Chapter FortyLOS ANGELES HALL OF JUSTICE, WOMEN’S CELL BLOCK, SHOWERS,
November 23, 1930
“Where’s your buddy, Blondie? You look all alone.”
The morning of my arraignment, I had my usual breakfast of runny eggs, greasy bacon, and cardboard toast. Then I’d gone to the showers without Aggie, since she had a hearing. I’d finished shampooing my hair when I heard wet feet behind me. I turned, and there stood Helen and her buddies, looking at me like a pack of coyotes with one lamb to split between them. Helen put one hand up on the tile by my head, and Virginia and Stella completed the half-circle around me. I was trapped.
“Look, I don’t want any trouble,” I said, holding my hands up like I could prevent whatever was going to happen to me.
“Too late for that,” Helen said, clutching a metal
