The guard at the first checkpoint didn’t give any sign of recognizing my name. He passed me on to the next station, and I was finally admitted to the visitors’ waiting room. It was CO Cornish who was assigned to escort me from there to the visitors’ lounge.

He tried to greet me jovially. “Couldn’t stay away, huh?”

I grunted noncommittally. I had filed a suit against the Department of Corrections for inflicting grievous bodily harm, and against Polsen and Hartigan by name. Cornish would probably be called as a witness; I didn’t need to alienate him.

Miss Ruby was waiting for me in the visitors’ lounge. “So you made it out, Cream. Made it out and now you’ve come back. You’re a kind of hero around here, do you know that? The girls know it’s because of you they kicked out Wenzel and Polsen and Hartigan. They closed that T–shirt factory too, but I suppose you know that.”

I knew that. A report in this morning’s financial section announced that Global was returning their sewing operations to Myanmar. I guess it made me happy to know that the Virginwear line was now being made by inmates in Myanmar’s forced labor camps instead of inmates in an Illinois prison.

“They’re still making things here, but not for Hollywood anymore, so production is way down. It’s hard on the women who got let go; they don’t speak English and they can only get work in the kitchen now, which doesn’t pay as well. But I think they appreciate not having to work in that atmosphere over there. Everyone was too scared all the time. So I guess you are a hero, at that.”

“You sound bitter. I didn’t set out to be a hero.”

“No, but you were undercover. I asked you point–blank and you lied. You might have told me when you came to me asking for help.”

“I really was arrested. Just as I told you, because Robert Baladine accused me of kidnapping his son. The cops sent me out here because I got arrested on a holiday weekend. I decided to stay to try to find out what happened to poor young Nicola. I didn’t dare tell a soul. Not just to protect myself: you have a lot of influence here with the other women, and even the guards mostly treat you with respect, but you’re here and you’re vulnerable. I didn’t want harm to you to haunt me for the rest of my life.”

She thought it over and finally, grudgingly, decided maybe I hadn’t abused our relationship. I stayed to tell her the whole story, the story I’d given to the press. She liked having an insider’s look at the news, and she especially enjoyed hearing about my confrontation with Baladine and Lemour at St. Remigio’s.