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radio show. And he probably has a lot more money.”
    My chaperone got back in the car. “Well you don’t have to brag about it,” he called back. “Time to say hello to the big dog.”
     
     
     

Chapter

4
     
     
Meet the Warden
     
     
    The warden, a ramrod-spined ex–navy boxer, was working a Bernie Kerik: shaved head and brush-cut law enforcement mustache. He was five foot four but blessed with a square and enormous jaw. That jaw looked like it could handle itself. I could imagine it pushing ahead of him, clearing a path through a world of massive bad guys twice his size. He eyed me across the desk, tenting his fingers between the little U.S. flag and the flag of California. I stared back, a little over his head, at a framed photo of him gazing up at Arnold Schwarzenegger. I wondered if the warden had to resist the urge to brag—he may have been a foot shorter, but his chin looked like it could bench-press ten times more than the governor’s.
    “So,” he began, “as part of your undercover work, you’ll be running a drug rehabilitation workshop.”
    “That’s the idea.”
    “You’ve had some experience with drugs?”
    “I’ve done some research, sir. I just didn’t know it was research at the time.”
    “That a joke?”
    “More or less,” I said, instantly regretting it. The man stared down serial killers every day. He didn’t need me to amuse him.
    “Cute,” he said, then picked up a document and studied it. I read “Department of Corrections” on top, upside-down. The warden skimmed a few more papers attached by paper clip, then raised his eyes. “I’m surprised you never visited us before.”
    “Is that a joke?”
    “Prison humor,” he continued when it was clear I wasn’t going to laugh. “You’ll get used to it. There’s some funny stuff that goes on. But,” he said flatly, “we do have Nazis.”
    My own voice came out tinny. “Right, of course. I knew that….”
    “Mr. Rupert?”
    “Yes!”
    “You’ll be dealing with six addicts.”
    My ears were ringing.
    “Sex addicts?” I shifted in my chair. “They didn’t mention…I mean, not to judge, I’m just saying…who hasn’t—I mean, I’m not sure in terms of sobriety, if, you know, sobriety is even the right word—”
    “Mr. Rupert?”
    “Yes, sir?”
    The warden tapped his pencil on the desk and stared at me. He’d put on reading glasses, the kind with round little lenses that made whoever wore them look somehow critical, disapproving. His magnified eyeballs seemed appalled. And I didn’t blame them.
    “Not sex addicts,” he said, after I’d repolished the chair by squirming in it for a minute. “Six addicts.”
    “Six addicts?”
    “That’s what I said.”
    “There have to be more than six addicts in San Quentin,” I said.
    He took off his glasses and picked up a miniature ball-and-chain made from papier-mâche. The one-ball made me think of Hitler. They sold them in the gift shop.
    “There are six addicts,” he continued, “who I think can really benefit from your kind of program.”
    “And what kind of program would that be?”
    “The kind that can really benefit them.”
    “Well,” I said—where were we going with this?—“it would be great if I could help out in that way.”
    “Don’t worry,” he replied drily, “I know the reason you’re here. I also know your history. A cop and a drug addict. Interesting combo.”
    “Ex,” I said, trying not to sound too touchy on the subject.
    There was an awkward silence. Suddenly I saw myself as he saw me. Battered black leather and soul patch. Your basic faux badass. A tattooed, middle-aged white law enforcement loser who thought shooting dope for a decade gave him some kind of street cred. In other words, from where he was standing, the worst kind of civilian—the kind who thought he knew what time it was.
    I bit my lip to keep from defending myself. I wanted to share my theory: all of us, at some point in life, choose our cliché. But I