The Payback Man (2 page)

“You do know they’re the largest breed of domestic cow,” Eleanor said.

“And one of the showiest,” Portree said.

“Your inexperienced men will be handling over a ton of bull.”

“Doctor, some of those guys could throw a bull over their shoulders and walk off with it. Besides, you’ve got the experience.”

“Even I cannot pick up a three-thousand-pound bull.”

“So you can’t handle it?”

“I didn’t say that. There’s not that much difference between a three-thousand-pound Beefmaster and a two-thousand-pound Brahma, except that the Brahma is probably a whole lot meaner.”

“Those are details we can discuss later if and when we decide to employ you,” Portree said.

“There is one thing that bothers me. Animals don’t work business hours. They often require care twenty-four hours a day, and most cows decide to calve at night. I know your prisoners sleep in dormitories in an inner compound. Will I be allowed to keep them at the barn when I need them? Nights, weekends?”

Leo Hamilton spoke up again. “The bakery begins work at three o’clock in the morning outside the compound. The mess-hall staff works weekends. We have a number of men who leave the prison each day for work release and return each evening. The men who are already here and the ones who’ll continue to arrive until we reach capacity are considered trusties. They are well aware that if they try to escape, they will be returned to maximum-security prisons and lose the good time that they have accrued.”

“So nobody tries to escape?”

“Occasionally,” Warden Portree said, “but not often,
and we invariably catch them. The general rule among prison professionals is ‘three and three.’ Escapees are caught within three hours and within three miles of the prison.”

“So the men on my team will be able to work overtime?”

“When absolutely necessary,” Hamilton said. “They can be signed out by you or a CO and signed in again when they return.”

“I won’t abuse the privilege.”

“That’s all we ask,” Portree said. “Now, on to another subject. You know that a cottage on the grounds comes as part of the stipend?”

Eleanor nodded.

“It’s one in a row of overseers’ bungalows, built sometime in the forties. We’ve brought it up to code, but it’s not fancy.”

“I don’t need fancy.” She felt her spirits lift. Surely they wouldn’t be talking about housing if they weren’t going to offer her the job.

“You mind living inside the prison gates?” Torres asked.

“But outside the internal compound, right?”

“Yes. Just inside the perimeter fences.”

“There are five or six other cottages, aren’t there?”

“Yes, but not all occupied yet. We hope to have the work done—by inmates—by the middle of February. Then we’ll put the remainder up for bids to our top staff.”

“Good idea.”

“At the moment,” Torres continued, “it’s pretty lonely—only three or four others occupied.”

“I’m used to being alone. And I like being close to my charges. Besides, Creature Comfort is only ten minutes away by car, so it works out well.”

“All right, Doctor, what say we call you in a couple of days with our answer?” Portree asked.

Eleanor nodded and stood to shake hands all around.
Raoul Torres winked at her and gave her a small thumbs-up.

She felt their eyes on her back as she walked out. The moment the door to the conference room closed behind her on their murmurs, she leaned against the wall and let out a deep breath.

“Did you get it?”

Eleanor felt Precious Simpson’s hand on her arm. Precious, principal of the general education program at the prison, had called her boss at the clinic, Rick Hazard, about the job posting in the first place.

“I have no idea.” She thought a minute. “Maybe.”

“Great. We’ll be neighbors. Those bungalows aren’t much, but it’ll be fun having another woman close by. Right now all I’ve got is a couple of crotchety old COs who don’t have any family.”

Precious was the warm, golden brown of a ripe peach, and wore her hair in tiny braids that hung down to her shoulders.

“I think Leo Hamilton really hates that I’m a woman and what he calls ‘attractive.’” Eleanor wrinkled her nose. “You’re a beautiful woman. How come he doesn’t worry about you?”

“Leo probably doesn’t consider my type beautiful.”

“Does being inside scare you?”

“Sometimes. A lot of the inmates they’re bringing in are huge. Most prisoners pump iron constantly. Sometimes when I’m walking in a group of them past the mess hall or into class, I realize I’m one woman among a bunch of convicted criminals who haven’t had a woman since they were sentenced.”

“How do you handle it?”

“Keep my eyes front, walk like I know where I’m going and don’t stop to chat. Then I duck into the staff common room, have a cup of coffee and shake for a while.”

“But you keep coming back.”

“Hey, the pay is great, the rent is free. But what keeps
me here is the occasional success—like when some tattooed crack dealer reads
Crime and Punishment
and actually
gets
it.”

Precious walked Eleanor out to the staff parking area. As they stood beside Eleanor’s truck with Creature Comfort emblazoned on its side, a yellow school bus pulled through the gates and stopped by the administration building, a battered two-story brick building left over from the Second World War. The bus door opened, and a corrections officer stepped down and shouted to the passengers.

Their hands were cuffed in front of them, but they weren’t wearing leg or waist irons. They wore identical blue work shirts under jean jackets, jeans and running shoes.

“You’re right,” Eleanor whispered. “Most of them are enormous. My Lord, look at that one.”

A gigantic man, probably close to seven feet tall, who weighed at least three hundred pounds and all of it muscle, stepped from the bus and stood blinking in the sun. His skin was almost pure white—prison pallor. His white-blond hair was cropped so short it looked like peach fuzz.

“Move,” the CO shouted.

The big man shuffled forward obediently. From under his brows he noticed the women watching and smiled at them shyly. His eyes were pale blue. Eleanor thought he had the sweetest smile she’d ever seen.

Then she glanced at the man behind him. He, too, was tall and well built, but didn’t walk with that muscle-bound swing several of the others had. He didn’t have any visible tattoos and he carried himself easily. His gaze moved from side to side as though he was drawing his new surroundings in his head for future reference.

He looked straight at Eleanor. She caught her breath. So much anger, so much bitterness, so much grief. It was as though in that one glance she’d been able to see inside him. A second later he dropped his eyes and became simply another con shuffling along with the others.

“Move, you.” The CO dug the man in the kidneys with his baton.

She didn’t like that moment of recognition. She hoped he wouldn’t wind up on her team. With luck, she’d never see him again.

P
LANNING WAYS TO KILL
Neil Waters had kept Steve Chadwick sane during his three years in prison.

At first he’d sought advice from the murderers he met inside, but they were obviously incompetent. After all, they were in
prison.
They’d been caught. Amateurs, all of them. Apparently professional killers didn’t often wind up behind bars.

He lay back on his bunk with his hands locked behind his head. Minimum security. At last.

One step closer to freedom.

He’d have to settle on the way to kill Neil soon.

The bunk beside him was occupied by an elderly con named Joseph Jasper, known as “Slow Rise.” He told the other cons he got his name two ways. He was usually easygoing, slow to anger, but his wife had finally pushed him too far. He’d caught her in bed with her lover and was now serving twenty-five to life because he’d picked up his shotgun and “caught him on the rise, like a damn fat mallard.” He said it was a satisfying experience, but not worth spending the rest of his life in prison over.

Slow Rise said the only truly successful murders were listed either as accidents or natural deaths and never investigated at all. He had great respect for the skill and doggedness of homicide detectives once they were alerted that a killing had taken place. He suggested Steve kill Neil with poison, and even mentioned a few varities that could handle the job. Born and bred in the country, Slow Rise
knew a dozen ways to turn common weeds into deadly potions.

“If you don’t do it but once and don’t do anything stupid right after like marry his woman or buy a yacht with his money, chances are it’ll be put down to a heart attack,” Slow Rise had advised.

Steve couldn’t use poison. That was the sort of sneaky method Neil might try. Besides, he wanted Neil to know he was being killed, by whom and for what. He wanted Neil to be afraid, to beg for his life.

Steve had expected to have to wait until he was paroled in two years or less to kill Neil, but if he kept his nose clean at the penal farm, he’d probably be sent out on work release soon—maybe in a few weeks if he was lucky. He could easily escape from work release.

To outsiders, two years to serve until parole might seem like no time at all, but Steve didn’t think he could stay sane another two years, assuming he was still sane now. Killing Neil seemed perfectly reasonable. Did sane men think that way?

“Hey.” The man on the other bunk sat up and poked Steve’s shoulder.

Steve ignored him. He loathed Sweet Daddy, a small-time pimp imprisoned for cutting one of his ladies—his “bottom bitch”—when she tried to leave his employ to start her own business. Steve had inadvertently protected Sweet Daddy in the yard at Big Mountain Prison one day when a motorcycle freak had threatened to break him in two for stealing cigarettes. From that moment on, Sweet Daddy had stuck to Steve like a limpet.

Steve couldn’t imagine any woman being attracted to Sweet Daddy’s ferrety face and scrawny body, but apparently he’d run a large and generally loyal stable of beautiful and expensive ladies. Guess he could be charming when it behooved him.

Steve forced himself to stay calm, to keep his eyes closed, to feign patience. The trick was to seem relaxed,
uncaring. If they thought you cared about anything, they took it away from you. Prison taught patience.

But now he had resources. He had the contacts to obtain false identity papers that would pass the closest inspection, and he could sign Neil’s signature so well that Neil himself couldn’t detect the forgery. Prison did teach a few useful skills.

Steve would have preferred to see Neil brought to trial for Chelsea’s murder, convicted, sentenced to prison, see his good name, his wealth, his family stripped from him as Steve’s had been.

Steve knew that wasn’t possible. He’d have to be content with exacting his revenge personally. He’d have to spend the rest of his life in Brazil, which had no extradition treaty with the United States. A small price to pay.

Prison had also taught him there were no completely satisfactory endings.

Before he was convicted, he had believed in the United States criminal-justice system, that being an honorable, moral man was all the protection he would ever need. No more.

Everybody
expected
Brazil to be corrupt. There would be no nasty surprises. He’d be one more crook among many. Bribery would work every time.

His only worry was that actually killing Neil wouldn’t be nearly as enjoyable as the hours spent planning it.

“I
THOUGHT
I
GOT TO PICK
my own workers,” Eleanor Grayson said to Ernest Portree. She had been formally hired as resident veterinarian at the farm one week earlier. Up to now she’d been filling out reams of paperwork, going over the old cattle barn and the pastures to see what needed fixing and moving her few possessions into her new bungalow.

This was her first real meeting with the warden since she’d been hired. She looked at the list of six names. These men were unknown quantities and would be her “team.”
All had only recently been moved into the facility from Big Mountain Prison in East Tennessee.

“Seniority and good time are inflexible criteria in prisons, Eleanor, or at least this prison. These men have shown good conduct or they wouldn’t have been moved here in the first place. We want the inmates to see a carrot, as well as a stick, in this assignment.”

“They think setting up a cattle operation is a carrot?”

“Better than working all day in the hot sun tending chili peppers.”

“But chili peppers and tomatoes and whatever else you’re growing die in the winter. Not much to do except prepare the land for planting in the spring.”

“We already have two hydroponic facilities set up under canvas and expect to have a couple of temporary hothouses before our first heavy frost, so there’ll be even more to do this winter. It would seem there’s a mystique about working with animals, especially large animals, that attracts the men. Better than digging in dirt or wading in muddy water.”

Eleanor sat across from Ernest Portree at his desk—a broad slab of walnut that had been made in a prison woodworking shop. At least she supposed it had—everything else had. If so, the men who built it were craftsmen who should have no problem finding honest jobs on the outside.

“I’ve been doing some reading, Ernest. What Raoul Torres calls his ‘dummy’s guide to psychopaths.’ He’s been a real godsend. He told me I can call him any hour of the day or night if I have a problem. Okay, with those criteria you mentioned, I’m willing to work with the men selected, with a couple of stipulations. First, no arsonists.”

Portree nodded.

“Second, no one with a record of animal abuse.”

“Of course. Why no arsonists?”

“Because they often progress to violence toward animals. Besides, barns are full of inflammable material. I’d rather not have prisoners who like to start fires.”

“You have been doing your homework. How do you feel about murderers?”

“I read that several of the governors used to staff their mansions exclusively with murderers. They were the least likely to commit another crime—unless, I guess, the circumstances of the first one were duplicated. Anyway, I won’t know.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Raoul suggested that I not read their charge sheets or their prison records so I won’t be looking for trouble. I won’t know the drug dealers and pimps from the guys who embezzled from the mortgage company. They’ll all start with a clean slate. I also want to be able to toss anyone off my team for cause, but I won’t do it without reviewing my reasons with you first.”

“Agreed. All moved into your new cottage?”

Eleanor rolled her eyes. “I’m still unpacking, and a good deal of my stuff will have to stay in storage, but at least I can sleep there tonight.”

“Keep your pager beside your bed.”

“Oh,
that
makes me feel really safe.”

“You’re probably safer in that cottage than you are anywhere in town. But do it, anyway.”

Eleanor stood. “So when do I meet my guys?”

“Tomorrow morning okay?”

“Fine. Early. Right after breakfast. That old barn is going to have to be dug out to the clay and rebedded before we can bring in any stock. It’s knee-deep in rotted manure from twenty years ago when the penal farm shut down. The first day I’ll stick with the guys. Then, until they’re finished, I’ll delegate that to the CO in charge and check on their progress as often and for as long as I can. That way I can still work at the clinic part-time. Once the cows arrive, I may need space to do classroom instruction, as well as the hands-on stuff. Is that possible?”

“Yes, if you don’t think the office in the barn is large
enough. I’ve assigned a CO to you. He should be able to keep the men working.”

“But not drive them into the ground?”

“That’s entirely up to you. The guards take orders from you, and it’ll be up to you to monitor them.”

“Fine.”

“J. K. Sanders going to help you pick out the cows?”

“Monday. We should have our first cows in our pasture that afternoon.”

“Good luck. Keep me abreast of your progress.”

“Thanks, Ernest, I will.” She hesitated. “I need one more thing. I don’t know how many changes of uniform the men have, but each man needs a spare set from underwear out that will be kept in the office at the barn.”

“Why? They normally have three. One dirty, one clean and one they’re wearing. You want a fourth?”

“I’m afraid so. There are going to be times when they’ll be in the barn all night without being able to leave. If someone falls in the pond, say, or we have to mend a fence in a driving rainstorm, they’ve got to have a change of clothes available. I, personally, carry two sets in my truck, along with a spare pair of boots and a set of surgical greens for emergencies.”

Ernest rubbed his chin. “I don’t know. That’s an extra expense that’s not in the budget.”

“It’s a very minor expense when you put it against the hospital costs of caring for a prisoner with pneumonia.”

“I’ll see what I can do.”

“Thanks.”

“In exchange, we get all that rotted manure for our hydroponics.” He grinned. “Unless you have a better use for it.”

She smiled back “Agreed. We’ll pile it, you move it out.”

She left him working through a stack of paperwork inches high. She nodded cheerfully at his secretary,
Yvonne Linden, as she went by. If they knew how terrified she was, they’d fire her before she even got started.

D
R
. R
ICK
H
AZARD CAUGHT
E
LEANOR
on her way into the large-animal area of the clinic late that afternoon and pulled her into his office for one of his “chats.” Eleanor hoped this one wouldn’t take long.

“I’ve heard prisoners can scent fear,” Rick said. “You sure you want to take this job? I’m having second thoughts about recommending you.”

“Not you, too?”

“Come on, Eleanor. You’re finally completely back to top-notch form professionally. I’d hate to see you get too stressed-out.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll still be available to take up the slack here at the clinic. And as to scenting fear, well, so can an angry terrier.”

“The terrier can do a real number on your ankles. A 250-pound man can do a number on your
life,
just like a lion or tiger. Better make sure you carry your whip and chair.”

As managing partner and the man whose wife and father-in-law had invested a large part of the money to open Creature Comfort, Rick Hazard’s priorities were his clinic first and the remainder of the world a distant second. “I worry that you won’t have time to spend here once your program at the farm gets into gear.”

“I should have guessed that was the real problem. Come on, Rick, how much time can a small herd take once it’s up and going? I’ve never let you or Sarah down yet, have I? I owe you, Rick. If it weren’t for you, I’d never have gotten my nerve back after Jerry died. A year ago I couldn’t have faced all the responsibility alone. I couldn’t decide what shirt to wear.”

Rick slumped in his desk chair and propped his knee on his desk. “You were just worn out.”

“I was exhausted all right. I just didn’t know how badly.
Two years of watching Jerry getting sicker and sicker, trying to keep the practice going with interns, arguing with the pharmaceutical companies, losing client after client. I’m a good vet, but Jerry was the shining light in the practice. He was the guy all the old ladies wanted when Muffy had a sore throat or their stallion needed a blood test.

“After he died, I was stupid enough to think it was all over. It took a whole year of fighting with the IRS, the insurance companies, the hospitals about the bills for Jerry’s treatment, and finally losing everything we’d dreamed of in a bankruptcy auction. I suppose it’s no wonder I lost my nerve. It was as if everything I touched went wrong. I’ve been a widow two years, Rick. Sometimes it seems like a lifetime, and others it seems like a heartbeat.” She flashed him a smile. “Anyway, thanks for having enough faith in my professional comeback to recommend me for this job.”

“No good deed goes unpunished as someone once said.”

Rick was not as tall as Mac Thorn nor as handsome, but despite his reputation as being something of a fussbudget about the clinic, he was a formidable administrator and manager when faced with a crisis. He was also a darned good veterinarian, though he also preferred small animals to cows and horses.

“What does Sarah say?” he asked.

“She’s all for it. She’s going with J. K. Sanders and me Monday to pick our herd. She’s promised to help me get set up. And, Rick, remember the clinic will get
all
the business from the farm as long as I’m there. Plus a ready source of semitrained brawn on work release. Think of it as a win-win situation.”

“Yeah. If you say so.” He didn’t sound convinced. “You planning to take drugs with you? I’ll bet a bunch of those guys would just love to get their hands on some Ketamine or Winstrol.”

“I’ll only carry the bare essentials for emergencies dou
ble-locked in my vet cabinet in the back of my truck. They won’t even know I have them. My truck should be in view at the barn nearly all the time—either I’ll be able to see it or one of the COs will.”