4:02 p.m.

I was back on the women’s tier at Central Station. My first visit was eleven days ago. I’d improvised at the Paul Robeson concert, in an effort to force a meeting with Claire. She was in the adjoining cell now, withdrawing from her narcotics habit at a spiraling rate. Our male comrades were on the men’s tier. Hideo Ashida was probably upstairs at the crime lab, or off subverting justice for Dudley Smith.

The women’s tier was packed with Japanese women. They sat on their bunks just like their comrades did eleven days earlier. Pearl Harbor was twelve days ago. Did the world exist before it?

I watched Claire thrash. We had been here for nearly six hours; we’d been fingerprinted and forced to change into jail smocks. A Sheriff’s matron named Dot Rothstein watched us undress. She was the largest butch I’d ever seen—Andrea Lesnick had told me about her. She wore Sheriff’s greens, with beavertail saps stashed in the trouser-slit pockets. She chewed Beemans pepsin gum, vigorously.

My purse had been confiscated. Dot Rothstein saw Claire shivering, and snatched her overcoat. I knew of the impending raid, and assumed that the Feds had warned off Saul Lesnick. I burned my movie, and destroyed that evidence trail. I saved two film strips. They were tucked into a small rip in the lining of my purse.

Claire thrashed. I reached through the bars and stroked her hair. We’d been booked for reckless endangerment and placed on a Federal hold. Ed Satterlee kept strolling down the tier. He told us that the real charges would be determined by a Federal grand jury. “You’re looking at a gas-chamber bounce—so I’d advise you to cooperate.”

I felt weightless. It was like the time I had measles and ran off during a blizzard. I was nine years old. My fever broke while I played in the snow. My father found me a few blocks from home, dressed in a nightgown. I wasn’t shivering or sweating. My father believed me to be possessed from that moment on.

Claire burrowed into her pillow. Two women meet in a doctor’s office nine days ago. A woman lights a woman’s cigarette—and now we’re here.

Claire slid down the mattress. Her smock was soaked through; it was dark wet from the hem to the neckline. I gripped the bunk ledge and sat there, facing the Japanese women. They all turned away from me.

My hands numbed on the ledge; I was grasping a sharp metal surface. A piece snapped off in my hands. I released my grip and snapped it back into place. I’d gouged my fingers near bloody.

I paced the cell. I counted out one hundred bar-to-wall trips. I thought of Bucky and Scotty.

Ed Satterlee walked up. He said, “Hello again, Katherine.”

I walked to the bars and faced him. I said, “Call me ‘Comrade.’ ” Satterlee laughed. I said, “Get Miss De Haven a doctor.”

“Any doctor we come up with would make her suffer through it. This isn’t supposed to be easy. If she cops to a few Federal charges, though, I might find her some stuff that she’d like.”

I said, “Habeus, you cocksucker. You have to let us make bail.”

“Not for sixty-five hours and fourteen minutes, ‘Comrade.’ We’ve got that much more time to make you feel antsy. You’ll be snitching your dipshit granddad back in Sioux Falls by this time on Sunday.”

I said, “You’re a limp fuck, Ed. You’ve never been laid.”

Satterlee smiled, oh so bored. “I’ve got a niece your age, back in Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin. She reminds me of you, without the pretense. Prairie du Chien was too small for her. She didn’t know what to do, so she ran off with an eye-talian guy and got knocked up.”

“Give me a cigarette. I’ll be more inclined to talk if you do.”

Satterlee shook his head. “I’m not in the mood to be nice. I think you were the one who torched the film in that trailer. Normally, I’d look to the men, but not with these guys. It’s bees where the women rule the roost, right? That’s why I’m looking to you and Claire, and she doesn’t seem like the firebug type right now.”

I said, “Habeus, Ed. Monday morning at 10:00.”

Satterlee shook his head. “You can’t bluff your way out of this one. You’re in superseding Federal custody, and you can’t flash some toy badge and say you’re a cop’s girlfriend.”

I flashed my right middle finger. Satterlee feigned amusement and walked off. I stretched out on my bunk and held an arm over my eyes. The ceiling lights threw down a red haze.

It felt like I was back in that blizzard. The red haze was just like Sioux Falls in the snow. I heard key-in-lock and sliding-metal sounds. I opened my eyes and saw Dot Rothstein sitting on the edge of the bunk.

She said, “Sweet dreams, cupcake?”

I said, “Call me ‘Comrade.’ ”

She said, “That’s a hard girl’s name. You’re not a hard girl. You’re a sweetie pie.”

She placed a hand on the mattress. She wore signet rings on three fingers. Her right knee brushed the bed rail. She carried a sap in that trouser-leg pocket. The handle sat flush on her calf.

I smelled Beemans pepsin chewing gum and Butch Wax. I watched her eyes, I watched her hand.

She said, “You’re a soft girl.”

She put her hand on my knee. She ran it slowly up my thigh. She leaned in and opened her mouth to kiss me. I opened my mouth and ran a hand up her leg, toward the sap. She shifted as she pressed down on me. I moved my hand to the bunk ledge and pulled that piece of loose metal free.

Her mouth was wide open. Chewing gum was stuck to her teeth. Our lips were in close. I gripped the mock shiv and brought my arm up.

I stabbed her in the arm. I stabbed her in the side. I stabbed her in the back. I held on to the shiv as she shrieked and punched straight down. My nose snapped—red, black, red. Blood blew into my eyes.

I rolled off the bunk. I stabbed her in the leg as my back hit the floor. She shrieked male falsetto. Her blood was all over the shiv. I gripped it that much harder. The mock blade cut my hand.

She rolled off the bunk and fell on top of me; she pinned me to the floor with her knees. She cocked her right fist and punched straight down.

I flailed. Her fist hit the floor. The blow carried her full weight.

Bones shattered. I heard it.

She shrieked. I stabbed her in the shoulder, I stabbed her in the back. She kept pressing down on me. I felt a rib snap. It’s another kiss, her head’s coming down, open your mouth.

She opened her mouth.

I opened my mouth.

I reached up and showed her my tongue.

She shut her eyes for the kiss.

I bit off her nose and spit it back in her face.

She shrieked and rolled off of me. She rubbed blood from her eyes and shrieked. I stood up and kicked her where her nose used to be; I stabbed her in the back, the arms, the legs. She shrieked and tried to pull herself under the bunk. I pulled the sap off her leg and smashed her hands on the ledge. She sobbed something like “Ruthie.”

I blinked away blood. Men made male noises and ran down the tier. Dot sobbed for Ruthie and crawled away from me.