Perfect Strangers

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.