Unit 452 pushed a button on the wall to open the door to lockup, and on his way in used a key from his snap holder to secure his pistol inside the gun safe. He got out another key, this one tiny, and unlocked her handcuffs.
‘Unit 452,’ Passman mimicked him. ‘Go ahead, 452, I’m 10-1 2600 block of Park. Ten-4, 452. That’d be the Robin Inn, for a meal. Uh, 10-4…’
‘You!’ Unit 452 was shocked and deeply offended. ‘You’re the one! That bitch in the radio room!’
‘You’re that dumb shit who’s always hiding out at Engine Company Number Nine playing your fucking nutless puzzle games. Tetris Plus, Q.Bert, Pac Man, Boggle!’ Passman accused.
‘What, what?’ Unit 452 stammered.
Passman had him.
‘Everyone knows,’ she went on as Deputy Sheriff Reflogle took the arrest sheets from unit 452 and began to search Passman.
‘Looks like you’re getting the book thrown at you, girl,’ Reflogle said. ‘Must’ve been a bad time at home to act out like this.’
Passman wasn’t listening.
‘You’re a joke in the radio room!’ she railed on to Unit 452. ‘B is boy, not bravo, and H is Henry, not hotel, you shit dick! What do you think you are, an airplane pilot?’
‘Now you quiet down,’ Deputy Reflogle said to her as he fished eight quarters out of her skirt pockets.
He rolled Passman’s fingers on an ink pad and transferred her loops and whirls to a ten-print card. He took mug shots. He asked her about aliases. He asked about a.k.a’s in case she didn’t know what aliases were. He locked her inside a holding cell. It was not much bigger than a locker, a hard bench to sit on, a small square screen to see through. She ate cherry Jell-O, cottage cheese and fish sticks for lunch. ‘
The magistrate’s office for the city of Richmond was on the first floor of the police department, past the information desk and in close proximity to lockup and Sally Port 1.
It was not quite four o’clock in the afternoon. Vince Tittle wasn’t feeling good about his job or life. It wasn’t hard to look back and see where he had cracked the glass, chipped the china, scorched the sweet milk in the pot. He had succumbed to a favor. He had sold his soul for an office that looked very much like a tollbooth.
Tittle had not always thought the worst about himself. Until four years ago he had enjoyed a fulfilling career as a photographer at the morgue. He had been proud of taking pictures perfectly to scale. He had been a magician with lighting and shutter speeds. His art went to court. It was viewed by prosecutors, defense attorneys, judges and juries.
The chief medical examiner adored him. Her deputy chiefs and the forensic scientists did, too. Defendants hated him. Tittle’s lust for justice was what got him into trouble. His road to hell began when Tittle joined the Gentleman’s Bartering Club, which included hundreds of people with training, skills and talents that Tittle couldn’t always afford. He took family portraits, and photos for Christmas cards, calendars, graduations and debutante balls, swapping his skills for virtual cash minus a ten percent commission that went to the club.
Tittle rarely shopped in reality after that. He could take wedding pictures, for example, and earn a thousand virtual dollars, which in turn he might virtually spend on roof repair. Tittle was addicted to his camera. Soon he became virtually wealthy, which is how he met Circuit
Court Judge Nicholas Endo, who was at war with his wife and losing.
Judge Endo believed Mrs. Endo was having an affair with her dentist, Bull Ehrhart, and wanted to catch her in the act. Tittle would never forget what Judge Endo said to him one night when they were drinking bourbon in the clubhouse.
‘Vince, you’ve got virtually everything a man could want,’ said the judge as he paid five virtual dollars for a drink that was real. ‘But there’s got to be one thing in this club you can’t buy, and I bet I damn well know what it is.’
‘What?’ Tittle said.
‘You love court. You love the law,’ said the judge. ‘Taking photographs of stiffs is getting boring. Has to be. Should always have been, Vince.’