The cop leaned forward. "So, tell me, Jesse. What happened after Todd's car broke down in the desert?"
Jesse looked away as he reflected. "I walked for a million miles it felt like. As many stars as I could see in the skies at night. It actually turned out that from the distance I was from my car, I couldn't have been out there more than three days. But time felt different then. It slows way down."
The sky is the most incredible he's ever seen it. He could pretend he was walking across the sky instead of dunes. Who needed Alaska when he could die to this sight?
He felt lost in golden dust. Sometimes that feeling of peace would fade out. He would choke with self-hatred. He would blame it all on him, his partner, his betrayer.
Jesse scratched his beard. "It isn't very often one gets to dehydrate and collapse in a desert somewhere. It's trippy. You start hallucinating. You face your demons, because what else do you have? What else are you?"
He was amnesiac. He had nothing. No plan. No name, no identity. He was just here.
He would often feel hands caress his cheeks. Their forms shimmered vaguely in the sunlight, like he was halfway in another dimension, but he felt the maternal presence of his aunt, a compassionate Gale, an empathetic Jane.
It wasn't those hands that kept him going. It was the ones he felt during the cold nights.
He was sure it was his hands. It happened during the nights, when the moonlight guided him. Every step, he thought of only him.
He remembered the last look he saw from Walter. It wasn't the nod. It wasn't the conflict he saw in his partner's final gaze that had Jesse captivated. It was something new in his eyes. It was something Jesse had come to recognize in himself in his imprisonment. It was acceptance. Not a sort of old weariness. It was a liberating acceptance. The beauty of it made Jesse weep to his knees, softened by the impact of sand.
Sometimes Jesse would curse him. What was left of his empire now? Crumbled to the dust Jesse was lost in. Left Jesse abandoned in its ruins.
Jesse looked at the cop. "You know, a madness and a clarity is there, in that state of mind. Or is there clarity in the madness?"
The desert gradually felt more like a graveyard. He imagined he would come across the shapes of dead bodies. Half-eaten carcasses. He was dimly aware of vultures following him. In his growing madness, he wondered when his time would finally come.
Jesse. Jesse. Your body is running dangerously low on electrolytes. Sodium, potassium, calcium. And when they're gone, your brain ceases to communicate with your muscles. Your lungs stop breathing, your heart stops pumping.
Funny he could remember that with perfect clarity when he was dying. He kept walking.
Some days Jesse felt like a ghost, and it was his sentence to forever walk the desert. It was heaven compared to what could be. Jesse felt rays of peace pierce his shadowed heart as he collapsed into the dust. Finally, he was overcome with freedom. He realized before his life had been such a prison. His entire life.
It had always felt that way for Jane too, she seemed to be telling him now, her voice a whisper in his heart. His last three years have not been worthless. It took all that for him to understand...
"I accept who I am now. I didn't really before." Jesse looked down at his hands, but when he looked up, he looked earnestly at his interrogator. "I didn't know better then. I'm the bad guy."
When Jesse came to, he was laying down on his back looking out the window across his cot. The sun's sinking into the western sky. A buzzard caws distantly. He feels the calm stillness of this place. He has yet to wonder if he was alive or dead. He is too exhausted for thoughts. His heart is elsewhere, in a place of sadness and longing. I am alone. I do not miss you. No sorrow or pity for leaving you. You left me.
"Yeah, some days in the compound, my formula beat Mr. White's best. It was a hollow victory. You know? Him not around to see that." Jesse looked down at the table and sniffed. "He did offer me my own lab station one time."
"He did?"
Jesse nodded. "Yeah, when we were doing the Vámonos Pest op." Jesse frowned. "By then I had decided to bail. Couldn't take any more killing." Jesse rubbed his nose. His eyes told secrets to the table. "It was all in the confession tape Jack's guys stole. You guys found that, right? Was anyone hurt?"
"It was just a break-in. No one was hurt. And yes, we did eventually find the tape. So tell me about your time in the Nazi compound."
"I learned there are things worse than death."
The cop raised his eyebrows in a display of fabricated sympathy. It was unnecessary, Jesse thought. It really wasn't such a bad revelation.
Jesse looked down at his empty hands. "I need a cigarette first. Is that all right?"
"Okay, Jesse. After that we are going to have detective Edwards come in and talk with you.
"Thanks."
Saul watched the entire interrogation, pacing. The cops standing nearby were smirking, one had his thumb tucked smugly into his belt loops. Cocky that the infamous Saul Goodman had just lost the case. Not a whole lot of cops around here ever liked Saul. For a moment, Saul felt helpless over what he got himself into. He didn't use to worry so much, but lately it had been a problem. It started ever since he had to ditch this town and start a new life. He didn't even manage to do that properly.
The door swung open with detective Coy stepping out, followed by a frail looking Jesse with eyes that were calm and exhausted. As if exhaustion caused him to snap and he stopped caring. Yet there was the distinct possibility that it was the calm that was sustaining him, not the other way around.
Saul looked at Jesse in weary bafflement.
"What?" They started to follow the escorting guard.
Saul waited till the cops were out of earshot. "Two words for you: Good job. And I say that sarcastically. You might've gotten yourself the insanity plea in there, except for the fact that you sounded like a cold blooded psychotic murderer."
Jesse shrugged. "I only told the truth."
"But Jesse that's not what you are!" Saul was in high choler. Right?
Saul shook his head. He felt the compulsion to pinch the bridge of his nose. Suddenly taken, Saul whipped around and stopped Jesse in his tracks.
"I'm trying to save you so you can save me." There was a plea in his desperate honesty. They both knew what Saul meant by saving. Saving them from prison. Because two lonely fellow bad guys with no one to live for but themselves understand that there are things worse than death.
Jesse blinked at him. "Oh, I guess I wasn't thinking of it like that. Sorry, man."
"Sorry man doesn't fix things in the world, kid. It gets the world punching you in the face. How's that for philosophical, huh? Think you're Socrates or something with that irrational drivel in there? You know what that sounds like? Like a psycho justifying himself. That bit about madness and clarity, priceless." Saul laid the sarcasm thick. He threw his hands up in frustration. He ran a nervous one through his disarrayed hair.
Jesse rolled his eyes in and mouthed, "Wow."
Saul was mildly concerned with the stride Jesse seemed to be taking this in, but his mind was racing.
"Look Jesse, this is not the place to tell your novel-worthy story. Maybe we can go with insanity here, say you still suffer from PTSD hallucinations. We could really play on the torture bit. Say Walter coerced you. I could have Huell as my witness. There's Francesca too, if they're not really pissed at me. There's also the incident of the poisoned kid being on file. You throwing bags of money away was a cry for help. Jesus Christ, kid. I thought the best I could do for you was get you in witness protection. Not a damn mental ward."
Saul finally shut up, having realized his hopeless thinking out loud might be a tad insensitive.
Jesse elbowed his way to walk ahead of Saul. Letting it be known he did not want to hear all the details and that a cigarette was waiting for him.
"Listen, Jesse." Saul ran up to catch up with him and leaned in close. "Listen, you are about to be interrogated by one of the best in the division. This guy is ace. If he doesn't like the look in your eyes he will think you're guilty." A little lower, "just don't sign anything."
Jesse nodded, subdued. The guard escorted him away.
"We'll talk!" Saul called out to him.
Saul's heart felt like a wrench was twisting it as he watched them take Jesse away from him.