EARLIER THAT DAY, at 2:27 in the afternoon, Ronnie Bottoms arrived at the third-floor office of Florence Steinmetz—his court-appointed parole officer.
The third floor was only Department of Corrections business. The front desk was tenanted by a burly, florid-faced man dressed in a green corrections department uniform that was a size too small.
“Ronnie Bottoms for Miss Steinmetz,” Ronnie said. “It’s a two thirty appointment.”
The doubtful officer looked down on his daily admittance sheet, tracing it with a cigarette-stained thumb. “I don’t see you.”
“Could you call her office?” Ronnie asked. “She is my PO and I need to know when to come back.”
The big man—his nameplate read TRUMAN—sighed heavily and then picked up his phone. He hit three digits and grunted.
“Yeah,” he said, “Truman here. I got a—What was your name again?”
“Ronnie Bottoms.”
“—a Ronnie Bottoms thinks he’s got a two thirty with Flo.” Truman waited a moment and then said, “Okay. You got it.” He cradled the phone and looked up at Ronnie. “Have a seat, Ronnie. Somebody will be with you in a moment.”
The sentry nodded at a pine chair against the wall next to the door Ronnie was buzzed in through. The would-have-been young killer thought that, even though it was probably locked, he could break that door down if he wanted … and he did want to. There was something in Truman’s tone that told him he was in trouble. It was a timbre he’d often heard in the voices of policemen, schoolteachers, and various criminals, which warned of reprisal for some sin or oversight. It was the same sound Fast Freddie had had in his voice when he sought to dominate Ronnie in the park.
He wanted to run, but instead Ronnie sat in the chair and waited.
In the large room beyond Truman’s chair, people were moving about, and muted voices could be heard. Clicks and buzzes, now and then a recognizable word, and ringing phones sounded at odd moments, and there was a smell of disinfectant in the air. This was another institutional space, like the green room at his old elementary school or his twelve-man cell at Rikers. Rooms like this had been his home for many, many years and though he didn’t like it, he was familiar with the impersonal attitudes and the smell of sterilizing chemicals.
While he was having this minor revelation, a door to Ronnie’s right flung open. Three more uniforms came in at double-step.
“On your feet, Bottoms,” Officer Truman said.
This too, Ronnie thought, was home.
They forced his arms behind his back and handcuffed him even though he offered no resistance.
They flanked him from every side and pushed him into the larger office space, where correction department employees worked at about a dozen desks, keeping the system of parole and reincarceration working.
No one looked up at the prisoner except for a redheaded young woman who seemed surprised. Ronnie gave the woman a wan smile and shrugged.
“Move it!” one of the uniforms said, and Ronnie was shoved through a doorway into an office that he’d been in only one time before.
The woman behind the desk was broad and square from her diaphragm to her shoulders, and she had a blocky face. Her brunet hair was streaked with gray and she wore a jacket that was also brown and gray. Her eyes were an unexpected festive blue. She was fifty or maybe sixty and had not had a good day for some time.
Seeing this woman, another revelation dawned upon Ronnie: Prison guards and administrators spent most of their waking hours in the same spaces that he did. They were all prisoners together.
“Ronnie Bottoms, ma’am,” one of the guards said.
Florence Steinmetz’s face was hard, unforgiving … at first. But as she looked at Ronnie, a question entered through the flesh around her eyes.
“What happened to you?” she asked.
Before he could process the question, someone from behind yanked up on his arm and said, “Answer the woman.”
“Stop that, Martins,” Steinmetz said. “Release Mr. Bottoms and let him sit.”
“But, ma’am—”
“Do as I say. And when you’ve done that, you can wait outside the door.”
“But we can leave it open, right?”
She nodded. The guards unlocked his chains, and Ronnie was allowed to sit in the PO’s visitor’s chair.
He sat, feeling distant from those environs.
“What happened to you?” Florence Steinmetz asked again.
“I don’t know what you mean, Ms. Steinmetz.”
“You look like you lost fifty pounds, and what’s going on with those eyes?”
“Oh, yeah. It’s kinda hard to explain, but I got, I got sick. It was like I couldn’t move or nuthin’ like that. It went on for a long time, and then, then it just went away. But how come you’re arrestin’ me?”
“You were supposed to report here last week.”
“Oh.” He had lost track of time. Somehow between the Silver Box, Ma Lin, the construction worker, and the Laz, a week had passed. “I didn’t realize that. I thought this was supposed to be my second visit.”
“That’s a pretty lame excuse, wouldn’t you say?”
“More like paralyzed.”
Steinmetz allowed a quick smile to escape her lips, and Ronnie realized that he might not have to go to jail, that maybe he would make his dinner date with Freya Levering.
“You were really sick?”
“I swear I thought I was gonna die.”
“I suppose you haven’t found a job yet?” Steinmetz said.
“No, ma’am.”
“There’s a new barbecue place on Eighth up near Pennsylvania Station,” she said. “Farnham’s Pork House. They said that they’d take one of my guys. Would you like that job?”
“Sure … I mean, yeah.”
“Come over here and let me see that eye.”
Ronnie went around the desk and allowed his PO to spread open his eyelids with her thumb and forefinger.
“It’s not a contact.”
“No, ma’am. It’s been like that since after I got sick.” This was only technically a lie.
“Did you go to a doctor?”
“When I was sick, I couldn’t get up, and when I was better it didn’t seem like I needed to.”
* * *
ON THE WALK up to Lorraine’s condo, Ronnie contemplated his luck.
In the two and a half decades leading up to the Silver Box, his entire lifetime, Ronnie could always rely on his luck—his bad luck. Whatever could go wrong did go wrong. “If he was climbing out the window of an apartment he’d just robbed, there was a cop coming around the corner of the alley below. If he loved somebody, they either died like his mother or betrayed him like most girlfriends he’d had. If he beat somebody in a fight, they had bigger brothers. If he lost a battle, the victor always kicked him when he was down.”
But now his luck had changed.
The Silver Box and Lorraine had not only saved his soul from a murder rap but also given him a smidgen of good luck. He didn’t break down the door to get away from Officer Truman and so left open the possibility that Ms. Steinmetz might show him leniency. He got a job at the barbecue place with just a phone call. Now he was going to meet a woman who had a job, an education, and a rolling gait that made him smile.
He had eight hundred dollars in his pocket and no desire to spend it. He hadn’t been high for many days, and so the urine test at the PO’s office wouldn’t get him into trouble.
Ronnie laughed out loud, and people on the street quickened their steps to avoid his madness.