Free Regiment of Women by Thomas Berger

his, and shouted.
    â€œOr we might snip your balls off, fella!”
    The door opened and in came Stedman, saying: “Take it easy, Carol.”
    Corelli pushed herself up and swaggered from the room.
    Stedman told Cornell: “She works too hard.”
    Cornell realized that the detectives were playing on his emotions, being bad and good guys alternatively. He had heard of such techniques. His face smarted terribly. He refused to cry, but he did not know how long he could continue to protect Charlie.
    Stedman was carrying a long sheet of paper, its end ragged as though it had been ripped from a machine. She held it up for Cornell’s benefit.
    â€œJust came in off the ticker,” she said. “Let me tell you about yourself.” She began smugly to read from the paper. “Bom 2003 in Birth Facility 1097, Los Angeles, etcetera, etcetera….” She skipped down several inches.
    â€œWait a minute,” cried Cornell.
    â€œNow here we are.” Stedman punched the paper. “Apprehended shoplifting age 12; diagnosed, puberty problem; psychotherapy.” She raised her head. “Actually, that is all in abbreviations, but I can read it as fast as if it was written out.”
    â€œI wasn’t born in L.A. in 2003,” Cornell said.
    â€œYou weren’t?” Stedman frowned and rechecked the first line of the dossier. “The hell you weren’t.” She scowled at him. “You can’t lie your way past the computer, buster.”
    â€œI was born in 2018, in Facility 1182, in Jersey City.”
    â€œThe hell you were.”
    â€œWell, do I look forty-five?”
    Stedman squinted at him, and then returned to the paper. “Then you were sent to Nursery 2305 in Birmingham.”
    â€œNot at all! It was Number 1111 in White Plains.”
    Stedman’s face turned gross when she was puzzled. Her nose elongated and her lips protruded. Cornell wondered whether it might have been easier on him to confirm the erroneous data. The police were notoriously proud of their central information system, which listed every male person, from infant to dotard, in the country.
    Stedman sneered at the paper, balled it, dropped it, and tried to kick it as it fell, but missed. She took a notebook from her pocket. “All right, give me the vital facts yourself, but don’t try any funny business or the computer will show you up.” She added earnestly: “The computer’s O.K. It’s the people who run it make the mistakes.”
    So they were not infallible!
    Cornell repeated the information.
    Stedman said: “Georgie, when we pick up a guy your age, we know one thing. It’s not a simple case of transvest. A young kid, maybe, but not somebody old as you. You say you don’t have a record. You say furthermore this is the first time you ever wore a jacket and trousers. O.K., I’ll buy that. Surprise you?”
    She wrinkled her forehead.
    â€œI’ll tell you what it means. It might mean you finally cracked after all these years. But I don’t think so. You look pretty cool to me, no tears, no hysterics. Ninety-nine out of a hundred of them will break down when Corelli bats ’em around after her sympathy act. Not you. You make little jokes.”
    Stedman put her forearms on the table and lowered her head so that he could see along the part in her hair, all the way to the cowlick. She spoke to her hands.
    â€œYou want to know what we’re going to make you for? Criminal conspiracy. Now if you want to confess to that right here and now, maybe we can talk business.”
    Cornell had crossed his legs in the wool trousers. His thighs now burned frightfully, and the heavy shoe on the hanging foot felt as though it contained an artificial foot.
    He hardly recognized his own voice. “I don’t understand that at all,” he said.
    â€œDon’t ask me to explain,” said Stedman. “I don’t know what you people want. You