“Sorry, Mike. Rules are rules,” said Chad.
Liz put Shadow’s possessions in a bag in the back room. Chad said he’d leave Shadow in Officer Bute’s capable hands. Liz looked tired and unimpressed. Chad left. The telephone rang, and Liz—Officer Bute—answered it. “Okay,” she said. “Okay. No problem. Okay. No problem. Okay.” She put down the phone and made a face.
“Problem?” asked Shadow.
“Yes. Not really. Kinda. They’re sending someone up from Milwaukee to collect you.”
“Why is that a problem?”
“I got to keep you in here with me for three hours,” she said. “And the cell over there”—she pointed to the cell by the door, with the sleeping man in it—”that’s occupied. He’s on suicide watch. I shouldn’t put you in with him. But it’s not worth the trouble to sign you in to the county and then sign you out again.” She shook her head. “And you don’t want to go in there”—she pointed to the empty cell in which he’d changed his clothes—”because the can is shot. It stinks in there, doesn’t it?”
“Yes. It was gross.”
“It’s common humanity, that’s what it is. The sooner we get into the new facilities, it can’t be too soon for me. One of the women we had in yesterday must’ve flushed a tampon away. I tell ‘em not to. We got bins for that. They clog the pipes. Every damn tampon down that John costs the county a hundred bucks in plumbers’ fees. So, I can keep you out here, if I cuff you. Or you can go in the cell.” She looked at him. “Your call,” she said.
“I’m not crazy about them,” he said. “But I’ll take the cuffs.”
She took a pair from her utility belt, then patted the semiautomatic in its holster, as if to remind him that it was there. “Hands behind your back,” she said.
The cuffs were a tight fit: he had big wrists. Then she put hobbles on his ankles and sat him down on a bench on the far side of the counter, against the wall. “Now,” she said. “You don’t bother me, and I won’t bother you.” She tilted the television so that he could see it.
“Thanks,” he said.
“When we get our new offices,” she said, “there won’t be none of this nonsense.”
The Tonight Show finished. An episode of Cheers began. Shadow had never watched Cheers. He had only ever seen one episode of it—the one where Coach’s daughter comes to the bar—although he had seen that several times. Shadow had noticed that you only ever catch one episode of shows you don’t watch, over and over, years apart; he thought it must be some kind of cosmic law.
Officer Liz Bute sat back in her chair. She was not obviously dozing, but she was by no means awake, so she did not notice when the gang at Cheers stopped talking and getting off one-liners and just started staring out of the screen at Shadow.
Diane, the blonde barmaid who fancied herself an intellectual, was the first to talk. “Shadow,” she said. “We were so worried about you. You’d fallen off the world. It’s so good to see you again—albeit in bondage and orange ~coutur&”
“What I figure is the thing to do,” pontificated bar bore Cliff, “is to escape in hunting season, when everybody’s wearing orange anyway.”
Shadow said nothing.
“Ah, cat got your tongue, I see,” said Diane. “Well, you’ve led us a merry chase!”
Shadow looked away. Officer Liz had begun, gently, to snore. Carla, the little waitress, snapped, “Hey, jerk-wad! We interrupt this broadcast to show you something that’s going to make you piss in your friggin’ pants. You ready?”
The screen flickered and went black. The words LIVE FEED pulsated in white at the bottom left of screen. A subdued female voice said, in voice-over, “It’s certainly not too late to change to the winning side. But you know, you also have the freedom to stay just where you are. That’s what it means to be an American. That’s the miracle of America. Freedom to believe means the freedom to believe the wrong thing, after all. Just as freedom of speech gives you the right to stay silent.”
The picture now showed a street scene. The camera lurched forward, in the manner of handheld video cameras in real-life documentaries.
A man with thinning hair, a tan, and a faintly hangdog expression filled the frame. He was standing by a wall sipping a cup of coffee from a plastic cup. He looked into the camera, and said, “Terrorists hide behind weasel words, like ‘freedom fighter.’ You and I know that they are murdering scum, pure and simple. We’re risking our lives to make a difference.”
Shadow recognized the voice. He had been inside the man’s head once. Mr. Town sounded different from insidehis voice was deeper, more resonant—but there was no mistaking it.
The cameras pulled back to show that Mr. Town was standing outside a brick building on an American street. Above the door was a set-square and compass framing the letter G.
“In position,” said somebody offscreen.