Bitchy's hand left his zipper and entered a deep pocket.
Alex said, "I hear you were a professional footballer."
A strange way to put it, but Bitchy answered, "Yeah. So what?"
"Did it pay well?"
This was getting weird. "Not well. It paid great."
"How great?"
"A five million signing bonus. Three million a year in salary. Why you askin'?"
"Where is all that money now?"
"None of your business."
Alex put the book down and leaned his back against the wall. "I suppose your legal costs consumed most of it."
Bitchy also leaned back against the wall. He was in the mood for a little man-love, but this guy seemed to want to chitchat a bit before they got down to action. At least he wasn't hollering and bouncing around the cell like his last cellmate. The Russian accent sure sounded cool.
"I got millions left. When it hits three mil, the lawyers can go screw themselves. The appeals stop."
"Smart. So how is it invested?"
"In the bank. Where else would it be?"
"Did nobody advise you that's stupid?"
Bitchy bounced off the wall. The hand came out of the pocket and suddenly balled into a beefy fist. "Watch your mouth. You're stupid if you call me stupid."
"Relax, Benny. I never said you were stupid. I said leaving the money in the bank is stupid."
"It'll still be there when I get out. How stupid is that?"
"A lot more of it could be there. Is that smart, my friend?"
"All right, Mr. I-know-so-much, what's smarter?"
"In the right stocks, it will multiply enormously. Real estate is a fairly good and safe investment also."
"That's not my thing."
"Have you ever heard of Qualcomm, Benny?"
Bitchy laughed. "Sure. I get it from the pharmacy whenever I get jock itch." He laughed harder.
"We'll look into jock-itch providers if you'd like. It's certainly a market you know well. That's more of a slow growth, long-term investment, though," Alex replied, very seriously. "It's a company that invented a brilliant new way to send sound and information down a wire, or even fiber-optic cable. The stock is set to quadruple. Do you understand time-division versus code-division encoding?"
Not a chance.
"Well, let me explain the deal. If you want me as a lover, I probably can't stop you. Of course you'll have to sleep with one eye open. When will that crazy Russian guy cut my dingee off?" Alex waved his hand up and down in the air. "He will, most definitely, he will… but when?"
It was said so matter-of-factly, Bitchy took no offense. Shifting to the third person helped; it took a little personal edge off the threat.
"Or," Alex pushed on, "I can be your investment advisor. I'll double or triple your money. That's a lowball estimate, incidentally. I know a great deal about the Russian market also. A little cash in the right ADRs would be very smart. Derivatives are doing quite well these days also."
Alex patted the mattress. Bitchy's broad rear landed on the bunk beside him and he said, "I have no idea what you're talking about."
"That's why you need me, Benny."
"Just for not raping you?"
"There are many attractive men in this prison. Do whatever you like, just not with me, okay?"
"Do I have to protect you?"
"That's not part of the deal, no."
"Make me that kind of dough and I'll slaughter whoever comes near you."
An indifferent shrug. "Probably a wise move on your part."
"So how's this work?"
"Easier than you might think. There are probably fifteen or twenty contraband cell phones in the block, am I right?"
Bitchy nodded. Fifty was more like it. The guards were always hunting for them, but as they grew smaller they became so much easier to conceal. Bitchy knew of at least four tucked away in the prison laundry, another six in the kitchen. Twist a few arms, and he'd have all he wanted. No was not a word Bitchy heard very often.
"Get me three of those phones, Benny. The batteries wear down quickly and can't be recharged inside our cell. You'll handle the expenses. Believe me, you'll be able to afford it. I use the phones to manage your money and whoever else I decide to call."
"And what if you mess up and lose my money?"
"I'll be on the bottom bunk. If I fail to keep my end of the bargain, you're not obligated to keep yours."
Bitchy crossed his arms and stared off at the far wall. Of the vast multitude of "investment advisors" at the pro draft who pounced hungrily on the newest batch of twenty-two-year-old, undereducated millionaires, not one of those greedy blabbermouths had offered a deal remotely resembling this. And if they lost it all through their own utter ineptitude, it was tough luck, pal, sayonara.
Really, how many investment advisors promised outright that if they failed in their promises, they'd bend over and take it, like they just gave it? "All right," Bitchy said, hands back in his pockets.
"Another thing. I'm going to teach you how to do this. If I make you all that money, I don't want you to turn around and lose it afterward."
"Will it hurt?"
"Only a little, Benny."
Benny laughed.
"One last thing," Alex said, returning to his book.
"Name it."
"Spread the word. The last two prisons, we pooled our money and increased our buying positions enormously. The more the better for you." The day that marked the anniversary of eleven months since the Konevitch trial, Kim Parrish threw her long-overdue fit.
The team of state prosecutors had arrived from Russia six months before, four of them in all, all men, all wearing blockish suits made of a cheap, indescribable fabric. Only one spoke any semblance of English-just please, thank you, yes, but mostly no, and a dismaying variety of filthy curses.
The FBI paid for the works and put them up in the downtown Hilton. They immediately raised hell about the lousy accommodations. To shut them up, they were bounced a few blocks over to the Madison, a decidedly more upscale lodging. The complaints did not abate until the Madison succumbed and switched them each to thousand-dollar suites.
They ate breakfast, lunch, and dinner at the most expensive Georgetown restaurants, rented two Mercedes sedans, a snazzy black Corvette, and a shiny red Maserati. They spent their five-day weekends raising hell in California and Florida, before they fell deeply in love with Las Vegas and the legalized brothels nearby. They billed it all to the FBI-the first-class airfares, the whores, the gambling losses that quickly turned mountainous. Everything was billed directly to the Feds. They drank from dawn till dusk, got in fistfights in bars, picked up four DUIs, smashed up the Maserati, trashed one Mercedes sedan, and billed all that, too, to the FBI.
They arrived with two dozen large crates stuffed to the lids with documents. Everything in Russian. Everything, every word and comma, had to be meticulously and painfully translated into English.
Two more weeks were lost while Kim scoured the city for a competent translator. As the documents proved to be a thick maze of Russian legalese, not any translator would do. Kim interviewed a dozen candidates. Several American college graduates whose levels of fluency weren't nearly as impressive as their resumes. Five Russian emigres who utterly failed the English test. A retired book editor who had translated two complete Tolstoy novels had seemed like her best bet. That one took a brief glance at the two dozen crates and bolted.