The Hunted

Alex appeared disappointed, though he tried his best to stifle it with a forced smile. "Tell him to relax, it's not his fault. We're up against the American and Russian governments, and I don't think any lawyer could prevail. I couldn't be happier with him."

"He's demoralized, Alex. He feels responsible. He wrote another long, bitter letter to the judge. Same theme as the last six. What happened to those high-sounding instructions to the prosecutor about putting you in a nicer place than this?"

"I'm fine, Elena."

"No, you're-"

"Relax, I'm fine. I actually had wine with a late dinner last night. Pot roast, fresh corn and potatoes, cooked by a guard's wife, served in the cell. Me and Benny over candlelight. He still thinks I'm cute, incidentally."

"You are cute. But you're not fine, Alex Konevitch. And don't tell me differently. You're surrounded by murderers and rapists and nasty gangs. You could get shooked in the showers by some crazy killer just because you stepped on his toe."

"Shanked," Alex corrected her.

"Oh, shut up." A few months before Elena had done something deeply regrettable; once done, though, it was impossible to erase. She had gone on an all-out binge of prison flicks, a response to her curiosity about what her husband was going through. She watched them all, one after another, late into the night, night after night. For months afterward she was tormented by nightmares, waking up sweating and shivering. The images of brutal killings and chaotic beatings and jailhouse rapes came back to her constantly. Her precious husband was trapped inside a vicious building filled with barbaric monsters who snuffed lives for a pack of cigarettes.

Alex tried to shrug it off. Hollywood hooey, he called it. A bunch of cinematic nonsense, hyped-up tripe to shock and appall the ignorant public, he insisted.

He was lying. She knew better.

Thankfully, he had acquired no tattoos; none she could observe, anyway. But who knew what was lurking beneath that shirt, or under those baggy pants? And there was no doubt that Alex looked different. Harder, long greasy hair pulled back in a tight ponytail now, less expressive, a little slower to laugh, and his eyes darted around constantly, alert in a way that tore at her heart. Even his walk was different. No longer the old determined, upright clip straining to shave off a few extra seconds; it now resembled a slide more than a walk, slow, slumped, and slothful, with hands perpetually sunk to the bottom of his pockets. A survivor's walk. A way of saying he cared about nothing.

She understood but did not like it. Adapt, blend in with the natives, or you became bait to the strongest animals in the cage.

There was only one good thing about prison: sleep and exercise were plentiful. What else was there to do? Until this visit, anyway, Alex always looked remarkably refreshed and fit. He must've had a bad few nights, though, because this time he looked painfully exhausted. His eyes were bloodshot, with large bags underneath them. He hadn't slept well in days, possibly weeks.

"This is crazy, Alex," she uttered softly.

"It is what it is, Elena. Be patient."

"I've been patient for a year. I want you in my bed, where you belong. I'm tired of sleeping alone."

"I'm not all that crazy about sleeping with Benny, either. Have you ever heard an All-Pro lineman snore?"

"Stop it."

"And the smell. All that bulk. He comes back from his workouts in the yard, the paint falls off the walls."

Like Alex was an Irish rose himself. All the prisoners stank. They were oblivious to their own odors, but Elena was nearly flattened by the stench in the prison visitors' room. She wanted to bring Alex home and scrub a year of prison stink out of his skin. Then take him to bed and heal a year's worth of fear and misery and frustration and loneliness.

"Alex, are you sure you're okay?" she pressed, more emphatically this time. She was his wife. All this jokiness was an attempt to conceal something. He was far from okay.

Alex looked down and played with his fingers a moment-a slight twitch around his left eye, an almost imperceptible shift of tiny muscles, and she knew.

She bent forward until her face was pressed against the glass. "Stop lying. What's happening?"

"All right. Somebody tried to kill me yesterday."

"Yesterday… what happened?"

"In the yard, I was playing basketball when a man made a run at me. He was carrying a crude hatchet constructed in the prison shop. As attempts go it was stupid and clumsy. It had no chance."

Elena was perfectly motionless. This was the nightmare she had long dreaded. She watched him and waited.

"I was lucky," Alex informed her, trying to make it sound trifling, little more than a bad hand of cards. "Two of the cons on my team are investors in the fund. I threw the ball in his face, his nose shattered, he slowed down, they disarmed him. It wasn't all that dramatic." He left off the part about how his friends mauled the killer, stomping his hands and breaking both arms to be sure he wouldn't try again.