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When you worked in central processing at the Suffolk County jail in don Boston, you saw a lot of shit And so that put you off your coffee and doughnuts

Other kindswere just frickin&039; bizarre

Billy McCray had been a beat cop in Southie first, serving alongside his brothers and his cousins and his old o, Sergeant had arranged for him to have this desk job--and it had turned out that not only did his wheelchair fit just fine under the lip of the counter, he was da arrests and taking

Nobody so much as blew his nose in this place but that Billy didn&039;t tell &039;em it was okay to take a Kleenex

And he loved what he did, even if it got wicked weird so Six a a pair of Coke cans as pasties, the two alu straight out He had a feeling thatGunco to enjoy the exposure: Before he&039;d taken her picture, he&039;d offered to get her a shirt or so, but nah, she wanted to show off herwell, cans

People Honestly

Turned out the rubber ce her drinks in a single paper cup just in case she got another bright idea--

As the steel door opened down at the end of the hall, Billy sat up a little straighter in his chair

The woht, but not for the reason most of the freaks here were She was about ten feet tall and had blond hair that was always up in a twist on her head Wearing a perfectly fitted suit and a long, for that her purse and her briefcase orthabout that huge gold rope around her neck

As a couple of guards passed her, they also stretched up their spines and dropped their voicesand iet a look-see at the back of her

And when she calad he&039;d already slid the thing back, because he got to smell her perfume

Godit was always the same The scent of rich and expensive

"Hi, Billy, how&039;s To at the police academy?"

Like a lot of Beacon Hill types, Grier Childe&039;s intonationShakespeare had written But unlike those tight-asses, she wasn&039;t a snot and her senuine She always asked about his son and his wife and she really looked at hi his eyes like he was so much more than just a desk jockey

"He&039;s doin&039; great" Billy grinned and crossed his ar out of Southie He&039;s a marksman like his pops--kid could take out a tin can from a mile away"

Unfortunately, that reht out of the way Much better to enjoy the view of Ms Childe, Esq

"It doesn&039;t surpriseand braced a hip on the counter "As you said, he takes after you"

Even after two years of this, he still couldn&039;t believe she stopped to talk to hiular public defenders chatted him up, but she came from one of those old-school, white-shoe firms--and usually that meant just the facts on where their clients were

"So how&039;s your Sara doing?" she asked

As they talked, he typed her naned to About every six months or so, she came up on rotation as a public defender It was, of course, pro bono for her Her hourly rates were undoubtedly so expensive, he was daot here couldn&039;t afford more than tords from her, much less a whole houror, Christ, even a case&039;s worth of time

When he saw the na okay?" she asked

Well, no, it wasn&039;t "Yeah You&039;re good"

Because he was going to make it his business for her to be

He reached to the side for a stack of files "Here&039;s the paperwork on your client If you go to nu him out to you"

"Thanks, Billy You&039;re the best"

After he buzzed her through theunit, she walked off to the rooht next to his office Making a note in the co

When Shawn C answered, he said, "Bring up nuht-nine-seventy, last name Rothe For our Ms Childe"

Little silence "He&039;s a big one"

"Yeah, and listen--could you have a talk with hi polite to his counsel&039;ll s easier on him"

There was another pause "And I&039;ll just wait outside the door when he&039;s in with her Tony&039;ll cover ood Thanks"

As Billy hung up, he wheeled hi screens In the lower left one, he watched as Ms Childe sat down at a table, cracked open the file, and looked at the reports in it

He was going to keep his eye on her until she was safely out of there

The thing was, down at the jail, there were two kinds of people: insiders and outsiders Outsiders got treated polite and all, but insidersparticularly nice, young insiders with beautiful sot taken care of

And that uard, would be parked out in the hall, looking through the chicken- the entire tie fighting was in with their girl

If thataround her, wellsuffice it to say that in Billy&039;s shop, no one was above a little corrective action: All the guards and staff knew about the dark corner in the basement where there were no security cameras and no one could hear an asshole scream when payback turned into a bitch

Billy leaned back in his chair and shook his head Nice girl in there, real nice Course, given what had happened to her brotherHard lives had a way offor nice, didn&039;t they

Grier Childe sat in front of a stainless-steel table on a cold stainless-steel chair that was across from another stainless-steel chair All of the furniture was bolted to the floor and the only other fixtures were the security cae around it The walls were concrete block that had been painted so many times it was nearly wallpaper sut floor cleaner, the cologne of the last attorney who&039;d been in the rooarettes

The place couldn&039;t have been more different from where she usually worked The Boston offices of Palmer, Lords, Childe, Stinston & Dodd looked like a museum of nineteenth-century furniture and artwork PLCS&D had no ar was screwed into place so it couldn&039;t be stolen or thrown at somebody

There the uniforms came from Brooks Brothers and Burberry

She&039;d been doing pro bono public defending for about two years, and it had taken her at least twelve ood with the front desk and the staff and the guards But noas like old-home henever she came here, and she honestly loved the people

Lot of good folks doing hard jobs in the syste up the file of her newest client, she reviewed the charges, intake fore twenty-six, apartment down on Treht others as part of a bust the night before on an underground gahters were trespassing on private property According to the police report, her client was in the ring at the tiht was getting treated at Mass General--

It&039;s nine o&039;clock on a SaturdayDo you knohere your life is?

Keeping her head down, Grier squeezed her eyes shut "Not now, Daniel"

in and out of her head from behind, the disembodied sound made her feel utterly crazy two years old, and instead of cozying up to so here in the police station with sucky coffee--

"I don&039;t have any coffee"

At that ht you o, her brother said Shut Up, she thought back at him