Mean Woman Blues

idea that it might be Terri just didn’t penetrate. He’d gotten that kind of wrong number before; he thought nothing of it.
    When the second call came, and he actually heard her name, he snapped to as if someone had yelled “Fire!” It was instantly clear what had happened. Furious with him (maybe broken-hearted, he flattered himself), Terri had gone out and gotten drunk. She’d either gotten into some kind of altercation and been busted for disturbing the peace, or she’d gotten a DUI. Thank God she hadn’t been hurt.
    He got up, pulled on some jeans, and headed for the nearest ATM for bail money, stopping only long enough to tell Lovelace what was going on.
    He took about five hundred dollars, not knowing how much he’d need but figuring that would do it.
    He had never been to Central Lockup, and certainly not at night. Thus, he was unprepared for the knots of shady characters hanging out in front, as if it were a crummy bar. What a weird place to hang, he thought. Why
not
a bar? As he went in, one or two accosted him: “Sir? Need a bail bondsman?”
    So that was it. They were bail bondsmen.
    There was a deputy at the desk. “Have you got a Terri Whittaker?”
    He looked at something, maybe a computer screen. “She’s not showing up.”
    “Theresa. Theresa Whittaker.”
    After about ten minutes, maybe twenty, he finally nodded. “Yeah, we’ve got her.”
    “I’d like to bail her out, please.”
    “You can’t bail her out.”
    “What do you mean I can’t bail her out?”
    “Bond hasn’t been set.” He seemed to take pride in this.
    “Well, can I see her?”
    “Are you kidding?”
    “No. Why?”
    “She hasn’t even been booked.” As if that was supposed to mean something.
    “Well, when will she be booked?”
    The deputy shrugged.
    “Look, when is bond going to be set? Can I get it set tonight?”
    “Not unless you know somebody who has the nerve to wake up a judge. She’ll be in court at ten o’clock tomorrow morning. At the very latest, four.”
    Isaac flat out couldn’t believe it. Not only was she going to have to spend the night in jail, she might end up there all day. He couldn’t even imagine that. There was no way he could let it happen.
    “What court?”
    “Criminal.”
    “Well, whose?”
    “What?” The man was a cretin.
    “What judge?”
    “You’re going to have to check the docket in the morning.” The guy was clearly dying to get back to his solitaire game.
    “Could you possibly tell me what the charge is?”
    The deputy looked utterly exasperated, as if the idea of spending this much time with a member of the public was out of the question for a man in his position. Obviously irritated, he fussed again with the computer.
    “Forgery and bad checks.”
    “What?” Impossible. It just couldn’t be.
    “She wrote some bad checks.”
    “She
wrote
some bad checks? You mean you’ve already convicted her?”
    The deputy didn’t even bother to answer, just turned around and walked away, leaving Isaac alone except for the herd of bail bondsmen.
    He couldn’t believe this. He never heard of a law-abiding citizen spending a night in jail unless they mouthed off at a cop.
    Something nasty was nagging at him. How well did he really know Terri? Maybe he’d attracted some female version of his father and brother. He was no psychology scholar but he was perfectly aware that people with big-time criminals in their families might have to be careful about something nasty surfacing in their relationships. It was the same deal as children of alcoholics finding their nice, teetotaling spouses turning into alcoholics. Nobody knew how it happened, just that you attracted what you were used to.
    Anyway, that was the theory, but Isaac figured his father was so mean and so dangerous a mere bad-check passer wasn’t half bad enough to fit it. Still, he had to wonder.
    Well, he could wonder later. The thing was, to get Terri out of jail— he couldn’t think of anybody he wouldn’t bail out except his father. The problem was, he couldn’t bail her out. He was way out of his depth. He needed to have a lawyer in court with her the next day at ten. How to get one?
    He went home and called the lockup, but getting to speak to a prisoner was the same as talking to one if you were there— an “are-you-kidding?” situation. Isaac had never felt so helpless in his life. In the end, there was nothing he could do but set the clock for seven, thinking to get up and get on it early.