“Disturbing the peace, public drunkenness, assault, assault with a deadly weapon . . . that was only a rock he threw. They got him on GTA but that wasn’t even him. His friend Pickles gave him a ride in a car he said belonged to his uncle. They put Craig in juvenile hall on a nine-month sentence for the one thing he didn’t do. That just made him angrier. I struck up a friendship with the deputy warden, so it wasn’t as bad as it could have been. After that I made Craig think that it was his idea to join the army. I thought it would make him into a man.”

“Did it?” I asked because, even though I thought I knew the answer, I wondered what she would say.

For the first time Lola looked like an honest woman trying her best to tell the truth without defense or manipulation.

“No,” she said. “It only broke him down more. He doesn’t get into trouble too much now, but . . . but it’s all my fault, Easy.”

I could feel the creases in my brow and eyelids.

“What, Easy?”

“We just met, right?”

“Yeah. So?”

“So you don’t know me. I’m just some guy off the street and here you dump, right down on the tabletop, evidence that might could get your son the gas chamber.”

A smile slowly spread across Lola’s generous mouth. That grin contained all the certainty of a mountain goat atop the highest peak. She inhaled deeply and then began to speak.

“A woman like me has to be able to read a man”—she snapped the fingers of her left hand—“like that. It’s not a talent as much as a survival thing, instinct.

“Craig’s a white boy and you can see that he don’t come from nuthin’. And when I say nuthin’ I mean me. I don’t know much, but after a long life of hard knocks I can tell you that most soul brothers will not call a cop unless they absolutely have to. Craig says that you’re a detective. He met you at your office. This could just be a roll of the dice. Maybe you can’t help us. But things will go bad if somebody don’t try somethin’.”

“Why not just let it be?” I asked. “From what Craig says there’s no evidence.”

“That might be fine for you or me, Easy. But Craig is losin’ his mind over it. He can’t sleep. He calls me in the middle’a the night cryin’ and talkin’ nonsense. Two nights ago he said that he was gonna go out and find . . . and find that nigger.”

She reached into the right-hand pocket of the black-and-red house gown and took out a thin fold of a few bills. At least the top one was the hundred-dollar denomination.