Jimmy, way too busy. That said, drop by and I’ll squeeze you in. Just make sure you wear something like in the picture. Love, The… A.X. P.S. Bring Laura and Tess. The more the merrier.
A few days later, Max was called down to the visitor’s room. He had his hair slicked and a rolled-up sock in his crotch – yeah he was ready to rock ‘n’ roll.
There was only one chick there, Paula, but, man, she looked even hotter in person. For the last couple of nights, Max had been jerking off, imagining this moment, and talk about living up to a fantasy. She was in a low-cut top, loose enough that you could almost see her nipples. Man, if the glass wasn’t there he wouldn’t’ve been able to resist. He would’ve just reached out and grabbed ’em.
He stared at her tits for a while longer, then realized she was talking to him. He put on a headset, heard:
“Mr. Fisher, I can’t tell you what a pleasure it is to meet you. I’ve read everything about you I could get my hands on. I was at your trial, but I didn’t have the opportunity to introduce myself. Thank you so much for agreeing to meet me here, and fit me into your tight schedule. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate it.”
Jesus, Max thought, she was like a bad date – she never shuts up.
But he smiled, had to keep up his celebrity persona, and said, “You have great tits, but you’ve probably heard that dozens of times before, right?”
She smiled. What, she thought he was joking? Then she said, “I’ve booked a motel room in the area. I was hoping we could talk once a day over the course of the next several weeks. I’m trying to arrange with the warden a better place to meet, face-to-face, in private. He said it requires some arrangement, but hopefully it’s something that could happen soon. I’m just so…”
Max was looking at her rack again. Fuck, they were so close yet so far away.
“You single?” he asked.
She hesitated, then said, “Yes. Yes, I am.”
“Me, too,” Max said. “See? We already have something in common.” He laughed then added, “I want to proposition you.” He realized that didn’t come out right and said, “I mean, I want to make a proposition to you. Me and you, we seem to get along, right? We have a lot in common, make each other laugh. I was thinking, how about we, you know, get married?”
Why was she laughing? Eh, she was probably just so happy she couldn’t contain herself. That had to be it.
“Hey, don’t get too excited,” he said. “There’ll be a pre-nup – a serious pre-nup. If you think I’m gonna give you half the Fisher fortune, think again, muchacha. I made that mistake once and I’m sure as shit not gonna make it again. But, yeah, it’ll be great to be married to you because me and you, we could have those, what do they call them, congenital visits? No, that’s not it. Conjugal visits. Yeah, we’ll have those.”
Max had been thinking about his herpes, but she didn’t have to know about that. Things were going so well, there was no reason to ruin the mood.
“I don’t know what to say,” Paula said.
God, were her tits, like, growing?
“Say yes,” Max said.
“I’m very flattered, obviously,” she said. “I mean, you’re a very attractive man, and I’m so honored that you’re taking the time to-”
“Look, honey, you want me to write this book with you, don’t you?”
He liked that – let the not-so-subtle threat hang there. That was the way to play hardball with the literary bitch. After all, not only had he cut off a man’s dick – yeah, he was starting to believe it himself – he was the king of Attica, a feared man, and he might as well start fucking acting like it, right? You want The… A.X. to give something, you gotta give him something in return.
Like that.
“I’ll think it over,” she said. “In the meantime, I was hoping we could-”
“I look like Chris Rock?” Max asked.
Paula looked confused, said, “I’m confused.”
“I look like Chris Rock?” Max repeated. “I look like a goddamn comedian?”
“No, but-”
“Then pay me some respect, okay? I’m an important man, I’m a big man. I need you, but you don’t need me. So you’re gonna give me what I need or you’re not gonna get what you need. You know that and I know that, so let’s not pussyfoot around. Let’s just keep the action going, the ball in play, all right?”
He had no idea what half this shit meant but, hell, he was on a roll. Yeah, you better believe it.
Her voice starting to weaken, she said, “Mr. Fisher, I can’t-”
Max dropped the headphones, got up and walked away. He went all the way to the other end of the room, making it seem like he was leaving for real, then, at the door, he stopped and turned back. Sure enough the book bitch was calling to him, trying to get his attention.
Max had her!
But he took his time walking back, milking the moment, then put the phones on and she practically screamed, “If I say yes, will you do the book with me?”
Ah, desperation. He loved it.
Max, waited, said, “Sweetheart, I’m gonna do a lot more with you than write a fucking book.”
Max Fisher had to be the smarmiest, sleaziest, most self-deluded guy Paula had ever met – a goldmine all right. She’d been worried, on the way up to Attica, that maybe Fisher would be a disappointment. After all, how could a guy be so far out there, so far gone? But, no, this guy lived up to his rep and surpassed it.
Just arriving at Attica had been such a fucking blast. The walls of the prison seemed to reek of testosterone and she’d laughed, said to herself, “Wanna talk about sperm count?”
She had to put that in the book. But first, Jesus, first, she needed to do another line. Yeah, just to get into the full Max Fisher mindset she’d started doing coke, and the sheer rush of snorting a line outside Attica was incredible. So she did one line, okay four, but c’mon, this is the toughest joint in the whole country and she was about to meet the craziest bastard any writer could dream of.
What was that book called, The Journalist and the Murderer? Yeah, something like that, Joe McGinnis, hottest true crime writer in the biz, two movies made till his subject, the killer doctor – McDonald? – sued him and sayonara Joe. Dealing with these guys was like juggling grenades. But if you could handle it… and she could, she knew she could. Now it was Paula Segal’s turn in the spotlight, on center stage.
The coke kicking in, she took a sip of her stone-cold vanilla latte. (Decaf. She wasn’t reckless. That caffeine was, like, addictive.)
She reached in her glove compartment, the nose candy giving her that icy drip that was pure heaven, and yup, there were her Virginia Slims. A cigarette, even a girly one, and she was so ready to rock and roll.
Oh, she loved Fisher. Who could invent a guy like that? She already had the chapter written in her head where he proposed marriage. Perfect, fucking perfect.
He hadn’t been able to take his eyes off her tits. His obsession with busty women had come up during his trial and, okay, she’d expected him to respond more or less the way he had. It’s why she’d worn what she’d worn. But he’d gone further. Three weeks in jail and he was ready to propose marriage to a complete stranger. One with nice tits, but still. Couldn’t this asshole tell she was a dyke now? But if he couldn’t, he couldn’t. Not her fault. It was her right as a journalist to milk it for all it was worth. She decided to string him along, let him think she wanted to marry him. Jesus, how far would a man go just to get laid? But if that’s what it took to get him to open up in a few private sessions, give her some juicy quotes no one else had, baby, let him eye the twins all he wanted. About time they gave her something other than a backache.
Leaving the prison, Paula was shaking, not from fear but sheer hot exhilaration. Well, exhilaration and cocaine.
She did another line then, looking up at the gun turrets, realized she’d better get the car and her ass in gear.
As she pulled out of there, she was debating, Should she reveal in the book that she was gay? Then she thought, How big is the pink dollar? and laughed again, that damn coke. How much did dykes spend on true crime books?
But no, pulling an Ellen might alienate the great white majority. The hell with it, she’d ask her agent what to
