<div class="floatleft">(http://img571.imageshack.us/img571/7646/filmnoir2.jpg)</div><span class="bbc_size" style="font-size: 14pt;"><strong>Drake Holland</strong></span><br/><strong>Age:</strong>35<br/><strong>Crime:</strong>Aggravated assault, torture, attempted murder<br/><strong>Location:</strong>New New York, Public Library<br/><strong>Tagging:</strong>--<br/><hr/>The door screamed like an angel who had just learned why she was on the wrong side.  A chill gust slipped into the erudite sanctuary like a stray dog, biting at the cheeks and necks of those gathered in the hall.  A pair of dark sunglasses underneath the felt brim of a 1950s-style fedora paused in the entrance, taking in the scene.  It looked like an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting: a nervous but well-intentioned case worker in the middle, surrounded by a ring of chairs.  And in the chairs, bodies: some young, some old, some male, some female, some dangerous, others meek--but none of them looked particularly happy to be here.<br/><br/>Drake hunted in the pocket of his drab brown raincoat and produced an ancient relic of a cigarette lighter and a carton of Gold Noveaus.  He bumped the flimsy plastic packet on the heel of his hand, dislodging one of the paper cylinders so he could pluck it between his lips.  Cupping his hand over the end of the cigarette in a gesture borne of old habit, he flicked a flame out of the rusty steel monster, and was soon sucking on the tail of a plume of smoke.<br/><br/>He would have preferred to stand in the back, unnoticed and invisible, but it was clear that the single empty chair had his name on it.  His footsteps echoed on the neglected tile as he slipped in next to the big, bearded man in the orange jumpsuit.<br/><br/>Drake didn't say a word until prompted to by the shrink.  He'd missed the first round of introductions, but it didn't bother him.  He didn't care to know these people, any more than he supposed they cared to know about him.  Still, the court papers said he had to play nice, so that's what he did.<br/><br/>"Drake Holland.  I tortured and maimed an innocent man," he said, flatly, dispassionately, in the same tone of voice one might use when recounting the day's news stories.  He stared at the glowing cinders of his cancer stick.  "Cut his fingers off with a cigar slicer, one by one.  Shot him in the kneecaps.  Was about to slit open his belly when the fuzz showed up.  Turns out, the mook I was doing this to wasn't even the man who..." he trailed off, going stony and still as the cigarette slowly burned down in his fingers.<br/><br/>He seemed to recover after a few moments, and took another drag.  "I'd gotten some bad information.  Made a bad mistake.  Felt awful about it.  But they didn't care, of course.  Locked me up anyway.  My lawyer, though, he was good.  Real good.  It cost me everything I had to afford him, but he got me off on an insanity plea.  All I had to do was six weeks in an institution, and..." he waved the cigarette, indicating the doc and the circle of chairs, "this."