“Attempted burglary. But it’s a ghastly mistake. I didn’t do anything.”

“Me, neither,” she said, loudly, so the cop on duty could hear. “I was just shopping for underwear.”

Yeah, right. If she was wearing underwear, I was wearing the Hope diamond.

“I can’t help it if some stranger started feeling me up in the parking lot. Right, honey?”

“Uh, right,” I said, not wanting to offend a six foot tall hooker whose fingernails would qualify as lethal weapons in an airport security check.

As the minutes sped by like hours, Desiree and I struck up a friendship. She told me about her ex-husband, a charming fellow who liked to shoot rats at the city dump, and I told her about The Blob, and how his rear end was surgically attached to our Lazy-Boy. We both agreed we were much better off single.

It turned out that Desiree’s real name was Martha Dubyk, and that her lifelong dream was to become a professional psychic.

“I’ve got a real gift,” she said. “I can see the future clear as if it was on TV.”

“Is that so?”

“I worked at the Psychic Hotline for a while, but you make more money at phone sex.”

Who says jail isn’t educational?

“Some day when I’ve saved up enough dough, I’m gonna open a little salon on Sunset Plaza, where the rich people go. I’m gonna be a Psychic to the Stars.”

Then she sidled up to me, so close I could smell the Juicy Fruit on her breath.

“In fact,” she whispered, “I once gave a reading to Mr. X.” She named a Hollywood star famous for his action flicks. “Of course, I was on my back at the time. But he was very impressed.”

“I’m sure he was.”

“Say, how about I do you?”

For a frightening minute, I thought she was propositioning me. But then I realized she merely wanted to predict my future.

She took my hands in hers, the better to feel my “emanations,” and, after much sighing and hand squeezing, told me that I’d soon be hearing from my long-lost sister, that my parents wanted me to know they were well and happy in heaven, and that I was about to take up a career in the medical profession.

“Wow. That’s amazing,” I said.

And it was. She got absolutely everything wrong. For one thing, I don’t have a sister. For another, as you well know, my parents are alive and nutty in Tampa Vistas. And just the thought of going to the doctor’s office for a routine checkup gives me the heebie jeebies.

I just hoped she kept her day job.

We shot the breeze a while longer. I told Desiree about my life as a writer of industrial brochures, and Desiree told me how to make a guy reach orgasm in thirty seconds or less.

Finally, a cop came over to our cell and said I was free to go. Lt. Webb had called and vouched for me. I bid Desiree a fond farewell and headed outside to breathe the fresh air of freedom.