Poisonfeather (Gibson Vaughn #2)
Matthew FitzSimmons
THE HUBRIS
But this is what you pay, Prometheus, for that tongue of yours which talked so high and haughty: you are not yet humble; still you do not yield to your misfortunes, and you wish, indeed, to add some more to them.
—Aeschylus, Prometheus Bound
CHAPTER ONE
The lights thudded to life in cavernous sweeps of fluorescence. All around him, Merrick heard the sound of men waking against their will. The groans of ancient bedsprings. Conversations, halted the night before at lights-out, picked up where they’d left off as though mere seconds had passed. Easy enough to resume because they were the same banal conversations as the morning before and the morning before that, stretching back the eight years Merrick had been waking to them.
A finite number of topics existed in prison—life before, life during, and the promise of a better life after. Enemies and friends, women, visitors, commissary, and the sorry state of the food. It didn’t take long to hear them all, and from that point forward it was only variations on a theme. Inmates came and went, but the conversations would go on forever. Handed down, mouth to ear, for generations of convicts yet to come. As if the conversations were the only true residents of a prison, the inmates merely transient voices mouthing words first spoken long before. Or so Charles Merrick would be happy to imagine in 142 days, when he put Niobe Federal Prison behind him forever.
Merrick swung his feet out of bed and directly into his flip-flops so that his feet never touched the floor of this detestable place. He made his bunk in four economical, practiced movements. The coarse wool blanket wasn’t fit for a dog. Certainly not Morgan—his King Charles spaniel, who had passed while he was inside. He missed that animal: the only loyal creature that he had ever known.
The guards moved through the dormitory, taking the seven a.m. count. They also took count at three and five a.m. It was the hardest part of prison for him—having his sleep interrupted by these feebleminded drones with their little hand clickers because the idea of keeping count in their heads was risible. High-school graduates unqualified even to work in the mail room at Merrick Capital.
“Ready for your big day, Cinderella?”
The guards had been hectoring him for weeks. Ever since the warden had approved the interview, Merrick had thought of little else. He hadn’t had a visitor other than his lawyer in years, so forgive him for being excited about it. Guards and inmates alike had mocked him endlessly like jealous children, but he was in far too good a mood to let it bother him today.
The moment the guards sounded the all clear, Merrick hurried for the showers. He would have run if allowed. Ordinarily, he never rushed to get anywhere; around every corner lay more prison, so what was the point? But today he wanted to be first in line, unwilling to risk the hot water running out again. After his shower, Merrick shaved carefully and combed his thick blond hair into its proper shape. It showed more gray than when he’d arrived at Niobe Federal Prison, but he still had it, and that’s what counted. If anything, he looked better today. The grueling pace at Merrick Capital had taken a toll on his health and on his midsection. It had taken prison for him to discover a love of exercise. Pumping iron, just like a real convict.
The cheap razor nicked him below the ear, and he dabbed at it with a shred of toilet paper. How he missed his old marble countertop of expensive toiletries. Securing even a sample vial of his preferred cologne had taken serious wheeling and dealing. He’d sacrificed a month’s commissary to have it smuggled in for today. He unscrewed the cap and knew immediately that it had been worth it. A generous dab on his clavicle and three, no, four, dabs on the inside of his left wrist—it would take a little extra to mask the stench of this place. He rubbed his wrists together and admired himself in the mirror.
A passing guard caught a whiff and pulled up short. “What the hell is that smell, inmate?”
“Chanel’s Pour Monsieur,” Merrick said.
“Pour Monsieur?” the guard said, mimicking him in a bad French accent. “Well, you smell like a library’s abortion. Now hurry up, Cinderella, before you miss the ball.”
Merrick pulled on his unflattering prison-issue jumpsuit and tried to tailor it in the mirror, to little effect. He’d requested his trial suit to wear for the interview and had been laughed out of the warden’s office. Probably wouldn’t have fit him anyway, because he was far trimmer than when he’d arrived. He would need new ones—fifteen or twenty to start—and hoped his man on Savile Row hadn’t retired. One didn’t go changing tailors willy-nilly.
At breakfast, Merrick sat alone and picked over what passed for scrambled eggs inside. He didn’t like the idea of going into an interview unprepared, but the magazine had rebuffed his request for the questions in advance. As the managing partner of Merrick Capital, he’d given two or three interviews a week. Journalists had lined up for an audience, and his public relations team had prescreened the questions, scripting the meeting to show the Charles Merrick brand in the best possible light.
It would be a new experience walking into an interview unprepared, but Finance was a fine, professional magazine with a first-class pedigree. They would surely send someone competent. He didn’t know this Lydia Malkin woman, but she would get her money’s worth. He was feeling expansive, and the idea of talking appealed to him. Real talk. It had been so long since anyone had asked him a question that required anything of him.
When the hour of his interview arrived, a guard led Merrick into one of the cramped legal counseling rooms. It was bare bones, empty but for a long table and uncomfortable metal chairs. He’d been in it, or one like it, innumerable times. At the table sat a woman about the age of his daughter—maybe twenty-five? She was scribbling notes on a legal pad. Not all that attractive, even if he were being charitable. Probably an intern sent along to get some experience in the field. Fine, fine. Two women were always better than one.
She put down her pen and stood to greet him. “It’s good to meet you, Mr. Merrick.”
“Will she be long?”
“Excuse me?”
“Lydia Malkin. Will she be long? I don’t know how long the guards will give us. They can be . . . unhelpful,” he said as though describing the service at a hotel.
“I am Lydia Malkin.”
She held out her hand. He looked at it and felt his blood pressure rising at the thought that someone had sent this child to interview him.
“You’re a reporter with Finance?”
“I am, yes.”
“What are you? Twenty? Have you even finished college?”
“I’m twenty-six. I have a master’s in journalism from Northwestern.”
“Do you even know who I am?”