“Protect her,” Roland was saying, nodding, accepting the idea. “Keep all these dinks away from her who want to get in her little panties. All right, I guess I can do that.”

Vivian came back with the envelope and handed it to him, saying, “Roland”-reading his mind, which wasn’t difficult-“while you’re protecting her little panties, don’t try to get in them yourself. I told you, she’s a very good friend of Ed’s.”

“We’re all friends,” Roland said, ripping open the envelope, “that’s why we get along so good.” He looked at the money, counting through it quickly, then at Vivian. “I don’t get any extra? Shit, I just did six months at Butler, hard time, lady, and I pick up my paycheck as usual, huh?”

“Join a union,” Vivian said. “What’re you complaining to me for? You got eighteen thousand dollars there, back pay for your six months.”

“The way I see it, chopping weeds at Butler is worth more than that,” Roland said. “Way more.”

DURING THE TIME Maguire was being held in the Wayne County Jail, downtown Detroit, he’d say to himself, If I get out of this-sometimes even beginning, Please, God, if I get out of this I’ll change, I’ll get a regular job, I’ll stay away from people like the Patterson brothers and never fuck up again as long as I live. At least not this bad.

Sitting there in his cell facing something like 15 to 25, Jesus, the scaredest he’d ever been in his life.

While over at the prosecutor’s office they could push computer buttons and Maguire would appear in lights on the desk-set screen.

CALVIN A. MAGUIRE, Male Caucasian, a date of birth that made him thirty-six, tattoo on his upper left bicep, Cal, in blue and red, a list of arrests going back eleven years, one in Florida, but no convictions.