The deputy slipped his baton from the ring on his belt and whanged it off the bars an inch from the tattooed man's hand.

'You stick it out there again, I'll break it,' he said.

'Come on, keep my Jell-O tonight and put that sweet thing in here with me,' the man said, his palms wrapped around the bars now, his eyes dancing with malevolence six inches from mine. His body exuded a raw, damp odor like sewer gas.

After the deputy had unlocked Lucas's wrists from the manacles, I saw the fingers on both his hands start to tremble.

'Give me a minute,' I said to the deputy.

'No problem. But I'm going to lock you inside so nobody don't grab one of your parts. You think the smart-ass here on the right's bad? They ain't thought up a name for that 'un on the other side.'

I went into the cell with Lucas and watched the deputy turn the key on us and walk back down the corridor and sit at a small table and take his lunch out of a paper bag.

'I don't care if I cain't remember anything or not, I didn't hurt that girl. I liked her. She always come in there with college kids, but she didn't put on like she was special,' he said.

'Which college kids?' I said.

He sat down on the bunk. A blowfly buzzed over the seatless toilet behind him. Lucas's eyes started to film.

'People she went to school with, I guess. Are they gonna electrocute me, Mr Holland?' he said.

'Texas doesn't have the electric chair anymore. But, no, you won't be tried for capital murder. Just give me some time. We'll get you out of this.'

'How?'

I didn't have an answer for him.

On the way out, I heard the man with the misshaped head and white pot stomach laughing in a high, whinnying voice, mimicking the conversation he'd heard in Lucas's cell: 'They gonna 'lectrocute me? They gonna 'lectrocute me?… Hey, you punk, the black boys gonna take you into the bridal suite and teach you how to pull a train.'