THE TURNKEY WHO HAD been a brig chaser in the Marine Corps walked down the corridor of the Isolation unit and opened up the cast-iron door to Cool Breeze's cell. He bounced a baton off a leather lanyard that was looped around his wrist.

"Mr. Alex says you going back into Main Pop. That is, if you want," he said.

"I ain't got no objection."

"It must be your birthday."

"How's that?" Cool Breeze said.

"You'll figure it out."

"I'll figure it out, huh?"

"You wonder why you people are in here? When you think an echo is a sign of smarts?"

The turnkey walked him through a series of barred doors that slid back and forth on hydraulically operated steel arms, ordered him to strip and shower, then handed him an orange jumpsuit and locked him in a holding cell.

"They gonna put Mr. Alex on suspension. But he's doing you right before he goes out. So that's why I say it must be your birthday," the turnkey said. He bounced the baton on its lanyard and winked. "When he's gone, I'm gonna be jailer. You might study on the implications."

At four that afternoon Alex Guidry stopped in front of Cool Breeze's cell. He wore a seersucker suit and red tie and shined black cowboy boots. His Stetson hung from his fingers against his pant leg.

"You want to work scrub-down detail and do sweep-up in the shop?" he asked.

"I can do that."

"You gonna make trouble?"

"Ain't my style, suh."

"You can tell any damn lie you want when you get out of here. But if I'm being unfair to you, you tell me to my face right now," he said.

"People see what they need to."

Alex Guidry turned his palm up and looked at it and picked at a callus with his thumb. He started to speak, then shook his head in disgust and walked down the corridor, the leather soles of his boots clicking on the floor.

Cool Breeze spent the next day scrubbing stone walls and sidewalks with a wire brush and Ajax, and at five o'clock reported to the maintenance shop to begin sweep-up.