“O-kie do-kie,” he said to her. “Let’s head ’em up and move ’em out.”

Passman squinted at him from her supine position on the floor.

“I can’t,” she said.

He clicked her a giddy-up out of the side of his mouth.

“I’m not going anywhere until you at least undo my ankles.” She meant it.

Her dress was pushed up to her padded hips and she could do nothing about it. He was staring. She knew if she lost her temper again, it would only ensure further bondage.

“Please undo my ankles so I can get out,” she said again.

“Pretty please with sugar on top?”

She thought she recognized his voice, then was certain.

“You’re unit 452,” she said.

“Guess I’m famous. Now I’m gonna cut off these flex cuffs, but you so much as twitch and I’m gonna keep you busy.”

She did not know his name, but one thing Passman did know was voices. She had total recall when it came to words uttered on the air by hundreds of units she never saw. Unit 452 cut off the flex cuffs with a pocketknife and the feeling rushed back to her feet in swarms of tiny pins. She worked her way to the open rear of the van, her skirt hiking higher, far above the brown tops of her panty hose, up to the waistband. He stared, chomping gum. She inchwormed her way to the ground.

Unit 452 pushed a button on the wall to open the door to lockup, and on his way in used a key from his snap holder to secure his pistol inside the gun safe. He got out another key, this one tiny, and unlocked her handcuffs.

“Unit 452,” Passman mimicked him. “Go ahead, 452. I’m 10-7 2600 block of Park. Ten-4, 452. That’d be the Robin Inn, for a meal. Uh, 10-4 . . .”

“You!” Unit 452 was shocked and deeply offended. “You’re the one! That bitch in the radio room!”

“You’re that dumb shit who’s always hiding out at Engine Company Number Nine playing your fucking nut-less puzzle games. Tetris Plus, Q*Bert, Pac Man, Boggle!” Passman accused.

“What, what?” Unit 452 stammered.

Passman had him.

“Everyone knows,” she went on as Deputy Sheriff Reflogle took the arrest sheets from unit 452 and began to search Passman.

“Looks like you’re getting the book thrown at you, girl,” Reflogle said. “Must’ve been a bad time at home to act out like this.”

Passman wasn’t listening.

“You’re a joke in the radio room!” she railed on to Unit 452. “B is boy, not bravo, and H is Henry, not hotel, you shit dick! What do you think you are, an airplane pilot?”

“Now you quiet down,” Deputy Reflogle said to her as he fished eight quarters out of her skirt pockets.

He rolled Passman’s fingers on an ink pad and transferred her loops and whirls to a ten-print card. He took mug shots. He asked her about aliases. He asked about a.k.a’s in case she didn’t know what aliases were. He locked her inside a holding cell. It was not much bigger than a locker, a hard bench to sit on, a small square screen to see through. She ate cherry Jell-O, cottage cheese and fish sticks for lunch.