Chapter 19

I wake with a very bad headache. I am seated on a hard chair, my head in my hands looking down at a wooden table etched with gaffiti, initials and assorted stains. There is an overall smell of stale coffee and sulphur. I look up. I am back in INCIDENT ROOM 1.

The same etched table and frosted glass door with a padlocked cage in the corner. This time I am cuffed and my wrist controller isn’t working. Well it must be working to some degree as the outer Fat’s is still gloriously evident, but not the return button. My shoes and arm bands are missing too. Looks like I am in trouble. There is no sign of Doil or any cavalry. I am stuck as Fats on a murder wrap. On the table is fresh blood, just a little pool, but still wet, and it is mine. I think my nose is broken I sniff and the pain goes straight to my left eye.  I stand up and go over to the window. It is still raining, but I can see my reflection in the glass and my left eye is half closed and puffy. What a joy is a night stick in the hands of a beat cop. Beat being the word. I need some answers, so I kick over the table to get some attention. The Irish cop walks in accompanied by Doil. ‘Shall I give him so more medicine?’ says the beat cop.

Doil looks me over. ‘Resisting arrest and hitting a cop in the line of his duty is a lock up offence.’

‘I need a lawyer’, I say.

‘All in good time. Take a break O’Roak, I’ll take it from here, and good work.’  Doil shuts the door behind him.

He picks up the table and sets it in front of me.

‘Sit down Joe, we have much to discuss’.

‘Fuck the discussion, just give me back my wrist controller and I’ll be gone’.

‘It’s not as simple as that, you are now in it up to your neck, I just can’t let you disappear into the future. I need some feedback from the IGBI about how it all went down then you can go back.’

‘Meanwhile’

‘Meanwhile I’ll get some bail set and let you go. I am afraid you will have to stay as Fats Waller for some time.’

‘We’ll lock up the real one just in case, just disappear into Harlem, and lay low. Take a break.’ He looks at me closely. ‘That is going to be shut by morning.’