“Then why didn’t they just cut the drugs out of him and be done with it?”

“Because he told them that he knew where they could get more money.”

“Evelyn.”

“It’s what I said earlier.” He turned toward her. “Chuck Finn mentioned in one of his Healing Winds group sessions with Hironobu Kwon that his old boss was sitting on a pile of money. Cut to yesterday morning. Ricardo has a belly full of heroin and Benny Choo beating his ass. His friend Hironobu Kwon says he knows where they can get some cash to buy themselves out of the situation.” Will shrugged. “They go to Evelyn’s. Benny Choo tags along to keep them from doing a runner. Only, they can’t find the money, and Evelyn won’t give it up to them.”

“Perhaps they weren’t expecting to find Hector Ortiz there. Ricardo would recognize his father’s cousin.”

Will wanted to ask what Hector Ortiz was doing at Evelyn’s in the first place, but he didn’t want to make Amanda lie to him right now. “Ricardo Ortiz would know that killing Hector would bring some heat. He’s already turned his back on his own father by smuggling in the heroin. Ling-Ling is out for his blood because she’s found out that Ricardo turned on her, too. Ricardo’s gang can’t find the money in Evelyn’s house. She’s not talking. Ricardo has to see at this point that his life isn’t worth much. He’s packed full of balloons he can’t pass. He’s been beaten nearly to death. Benny Choo’s got a gun to his head.” Will ran through Faith’s statement about her confrontation with Choo and Ortiz. “Ricardo’s last word was ‘Almeja.’ That’s what Julia Ling called Evelyn, right? How would Ricardo know that?”

“I suppose if your theory holds that this all came from Chuck Finn, then that’s where he got it.”

“Why would Evelyn’s name be the last word on Ricardo’s lips?”

“It’s her street name. I’d be surprised if Ricardo knew her real one.” She explained, “It’s not just the bangers who give themselves nicknames. You work narcotics long enough, they come up with something street to call you by. Sometimes, that spills over into the squad. ‘Hip’ and ‘Hop’ were obviously shortened from their last names. Boyd Spivey was Sledge, as in hammer. Chuck Finn was called Fish, I suppose because they couldn’t remember the name for a lemming.” She smiled; another private joke. “Roger Ling took credit for coming up with ‘Almeja,’ which seemed curious at the time until we realized he doesn’t speak a bit of his parents’ language. Mandarin, in case you’re curious.”

“What about you?”

“I don’t work narcotics.”

“But they know you.”

“Wag,” she told him. “Short for Wagner.”

Will didn’t believe her. “Why did Roger Ling ask to speak with me?”

She gave a startled laugh. “You can’t really think that you’re the only man in this prison right now who despises me.”

There was a loud buzz and a clanging of gates opening and closing. Two guards came into the waiting room, followed by a younger man with Harry Potter spectacles and a floppy haircut to match. He was definitely not one of Amanda’s old gals. There were velvet patches on the elbows of his corduroy jacket. His tie was made of a knit cotton. His shirt had a stain over the pocket. He smelled of pancakes.

“Jimmy Kagan,” he said, shaking their hands. “I’m not sure what strings you pulled, Deputy Director, but this is the first time in my six years as warden here that I’ve been called back to work this late at night.”

Amanda had easily transitioned back to her old self. It was like seeing an actor slip into character. “I appreciate your cooperation, Warden Kagan. We all have to do our part.”

“I didn’t have much of a choice,” Kagan admitted, indicating the guards should open the door into the main prison. He led them down a long hallway at a fast clip. “I’m not going to disrupt my entire system no matter who you get on the phone. Agent Trent, you’ll have to go back into the cells. Ling has been in solitary for the last week. You can talk to him through the slot in the door. I’m sure you know the type of person you’re dealing with, but I’ll tell you straight up I wouldn’t be in the same room with Roger Ling if you held a gun to my head. I’m actually terrified that’s going to happen to me one day.”

Amanda raised an eyebrow at Will. “You make it sound as if the primates are running the zoo.”

Kagan gave her a look that said he thought she was either deluded or insane. He told Will, “At any given time in the U.S. penal system, at least half the inmate population have been diagnosed with some kind of mental illness.”

Will nodded. He’d heard the statistic before. All the prisons in the country combined bought more Prozac than any other single institution.

Kagan said, “Some of them are worse than others. Ling is worse than the worst. He should be in a mental ward. Locked down. Throw away the key.”

Another gate opened and closed.

Kagan listed the rules. “Don’t get close to the door. Don’t think you’re safe just because you’re an arm’s length away. This man is very resourceful, and he has a lot of time on his hands. The razor blade we found up his ass was wrapped in a hand-tied pouch Ling made from strings he pulled out of his bedsheets. It took him two months. He braided a Yellow Rebel star into it as some kind of joke. Must’ve dyed it with urine.”

Kagan stopped at yet another door and waited for it to open. “I have no idea how he got the razor blade. He’s in his cell twenty-three hours a day. His yard time is isolated—he’s the only one in the cage. He doesn’t have contact visits, and the guards are all terrified of him.” The door opened and he continued walking. “If it was up to me, I’d leave him to rot in the hole. But it’s not up to me. He’ll be confined another week unless he pulls something awful. And believe me, he is capable of the awful.”

The warden stopped at a set of metal doors. The first one clanged open and they went inside. “The last time we locked him in the hole, the guard who sent him there was attacked the next day. We never found the responsible party, but the man lost one of his eyes. It was plucked out by hand.”

The door behind them shut and the one in front of them banged open.

Kagan said, “We’ll have the cameras on you, Mr. Trent, but I have to warn you that our response time clocks in at sixty-one seconds, just over a minute. We can’t get it any tighter than that. I have a full raid team suited up and on standby if anything happens.” He patted Will on the back. “Good luck.”

There was a guard waiting to take Will through. The man looked filled with the kind of dread you’d see on a death row inmate’s face. It was like staring into a mirror.

Will turned to Amanda. He had broken his silence in the waiting room so that she could coach him on what to say to Roger Ling, but he just now realized she hadn’t offered any advice. “You want to help me here?”

She said, “Quid pro quo, Clarice. Don’t come back without some useful information.”

Will remembered again that he hated her.

The guard motioned him through. The door closed behind them. The man said, “Keep close to the walls. If you see something coming at you, cover your eyes and close your mouth. It’s probably shit.”