Joseph Finder - Power Play

Barlow seemed momentarily stymied.

"No need for all that drama," Russell went on. "Not when we got all the players here who can make our little deal happen."

"I told you, we can't do that!" Cheryl said.

"Now, see, Cheryl, I'm not talking to you. You and Ronald, you seem to be the naysayers around here." He raised his voice, addressing all of us at once. "Okay, kiddies, here's the deal. I'm gonna make a call to an old buddy of mine-a guy who knows how all this stuff works. Meanwhile, Upton, why don't you and your Executive Management Team have a little powwow. A little…offsite, right? Figure out how you guys are gonna get me that money. Hey, Buck, do you think you guys can clear your schedule for a couple of days?"

"Shee-et, I dunno, I'm a busy guy," Buck said. He was using his redneck Deliverance accent again. It must have been some inside joke among the hunters, or whatever they were. "Hain't even finished worming the hogs."

"Want something done, ask a busy man to do it," Russell said. "So why don't you and Wayne check your Filofaxes and see if you can block out a little time for me, could you, please?"

Buck cackled. "Soon's I finish cooking the roadkill beef jerky, boss."

"When you're done searching everybody, I want you to tie 'em all up at the wrists. Hands in front of 'em so they can use the john if they have to." He took out his walkie-talkie and pressed the transmit button. "Verne, you and Travis bring the staff in here, please."

"Roger," a voice said.

"There's no need to tie anybody up," Cheryl said. "Honestly-where the hell do you think we're going to go?"

"Well, Cheryl," said Russell, "you sound very reasonable, the way I'd expect a CEO to sound. But you folks might be here a little while, see, and I never like to take chances." He had the pleasant, confident voice of an airline pilot announcing that we'd just encountered a little "heavy weather" and telling us not to worry about it. "All right, boys and girls, my buddies here will take good care of you. By the time I get back, I'm hoping and expecting we'll all be ready to rock 'n' roll." He smiled and nodded. "Gonna be a kinda carrot-and-stick approach, whatever you want to call it. You cooperate, we do our deal, and me and my buddies pack up and move on."

"What's the stick?" asked Slattery.

"You," said Russell. "We'll start with you. Thanks for volunteering." He was talking to all of us now, his eyes hooded, nonchalant. "You folks give me any problems, I'm going to kill my little friend Ronald. Call it a penalty for nonperformance, isn't that what you guys say? So I'm hoping you guys do some real creative thinking, okay?"

Slattery went pale as Russell stowed his walkie-talkie, then gazed around the immense room for a few seconds. "I want everyone on the floor where we can see 'em," he ordered his men.

"What do you want us to tie 'em up with?" said Buck.

"Jesus." Russell shook his head. "They're supposed to be doing something called 'ropes courses' tomorrow, whatever the hell that is. Just a wild guess, here, but I'm thinking it might involve rope, Bucky, what do you think?"

Buck gave Russell a look of irritation.

"Well, there you go," Russell said, pointing at the big wooden reel of climbing rope that Bo Lampack had held up at dinner. "And listen, Buck. Pay careful attention to that young guy." He jabbed a thumb in my direction. "I get a bad feeling about him."

Watch out for this guy, Glover," the guard said, smiling.

My first day at the Glenview Residential Center. Juvie. My home for the next eighteen months.

"Yeah, I see what you mean," said the second guard. "Better warn Estevez. He's gonna shit in his pants."

Their laughter rang in the cinder-block hallway. The first one said something in a low voice to the second, something I didn't catch. Handed him a clipboard with forms on it. The intake forms I'd had to sign at the bottom of every page.

I looked around, dazed. But watchful: Everything here looked strange, yet familiar. The walls painted a sickly institutional green, the ancient linoleum tiles on the floor, black squares alternating with white, scratched and grooved yet waxed and buffed to a high sheen.

Floor's probably polished by the kids, I thought. The other prisoners.

That sharp, high smell of pine disinfectant everywhere, which would forever summon a cataract of bad memories.

The first guard-I never caught his name-had brought me over from the main administration building, a beautiful redbrick Georgian manor house. With its rolling, manicured two-hundred-acre campus, the place could have been some New England college, or at least as I imagined a college would look.

Except for the discreet sign on the lawn: GLENVIEW RESIDENTIAL CENTER. And the chain-link fence topped by concertina wire. And the guard towers.

I'd been fingerprinted, stripped naked, made to sit on a bench for an hour. Pictures were taken. They sheared off my long hair, gave me a buzz cut. I was issued a set of prison clothes: khaki pants with an elastic waistband, red T-shirt, dark blue sneakers. Everything had my name already stenciled on it. They'd been expecting me.

Glover, the chief guard of D Unit, was a burly blond guy around forty, pale as an albino, white eyelashes. And, I was convinced, bourbon on his breath.

He said only, "Tough guy," and escorted me to the dayroom to meet the other kids.

They stared as I entered. My age, but not my size. Most of them were bigger, tougher-looking: kids sent up from the boroughs of New York City, gangbangers with gang tattoos.

I looked away, scared shitless.

First mistake, I soon learned. Inside juvie, someone stares at you, and you fail to meet his eyes, they assume you're weak, scared, an easy mark.

Glover took me to my room. In the hall on the way a kid about twice my size "accidentally" bumped into me.

I said, "Hey," and stiff-armed him.

The kid smashed a fist into my face. I tasted blood, fell over backwards, cracked my head on the floor. The kid kicked me in the stomach.

Glover stood, watching. Other kids began to gather, laughing excitedly, cheering like spectators at a prizefight.

The kid kicked me in the head. I tried to shield my face with my arms. Desperately looked at Glover, expecting him to stop the assault. He was smiling, his arms folded across his big gut.

I tried getting up to fight back, but the big kid kept kicking and punching until I could barely see: Blood trickled into my eyes.

"Okay, Estevez," Glover finally said. "I think that'll do it."

The other kids complained but began clearing out. Glover watched me struggle to my feet. "That's Estevez," he explained, matter-of-fact. The walls swam around me. "He's the captain of D Unit."

He led me down the hall to my room. "Welcome," he said.

The steel door clanged behind him as he left.

The manager, Paul, and his son, Ryan, were the first to enter the great room. Both of them were grim-faced. Paul's face was bruised, and he was limping. The reading glasses around his neck were bent, the lenses shattered. He must have put up a struggle. His lodge: He felt protective. Behind him followed the rest of the hotel's staff-the waiters who'd served us dinner, a pudgy guy with a mustache and glasses I recognized as the handyman, the two Bulgarian girls who did the cleaning, a few others who I assumed were kitchen staff. Then Bo Lampack, a long red welt across his forehead and right cheek.

Behind them came two men with guns. One was like a younger version of Russell, only not as tall and with a weight lifter's build. Prison muscles, I thought. Instead of Russell's long hair, his head was shaved. Had to be his brother. He was in his mid-twenties, with intense greenish eyes. His face was soft, almost feminine, but that delicacy was counteracted by a fierce scowl. The edges of what appeared to be an immense tattoo peeked out of the crew-neck collar of his shirt and ran a few inches up his neck.