Nick nodded.
"If you go back there, stay out of their reach. If any of em tries playin sick, don't you fall for it. It's the oldest dodge in the world. If one of em should get sick, Doc Soames can see them just as easy in the morning. I'll be in then."
Nick took his pad from his pocket and wrote: "I appreciate you trusting me. Thanks for locking them up & thanks for the job."
Baker read this carefully. "You're a puredee caution, boy. Where you from? How come you're out on your own like this?"
"That's a long story," Nick jotted. "I'll write some of it down for you tonight, if you want."
"You do that," Baker said. "I guess you know I put your name on the wire."
Nick nodded. It was SOP. But he was clean.
"I'll get Jane to call Ma's Truck Stop out by the highway. Those boys'll be hollering police brutality if they don't get their supper."
Nick wrote: "Have her tell whoever brings it to come right in. I can't hear him if he knocks."
"Okay." Baker hesitated a moment longer. "You got your cot in the corner. It's hard, but it's clean. You just remember to be careful, Nick. You can't call for help if there's trouble."
Nick nodded and wrote, "I can take care of myself."
"Yeah, I believe you can. Still, I'd get someone from town if I thought any of them would - " He broke off as Jane came in.
"You still jawing this poor boy? You let him go on, now, before my stupid brother comes along and breaks them all out."
Baker laughed sourly. "He'll be in Tennessee by now, I guess." He whistled out a long sigh that broke up into a series of phlegmy, booming coughs. "I b'lieve I'll go upstairs and lie down, Janey."
"I'll bring you some aspirin to cut that fever," she said.
She looked back over her shoulder at Nick as she went to the stairs with her husband. "It was a pleasure meeting you, Nick. Whatever the circumstances. You be just as careful as he says."
Nick bowed to her, and she dropped half a curtsy in return. He thought he saw a gleam of tears in her eyes.
A pimply, curious boy in a dirty busboy's jacket brought three dinner trays about half an hour after Nick had gotten down to the jail. Nick motioned for the busboy to put the trays on the cot, and while he did, Nick scribbled: "Is this paid for?"
The busboy read this with all the concentration of a college freshman tackling Moby Dick. "Sure," he said. "Sheriff's office runs a tab. Say, can't you talk?"
Nick shook his head.
"That's a bitch," the busboy said, and left in a hurry, as if the condition might be catching.
Nick took the trays in one at a time and pushed each one through the slot in the bottom of the cell door with a broomhandle.
He looked up in time to catch " - chickshit bastard, ain't he?" from Mike Childress. Smiling, Nick showed him his middle finger.
"I'll give you the finger, you dummy," Childress said, grinning unpleasantly. "When I get out of here I'll - " Nick turned away, missing the rest.
Back in the office, sitting in Baker's chair, he drew the memo pad into the center of the blotter, sat thinking for a moment, and then jotted at the top:
Life History
By Nick Andros
He stopped, smiling a little. He had been in some funny places, but never in his wildest dreams had he expected to be sitting in a sheriff's office, deputized, in charge of three men who had beaten him up, and writing his life story. After a moment he began to write again:
I was born in Caslin, Nebraska, on November 14, 1968. My daddy was an independent farmer. He and my mom were always on the edge of getting squeezed out. They owed three different banks. My mother was six months pregnant with me and my dad was taking her to see the doctor in town when a tie rod on his truck let go and they went into the ditch. My daddy had a heart attack and died.
Anyway, three months after, my mom had me and I was born the way I am. Sure was a tough break on top of losing her husband that way.