“I got to say, I don’t like you for this one at all.”

“Then what am I here for?” I asked him.

He made his eyes go sad, showing he was disappointed in me. It was a good trick. A guy who’s been around as long as him, he probably knew a lot of them.

We’d already been sitting in the interrogation room for a couple of hours when he did that. Maybe it was part of his act, I don’t know. But it was as clear as if somebody wrote the rules on the wall for us all to see: As long as I didn’t say the magic words, we were going to play it like men. No disrespect, not in either direction.

Those magic words could only come out of my mouth. Door Number One: “I want a lawyer.” Door Number Two: “Yeah, you got me.”

I tell them I want a lawyer, they’d give me a look like I’d just screwed myself, cuff me back up, and have one of the bluecoats walk me into a holding cell.

But if I started talking, they’d hold off until they squeezed as much juice out of the lemon as they could. Say I told them I wanted a deal. They’d tell me that I could get damn near whatever I wanted… depending on what I had to trade.

The way they were working me, walking so soft, that was just to stop me from asking for a lawyer. Good cops-I don’t mean like they were good guys, just good at their job-they think the same way we do. They know if you get all impatient you can mess everything up.

So they stayed decent and respectful, like I said. Not kissing my ass or anything; making it just three men, talking. The way they’d figure it, so long as they could keep me talking, talking about anything, there was always the chance I’d take Door Number Two. Or stumble through it.

They had to know it was a-thousand-to-one against them getting me to confess. And I knew it was even worse odds against me convincing them they’d grabbed the wrong guy.

A weak hand, sure. Who hits a gutshot straight-flush draw? But I wasn’t drawing dead, not yet.