A PERFECT RENDEZVOUS

The Escape

"Good morning, Malik," Hadley said when Zayn knocked on the door of the warden's residence, near the gates of the prison compound. "You're looking as grim and unpleasant as usual, I see. Before we go," he added, "take Hitler for his walk around the yard." As he spoke, he handed Zayn a leash that was attached to a large Doberman.

"I'm not your damned butler," Zayn snapped, and a slow, gratified grin spread across Hadley's smooth face. "You tired of enjoying my beneficence and the freedom of a trustee? Are you getting an itch to spend some time in my conference room, Malik?"

Mentally cursing himself for letting his hatred show on a day when he had so much to lose, Zayn shrugged and took the leash. "Not particularly." Although Hadley was only 5'6" tall, he had a giant-size ego and an urbane manner that disguised a streak of sadistic, psychopathic viciousness that was known to everyone except, apparently, the State Board of Corrections, who either didn't know or didn't care about the high mortality rate attributed to "prisoner fights" and "attempted escapes" at his facility. The "conference room" was the prison acronym for the soundproof room that adjoined Hadley's office. Prisoners who displeased him were brought there kicking and sweating in real terror, when they left, they were carried out either to solitary, the infirmary, or the morgue. He got a sadistic thrill from making men squirm and grovel; in fact, it wasn't Zayn's good behaviour that caused Hadley to make him a trustee, it was Hadley's ego. The little warden got a big kick out of having Zayn Malik at his beck and call, waiting on him. Zayn thought it pleasantly ironic that it was Hadley's ego that was finally providing him the means for his escape.

He'd started around the corner of the house when Hadley called, "Malik, don't forget to clean up after Hitler."

Zayn retraced his steps, jerking the snarling dog with him and got the miniature shovel Hadley kept beside the front door. He buttoned his jacket and looked up at the sky; it was cold and the sky looked leaden. It was going to snow.

Seated in the back seat of the car, Wayne Hadley tucked his lecture notes into his briefcase, then he loosened his tie, stretched his legs out, and exhaled a satisfied sigh as he looked at the two trustees in the front seat. Sandini was a petty crook, a skinny wop, a nothing; the only reason he was a trustee was because one of his crooked relatives had clout with somebody in the system, and that somebody sent word down that Dominic Sandini should be a trustee. Sandini provided no amusement, no diversion, no prestige for Hadley at all; there was no pleasure in baiting him. Ah, but Malik was another story. Malik the movie star, the sex symbol, the rich tycoon who used to have planes and chauffeur-driven limos. Malik had been a world-class big shot, and now he waited on Wayne Hadley hand and foot. There was justice in the world, Hadley thought. Real justice. More importantly, even though Malik tried to hide it, there were times when Hadley could pierce his thick skin and make him squirm and yearn for what he couldn't have, but it wasn't easy. Even when he made Malik watch the newest movies on videotape and the Academy Awards on television, Hadley couldn't be sure that he'd hit a nerve. With that pleasant goal in mind, Hadley cast around for the right topic and randomly decided on sex. As his car braked to a stop at a traffic light near his destination, he said in a tone of pleasant inquiry, "I'll bet the women begged to get into bed with you when you were rich and famous, didn't they, Malik? Do you ever think about women, about how they used to feel and smell and taste? You probably didn't like sex that much. If you'd been any good in the sack, that beautiful blond bitch you were married to wouldn't have been getting it on with that guy, Austin, would he?"

In the rearview mirror, he watched with satisfaction as Malik's jaw tensed slightly and he erroneously assumed it was the sex talk that got to him, not Austin's name. "If you ever get paroled—and I wouldn't count on my recommendation if I were you—you'll have to settle for hookers when you get out. Women are all whores, but even whores have some scruples, and they don't like dirty ex-cons in their beds, did you know that?" Despite his desire to maintain a facade of smooth urbanity at all times around the scum who were his prisoners, Hadley perpetually found it difficult to restrain his temper, and he felt it begin to erupt. "Answer my questions, you son of a bitch, or you'll spend the next month in solitary." Realizing his control had slipped, he said almost pleasantly, "I'll bet you had your own chauffeur in the good old days, didn't you? And now, look at you—you're my chauffeur. There is a God." The glass midrise building came into view, and Hadley sat up taller, straightening his tie. "Do you ever wonder what happened to all your money—whatever was left after you paid your lawyers, I mean?"