Paper Ghosts

Part 2

"Drew Ryder. He works closely with this office and has taken on several paroled prisoners. A vacancy became available three weeks ago."

"How come?"

Shapiro shrugged. "Your predecessor is in Metro Dade jail charged with handling stolen property. Not an unusual occurrence, he just took less time than most. Where are you living? I telephoned the half-way house earlier and they said you hadn't checked in."

"I'm staying in a friend's apartment."

"What's the address and phone number?"

I told him. Shapiro wrote it down. "And your friend's name and occupation?"

"Floyd Benedict. Boxing coach."

Shapiro didn't look up as he asked his next inevitable question. "Has Benedict ever been convicted of a criminal offence?"

"Yes." It would be pointless to lie. "He did a two-year and then a four-year stretch in Michigan for auto theft. He's been straight for fifteen years."

"I see," Shapiro said, setting down his pen to give me his full concentration. "You realize that rooming with this man is a contravention of your parole conditions. I could violate you right now and have you fitted with an electronic ankle tag."

"It's his apartment, but he's not there at the moment. I have the place to myself."

Shapiro didn't appear too convinced, but he let it ride.

"Report to me every Friday and Monday at nine a.m. Ryder knows to excuse you from work at those times. I will be contacting him in a couple of days to see how you're settling in. Any questions?"

"Nope."

Shapiro got to his feet and hitched his jeans up. For a moment I thought he was going to shake my hand.

"Try to stay out of trouble longer than your predecessor."

Drew Ryder was a big man in his late forties. Only his large frame prevented him from appearing truly obese. He wore his hair long and sported a greasy beard which did little to disguise the four or five chins hanging slackly under his jaw. The belt around his middle had been fastened into an extra hole pierced in the final inch of leather. His forearms protruded like two inner tubes from his short-sleeved shirt. He had all the appearance of a gone-to-seed gorilla.

He took the letter from me in his office at the rear of the Exxon station. "What were you in for?"

"Arson."

"Insurance fraud?" Ryder's voice betrayed no sign of being judgmental as he ripped open the envelope.

"No. For the hell of it."

"I hope it was worth three years." Ryder scanned the contents.

"It wasn't."

"Try anything like that here and you'll not live long enough to be indicted. You clear on that?"

"Yeah." I had seen his type before. Ryder had probably been a bully in the school yard and, thanks to his size, had found the trait easy to maintain as he got older. Now he was nothing but a bag of guts, but he could still tyrannize by picking on those with too much to lose to risk fighting back.

Ryder proved my hypothesis correct by saying, "If you want to keep the job, it will cost you fifty a week. Basic's forty hours at six bucks per. You want more hours, you pay me an extra twenty-five. You clear?"

I nodded. I guessed my predecessor had preferred a little fencing on the side to lining Ryder's pockets. I wondered if Shapiro was in on the scam. Probably not.