The mark was only a half inch in length, but five inches straight in.
The kid placed his head in his hands and tried to breathe. He stared at the holding-cell floor, gray concrete with flecks of black. He toed one of the flecks and felt his shoe stick. Gum: he hadn't had a piece of that in years. Only eight hours before, he'd been in the mountains. He'd been somewhere that was the opposite of what he'd known. All he could hope for now was that they'd go easy on him. He had been to prison, but for manslaughter. To them, this lifestyle-everything that had led him to this point-would certainly seem to be an accident. One gigantic fluke. He could live with that. He'd lived with it already.
He looked around the cell again. A man in the far corner was staring at him. The kid looked away. He rubbed his hands together and drew his shoulders up. The man walked over and sat down next to him. "How much do you weigh?" the man said.
The kid looked at him, a shaved pink head, bald at the top where no hair grew, and a broad, punched-in nose that hung slightly askew. The kid looked away. "Nearly
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