Finally, Horner emerged into a small square room. There were two bunks, one over the other, he observed as he stood up. The walls were bare plaster. There was a sink and a lidless toilet. There was a small mirror. Only three of the walls were plaster. The fourth consisted of a grim row of vertical bars.
He was in a prison cell.
He gazed about wildly. He wanted to scream. He didn't understand how this could be, but understanding was decidedly secondary. He looked at his bloody hands. It was his own blood—Lonnie's, that is—but it was symbolic to him. A man was sitting on the edge of one of the bunks, smoking. He was watching Horner. He was a short man with immense shoulders. He wore gray denim and Horner did not have to be told it was a prison uniform or that his clothing was identical.
Somehow, Horner had traded places—identities!—with a convict.
"'Samatter, Lonnie? What you staring at?"
"Nothing. Nothing, I guess." Horner went on staring. The other man's name was Jake, he knew that all at once. He knew other things. Other memories came flooding back ... not his memories. Lonnie's. Because he was Lonnie now. His mind was numb. Numb. He was Lonnie—Lionel Overman—and he was in jail on a twenty-to-life rap. His behavior, the river of memory told him, had not been exemplary. It would not be twenty years. It would be life.
"What—what am I in for?" he demanded in a soft voice, for that particular memory would not come.
"You're kidding," the man named Jake said.
Horner went over to him and grabbed his denim shirt with dirt-and-blood-caked hands. "I asked, what am I in for?"