Ken Bruen - The Max

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.”

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 be 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-”