The Max

by Ken Bruen

  The family hushed it all up. Sebastian even read the eulogy at the very private mass, quoted a passage from Wilfred Owen.

  Later, when he saw the movie The Talented Mr. Ripley, he so identified with Matt Damon, he almost shouted: I’m with you, old chap!

  Eight

  “Cuccia was angry that he would have to renegotiate the price of a hit gone wrong, he would be dealing from a very weak hand.”

  CHARLIE STELLA, Charlie Opera

  After that shit in the mess hall, with the bandajo Max Fisher takin’ all his pies, and his whole crew sittin’ there, watching like, You gonna take that shit? Sino knew he had to make a move. Shit, not only was he dissed, but he got called by that white pudgy middle-aged white motherfucker.

  His face burned, man, rage. He swore on his abuela ’s life, he’d gut this white trash from his balding head to his tiny dick. He knew he’d have to act and fast, to be crewless was to be chowder. Yeah, he’d love to do Fisher himself, but that wasn’t the way it was done. When you were the main man in charge of a whole crew, you told people to do shit, you never did it yourself. White people had a name for that shit. Out saucering? Yeah, he was gonna out saucer this shit.

  In the yard, he spotted a new fish, kid named Carlito. Puta ’s first day, looked like somebody’d already cut him a new asshole. The bandajo ’d been caught driving a stolen car, first time. Man was Mex and got the max, five and change.

  Yeah, was time to make the man earn his way in.

  Carlito stood with his back to the wall. He’d been told about the train and couldn’t get Tom Hanks in that goddamn movie, going All aboard the train, out of his mind. He’d been told his only hope was to join a gang in, like, Speedy Gonzales time. But how the fuck did you join? He’d seen the Crips, and the other gangs, all giving him the dead eye, not like he could wander up, go, “What’s shakin’, dudes? And, oh, I wanna join the gang.”

  Then he saw a dangerous-looking one heading his way. The guy was smiling, like a Great White, put out his hand, said, “ Muchacho, how’s it hanging, boss?”

  As Carlito took it and felt the man squeeze real tight, Carlito tried to figure out where it had all gone down the shitter. He’d had a nice lady, girl named Maria, and she’d been making marriage sounds. She was such a sweet senorita, they grew up together in Guadalajara. He was making seven bucks an hour from his job in the garage. Yeah, the garage – he knew cars, and that was how the shit hit the fan.

  Maria had gone to see her Mama and Carlito had decided to let off a little steam. He’d been pulling twelve-hour shifts, getting the down payment ready on a little apartment, and Dios Mio, he was wound up awful tight, so he got together with a few amigos, they were downing some Dos Equis, nice and cold and going down so easy, till one of the hombres ordered up shots of Tequila. Carlito was basically a beer and chips kinda guy, but he didn’t want to look bad, like some maricon, so he had the shot and then, Madre Mio, a whole lot more and he didn’t know, they were falling out of the bar, laughing and high fiving, when one of the hombres spotted the Firebird, red and with the keys in the ignition. The owner gone to the ATM. Next thing, Carlito was driving the baby, like he owned the highway. State Trooper chased him for half an hour before the bird ran outa gas and Carlito ran shit out of luck.

  He’d paid all of their savings to a slimy lawyer who promised, “Probation, no problem, first offense, no problema.”

  He got five years and change. No problema?

  The lawyer shrugged, said, “You got any more of that there green, I’ll lodge an appeal.”

  Maria had taken off with the few remaining dollars and Carlito got to ride the bus.

  Scared, chained, out of it. A guy sitting beside him asked, “First time, chiquito?”

  He nodded in total misery.

  The guy, covered in prison tats, said, “You’re a real pretty boy, they gonna ream you good, compadre.”

  The guy was staring at Carlito’s solid gold Miraculous Medal. Carlito, with difficulty, using his manacled hands, tried to button the prison-issue shirt and the guy laughed, a laugh born of pure nastiness and worse, deep malevolent knowing, said, “First day in the joint, it’s like, every worst nightmare you ever had and bro, it’s worse, ’cause it’s true and it ain’t gonna git no better, so you do what you can, you get wasted, you hear me, fish, you gotta get some serious dope going in your system – then it don’t, like, hurt. Me, I got my main running buddy up there, he’ll hook me up right after orientation, and you wanna, you want some of that good stuff, help you get focused, you come see me, I fix you right up but it costs, you know what I’m sayin’?”

  He shut up for a bit then said, “Speed. The ol’ reliable, amphetamines, they set you right up and Bennies, ain’t nuttin on God’s good earth like those beauties.”

  He laughed, obviously feeling the effect of some of the above, began to sing, “Benny and the Jets.” Was it horrible, man, or what? Even worse than having to hear Elt himself do it.

  The guy added, “That there medal, always wanted me one of those babes. You want some recreational drugs? That there is the freight, muchacho.”

  Carlito snapped himself out of his reverie, tried to pay attention to the guy holding onto his hand. Leader of the Crips. His mouth went dry and he smiled like some wetback fresh from the border.

  Sino swept his arm round the yard, said, “Who you with?” Then in a mocking tone, continued. “I tell you, fish, you with nobody. You got, like, de nada, you hear me, fish?’

  Carlito did.

  Sino said, “See those hombres over there? Yeah, the ones lookin’ at you, like you a big juicy empanada. They gonna run a line through yo skinny ass, you don’t be with somebody.”

  Carlito was already crying, bawling like a damn baby.

  Sino moved in close, said, “Yo, you join my crew, you be safe, know what I’m talkin’ about?”

  Carlito nodded. He’d have joined the army at this stage. Anything. Sino palmed him a toothbrush, handmade blade embedded on the top, said, “Yo, you wanna make some bones, you show yo’ got cojones. Know what I talkin’ about, jefe?”

  Carlito wanted to run, but where?

  Sino looked at his watch, a shiny TAG Heuer knock-off, said, “Twelve noon, fat middle-aged white dude, takes his shower on C… you go rip him a new one, comprende?”

  Sino sauntered off and Carlito began a whole new set of tremors.

  At twelve noon Carlito headed to the showers. He’d managed to score some bennies from the guy he’d rode the bus up with. Cost him his gold Miraculous Medal he’d always worn. In a haze of drug-induced adrenaline and outright fear, he saw the fat white dude and launched himself. The phrase It got away from him might be appropriate here. He was still slashing and chopping when the guards clubbed him senseless. One of them, who’d seen most all a prison could offer, muttered, “Holy Mother of Christ.”

  And too bad for Sino, what remained of the fat dude on the shower floor was the armaments guy for the Aryan Brotherhood.

  Carlito heard another guard say, “ Hombre, you just fucked yourself good,” and everything faded out.

  Nine

  “A caged woman is a beast of ferocious instinct.”

  SENOR RODRIGUEZ

  When they brought Angela to the prison in Lesbos her first thought was, Jaysus, this place lives up to its name. She was brought to a holding cell with eight other women. Each was hotter than the last and most of them were in micro-minis, skimpy tube tops, a couple even in bikinis. Most were talking in Greek, and a couple of blondes were talking in some other language, maybe Swedish.

  Angela went up to one of the blondes and asked for a smoke. Jaysus, with the day she’d had, she could’ve used a whole carton.

  The woman’s friend, the other Swede, slid one out of a pack.

  Angela took it, held it out for a light, said, “I’m Angela.”

  “Inga,” the woman with the cigarettes said. “This is Katina.”

  Angela asked, “So is this a prison or a nightclub?”

/>   Thought she was making a joke, but Katina said, “Both.”

  “There was a raid at Niko’s last night,” Inga explained. “Heroin or something.”

  “But we have nothing to do with it,” Katina said.

  She sounded a little too defensive. Angela glanced down, noticed the track marks on her skinny arms.

  “Yes, we were just there, you know, partying, when the police come,” Inga said. “How do you say, the wrong places at the wrong times?”

  Thinking, The story of me life, Angela asked, “So what did they charge you with?”

  “We do not know what’s going on,” Inga said. “They told us nothing. They just bring us here, that’s it.”

  “We are, how do you say,” Katina said, “in the dark.”

  “What about you?” Inga asked. “What did you do?”

  “Oh, nothing,” Angela said. “I was just having a drink, minding my own business, and next thing I knew two cops were taking me away.”

  “It’s crazy in Greece,” Katina said. “They arrest everybody, no?”

  The prison wasn’t like any prison Angela had ever heard of. The officers who’d arrested Angela hadn’t notified her of any charges, or at least she didn’t think they had. During the ride over they were talking in Greek and the only parts Angela picked up were when they were commenting on her oreo megala vizia – big, beautiful tits – no surprise there. But, of course, Angela knew why she was being taken away. The cab driver on Santorini must’ve told the authorities that she’d boarded a boat for Lesbos and then the Lesbos police – Lesbian police? Jaysus, it sounded like something out of Greenwich Village, but that was probably what they called themselves – had been notified. They were probably just waiting now to coordinate with the Santorini cops. She didn’t know if they’d found some evidence that could hang her or if she was just a suspect by default. Not that it mattered. She’d heard enough stories over the years from her father about the Greek justice system. It was your classic, old-world, eye-for-an-eye, guilty-until-proven-innocent mentality. She figured she’d never be formally charged with anything. She’d be handed over to Georgios’ relatives and quietly killed, case closed.

  Fookin’ Sebastian. If he hadn’t run off like the coward he was, she never would’ve had to take that cab to the other end of Santorini. They would’ve ridden together on the moped and she wouldn’t be in this shithole right now. They hadn’t even let her make a phone call. Not that there was anyone to call. A lawyer would be useless and her family was even more so. Her mother’s side was all ex-IRA and her father’s side was as backward as Georgios’ family.

  “Do any of the guards here speak English?” Angela asked.

  “There was a young guy here last night,” Inga said, “maybe nineteen years old. He was hitting on all the women.”

  “He told one girl, if she give him blowjob she can get out,” Katina said as she casually reached out and held Inga’s hand. “He is like a teenage boy, his eyes jumping out of his head with so many beautiful women. He even offered to pay, fifty euro, keeps showing it, pulls money out of this belt tied round his waist. Keeps zipping and unzipping the belt, saying ‘Want what’s in here?’ Pig.”

  Angela thought, Bingo.

  Angela asked Katina, “When does his shift start?”

  The girl shrugged, said, “Night.”

  Angela looked around the cell, which was getting hotter and less comfortable as the sun rose. She said, “How do you pass the time in here?” and then got strange looks from the girls and thought, Uh-oh.

  Sure enough, by the time the scorching midday heat hit top level, the sun blasting through the bars, the other women, who hadn’t been wearing all that much to begin with, began unbuttoning their shirts, rolling up their sleeves, pulling off sweat-stained clothes. Angela watched one woman roll her tube top down to her waist and lie down on one of the cell’s two metal bunks. It was like a signal to the others – in minutes, all eight women had stripped down. The two girls who’d been in bikinis tossed their tops in a corner of the cell and sat down side by side in a patch of sunlight, one with her arm around the other’s waist. A very large Russian woman took off her blouse, revealing a skimpy bra through which Angela could make out a tattoo in the shape of an eagle across the woman’s breasts. Jaysus, this fookin’ Lesbos more than lived up to its name. Too bad Angela was straight or she wouldn’t’ve been in such a hurry to get out of this place.

  Inga lit another cigarette, inhaled deeply, then passed it to Katina. The Russian woman came over, started stroking Katina’s arm, kissing her neck. She looked at Angela, and purred, “You like?”

  Angela shrugged, moved to the water bucket, thinking, Whatever turns you on, lady. As Angela used a dirty towel to wipe off her face, she could see the women pairing off on the floor, the bunks, standing against the wall.

  She found an empty corner and sat down, closed her eyes, but it didn’t stop her hearing the sounds around her. She bit down on her lower lip and focused on two things: the young guard and, especially, the money belt.

  At midnight, the kid arrived and, Jaysus, the Swedes were right, he seemed like a child let loose in a candy shop. He had an overall deranged look about him, as if someone had hit him in the head with a baseball bat and he was wandering around, permanently dazed. But when it came to men sometimes Angela wasn’t exactly picky. Hell, she’d been engaged to Max Fisher, hadn’t she?

  The important thing was that the kid was the only guard on duty at night and sure enough, he was wearing the money belt.

  Angela knew she had to work fast. She was surprised no one from Georgios’ family had shown up yet, but it was only a matter of time. She figured she had till morning, tops.

  When the kid came by all the women spoke at once, complaining, demanding to be released. But Angela caught his attention, pursing her lips and batting her eyelashes, doing her best Marilyn Monroe come-hither look. Okay, so maybe she was overdoing it, but it worked, didn’t it?

  The kid came right over and Angela whispered, “So what does a girl have to do to get out of this place?”

  The kid smiled. Jaysus, panted, “Come with me.” He opened and closed the cell door with a giant skeleton key.

  They went into what you’d call the office. There was a desk, a chair, and not much else. The walls were corroded and a fan was spinning haltingly overhead.

  “Get naked,” the kid said.

  Usually it was a turn-on for Angela when the guy ordered her around, but not this time.

  “I thought you’d want a little…” she looked at his crotch “… lip service.”

  “You kill somebody,” the kid said. “If you steal, blowjob, okay, but you kill, you have to fuck.”

  Angela had a feeling arguing this logic would be pointless. Besides, it wasn’t like she had a lot of bargaining power.

  They went at it – or rather he went at it – for what seemed like three or four hours. He wasn’t the worst she’d ever had, but that was only thanks to Max Fisher. The kid was lost, in his own world; she could’ve died and he wouldn’t have noticed. At one point she had a flashback to Georgios and she had the temptation to reach up, grab the kid’s head, and snap his neck. Thank God she resisted. She was in enough trouble, and killing a fookin’ prison guard wouldn’t exactly improve her situation.

  Finally it ended, and the kid, like every goddamn man Anglela had ever known, fell asleep. She took his money belt, got his keys and then on impulse, picked up one of his heavy boots from where he’d tossed it before climbing on top of her, walloped him upside the head with it, said, “We call that cold cocked.”

  She had to move fast. Did she think of releasing the other women? Did she fuck. It was every bitch for their own selves.

  She was exhausted, and as she headed toward the docks she thought about how she’d gotten here, to this low point in her life. A few years ago, things had been going so well for her. It seemed like just yesterday she was living in New York, working as an executive assistant, dating guys, living in a
studio apartment in Gramercy Park. Yeah, she’d made a few bad decisions – a few spectacularly bad decisions – but did she really deserve this?

  She boarded a ferry to Naples. As the boat pulled away, she yelled, “Greece, you can kiss my Irish arse goodbye!”

  She remained in the back of the ferry staring half-dazed, watching until the lighthouse at the tip of Lesbos faded to nothing. Good fookin’ riddance.

  She counted the money from the kid’s belt, was surprised to find nearly two thousand euro. It’d be enough for a new outfit and a plane ticket, so sayonara you bastards, she was getting the first flight out of this shitehole and back to the States.

  Of course then she’d be nearly broke again. But she knew that Max, the little bollix, he’d have money stashed and if she was in that place of total desperation she could do whatever it took to get hold of it. Then, just maybe she could use the stake she got to set up something to sustain her till she could come up with a longer-term plan.

  Right there and then, she’d have killed for some lip gloss and perfume. She could still smell the guard. She was tempted to jump into the sea and wash herself clean.

  Say what you want about Greek ferries, they have one great feature – a bar.

  She headed down there, ignored various suggestions from the motley crew and ordered a large Metaxa. The barman leered at her and she gave him a look that no doubt withered his coming hard-on.

  He muttered, “Mallakismeni.”

  Yeah, like she gave a shit.

  Over in a corner, she saw a girl in her very early twenties, sobbing quietly. She looked pale – maybe English, maybe a fucking albino – and broken.

  Angela thought, Welcome to my world, honey. Had one motherfooker, like, ever helped her out? Was there one cocksucker on the whole planet who hadn’t fooked her over in some way? Nope, not one lousy decent human on the planet. She thought, You paddle your own frigging canoe, no time like the present to learn that life sucks and if you were a single woman, guess who gets to do the sucking?