Bull's Eye: Confessions of a Fake Psychic Detective #3

Chapter 1

His voice is always slightly deeper after he smokes a cigarette. He's not leaving for a bathroom break like he says over his radio. He's smoking behind the jail.

Zandra watches the guard from within her cramped jail cell, just as she's done for the past week. It's probably illegal, but she's yet to have a hearing in front of judge. No charges, no nothing. Just a bunk bed and a sink to piss in. The toilet keeps backing up. The plumbers are all busy, the guard told her.

So are the judges, apparently.

She tried the line about her "one phone call." It's a myth, as she came to find out. Jails are full of innocent people, according to the law, so there's an infinite number of phone calls a person can make. In her case, "infinite" equals zero, a difference only of perspective. The phones, she was told, are out of service anyway. 

"But how am I supposed to get a lawyer?" she'd said, thinking of Herman but remembering how the police broke him in half.

"What do you need a lawyer for?" the guard had said. "You haven't been charged with anything."

Nothing about that is legal, but Zandra is, if nothing else, special. There's the special location of her jail cell, out of sight from the others, and the special way the guard looks at her while she squats above the sink. There's the special napkin tucked beneath each tray of food from a restaurant Gene owns. That's to say nothing of the special bunk searches every six hours.

So she drowns out the monotony by focusing on the guard's lighter printing against his pocket, as she has since she arrived. It's in part to pattern him for later, but also to keep the throb of withdrawal at bay. She hasn't had a cigarette in over a week, and she's ready to gnaw through the bars to get one.

"You keep looking at me like that," the guard says from his chair beside Zandra's cell and places a hand over his groin. "Maybe you need something?"

Might as well give this a try.

"How about a smoke?" Zandra says in a croak.

The guard grins. It's the highlight of his day.

"They said that's what'd break ya," the guard says and pulls a pack of filtered 100s from his pocket.

They?

"I'm only human," Zandra says. She rises from her bed but keeps her distance from the bars.

"I heard you were a little more than human," the guard says. "You're the psychic, the famous one."

"Are there other kinds of psychics?"

"Guess not, 'cause otherwise who the hell would care who you were?"

"Does anyone care who you are?" Zandra says.

The guard looks surprised by her quick retort. He puts the pack back in his pocket. "There's no smoking in jails. State law."

"Like you care what the law is," Zandra says and sits back down on the bed.

"You're one to talk," the guard says.

"Speak for yourself," Zandra says.

That badge on your chest is the only thing separating my bullshit from yours. Crimes are always relative to whoever is in power.

"Hey, we're doing you a favor by keeping you in here, OK? It's for your own good. People out there want you dead. If you just walked out of here like anyone else, you could be killed," the guard says.

The people keeping me in here want me dead, too. What's the difference?

"Prove it," Zandra says.

"Be careful what you wish for," the guard says and jiggles a set of keys.

"Right now I'm wishing I was looking at a cherry and not you," Zandra says, referring to the lit end of a cigarette. But even more than that, she wishes that the movement she glimpses out of the corners of her eyes confirmed the man she saw earlier.

Are you still there, David? You saw me, didn't you?

"Let's pretend I'm feeling generous and I make that happen. What do I get?" the guard says. "Maybe I slip something between the bars and you show me how bad you want that cigarette. How about that?"

Disgusting.

"Wouldn't you rather know your future instead?" Zandra says. She studied other guards over the past week, but this one practically bled dirt.

"Depends. What's in it?" the guard says.

"You're going to open this cell and let me out of here. Want to know more?" Zandra says. She rises once again and shuffles to the bars, this time well within reach of the guard. It's a signal she can be trusted, even if the guard doesn't realize it.

It's all part of the dance.

The guard chuckles through his nose. "Fat chance."

"Believe it. And I know a lot more than just that," Zandra says with the heft of a doctor delivering bad news.

That gets the guard's attention. He produces the pack from his pocket and slips a cigarette out for Zandra.

"Make it good and I'll take you outside. I'll even give you the lighter, too," the guard says.

A wash of relief unfolds the intensity locked inside of Zandra's muscles as she sucks at the dry filter. She blows a pretend cloud of smoke in the guard's face, and then she begins.