Page 39 of The Writer

[Shaw] You expect us to believe you have a girlfriend?

[Lucero] Well, not exactly a girlfriend. She’s a pro. But she lets me tie her up. The bucket’s mine. Plumbing on my toilet busted yesterday, and the super can’t get up until tomorrow, so I’ve been using a bucket.

[Shaw] You know CSU can confirm that, right? Now’s not the time to lie to us. Now is the time to come clean. You tell the truth, and maybe we can help you out.

[Lucero] I ain’t lying!

[Shaw] [Gestures at photographs.] Where are these girls?

[Lucero] I don’t know. I took pictures of them, sure, but I didn’t touch them. I didn’t even talk to them.

[Cordova] So how’d you get the books?

[Lucero] Sometimes they forget them. In the park.

[Shaw] [Slams hand on table.] Bullshit!

[Lucero] Okay! Okay! I took the books when they weren’t looking. I’m a groundskeeper, invisible to girls like that. They stop for water, food, get lost in their phones, I snagged a book. I didn’t touch them! Hardly even talked to most of them!

[Shaw] Come on, Lucky. We’re not idiots. You’re on the sex offenders list. You’ve got history.

[Transcriber note: Cordova produces a file, sets it on the table, opens it.]

[Cordova] Statutory rape. Ten years ago.

[Lucero] She was my girlfriend. I was nineteen, she was sixteen. Age of consent in New York is seventeen. Her parents didn’t like me, so they pressed charges to keep us apart. That’s all that was.

[Cordova] According to this, it was a repeat offense. Year before that you were charged with the same thing with another girl. That one was only fifteen.

[Lucero] She was my girlfriend too.

[Shaw] Sounds like you’ve got a taste for young girls, Lucky.

[Lucero] It was consensual.

[Shaw] [Gestures at pictures.] These too? All consensual? What do you do, pay them to goback to your place? Let you take a few pics? Maybe fool around a little bit?

[Lucero] No!

[Shaw] Right. It’s just yourgirlfriendwho likes to get tied up.

[Transcriber note: Cordova sets a photograph in front of Lucero.]

[Cordova] Tell us about Maggie Marshall.

[Lucero] Jesus! I didn’t do that!

[Shaw] No? I guess we can all go home, then. [Slams hand on table.] You lied to me!

[Lucero] What? No. I didn’t—

[Shaw] On the roof, after you resisted arrest, after you assaulted a law enforcement officer, you told me exactly how she cuts through the park every day. You told me where she starts, where she goes out. You told me you never talked to her.

[Lucero] I didn’t—

[Transcriber note: Shaw takes out his phone and plays a video for Lucero.]

[Shaw] That’s you talking to her, dipshit.