that could hold ten men at a time.
The men who were already lounging on their bunks waiting for the call to dinner looked up curiously, then quickly dropped their heads back to their books or porn magazines. Something had obviously happened. Nobody wanted to know what.
“Can you get your clothes off without help?” Slow Rise asked.
Steve nodded. “I think so. I’ll be better after I stand in the shower awhile.”
And he was. He managed to carry his own tray through the chow line and sit down at one of the long tables to eat. As usual, he didn’t speak, and afterward walked slowly and hesitantly to his bunk, lay down and prayed his kidney damage wasn’t permanent. He knew he was leaching blood, probably would be for several days.
Work tomorrow would be difficult if not impossible, but he didn’t dare go to the infirmary. He’d have to explain what had happened or make something up. He suspected the people at the infirmary would take one look at his bruises and recognize precisely what had happened to him.
That would not be a good thing. Either Newman would make up some excuse to deprive him of the good time he’d accrued, or Newman would be brought in and disciplined. Then he’d really be out to get Steve. Either way Steve would lose.
He couldn’t tell Eleanor, either—he already thought of her as Eleanor. She’d tear into Newman with the same effect. Newman would take out any dressing-down he got on the men.
Most of them could fend for themselves. Sweet Daddy was small, but he was wiry and fast. He was also cagey. He usually talked his way out of trouble, or whined his way out, if need be.
Obviously Newman had decided not to mess with Gil Jones. Steve had no idea what Gil had done to land behind bars, but he suspected this wasn’t his first trip. From the tattoos, Steve guessed he was well allied with others in the prison. Newman apparently knew it, too. Together Gil’s people could take on Newman or any of the other guards, take them out if necessary, and nobody would ever know who did the actual killing. Best to keep on Gil’s good side.
Slow Rise was simply a decent man who had a bad temper. Prison had made it worse. He was also an aging con among young men. He had to seem invulnerable to survive.
Robert was an unknown quantity. He could be a kid who went for joy rides in other people’s cars, or a gang member who had gunned down someone on an opposing gang. Steve was fairly certain drugs played some part in his sentence, but whether Robert was a consumer or a supplier, Steve had no way of knowing.
And Big? Despite his size he seemed like a shy, frightened child. Forrest Gump in extra, extra large. If so, why was he in prison?
Steve had taught reading at Big Mountain. He’d written letters for illiterate cons, helped with their business problems. Many knew they owed him. If and when he got a chance to talk to any of them, he’d try to get some information about the team members he did not know. Inside the fences, knowledge was definitely power.
He’d been offered a job teaching here, as well, but working inside the compound all day didn’t serve his purposes. He had to seem trustworthy on his own, away from the group, even if that meant passing up chances to escape in favor of better chances down the road.
He had always worked out and, besides polo, had played handball, tennis and golf. He’d run in charity races. He was already in shape. When he discovered the weight room at Big Mountain, he put on twenty pounds in six months—all of it muscle.
One con had tried to attack him with a knife, but Steve had countered him successfully and won grudging respect. His knowledge of business eventually won him some measure of protection, as well. As long as he kept his mouth shut, he was moderately safe at Big Mountain.
The prison farm, however, was a new environment. He didn’t understand the rules or know many of the people, and they didn’t know him. He’d met sadistic guards before, but not one who had an unreasoning personal grudge against him.
Eleanor had to be the catalyst. She was the outsider, the female among males. A peahen for a Lard Ass Peacock to preen in front of. Newman’s ego had taken a beating from her. Maybe he’d picked Steve for his scapegoat because he and Eleanor seemed to have an affinity.
The CO was right. Steve and Eleanor did have a connection. Steve had felt it the moment his eyes met hers in that parking lot. Nothing that happened since had changed his mind. Today, when he’d snatched her away from the snake, he’d felt her in his marrow. Newman had punished him tonight not so much for touching Eleanor as for Eleanor’s response. He’d nearly forgotten what a woman’s soft voice sounded like, how she thought, the way she felt.
He’d have to be more careful.
The problem was that he wasn’t certain he could be. It wasn’t simply that she was an attractive woman, someone with the same kind of background as his. Not even that she was the first woman he’d touched in three years.
No, not even that.
If he had met her at a cocktail party or a polo game before…well, before, he knew he would have felt the same pull. She stirred his blood, yes, but more than that, she stirred his imagination. He could hear her voice in his head, see the gentle smile she’d given Big. Wished that smile had been for him.
He couldn’t afford to lose his objectivity, his separateness, his focus.
He was going to escape and kill a man. He needed to husband his anger, hone his bitterness, remember his grief.
He did not want to feel anything but hatred.
CHAPTER THREE
“SO HOW DID YOUR FIRST DAY GO?” Precious stretched out her long legs and propped them on the nearest cardboard box in Eleanor’s small living room. The white walls were devoid of pictures. Except for an old leather couch and matching chair, a couple of end tables and a rolled-up rug in the corner, the room was furnished with cardboard boxes.
Eleanor handed her a glass of white wine, then took her own and sat on the chair across from her. “Weird.”
“How weird?”
“On the one hand, they seem like people you’d meet anywhere, might even like, and then some tiny thing sets them off and, bang, it’s World War III.” She shuddered. “Slow Rise, this country boy over sixty, nearly came to blows with Robert Dalrymple, a lanky black kid, when the kid said he was crazy. I don’t think Robert meant anything by it—just a casual remark.”
“I know Slow Rise,” Precious said, watching the wine swirl in her glass. “He’s usually very gentle, but he’s inside for killing his wife’s lover in a fit of rage.”
“My God! Now I’m terrified.”
“Don’t be. Most of the time he’s the soul of kindness. He’s got another ten years to serve before he can even think of applying for parole.”
“He probably won’t live that long.”
“No, he’ll likely die in prison.”
“Lord, how sad.”
“Don’t let the sad stories get to you, Eleanor. Remember he did kill a man.”
Eleanor leaned her head back against the chair. “You’re right. I had no idea I was this tired. Do you mind if we skip the unpacking tonight? I’m grateful for your help, but I really think I just want to go to bed. Tomorrow I’ve got the men in the morning, and then I’m working a full shift at the clinic in the afternoon and evening.”
Precious finished her wine and stood. “Girl, you are going to burn out at that rate.”
Eleanor didn’t bother to get up. She was sure her legs would be too weak to hold her.
“Want me to fix you some soup or a sandwich?”
“No thanks, Precious. I’m sorry to be such a poop.”
“Forgedaboudit, as they say in the gangster movies.