There was the flash of a lighter ahead, the pinpoint red of a cigarette, a puff of soft gray in the deepening dark. "He doesn't like it when I smoke inside," the woman named Yolanda said with a small cough as Jack approached. "Join me for a moment?" She sat comfortably in a large rattan chair beneath a dark green sun umbrella, a round glass table, a large ceramic ashtray. The tattoo he had seen earlier was still visible against pale skin.
"Thanks for finding a place for us here," Jack said, making chitchat. "Merci and I really appreciate it., we didn't have much time to plan. How long have you guys lived in Pacific Grove? Do you own the place?"
It turned out they had been in the Navy, Lucky ending up teaching Slovakian at the language school in Monterey, then when they retired they'd bought this place. "People always want to get married I always tell Lucky."
Beyond her, through the window of the motel office they could make out the head and shoulders of her husband, half-turned away from them, a computer screen arrayed with multi-color photo windows. "Lucky works so hard," Yolanda said. "We have a good life here."
"That's two different things at the same time," Jack thought. It looked like porn on Lucky's computer to him.
Yolanda had a broad three-quarter moon face, circles beneath her eyes that made them bore into you. "Your wife seems really young," the woman remarked bluntly as Jack sat down in a plastic chair opposite. He almost stood back up and walked away.
"We're both young," Jack lied. "Anyhow, it's kind of a special situation. Merci's expecting. But both the families are pretty much behind us though."
"I see. Have you decided what you're going to do?"
No. Not yet. Jack looked glumly down at the weathered wood of the patio table, the thin curl of white smoke that rose from Yolanda's cigarette. "Do you mind if I have one of those?"
Jack took a deep first drag off of the menthol cigarette, the guilt and the bad taste of it sending a shiver through his shoulders as he tried to cover his lie with a little truth. "It'll be fine," he told Yolanda. "We're in love, I really love her." He thought later that she must have already known, that he didn't have six months or whatever but more like six hours. That it wasn't a baby but a bag of shit.
First they took him to the Monterey county, Sheriff's department, booked him, a middle-aged brunette lady with a big butt who looked at Jack with some sympathy and helped him roll his fingers carefully in the boxes. A saint or martyr symbol up above her left breast, in the hollow of her shoulder above her heart.
"I didn't do anything wrong," he whispered to her, "We were going to get married."
"I know," the female deputy replied, not caring. "There's nothing I can do."
Part of it was just the way that the people kept coming at you. Jack had been in jail before, but it had never been this crazy. A holding cell with four mexicans, who, if they could speak, didn't. Crooked letters, very basic, very macho, secret messages on their brown hairless arms. A man in a suit who observed him through the bars for a while, with an expression of great distaste that really made Jack mad. He'd be another cartoon character, possibly a tweetie-bird. After a while you wanted to just hole up, but you never had a chance.
Shortly after that they put him in a van, this time wearing handcuffs, a little later a helicopter, another cell, this one all by himself, in another windowless facility.
"Hey, where are we?" Jack asked one of the cops. It turned out he was back in Berkeley, Alameda County. Yeah, that made sense.
Jack had done fourteen months in Soledad prison one time, the same kind of stupid stuff. It hadn't been enough to teach him any lessons apparently. Your will is not free. That was more than a year lost, a year Jack never counted when he added up his age. Wasted. She'd end up off in another world if it happened to him again.
Not that anyone had ever messed with him, it wasn't like that at Soledad, even as the other prisoners heard about his designs and the cash seemed to roll in he remembered the fucking boring meaninglessness of it.
Hypothetically, Jack thought, even if they let him off on probation or something Alexandria Anderson would for sure probably carry through on her promise to put him out of business, shut down the Inkworks. It didn't matter. Jack had been an outcall scratcher for years, doing whatever anybody wanted, he could start over any time. Sitting on the cell's steel bench Jack blinked at a sudden realization. Unless they kept the kit. Shit, they obviously would. So-called evidence. 450 bucks it would be to him, maybe more.
Well, bottom line. He looked around quickly and then pulled a slim package from behind his ear, a gift from his friend Steve, an aficionado of native techniques, a grooved porcupine quill and a piece of black ink. Maybe it was because of having done time in prison before, he'd always been into tattoos without technology.
Jack boxed his fingers together, looking again in wonder at their intricate sensitivity, before bending them inside out and popping his eight tight knuckles like a surgeon. With these hands he knew he could always land on his feet. Jack smiled grimly, imagining the judge sentencing him to have his hands crushed with a hammer, he'd heard that rendition and torture had been found to be especially effective in domestic terrorism situations like his.
The closest the room had ever come to fun was when they held traffic schools in it. There was still a whiteboard on wheels, a bunch of plastic chairs with foldover desks. The detective motioned Jack to sit down in one of them, leaned on the back of another. Jack looked up at the detective balefully. What more could they really do to him now that they'd caught him?
"We DIDN'T do anything wrong," Jack told the guy. "Can someone go back and take care of Merci's cat?"
"This is no joke," the dude said menacingly. He wore a brown suit jacket that was too little to hold in a shitty personality. "I've got a daughter at home..."
Jack sneered. "Are you sure?" He wasn't prepared for the reaction that his smart-ass comment provoked. The detective, whose name-badge said Andresson, pounced on him, kicking the legs of the chair-desk and slamming it back at an angle against the wall, Jack's feet coming completely off the floor.
"Oh, now, hold on, Mark..." whined the good cop ineffectually. It didn't seem like the good cop was feeling very good towards him either.
"The little piss-ant creep! They pulled a whole jar of his punk dna out of the girl, she's got bruises all over her body from him raping her the whole time, she's obviously in shock. The one pleasure I get in this crappy job is being able to put parasites like this one in San Quentin. I hate fucking creeps like him." It was like he was talking about someone else. It wasn't Jack.
"Now hold on, Mark...I'm sure the man had SOME GOOD REASON for doing what he did to her. Why don't you listen to his side of it."
Was he was supposed to think that telling these fucks how he felt about Merci would help him in any way?
"I also do a lot of swastikas for Nazi dudes like you," Jack observed, still sarcastic despite being scared, helpless in his off-balance position. He tried to turn his knees so the guy couldn't get a straight shot. "How about you, Joey?" Jack asked the other detective, "something to go with that peace symbol from your college days?"
Joey flushed with rage and kicked the tipped chair again, Jack going completely over now, smacking his left wrist hard on something. "You know what they're going to do to this kid?" Joey asked his partner conversationally, still in third-party mode, the two of them standing above where Jack lay on the floor. "Kidnapping AND rape. He's going down, 30-40 years minimum. Chemical castration, for sure. If he's lucky after 10 or 15 they'll let him take a creative writing class where he can bore everybody over and over with how he blew it that one time, back before he was a used-up butt cunt. The kind of low-life-scum."
Could they do that? Jack could feel his insides clench up at the thought. It wasn't as though Joey had ever been on his side. His wrist hurt like hell, but he scrabbled himself upright again, ready to kick the bastard that came the closest. "
"This is screwed, man," he burst out. "I want a lawyer, my phone call. Whatever. What are you charging me with here? I haven't done shit. Stole a guy's front license plate. I want a lawyer. I need to make a phone call." Fuck with Jack Dextra.
At around 3 a man came who put him in another room and asked the same questions all over again. He had the blotched skin of a redhead, an unpleasant pretentious attitude. Jack thought a strawberry on his ass. "Det. Norman" his plastic name badge read. He set a plastic folder down on a table, aligned it carefully with the edges. A little digital recorder, switched on, with a muttered introduction.
"So where did you go following the entry to the Anderson home?" Sitting back in the cell, the throb of his hurt wrist focusing him, he'd been able to think it all through. Jack explained to the guy that he had never been there, how Merci had been bringing her stuff over to the apartment a little bit at a time ever since they had started living together.
"We found this, your FasTrak transponder, in the bushes near the girl's high school. Seems like you were pre-meditating way in advance."
Jack shrugged ruefully--it was Merci, he said. "I was asking her to move it to a different place on the dash of the Jeep. She must have been confused.
"That Jeep had somebody else's license plate on it, they tell me" the detective continued to bore in.
"Did I say something about that before? Honestly, I don't have a clue how that happened," Jack said, scratching his head to show he was puzzled.
"What about this?" It was a traffic camera blow-up showing Jack's Jeep passing through the Bay Bridge Toll Plaza, Jack with a goofy expression on his face, no Merci. "Notice anything missing?"
"Fine. You got me, I have a criminal mind. I told Merci to duck down beneath the dash. She thought it was like a game."
The detective flipped further through the stack of printouts and photos in the folder. Phone records. "I see we have you in Half Moon Bay. At 2:18 she texted her friend Mona Martinez back in Berkeley. Two more short calls from Pacific Grove and Monterey."
"Whatever. What are you charging us with here?" Jack repeated. "Driving down the coast? Roaming charges?" Those bathroom breaks, he thought. Hadn't he specifically told Merci not to do that?
The detective's own cell phone rang ominously. He pulled it from his pocket, looked briefly at the display, a small frown touching his pink face. "Detective Jeff Norman," he said. "Nothing so far. I'm going to. OK, I will."
Jack felt a sudden sting of guilt as he realized he had been so worried about shit that he hadn't thought of Merci for hours. Would they have put her in some kind of women's facility? She might actually be close by. "Where's Merci?"
Well, it wouldn't be long before the Andersons rescued their daughter from custody, if they hadn't already. Jack thought about it. He thought in a way maybe he could be protecting her--it made sense that he should say something that kept her from being portrayed as a criminal or runaway. Jail really turns your thinking backwards, but he knew that hypothetically he would be willing to confess or whatever if it helped her go free. Jack found himself bouncing to his feet in the small cell and spinning around again--as if there was anything he could do about it now.
"They're going to make your life so bloody miserable," the detective answered obscurely. He didn't seem British. "What do you think about kidnapping, the death penalty? That's before they get started on the little things like rape, assault, and burglary. Good luck with it, chum. You'll be arraigned in a few hours, you'll be assigned a lawyer then. I'll see you get your phone call."
They made you make your call from an old-fashion payphone mounted on the wall. Jack had never trusted cell phones or wireless himself, just paranoid I guess, it meant he still remembered a lot of numbers. Dad? He knew the number, but he couldn't call there. "Dad? I'm in jail again..." Sure. 510-776-9898. Merci's oPhone.
"Merci? Don't hang up. It's me."
"Jack?" She was OK, they had bailed her out in Monterey and driven her home. It had been horrible, a big fight with Mom the whole way, how was he? "I'll get you out, I'll get an injunction!"
Even through the jail noise he could hear Merci breathing, the skritch of nails against the blond hair of her forearm as she wondered what to do. The phone was out in the open so you couldn't say anything wrong. "I need you to call up Eve at the shop. I gave her the copy of your release and your drivers license, I need it for my defense." Jack whispered.
"I already did. She says she gave it to the reporter like you told her to." Shit. That obviously wouldn't do any good. Had Notorious Eve chosen this moment to finally backstab him? Jack's mind raced through paranoid fields. "Didn't she make a copy first? Is there any way to get in touch with the reporter?"
"It doesn't matter, Jack. It's like I said to Mom, I'm going to testify that I never came in to see you until I was eighteen, which is true."
"You can't do that. They won't let you. You better stay out of it." "That's what Mom told that TV guy too. She doesn't want me on TV. I don't know why."
Weird. "What's your Dad think?"
"Dad says..." The cop behind the desk called out. "That's your five minutes, buddy. Let the next guy go."
"Listen, Merci, just lay low for now. The least you stay involved the better. You're too young to get a criminal record. I got to go." It was better if he took the heat, Jack thought, though obviously when you looked at it in retrospect that was pretty much the wrong decision.
"Jack?" Through the oPhone, Merci's voice hiccuped with emotion. "I know, baby." he said. "I love you too, even more." Because the way she used his name as a question always made things clear.
It's because I let you down, Jack said over and over to his absent dad. Back in the jail cell, curled up under the little blanket and the buzzing lights for a bunch more hours. And mom. It made him want to suddenly cry, waves of despair, a soreness in his throat.
He dreamed. In Jack's dream he was victorious and even the judge in the case was begging Jack afterwards to inscribe the constitution on his ass. "Every indelible word! It's perfectly indelible!" the old geezer exclaimed, and Jack was telling him urgently how time changes people, and people change laws, did he really want to do that.
A loud noise tore him out of it and Jack sat up gasping. "Court's in session in 15 minutes," a different guard with a clipboard read out. "Dextra, special proceeding, Courtroom B. Harper, Martinez, Perez, Courtroom A." Jack sprang for the little sink, holding the tap open with one hand while he splashed water across his face with the other, stroked back his greasy hair.
In a few minutes they came in and handcuffed him again, this time with his wrists held in front. Jack shuffled through a long hallway surrounded by deputies. He thought if he could get away with it he'd just grab a gun from their holsters and start shooting. It made more sense than seeing this crap through. But he could never get close enough.
"Brace yourself, we're going to be on TV, one of those reality shows," one of the deputies said. They all looked at each other and then at Jack. "Is this reality, then?" he joked back, his first words of the gritty new day. They pushed through a door and across a courtyard in which more than a dozen TV people waited, their cameras and microphones poised.
Seeing Janet Yee from Channel 5 waiting for him was like being knocked in the nuts for breakfast and the barracuda speed with which she bore in on him was even more alarming. From what Merci had told him, the reporter obviously hadn't passed on the evidence of his innocence to the authorities. The deputies took a backward step to expose him fully to the woman's assault. "Mis-ter Dex-tra," the reporter proclaimed, aiming her microphone at Jack like a vindictive wand, reminding him of the similar moment just a few days or hours before, before he and Merce had eloped.
"We eloped," Jack muttered.
"What's that?" Janet Yee said, not even listening, coming even closer and whispering confidentially. "Sorry about that. I didn't have any idea about these clowns." Channel 5's remote crew and Ford van were overwhelmed by the bustling tangle of rented equipment of the hit TV show, "Amber Watch."
They were met at the annex door by a court bailiff. "No cameras, folks. If you want to come in, come in. But no cameras or recording devices, please."
When he saw Merci he was happy again. She was on one of the frontmost of the spectator benches, on the inside side of her dad and separated by him from her mother, who sat on the aisle. But at least she was there. He didn't want to meet Alexandria Anderson's eyes, he wanted to look at Merci instead, but the mother's image kept intervening. Behind her Merci was smiling back, though she looked like she was crying too.
"Even though we've never met, Mrs. Anderson, I feel like we know each other already," Jack quipped, trying to lean towards the woman, his hands still weighted down by the heavy shackles. The deputies jerked him upright, Alexandria Anderson shinking away from Jack and into her husband's ready arms. Jack was shocked by the look of terror on her face. Maybe Yolanda had been right, after all, he was the one who was somehow out of touch.
"Stay away from her, you bastard. You RAPED her daughter!" It was Merci's dad, the old cat from the Inkworks. He wrapped an arm protectively around his wife, his other hand raised, a slim oPhone taking in the scene.
Jack backed away. "No, sir, nothing like that. Merci?" Merci was going, no, Dad, no, nothing like that.
Later they would say that the look on his face showed his guilt, to him the video showed only pain and surprise. And Alexandria Anderson, wearing a trace of smile as the deputies jerked him away and hustled him to the defendant's table.
Jack wondered how much like her mother Merci would turn out to be. Or like her dad, the old cat had suddenly gone mean. Sometimes they would do that.
"First of all," the judge said, "I don't know what it is, showboating or whatever, I want it to stop," He looked sharply down from the bench, over a pair of reading glasses, first at Jack, then at Alexandria Anderson, then at the full benches behind her. "Who are all these people? I understand there is a TV show being filmed today."
A skinny man with a suit jacket, a thin tie rose from the back. "Your Honor, I'm Jim Sands, the director of this project. This is California, sir. This is a cross-section of California citizens who are deeply concerned about justice in our state."
"Spare me. I would like to begin by admonishing...admonishing each and every member of the gallery here to remain absolutely silent during these proceedings. Am I understood? Say, 'Yes, Your Honor.'"
"Second, this is not a trial. It is simply an arraignment hearing, though you will be expected to enter a plea." Now he was speaking directly to Jack. "OK, let's get started."
The prosecution guy went first. It started out with a laugh and went downhill from there. "Completely clear-cut, Your Honor. The suspect has been the subject of complaints for delinquency with a minor before. Served time for a similar offense. It's clear that he entered the Anderson home without permission and stole a large amount of property, and a household pet, a cat, all of which were recovered from suspect's vehicle."
"...the cat only had three legs, Your Honor," he added.
"What? Are you accusing the suspect of mutilating an animal?" the judge asked skeptically.
"That's what it says, Your Honor," the man said helplessly, staring at his paper.
"Your Honor, he always didn't have four legs," Merci burst out from the gallery in a tortured voice.
"Please be still. Thank you. Now that we've established that, can we move on?"
"Your Honor, I want to plead guilty to everything."
Jack swiveled around to look behind his back. Leaning forward on her bench seat Alexandria Anderson smirked triumphantly. Merci looked hopeless and fearful, her father stern. Janet Yee began speaking intently to the person sitting next to her.
"Look, sir, whatever I might have done wrong, I didn't do anything wrong," Jack said. "That's my plea."
He looked the judge straight in the eye. "I never went in the house."
"See what I mean?" the judge asked. "That's 'Not Guilty' in the matter of the Breaking and Entering," he noted to the clerk of the court. "Let's just go through it. Kidnapping, how do you plead?"
"Well, I didn't..." Jack said.
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