Perfect Strangers by Tasmina Perry
In memory of my friend Claire Swillingham.
He woke to the sound of screaming. He lay there in his bunk, staring up at the mottled ceiling, and listened. Sighing, he lit a cigarette and blew the smoke out in a hazy stream. At first, the sounds of the correctional centre had terrified him; the unearthly shrieking, the begging, the promises and threats. What would drive a man to snap like that? What had happened to him to make him claw at the walls? But slowly, like everything else, it had just become part of the routine, an inevitable piece of the landscape, like the chirp and twitter of the dawn chorus in the country.
‘Gimme a straight razor!’ bellowed the desperate voice. ‘I’ll cut my own throat right here! Please, just let me do it!’
Maybe the poor guy was trying to get sectioned to the psych ward. He’d heard the food was better down there. Or maybe he’d just woken up and realised where he was. That much he could identify with – especially today.
‘Happy birthday,’ he whispered to himself with an ironic smile. ‘And many happy returns.’
Swinging his legs out, he shuffled over to the sink, rubbing the short grey stubble on his chin. He smiled. There, propped up against the warped plastic mirror, was a carton of cigarettes. No bow, no fancy wrapping, but touching all the same, even if your only birthday gift had come from a three-hundred-pound biker named Tyler. And it was the thought that counted, right? Especially here. Inside, your own thoughts were about all you had. They didn’t go big on personal possessions in lockdown; just one more thing for the Bulls to take away from you.
Of course, it hadn’t always been this way. There had been a time when he had been the Man Who Had Everything. As he soaped up his beard, he thought of his last birthday: the party at the Long Island beach house, the path down to the shore lit by thousands of candles, tables of the finest caviar and champagne, five hundred guests, all leaders in their own fields: politicians, tycoons, media barons, each one jostling to shake his hand, to squeeze his arm, trying to strike a deal. But that was all over now. All over.
He picked up his half-blunt plastic razor and began to shave with slow, careful strokes. Money could fix most things in here – a bigger cell, TV; he’d even heard they could get you a woman if you paid enough – but no one ever paid another man for a wet shave in the Pen. That would be tempting fate. They call it swimming with sharks on Wall Street, he thought grimly. Those pale-faced preppies wouldn’t make it to chow in here.
He peered into the mirror, noting the deepened lines around his eyes.
A year, had it only been a year? That morning of his last birthday, he’d been in Sag Harbor, a beautiful early summer morning. He’d come down to breakfast and Miriam had left his gift on the marble counter, beautifully wrapped in delicate blue tissue paper. He remembered how his heart had leapt when he had seen what was inside – a beautiful antique cigar box, polished ebony with ivory inlays and a tiny gold key in the lock. It was just exquisite, exactly what he’d wanted. And inside, he had found a single crisp dollar bill: a private joke between husband and wife, Miriam’s way of saying, ‘You’d rather have a dollar in your hand than any of these beautiful things.’ Of course, they both knew it wasn’t the money he cared about. It was what money could give you. Not the trinkets, not the yachts and the houses, but the respect, the position, the power. Once you rose above a certain level, money was just zeros on a spreadsheet, but when people knew you had money – or thought you did – they treated you differently. They treated you like a king.
He patted his face dry and began to dress: starched collars and cuffs, a crisp crease in the leg; he paid extra to the Bloods who ran the laundry. Inside, it paid to look after yourself, to stand out from the crowd, make people see you meant business.
Taking a deep breath, he walked out on to the landing, his shrewd eyes instantly assessing the cons leaning against the railings. By now, he knew all the faces. Two gangbangers, three murderers, a slew of furtive wannabes. All white skin of course – the administration wisely segregated the landings along racial grounds to minimise gang conflict – but there were still warring factions even on this floor. Currently the Nazis had beef with the bikers and the Russians wouldn’t deal with the Italians, but that could all have changed by the end of the day. Violence in jail was fluid, sudden, and it all came down to one thing: money. Who owed whom. And everyone owed someone something – even him. Especially him.
He spotted Ty standing talking to one of the Russians. This was a Category 5 security establishment, so all the foreign nationals convicted of federal offences – drugs, violence, money laundering – were dumped in with the rest of the scumbags. And the celebrities. Celebrities like him. He guessed they put him in a cell with Ty as a punishment, a way of saying, ‘Don’t think you’re special in here.’ In for running a meth lab in Atlanta, the biker had half killed two cons and wounded a guard in his first month. But, to his surprise, Ty had been polite and respectful, showing the terrified new guy the ropes, telling him what to do, who to speak to, how to survive. One night, he had asked him why.
‘’Cos you the man from the TV.’ Ty had shrugged. ‘You’re someone, y’unnerstand?’
Oh, he understood all right. That was exactly the principle he’d used in business. It wasn’t what you could give your clients, it was what they thought you could give them, that was what made them queue up to invest, that was what made them shower you with gifts: the holidays, the Cubans, even on occasion their wives.
‘Hey, Mr Hollywood,’ said a voice behind him. His shoulders tensed, expecting a blow – but all he felt was a hand on the shoulder. He looked up to see the wide smile of Uri the Bear. Somehow the sight of the Russian gangster’s leering face was worse than being stabbed.
‘Uri, how are you?’
‘Fine. Good,’ he said in his strong, stilted accent.
Uri’s hand remained on his shoulder. ‘There is some business I wanted to discuss with you.’
He nodded. He had been expecting it.
‘Shall we take a walk?’
‘Of course.’
They walked slowly along the landing – no one hurried here; why would they? – flanked by Uri’s ever-present bodyguards, one of whom had been rumoured to have strangled a child at the behest of a Mafia boss. But then prison was full of rumours like that.
‘How have you been this month? Safe? Well?’ asked Uri, an eyebrow raised.
Of all the dark souls in the correctional facility, Uri frightened him the most. His face was scarred and there was a tattoo of a dragon peeping out from beneath the collar of his prison-issue denim shirt, but Uri Kaskov was not your standard prison predator. Uri was educated, ambitious and more cold-blooded than anyone in the Pen. Which was why he had approached the Russian with a proposition. Uri could provide something he wanted – protection – and he could offer Uri something in return. The penitentiary was not so different from Wall Street – it was just one big trading floor.
‘Yes, I’m very well, thank you, Uri,’ he said.
Uri the Bear paused for a moment. His pockmarked face looked quizzical.
‘Then that means our deal is working. You remember how I agreed to protect you from those animals down there?’ He gestured to the floor below, where the black gangs roamed. ‘And from the scum up there?’ He pointed to the Bulls walking the gantry. ‘And, as I understood it, from the number of very wealthy people who wish you harm?’
He nodded back at Uri, remembering the first few weeks of his time at the correctional facility. It had been a time of fear. Not a day went by here without some episode of violence. Men were stabbed over a simple disagreement in the laundry. People were killed because of vendettas from the outside. And he knew that he could be next. Uri was right. Countless people hated him on the outside. Rich people, vengeful people. People who wanted to see him dead. And they could reach him inside the prison, because within these walls, everything was possible for a price.
‘Yes, of course, you have done a very good job, Uri. I have no complaints.’
‘Of course not. No, the complaint is on my side.’
He swallowed, glancing nervously at Uri’s bodyguards.
‘Complaint?’
‘The deal has been rather one-sided, don’t you think? I have delivered my part of the bargain: here you are, fit and healthy. But where is my money?’
‘Money is no good to you in here, Uri. When you get out . . .’
‘That might be sooner than we both expected.’
He looked at Uri. The Russian was inside for fifteen years for extortion and racketeering. The authorities couldn’t get him on any of the bigger charges, but he was still expected to do a decent stretch of time. So why was he getting out sooner? What deal had he pulled?
He felt the Russian’s strong hand on his shoulder again as they walked into the yard.
‘I want you to start making arrangements to transfer the money to a friend of mine,’ said Uri.
His heart was beating faster now. He hadn’t risen so high in the business world without being able to read people, and Uri’s manner was hostile, the squeezing fingers cruel. Yes, he was a brute, a gangster, but until today he had been respectful, jovial even. Something was wrong.
‘Well, that might take a while,’ he said. ‘I have to contact someone. He might be difficult to reach. I just need a little more time.’
Uri’s grip tightened.
‘You don’t have the money? Don’t tell me it’s like the rest of your empire. A mirage.’
‘Of course I have the money.’
‘Then I want it. Including the interest.’
‘What interest?’ he asked nervously.
Uri laughed.
‘We’ve heard you talking about how much money you have stashed away. Under the circumstances, I think the price of my protection just went up.’
He cursed himself. Sometimes he let his mouth run away with him. He had a fan club inside the facility, convicts who idolised him for what he had done, and sometimes it was hard not to bask in their worship and boast about his achievements.
‘Okay, so let’s talk,’ he said, trying to keep his voice even. ‘I just need to make a few phone calls. Give me some time.’
Uri had steered him past the baseball field, behind the bleachers out near the fence. A quiet part of the yard. The gun towers could see them – but would the guards be looking? It was a warm day, and a bead of sweat had begun to trail from his hairline down the back of his prison shirt. But despite the heat, he had gone suddenly cold.
Uri’s dark eyes were full of menace. ‘No more time. I want that money,’ he said, moving his hand slowly up the base of his neck. ‘I want it now.’
He felt his blood pumping in his ears, and his vision began to swim.
By the time the guards spotted him, he was dead.