In the center was Sean Booker. Lines stretched out like arms to secondary subjects. Myself. Eric Watts. Preston Masters. It was easy enough to connect the dots with the first two. But Booker’s connection to an ultraconservative United States congressman was a mystery. It bothered me that I could find no plausible connection. So I decided to go violate a restraining order. City Hall is only a four minute walk from my apartment. I hurried across the street and entered the foyer of the courthouse where I was met by a pair of security officers in grey uniforms flanking a metal detector. The guards themselves wore nine millimeter automatics on their right hips. Rent a Cops with guns, more scary than Christian Black with a case of dynamite. I emptied the contents of my pockets into a plastic tray, loaded the tray onto a conveyor belt to pass under an x-ray machine and took a step forward when the Rent a Cop on the left stopped me. “Where are you headed?” “Where else? Traffic court. I got another ticket for driving with no rearview mirror.”
