Chapter 13: Rule Five

They locked Lowell in the count room under the casino, a windowless box with a steel table and one chair.

The detectives had said two hours.

It was Saturday night on the Strip, and every officer in Clark County was already busy.

Dario stopped at the door and turned to me.

"I'll stand in there while you ask your questions," he said. "I will not touch him while you're in the room."

"And when I leave?"

His jaw worked.

"Then I won't promise."

"Dario, I'm saying this once." I kept my voice level. "You don't touch him at all. Not in front of me, not behind a door, not after."

"He sold you for three hundred dollars a month."

"I know what he did. I'm not raising our baby with a man who solves things that way."

For a moment he only looked at me.

Then he nodded, slowly.

"Then that's a new rule," he said. "Rule five."

"Rule five. Add it to the list."

We went in together.

Lowell sat in the chair with his hands folded on the steel and his glasses still crooked.

He looked up and gave me the soup smile.

I set my phone on the table, pressed record, and sat down across from him.

"From the start," I said. "Say it to this."

"Mrs. C, I would rather wait for the police."

"The police will want you to say it too. You can say it twice."

He looked at the phone.

His left hand was shaking against the steel, and he pressed it flat to make it stop.

That was when I understood he was not afraid of me, or of Dario.

"Who are you scared of, Lowell?"

"I'm not scared."

"You've been here ten minutes and you haven't asked for a lawyer. Everybody who steals asks for a lawyer."

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