The Wall Street Journal and Investor's Business Daily were delivered to his cell every morning by a guard who had emptied his entire 401(k) nest egg and handed it over to Alex's care.
Even Elena's broker was shadowing Alex's moves with his own money.
"How's Bitchy?" Elena asked.
"Fine. His appeal comes up next month."
"Does he have a chance?"
"I helped draft a letter for him to the court. It might help."
Over the past year, Alex had kept her well-informed about the characters he had met in prison. His ability to fit in with these rogues and villains and gangsters amazed her. The Choir Boys of Mariel with their relentless scheming to find a lawyer who could buy their way out. Mustafa, the glowering head of the Black Power brotherhood in Chicago, who kept ominously reminding "Brother Konebitchie" what would happen should the investments go south.
Bitchy Beatty was the most baffling one yet. Inexplicably, he and her husband had grown quite close. Odd bedfellows, though perhaps that was a phrase best avoided.
"What does the letter say?"
"He deeply regrets the pain and suffering he caused. He found God, God found him. When he gets out he intends to send hundred-thousand-dollar checks to each man he injured."
"That sounds nice. They should be impressed."
"I wrote the letter and forged his signature. Benny loathes the Jets for stealing his championship ring. He doesn't regret a thing."
Alex smiled and she laughed.
Alex leaned a little closer and lowered his voice. "The guard in the back. The tall one with blond hair. Name's George. He's your man."
Elena fell back into her chair, waited a moment, then glanced quickly over her shoulder. Three guards were back there but George was ridiculously easy to spot. Tall guy with white-blond hair leaning against the wall, pretending to be bored. He caught Elena's eye and winked effusively.
When they were finished, George would escort her out to the large anteroom to collect her coat and purse. They would brush against each other, a light bump that lasted seconds. Elena would hand George a bundle of computer disks. George would hand back a bundle of disks from Alex. George was the one with his whole 401(k) in the fund; in two short months, it had already doubled. Whatever Alex wanted, George would bend over backward to provide.
"Any new clients?" Alex asked, referring to their other new business venture.
"A few. General Motors signed up yesterday. I left right after they called. There wasn't time to update you."
"You do good work, Mrs. Konevitch."
"If she could write code half as fast as Mr. Konevitch, Mrs. Konevitch would have a thousand new clients."
For the time being, such talk was as romantic as they got. Their new business was roaring out the gate. The entire Internet world was going crazy with start-ups sprouting like poppies in a compliant Afghan field. None, though, had developed multimedia advertising technology as brilliant as Alex. The beauty of it was, Elena hit up pretty much the same clients they had enlisted for Orangutan Media. Same Rolodex. Same marketing contacts. Only the pitch differed. Alex leaned closer, until his lips were nearly pressed up against the glass. "What does MP say? Any updates?"
"No, the situation hasn't changed. He's furious. Says he's never seen anything like this. Keeps calling it a disgrace."
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.