One Good Deed(11)

“Full name?”

“Aloysius Archer.”

“Middle name?”

“Never had one.”

“Really?” she said incredulously.

“I think they believed one name was good enough, and certainly Aloysius might, under some circumstances, be quite as good as two names.”

She stared at him for a long moment with what he thought were lips fighting to become a smile. In the end, the granite won out.

She asked for more personal information, which he readily gave, and that Crabtree promptly typed on the form.

“You have your parole papers?”

He presented the pages and she dutifully looked over them.

“I trust you have studied your list of dos and don’ts?”

“Yes ma’am.”

“And you have adhered to these instructions since leaving prison?”

“Yes ma’am.”

“No drinking, no carousing?”

“And no women, loose or otherwise.”

She looked up from the papers. “I think you’re taking this matter far too frivolously, Mr. Archer. This is a serious business.”

“I can guarantee you that I’m giving it a lot of weight, ma’am. I don’t want to go back to prison. That life is not for me. It was worse than fighting in the war, and that’s saying something.”

The granite receded a bit, as she seemed pleased by his candid admission. “That’s the proper attitude.” She used a rubber stamp to imprint the seal of her office across the top of the first page and placed her initials and the date on a line provided by the stamp and passed the pages back to him.

“A fellow I met in the hall asked me to say hello to you,” he said.

She glanced up at him. “What fellow?”

“Willie Free. He’s with the law.”

Archer watched closely for her reaction. She did not smile; instead the woman grimaced. That told him a lot, maybe that he had already suspected from the way Free had looked and talked about her.

She cleared her throat. “I have some job interviews for you to go on. Gainful employment is absolutely vital to achieving your goal of never returning to prison.”

“Thing is, I already have a job.”

Her fingers paused over the drawer she was about to open.

“Excuse me?”

“I had an interview with a gent last night. He hired me.”

“To do what, exactly?”

“Man’s in the business of loaning money. He hired me to collect a debt he’s owed.”

“This is highly irregular. I’m not sure—”

He pulled the two twenties from his pocket and held the bills up. “He already gave me an advance.”

She eyed the cash, her eyes widening a bit. “That’s a lot of money just for an advance. What do you get when you complete the job?”

“Another sixty dollars.”

A moment of silence passed as Archer slowly put the money away. When he looked up, the woman seemed to be appraising him in a different light.

“All right, but if that position does not work out, you will be required to go on three job interviews in the next week. And have gainful employment by that time. There’s plenty of work here if you apply yourself.”

“Fine, but let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.”

“You’ll need to report in once a week for the next two months. If your progress is satisfactory, the visits can fall back to once a month, though I can perform spot checks on you at my discretion.”

“I’m in Room 610 at the Derby Hotel. You’re welcome anytime.”

Her frown deepened. “I’m readily aware that you’re staying at the Derby Hotel as that is where all parolees go initially. But I will not be visiting you in your room there. This is a professional relationship. I’m sure you can appreciate that.”

“Sorry, ma’am. No offense. And I do appreciate that.”

“When you do change your place of residence you are required to immediately notify me of same, do you understand?”

“You’ll be the first to know.”

“I need you to sign this form evidencing that you were here today. I’ll place it in your file and communicate the fact of your attendance to the proper authorities. And I’ll see you in a week’s time.” She held up the pen.

“Right.” He stood, came around to her side of the desk, took the pen, and signed the document. He took a moment to breathe in her scent, which, frankly, intrigued him far more than Jackie’s had the prior night. Then he thought of the misspelled note and the repulsive comments, and the cocksure manner of Deputy Sheriff Willie Free, and he quickly straightened and laid down the pen.

“Um, you can’t spare a smoke, can you?” he asked.

She glanced at the ashtray and appeared to bristle a bit.

“No, I can’t. It’s against the rules for me to provide that sort of thing to parolees under my jurisdiction. It could be viewed as improper.”

“That’s okay. Someone told me they were bad for you anyway.”

She gave him a condescending look. “Really, Mr. Archer, I highly doubt that if cigarettes were really bad for you the companies making them would continue to do so.”

“Well, I guess that’s the difference in our thinking.”