Chapter 41

Two cops outside the holding cell woke him up. They came into the cell cuffed him again none too gently. Then as they were escorting him out of the cell they managed to trip and shove him face first against a wire caged cell holding some drunks. His face started to bleed. They brought him to another room and shackled him to a table.

Interrogation room, Quinn thought. A big mirror took up most of one wall. Two-way, he thought just like the movies. Quinn had been in a room like this before, at fifteen, after the Safeway parking lot. He sat in the chair and tried his best to stay calm. He face hurt.

A detective with a familiar dead-eyed cop look was sitting there.

She noted his face with no an expression. She seemed cold and professional.

The fat man, who came in later, was the other kind. He was angry. Literally spitting mad. He had decided Quinn was one of the shooters. All that remained was a confession to clear up some things.

They questioned him for two hours.

The same questions, rotating, the wheel coming back to the beginning each time: your friends in the trench coats. The guys you were with. How long have you known them. What was the plan. Who gave you the weapon.

He kept his mouth shut. This was the way of the street, a way that he had known as long as he could remember. Not because he had anything to hide, not because cooperation was wrong in principle, but because they had made their position clear that he was one of the shooters and no amount of explanation offered would do any good.

Cops are not your friend. He’d had cause to revise it — the detective after the Safeway had been fair, the DA’s office had looked at the footage and reached correct conclusions — but revision was not elimination. The principle remained the same, and this furious spitting cop making the case for it.