Now that was inspired, thought Maddox, reading it over. Sweet as mint julep. He read through it again, deleted the 'misty morning' bit, saved it on his computer. Then he looked at the photograph that came with the letter. Another ugly mother-this one with a bullet head and eyes set so close together they looked like they'd been squeezed in a vise. He would scan it and post it all the same. In his experience looks didn't count. What counted was that Londell Franklin James was in there and not out here. As such, he offered the right woman a perfect relationship. A woman could write him, exchange sex-letters, make promises, swear undying love, talk about babies and marriage and the future-and none of it would change the fact that he was in there, and she was out here. She had ultimate control. That's what it was all about-control-plus the erotic bang it gave some women to correspond with a chiseled-up guy doing serious time for armed robbery who claimed he had a nine-inch dick. Yeah, and who was to prove otherwise?
He clicked on a fresh screen and moved to the next letter.
Maddox made a face and crumpled that one up, shoving it into the seat pocket in front of him. Christ, he ran a dating service, not a sperm bank. He had started Hard Time while working in the prison library, where there was an old IBM 486 computer being used as a card catalog. His days in the Army as a gunnery sergeant had taught him all he needed to know about computers. In this day and age you could hardly fire a projectile bigger than a .50- caliber round without a computer. Maddox was surprised to find he had a major talent for computers. Unlike people, they were clean, odorless, obedient, and didn't haul around a bullshit attitude. He started off collecting ten bucks from cons for posting their names and addresses at a Website he had created, soliciting female penpals on the outside. It had really taken off. Maddox soon realized the big money was to be made not from the cons, but from the women. It amazed him how many women wanted to date a man in prison. He charged twenty-nine dollars and ninety-nine cents a month to belong to Hard Time, $199 a year, and for that you got unlimited access to the personals-photos and addresses included-of more than four hundred real cons doing serious time for everything from murder and rape to kidnapping, armed robbery, and assault. There were now three women subscribers to every con, almost twelve hundred ladies, and after deducting expenses he was pulling down three bills a week, free and clear.
A 'prepare for landing' announcement came over the intercom and a flight attendant came through, nodding and smiling, murmuring for all the businessmen to shut down their laptops. Maddox stowed his under the seat and looked out the window. The brown landscape of New Mexico was passing by as the jet approached Albuquerque from the east, the land rising to the slopes of the SandiaMountains, suddenly dark with trees and then white with snow. The plane passed the mountains and they were over the city, banking toward the approach. Maddox had a view of everything, the river, the freeways, the Big I, all the little houses climbing up into the foothills. It depressed him to see so many useless people living such pathetic lives in those ant boxes. It was almost like being in prison.
No, he took that back. Nothing was almost like being in prison.
His mind drifted to the problem at hand, feeling a sudden rush of irritation. Broadbent. The man must have been waiting for his moment up there in the Maze. Just waiting. Maddox had done all the work, popped the guy, and then Broadbent stepped in, helped himself to the notebook, and split. The son of a bitch had wrecked a perfect finish.
Maddox took a deep breath, closed his eyes, said his mantra over a few times in his head, tried to meditate. No sense in getting all worked up. The problem was fairly simple. If Broadbent was keeping the notebook in his house, Maddox would find it. If not, then Maddox would find a way to force it out of him. The
man simply had no idea who he was dealing with. And since Broadbent was up to his neck in it, it was unlikely he'd call in the cops. This was going to be settled between them privately.
He owed it to Corvus; Jesus, he owed him his life.
He settled back as the 747 came in for a landing, nice and soft, the plane barely kissing the ground. Maddox took it as a sign.
10
THE NEXT MORNING Tom found his assistant, Shane McBride, at the hot walker, eyeballing a sorrel quarter horse trudging around the circle. Shane was an Irish guy from South Boston who went to Yale, but he'd picked up western ways with a vengeance and now he looked more cowboy than the locals. He stomped around in roping boots and sported a bushy mustache, with a dented Stetson with a scoop-brim jammed on his head, a faded black bandanna tied around his neck, his lower lip packed with chaw. He knew horses, had a sense of humor, was serious about his work, and was loyal to a fault. As far as Tom was concerned he was the perfect partner.
Shane turned to Tom, pulled off his hat, wiped his brow, and screwed up one eye. 'What do you think?'
Tom watched the horse move. 'How long's he been on there?'
'Ten minutes.'
'Pedal osteitis.'
Shane unscrewed his eye. 'Naw. You're wrong there. Sesamoiditis.'
'The fetlock joints aren't swollen. And the injury is too symmetrical.'
'Incipient, and sesamoiditis can also be symmetrical.'
Tom narrowed his eyes, watched the horse move. 'Whose is it?'
'Noble Nix, belongs to the O Bar O. Never had a problem before.'
'Cow horse or hunter-jumper?'
'Cutting horse.'
Tom frowned. 'Maybe you're right.'
'Maybe? There ain't no maybe about it. He just came back from competing in Amarillo, won a saddle. The workout, combined with the long trailering, would do it.'
Tom stopped the walker, knelt, felt the horse's fetlocks. Hot. He rose. 'I still say it's pedal osteitis, but I'll concede that it might be pedal osteitis in the sesamoid bones.'
'You should've been a lawyer.'
'In either case, the treatment's the same. Complete rest, periodic hosing with cold water, application of DMSO, full leather pads for the feet.'
'Tell me something I don't know.'
Tom grasped Shane by the shoulder. 'You're getting pretty good at this, eh, Shane?'
'You got it, boss.'
