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ferryboat, but you’ve no doubt driven a car lots of times when you were drunk. All alcoholics do.”
    â€œYour Honor, I assure you I haven’t. And I don’t know where you got the idea that I’m an …”
    â€œAlcoholic.”
    â€œI don’t think I’m an …”
    â€œWhat kind of car do you drive?”
    â€œA five-year-old VW, Your Honor.”
    â€œHow often do you drive it with a B.A. reading of point-two-oh, or higher?”
    â€œYour Honor, I don’t …”
    â€œDo you have any memory whatsoever of making a citizen, in effect, walk the plank and nearly drown in that cold black water?”
    â€œIt’s the newspapers, Your Honor!” And now Winnie was sweating buckets. “Walk the plank? What plank? Your Honor knows there’s no plank on the ferry!”
    â€œYou told the passenger you were going to shoot him.”
    â€œMy old service revolver was at home, Judge! I didn’t have a gun on that boat!”
    â€œBut he believed you. And he jumped into that cold black water.”
    â€œHe panicked, Your Honor!”
    â€œPeople were screaming for help. Other people were threatening to jump into the cold black water rather than ride it out with an alcoholic at the wheel of the boat. A dangerous drunk who really doesn’t remember what happened that night. Do you have blackouts?”
    â€œBlackouts?”
    â€œNever mind. Of course you do. You’re an alcoholic. I read the probation report.”
    â€œThat guy from the probation department jumped to conclusions, Your Honor!”
    Then Judge Singleton said casually, “I’d decided to send you to jail. For six months.”
    Winnie went as silent as a barnacle on a keel. His skull was on fire. The Evian looked like a tall cool sweating vodka in the meaty paw of Judge Singleton.
    Winnie could hear the ice cubes clinking against the judge’s teeth. Winnie’s own mouth seemed full of beach sand. The judge’s stare was a prison searchlight.
    â€œI wouldn’t be helped in jail, Your Honor,” he finally croaked.
    â€œHelped? Do you think I’m interested in helping the people I send to jail? Boy, I’m a warehouse specialist! I put lawbreakers on the shelf so the people of this county can have a break for a while. And I’m also here to provide a little revenge and retribution. Oh yes! People need revenge. Just ask the family of someone killed by a drunk driver. Just ask the family sometime.”
    â€œJudge, please! I’m not a …”
    â€œHow long did you serve with the Newport Beach Police Department? Fourteen years?”
    â€œFifteen years.”
    â€œFifteen years. And then what?”
    â€œI’d still be there except some disks blew when a burglar kicked me down the companionway of a boat. My back locks up on me maybe three days a week. Can’t hardly sit. Can’t ever lie on my stomach. I paid for the boat parade damage, Judge!”
    Winnie Farlowe was drowning in vodka ferment. He couldn’t think. He tried to recall some of the commendations he’d been awarded as a cop, but strangely, all he could think of was his late father. Winnie was a little boy again, facing this terror not at The Drinker’s Hour, but in broad daylight. And he wanted a father to save him. He felt like weeping.
    â€œI was in law enforcement myself,” said Judge Singleton.
    Prepared to grovel. “I know, Your Honor!”
    â€œSheriff’s Department. I worked at the county jail when you were a baby.”
    â€œYes, sir.”
    â€œI know what can happen to ex-cops when they do jail time. Do you know what can happen to ex-cops in jail? When the inmates get hold of him?”
    A gulp. “I got a pretty good idea, Judge.”
    â€œI remember once when I was a young deputy. We had this policeman in jail awaiting trial. Lived in Orange, I think it was. Maybe Tustin. Anyway, he shot his wife in a drunken