The Max

by Ken Bruen

  Still, there was a good heart in Angela once upon a time and it still flickered – dimly, but there.

  She approached, asked, “Join you, girl?”

  The girl looked up, looking relieved to see not only a woman, but an American. She began to weep profusely, said, “Oh, please do.”

  The British accent reminded her of Sebastian, but Angela was still sympathetic. She drank off half her brandy and Christ, it burned, bitter and with a kick like a Santorini mule. Which was why she was drinking the shite.

  She offered the remainder to the girl, who protested, “Isn’t it a little early?”

  Such a Brit.

  Angela said, “Darlin’, it’s been too late for you and me since we landed in this fooking country.”

  For a moment the girl seemed startled at the profanity and then they both began to laugh, prompting the Greek men at the bar to throw the evil eye at them. Nothing scarier for a macho type than the sound of women’s laughter. They fear it’s directed at them and they’re mostly right.

  The girl told Angela the usual tired story, boyfriend fooked off with their cash. Same sad song, same sad result, and all she had was her return ticket on the ferry

  Angela would never quite know why she asked, “How much is the airfare home?”

  Stunned, the girl said she could get a cheap flight for maybe three hundred euro.

  Angela gave her four hundred, gripped her hand tightly and said, “Buy yourself a nice dress, have a meal and get home as if the devil was chasing you.”

  Ten

  “Riots generally had no causes, or the causes were pretty small, like a particularly bad meal in the mess hall.”

  PATRICIA HIGHSMITH, The Glass Cell

  Violence was in the air in Attica, you could practically smell it. After the Aryan was found dead in the shower, rumor spread that Sino’s crew was behind it. Two days later Carlito, the Mexican kid, was found dead in the shower – his throat slashed after he’d been gang raped. Max felt sorry for him, but, come on, what did the moron expect, going up against the Brotherhood with nothing but a sharpened toothbrush? Hadn’t he boned up on prison literature before he got sent away? Eh, not everybody could be as savvy and as street smart as The… A.X.

  Rumors were spreading that when Sino got out of the hole the Aryans were gonna make their big move. Rufus and his boys were planning to get in on the fun, and the spic gangs and the Bloods were going to get their licks in, too. Max could hardly contain himself – a major prison uprising was brewing! Riots at Attica, it was so fuckin’ Pacino. Someday, when they filmed the story of his life, the riots would be the fucking set piece. It was going to be biblical, historical, and Max Fisher was going to be in the middle of it all.

  One morning, when Sino had been away in the hole for about a week, the mail guy came by Max’s cell, held out an envelope, and said, “Fisher.”

  Max was surprised to hear his name called. Rufus got letters all the time from God knows who, but so far Max had gotten nada. After all, who was there to write him? He didn’t expect to hear from his relatives, that was for sure. They all said he’d disgraced the family, they never wanted anything to do with him again, yadda yadda yadda. As far as Max was concerned, that was fine with him. His brother called him a loser and a lowlife. Jesus Christ, the guy was a fucking teacher and he was calling Max a loser? Come on.

  Max was a big-time criminal, a fucking celebrity. He figured there had to be, like, dozens of websites devoted to him, and blogs, and, hell, fan clubs. Maybe the letter was from one of his fan club members.

  Max looked at the return address: Paula Segal.

  His first thought: Somebody I banged?

  Yeah, probably. He’d had so many conquests over the years, how could he keep track? Now that he was famous, now that he’d made it, she probably wanted to weasel in, score some of his dough for herself. Yeah, like that was gonna happen. His ex-wife had taught him all about pre-nups.

  He opened the envelope – there was a note and, oh yeah, baby, a picture. And, whoa, hold the phones, this chick was hot! After nearly three weeks in lockup, Rufus was looking better to him every night – but this girl, fuck, she was a serious knockout. Okay, Max hadn’t looked at her face yet, but those huge gazongas, had to be 36-C’s at least, maybe D’s. They were high, too, and he liked the way they were squished together in that little swimsuit, and so tight you could bounce a quarter off ’em.

  Finally, after maybe a minute or two, he looked at her face. Nah, she didn’t look like an ex, but that didn’t mean anything. Would Hef recognize all of his conquests? When you were a big-time player like Max Fisher, women tended to blur.

  He skimmed the note, something how she was a writer, knew some other chicks – Laura Lippman, Tess Gerritsen, hopefully they were stacked too – and, holy shit, she wanted to write his life story. See, Hollywood was calling, and sooner than he’d expected. Yeah, it was all coming together, just at its own pace, that’s all. He was already the most feared man at Attica, and now some hot babe from Manhattan, a big-time writer, was all over him. Obviously she’d want to fuck him. She had to get to know her subject as well as she could, didn’t she?

  As soon as he could get his hands on some paper and a pen, Max wrote: Dear Paula, Love the picture!!!! As you can imagine I get A LOT of requests like this. James Patterson wanted to write my story, but I said, No, thanks, Jimmy, way too busy. That said, drop by and I’ll squeeze you in. Just make sure you wear something like in the picture. Love, The… A.X. P.S. Bring Laura and Tess. The more the merrier.

  A few days later, Max was called down to the visitor’s room. He had his hair slicked and a rolled-up sock in his crotch – yeah he was ready to rock ‘n’ roll.

  There was only one chick there, Paula, but, man, she looked even hotter in person. For the last couple of nights, Max had been jerking off, imagining this moment, and talk about living up to a fantasy. She was in a low-cut top, loose enough that you could almost see her nipples. Man, if the glass wasn’t there he wouldn’t’ve been able to resist. He would’ve just reached out and grabbed ’em.

  He stared at her tits for a while longer, then realized she was talking to him. He put on a headset, heard:

  “Mr. Fisher, I can’t tell you what a pleasure it is to meet you. I’ve read everything about you I could get my hands on. I was at your trial, but I didn’t have the opportunity to introduce myself. Thank you so much for agreeing to meet me here, and fit me into your tight schedule. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate it.”

  Jesus, Max thought, she was like a bad date – she never shuts up.

  But he smiled, had to keep up his celebrity persona, and said, “You have great tits, but you’ve probably heard that dozens of times before, right?”

  She smiled. What, she thought he was joking? Then she said, “I’ve booked a motel room in the area. I was hoping we could talk once a day over the course of the next several weeks. I’m trying to arrange with the warden a better place to meet, face-to-face, in private. He said it requires some arrangement, but hopefully it’s something that could happen soon. I’m just so…”

  Max was looking at her rack again. Fuck, they were so close yet so far away.

  “You single?” he asked.

  She hesitated, then said, “Yes. Yes, I am.”

  “Me, too,” Max said. “See? We already have something in common.” He laughed then added, “I want to proposition you.” He realized that didn’t come out right and said, “I mean, I want to make a proposition to you. Me and you, we seem to get along, right? We have a lot in common, make each other laugh. I was thinking, how about we, you know, get married?”

  Why was she laughing? Eh, she was probably just so happy she couldn’t contain herself. That had to be it.

  “Hey, don’t get too excited,” he said. “There’ll be a pre-nup – a serious pre-nup. If you think I’m gonna give you half the Fisher fortune, think again, muchacha. I made that mistake once and I’m sure as shit not gonna make it again. But, yeah, it’ll b
e great to be married to you because me and you, we could have those, what do they call them, congenital visits? No, that’s not it. Conjugal visits. Yeah, we’ll have those.”

  Max had been thinking about his herpes, but she didn’t have to know about that. Things were going so well, there was no reason to ruin the mood.

  “I don’t know what to say,” Paula said.

  God, were her tits, like, growing?

  “Say yes,” Max said.

  “I’m very flattered, obviously,” she said. “I mean, you’re a very attractive man, and I’m so honored that you’re taking the time to-”

  “Look, honey, you want me to write this book with you, don’t you?”

  He liked that – let the not-so-subtle threat hang there. That was the way to play hardball with the literary bitch. After all, not only had he cut off a man’s dick – yeah, he was starting to believe it himself – he was the king of Attica, a feared man, and he might as well start fucking acting like it, right? You want The… A.X. to give something, you gotta give him something in return.

  Like that.

  “I’ll think it over,” she said. “In the meantime, I was hoping we could-”

  “I look like Chris Rock?” Max asked.

  Paula looked confused, said, “I’m confused.”

  “I look like Chris Rock?” Max repeated. “I look like a goddamn comedian?”

  “No, but-”

  “Then pay me some respect, okay? I’m an important man, I’m a big man. I need you, but you don’t need me. So you’re gonna give me what I need or you’re not gonna get what you need. You know that and I know that, so let’s not pussyfoot around. Let’s just keep the action going, the ball in play, all right?”

  He had no idea what half this shit meant but, hell, he was on a roll. Yeah, you better believe it.

  Her voice starting to weaken, she said, “Mr. Fisher, I can’t-”

  Max dropped the headphones, got up and walked away. He went all the way to the other end of the room, making it seem like he was leaving for real, then, at the door, he stopped and turned back. Sure enough the book bitch was calling to him, trying to get his attention.

  Max had her!

  But he took his time walking back, milking the moment, then put the phones on and she practically screamed, “If I say yes, will you do the book with me?”

  Ah, desperation. He loved it.

  Max, waited, said, “Sweetheart, I’m gonna do a lot more with you than write a fucking book.”

  Max Fisher had to be the smarmiest, sleaziest, most self-deluded guy Paula had ever met – a goldmine all right. She’d been worried, on the way up to Attica, that maybe Fisher would be a disappointment. After all, how could a guy be so far out there, so far gone? But, no, this guy lived up to his rep and surpassed it.

  Just arriving at Attica had been such a fucking blast. The walls of the prison seemed to reek of testosterone and she’d laughed, said to herself, “Wanna talk about sperm count?”

  She had to put that in the book. But first, Jesus, first, she needed to do another line. Yeah, just to get into the full Max Fisher mindset she’d started doing coke, and the sheer rush of snorting a line outside Attica was incredible. So she did one line, okay four, but c’mon, this is the toughest joint in the whole country and she was about to meet the craziest bastard any writer could dream of.

  What was that book called, The Journalist and the Murderer? Yeah, something like that, Joe McGinnis, hottest true crime writer in the biz, two movies made till his subject, the killer doctor – McDonald? – sued him and sayonara Joe. Dealing with these guys was like juggling grenades. But if you could handle it… and she could, she knew she could. Now it was Paula Segal’s turn in the spotlight, on center stage.

  The coke kicking in, she took a sip of her stone-cold vanilla latte. (Decaf. She wasn’t reckless. That caffeine was, like, addictive.)

  She reached in her glove compartment, the nose candy giving her that icy drip that was pure heaven, and yup, there were her Virginia Slims. A cigarette, even a girly one, and she was so ready to rock and roll.

  Oh, she loved Fisher. Who could invent a guy like that? She already had the chapter written in her head where he proposed marriage. Perfect, fucking perfect.

  He hadn’t been able to take his eyes off her tits. His obsession with busty women had come up during his trial and, okay, she’d expected him to respond more or less the way he had. It’s why she’d worn what she’d worn. But he’d gone further. Three weeks in jail and he was ready to propose marriage to a complete stranger. One with nice tits, but still. Couldn’t this asshole tell she was a dyke now? But if he couldn’t, he couldn’t. Not her fault. It was her right as a journalist to milk it for all it was worth. She decided to string him along, let him think she wanted to marry him. Jesus, how far would a man go just to get laid? But if that’s what it took to get him to open up in a few private sessions, give her some juicy quotes no one else had, baby, let him eye the twins all he wanted. About time they gave her something other than a backache.

  Leaving the prison, Paula was shaking, not from fear but sheer hot exhilaration. Well, exhilaration and cocaine.

  She did another line then, looking up at the gun turrets, realized she’d better get the car and her ass in gear.

  As she pulled out of there, she was debating, Should she reveal in the book that she was gay? Then she thought, How big is the pink dollar? and laughed again, that damn coke. How much did dykes spend on true crime books?

  But no, pulling an Ellen might alienate the great white majority. The hell with it, she’d ask her agent what to do, her new agent, not this fucking loser she had now.

  Getting back to the motel, she found the coke high, like a sad dick, was wilting and she needed to stay up, stay on top of her game. She thought, Nice cold dry Martini would do the biz, maybe a bit of hot sex. She’d check her trick book But, shit, she wasn’t in the city. Her trick book was back home, and anyone listed in it was three hundred miles away. She needed some rough trade right here, right now. There had to some hot bull dykes somewhere in Attica, New York, right? Every prison these days had a diversity hiring requirement, and those butch female guards had to hang out somewhere.

  Her thoughts skipped back, from sex to her book. She could see the dust jacket, had to be black and white, maybe they’d use Fisher’s mugshot. Or maybe she’d just take one herself, how difficult could it be? She had a digital camera.

  Then the blurbs! Maybe she could get Dominick Dunne or Sebastian Junger or, better yet, Bill Clinton. He liked to read and, God, he was going to love to read about Max Fisher. Ah, and then, once word of her book got around, people would start asking her for blurbs, Even Connelly and King would be calling her. But she’d adopt a policy of no blurbing herself. Sorry, not even for Laura L.

  She said aloud as she was putting on her leather gear, primed for a night on the prowl, something that would have gotten her thrown out of the very bars she was about to visit: “Max Fisher, I love you.”

  Eleven

  “Ehi, chi ha fascino puo permettersi di camminare impettito, no?”

  KEN BRUEN AND JASON STARR, Doppio Complotta

  Sebastian was so bloody happy to be back in old Blighty. Gosh, it was good to speak English with English people. He’d noticed the girl on the plane had spare keys in her bag and stupid cow, her address in Hampstead written right on the fob. Who knows, he might do a little reconnaissance there. He always kept his ears open for useful details. She’d mentioned she worked as a paralegal; perhaps while she was paralegalizing, he could stroll through her gaff, see what other goodies he might liberate.

  The prospect of rifling her place tickled his fancy. Nothing like a touch of B-and-E to whet the appetites. He had for the past few years rented a one-room apartment in Earls Court. His parents paid the freight, mainly to keep him out of their home. Patrick Hamilton had written, “Those whom the gods have abandoned are left an electric fire in Earls Court.” It was indeed, depending on your vocabulary, A
kip A hovel A dive A shithole

  But it was a bolt hole, and it was useful to have an address. It had one wardrobe that held his prized Armani suit, his three pair of Italian-made brogues and, of course, the mandatory striped shirts, all bespoke. And, naturally, an assortment of ties, from Police Federation to Cambridge, Eton and Oxford to the Masons. Vital items for a con man on his uppers.

  He needed an infusion of cash, a rather large one. He took out his remaining bottle of Gordon’s Gin – was there any other? – and drat, no tonic or bitters, really, he’d have to take stock. There was a miniature mountain of bills that had accumulated in his absence, and he threw them in the garbage. The upper classes didn’t actually pay for stuff. Really, did anyone ever see Prince Charles worry about the light bill?

  He tossed back the gin, said, “Hits the spot, ye gads.”

  And went to the bathroom. It was about the size of his cupboard. Shame about the hot water. There is a slight downside to not paying the utilities. He’d have to ring ol’ Mum, get her to post some cheques to these various chappies. He splashed on some Hugo Boss, a fellow had to smell right, and then as he peed, he went, “The bloody hell is that?”

  Couldn’t be. But it looked like… were those blisters?

  He stood stock still, thinking, Herpes? Him?

  “The bitch,” he said, and he slammed his fist into the wall, hurting his knuckles. Then he shouted, “This is just too bloody rich! ”

  And in his rage, he made a decision that, by day’s end, would in fact lead to his killing somebody.

  He went back to the tiny front room, drank off rather a large measure of neat gin and in a lightbulb moment thought, Hampstead, by golly. Somebody is going to pay for this injustice, this travesty of life.

  He went to the pub first, see if any of the chaps were around, maybe hit them for a rapid fifty for cab fare. You didn’t think he was going to ride the tube, now did you? Come on, really, get with the cricket, old bean.