“So I guess this means we don’t get to make a phone call?”

Carty got my little joke. “Where do you think you are, Mr. Stone? Canada? They told us to bury you so deep the Chinese would have to dig you out.”

“How ’bout me?” Laura suddenly spoke up. “My mother is expecting to hear from me. That I’m okay. If she doesn’t get a message, she’ll…” She smiled at the irony. “She’ll call the cops.”

Brilliant! Apparently the last thing the cops wanted other cops to know was that we were in police custody. The lieutenant thought about it for a minute, then made an executive decision. “Okay, go ahead and send Mom a text that you’re okay. But just that, okay? Please?”

“Say hello from me,” I added.

After making sure the message Laura sent to “Mom” was sufficiently innocuous, Lieutenant Carty turned to leave. Gunn stopped him and asked in a loud whisper, pointing to me, “What am I s’posed to do with him?”

Carty leaned closer to him and replied in an equally loud whisper, “Your job.”

When Laura was done sending her warning message, she plopped down on the bed. The bedsprings squeaked. She asked me, with enough bravado to be reassuring, “You always take girls to seedy motels on a first date?”

“Of course not,” I admitted. “That’s usually the third date. You should be flattered.”

“Hush now,” Officer Gunn ordered.

“Oh, come on,” I said. If possible, I’d been taught, establish dialogue with your captors. Maybe it was time to wheel out my collection of bad jokes? In a tone dripping with friendliness I suggested, “You know, as long as we’re going to be here for a while, we might as well get along. What’s your name?”

“It’s not important.”

I couldn’t resist. “Okay, now we know what it’s not. The real question is what is it?”

Laura helped me move onto the bed closest to the door. Then she rolled Chair into a corner. Gunn was sitting Western-movie style facing the back of the wooden desk chair at the base of my bed. His crossed arms were resting on the top of the chair back. “I’ll tell you what it is,” he snapped. “It’s none of your business.”

Too easy. “Can I call you ‘nonie’ for short?”

Gunn’s mouth opened and closed like a fish gasping as he searched for a clever response. Giving up, he settled for “You know what? You’re not funny.”

Talk about a meatball. I was getting ready to crush it when Laura admonished, “Rollie. Don’t.” She turned her attention to Gunn, asking pleasantly, “How long have you been a police officer?”

He considered the consequences before answering, finally deciding it was not a trick question. “Just about four years.” Laura got him talking about himself. He had a girlfriend and they’d talked about getting married, but she wanted to wait until she finished at the community college. She was planning on becoming a nurse or a dental hygienist because she liked to help people. So they’d compromised: their Second Life avatars had gotten married. He actually blushed as he acknowledged, “But, you know…”—raising his eyebrows salaciously—“getting together that way isn’t all that much.”