'I don't know. We left Shorty's, you know, that joint on the river. We was kind of making out in my truck… I remember taking off my britches, then I don't remember nothing else.'

I sat down next to him on the bunk. It was made of cast iron and suspended from the wall by chains. A thin mattress covered with brown and yellow stains fit inside the rectangular rim. I picked up his hands in mine and turned them over, then pressed my thumb along his finger joints, all the time watching for a flinch in his face.

'A lady's going to come here this afternoon to photograph your hands. In the meantime don't you do anything to bruise them,' I said. 'Who's the girl?'

'Her name's Roseanne. That's all she told me. She come in with a mess of other people. They run off and left her and then her and me got to knocking back shots. I wouldn't rape nobody, Mr Holland. I wouldn't beat up a girl, either,' he said.

'How do you know?'

'Sir?'

'You don't remember what you did, Lucas… Look at me. Don't sign anything, don't answer any of their questions, don't make a statement, no matter what they promise you. You with me?'

'My father got you to come down here?'

'Not exactly.'

His blue eyes lingered on mine. They were bloodshot and full of pain, but I could see them trying to reach inside my mind.

'You need a friend. We all do at one time or another,' I said.

'I ain't smart but I ain't stupid, either, Mr Holland. I know about you and my mother. I don't study on it. It ain't no big deal to me.'

I stood up from the bunk and looked out the window. Down the street people were coming out of a brick church with a white steeple, and seeds from cottonwood trees were blowing in the wind and I could smell chicken frying in the back of a restaurant.

'You want me to represent you?' I said.

'Yes, sir, I'd sure appreciate it.'

He stared emptily at the floor and didn't look up again.