Free The Finishing School by Michele Martinez

faceless guy who the drugs
really
belong to. You know about him, right, Ray-Ray?”
    “Seems like he’s in on every bust I make,” Ray-Ray said, chuckling.
    “So you’re really telling us with a straight face you don’t sell drugs?” Melanie asked Juan Carlos.
    “Yes, ma’am.”
    “They let you in MS-13 just because you’re a nice guy?” she asked, raising her eyebrows.
    “They’re relaxing their standards,” Ray-Ray said, laughing.
    “Word. That’s the truth.” Juan Carlos nodded vigorously.
    “Are you enjoying that burger?” Melanie asked him.
    “Yes, ma’am.”
    “Good. Because the food in the MDC sucks. Even with only twelve glassines, you’ll do time. After jail it’s immigration lockup, where the food makes the MDC look like Le Cirque.”
    Juan Carlos put the burger down in the foil container. “Aww, shit! Come on, dawg, help me out here,” he said to Ray-Ray.
    “Much as it pains me, Juan Carlos, I can’t help you if you won’t help yourself,” Ray-Ray said.
    “What if I aks for a lawyer?”
    “Then we’ll stop talking and get you one,” Melanie said. “You’re entitled to due process before getting locked up and deported.”
    “Deported. Fuck! I step up and do my time, fine, but this my country. I live here since I’m five. God, apple pie, and the flag and shit.”
    “Not much we can do about it if you don’t have papers, Juan Carlos. I hope you’ve kept in touch with your people in El Salvador so at least they give you a big hug when you get back,” Melanie said.
    “Okay, okay!” he said. “I cop to the drugs. They
was
mine. But it’s the first time I ever sell. I ain’t even know it was heroin. Thought it was
co
caine. That’s less time, right?”
    Melanie sighed. She’d been through the same song and dance a thousand times. This kid had probably been pitching dope since he was eight years old, but he’d never fess up. No defendant ever admitted anything unless you had it on video, and even then they’d do their damnedest to convince you they were somewhere else at the time and the guy on the tape was their evil twin.
    “Look,” she said, “we’re very busy. If you don’t want to talk, fine. I’ll get Legal Aid on the phone, we’ll arraign you and go about our day.”
    “But then I get deported!”
    “You get deported anyway, unless we get you an S-visa,” she said.
    “What’s that?”
    “It’s for witnesses who are needed for important cases. Since you’re not talking, you don’t qualify.”
    “I’ll talk. I’ll talk about anything you want.”
    “It’s not a simple quid pro quo.”
    “Not a what?”
    “It’s not a given. It takes a lot to earn it.”
    “I’ll earn it. You’ll see. Go on, aks me something.”
    “Okay, tell us about Carmen Reyes.”
    “Carmen? What about her? She’s my reading coach. My church got a program for kids who ain’t read. Carmen be teaching me letters and shit.”
    “You can’t read?”
    He shrugged. “What of it?”
    “Ray-Ray, did you read him those waivers out loud?”
    “No, ma’am. He never said anything. He sat there and acted like he was reading them.”
    “Very funny, Juan Carlos,” Melanie said, shaking her head. This kid knew what he was doing. The whole interview would’ve been thrown out in court. Melanie reached across the table and picked up the waiver of speedy arraignment and waiver of Miranda-rights forms and read them to Juan Carlos in both English and Spanish. “Still want to talk?” she asked when she’d finished.
    “Whatever,” the kid said.
    “I need a yes or no, please.”
    “Yeah, all right.”
    “Make your mark, please.”
    She passed him the forms, and he signed them again. Next to his signature, she noted the time and the fact that they’d been read aloud.
    “Okay, so Carmen is your literacy coach. And what else?” Melanie asked.
    Juan Carlos looked back and forth from Ray-Ray to Melanie, his forehead wrinkled, like he was struggling to understand.
    “Well,