Office workers hurried toward the subways and commuter trains, and nearby, handcuffed defendants drained out of the courtrooms and through a special door into the gray Philadelphia Prisons Transport bus. They were the lucky ones. The bus went to the county prison, which housed convicts whose minimum sentence was less than twelve months. The small van parked not far away would head out to the state prison, where the long-timers and lifers were sent. An emaciated black man in a ragged coat appeared, and Peter shrank back, sick of being harassed for money wherever he walked in the city. Nevertheless, perhaps more from guilt than from true concern, he reached for his pocket. The man was compulsively flipping a nickel. “Hey, yo! What’s it going to be?” “What?” Peter snapped. The man’s face was wildly animated as he waited for the coin to fall. Rheumy eyes and rotted teeth. “What’ll it be?” he demanded again. “What will happen?” “I don’t know.” The man laughed wickedly, tossing his head back, then yanked a bottle of Thunderbird from within his coat and gummed the lip of the bottle.
