I was continually impressed by that deep voice emanating from such a thin body.

“I was looking for a man that my client thought he might have grievously injured,” I said for the fifth or sixth time. “He thought the man’s name was Alonzo but really it was Reynolds Ketch. Both men are now deceased. It was only after the fact that I realized they were involved with the armored car job.”

“The police reports say that your client,” Donahue said, “was also involved in the robbery.”

“Maybe he was. I don’t know. I was informed of that theory after my client had been murdered.”

Donahue was a big son of a bitch. Not Anatole’s size but an intimidating presence still and all. It was a toss-up whom he disliked more—me or skinny Cox.

“Where’s the money?” Cox asked.

“I don’t know.”

“Who ordered the murder of the guards?”

“I have no idea.”

“You understand that the federal government is not afraid of exercising the death penalty.”

“Half the people on the street where I was raised were of the same mind.”

These questions and maybe six or seven like them occupied every moment of every hour that I was shackled to a chair in that room.

The interrogation lasted seven or eight hours. I wasn’t allowed to go to the toilet nor was I given any water, which, thinking back on it, was probably a good thing. I was physically uncomfortable but what bothered me was that they wouldn’t let me make a phone call. Feather would be worried.

When Cox and Donahue gave up for the day I was transferred to a holding cell in the basement of police headquarters.

“I’d like to make a call,” I asked the police escort the FBI agents turned me over to.

They didn’t speak; just brought me to a steel door painted lime green. The door opened, seemingly of its own accord, and the silent cops pushed me through.

There was a prisoner already in the room, sprawled out on one of two cots and reading a Santa Anita racing form.

Hope springs eternal.

He looked up from his studies and said, “This here is my bed.”

I sat on the other and looked around the eight-by-ten cell while my roommate read.

Prison is many things. It’s a daily challenge to survive, a self-contained community awash with potential allies and enemies, and anger, even hatred, so deep that it would have warmed the cockles of hell.

My cellmate was a tan-colored man, his face containing the elements of many races. He was once handsome but a hard life had worn down his features until they only hinted at some underlying humanity.

“What’s your name?” I asked him.