A smirk. “You es crazy. I thin’ the heat is too much for your head.”

“This is the thing, Germando.” I gave him a venal smile. “Fedek is going to take you down. You know how I know this? Because I’m going to offer him a deal: immunity in the Sarah Sanders rape case to testify against you. That means, Germando, you’re not going to serve your five to seven here in Cochise, which is primarily for drug dealers. You’re going to the big-time asshole reamers.”

“This is what she wants,” Brill said. “I got other ideas. You interested in hearing about them?”

El Paso was silent. But his jumpy eyes told the story.

“Guess not,” Brill said.

We both got up at the same time.

El Paso didn’t move or speak.

We waited. Finally, I called out for the guard.

Still nothing.

The guard came.

Germando waited until the key was actually in the lock, the guard about to let us out, before he caved in. He said, “Wait a min … I listen.”

My voice dripped contempt. “You had your chance, Germando. You blew it!”

“Wait, wait, wait!” He bolted up. “I listen now!”

“Sit down!” Brill ordered.

El Paso sat. “I listen now,” he repeated. Chastened to the core.

Brill blew out air and looked at me. “What do you think?”

“I think we should leave! I didn’t want to come here in the first place.”

“Well, we’re here,” Brill said. “Might as well talk to him.” He looked at the guard. “Sorry to bother you.”

“No problem.” The khaki-uniformed guard walked away.

We took up our seats at the table, all of us sipping what tasted like slag water. Brill turned to me. “Go.”

“Me?”

“Yeah, you.”

“Okay,” I said, “there was once this retarded girl—”

“I don’ do nothin’.”

“You gonna let me finish?”

He was silent.

“There was once this retarded girl,” I told him. “She was gang-raped and her retarded boyfriend was beaten up and left in a garbage can for trash collection.” I leaned over. “If the DA offers Fedek a chance to drop a charge of attempted murder on a cop in exchange for a single count of rape and testimony about the others who were there, guess what Fedek’s going to do?”

“I no touch her!”

“So this is what I want you to do,” I said. “I want you to tell us about the rape.”

“What do I get?”

“First we have to hear your story,” Brill said. “But before we hear you, we’ve got to let you know that you can have an attorney present because we will use whatever we want to use from your statement. But once you get your attorney, the control factor moves from us to your lawyer. Then things start slipping away because that means we’ve got to bring in our lawyers. Then it’s the lawyers talking to lawyers instead of us talking to you.”

“I don’ need no lawyer. Look what happen when I have a lawyer.”