River’s End

the sex. There are plenty inside who’ll bend over for you if that’s what you want. Otherwise you’ve always got your hand. But sometimes you wake up in the middle of the night just aching for the smell of a woman.”
    He jerked a shoulder. “There ain’t no substitute. Me, I read a lot to get through those times. I used to stick to novels, pick a part in one and imagine playing it when I got out. I loved acting.” He said it with the same cold look in his eyes. “I loved everything about it. It took me a long time to accept that part of my life was over, too.”
    Noah angled his head. “Is it? What role are you playing here. Tanner?”
    Abruptly, Sam leaned forward, and for the first time life sprang into his eyes, hot and real. “This is all I’ve got. You think because you come in here and talk to cons you understand what it’s like? You can get up and walk out anytime. You’ll never understand.”
    “There’s not much stopping me from getting up and walking out now,” Noah said evenly. “What do you want?”
    “I want you to tell it, to put it all down. To say how it was then, how it is now. To say why things happened and why they didn’t. Why two people who had everything lost it all.”
    “And you’re going to tell me all that?”
    “Yeah, I’m going to tell you all of it.” Sam leaned back, drawing out the last stingy sliver of his smoke. “And you’re going to find out the rest.”
    “Why? Why me, why now?”
    “Why you?” Sam dropped the smoldering bit of paper and tobacco on the floor, absently crushed it out. “I liked your book,” he said simply. “And I couldn’t resist the irony of the connection. Seemed almost like a sign. I’m not one of the pitiful who found God in here. God has nothing to do with places like this, and He doesn’t come here. But there’s fate, and there’s timing.”
    “You want to consider me fate, okay. What’s the timing?”
    “I’m dying.”
    Noah skimmed his gaze coolly over Sam’s face. “You look healthy enough to me.”
    “Brain tumor.” Sam tapped a finger on his head. “Inoperable. The doctors say maybe a year, if I’m lucky—and if I’m lucky, I’ll die in the world and not inside. We’re working on that. It looks like the system’s going to be satisfied with my twenty now that I’m dead anyway.”
    He seemed to find that amusing and chuckled over it. It wasn’t a sound that encouraged the listener to join in. “You could say I’ve got a new sentence, short stretch with no possibility of parole. So, if you’re interested, you’ll have to work fast.”
    “You’ve got something new to add to everything that’s been said, printed, filmed over the last couple of decades?”
    “Do you want to find out?”
    Noah tapped a finger on the table. “I’ll think about it.” He rose. “I’ll get back to you.”
    “Brady,” Sam said as Noah moved to the door. “You didn’t ask if I killed my wife.”
    Noah glanced back, met his eyes dead on. “Why would I?” ne said and signaled for the guard.
    Sam smiled a little. He thought the first meeting had gone well and never doubted Frank Brady’s son would come back.
    Noah sat in Prison Supervisor Diterman’s office, surprised and a little flattered that his request for a meeting had been so quickly granted. Hollywood would never have cast George Diterman in the role of head of one of the country’s most active prisons. With his thinning patch of hair, small build and round black-framed glasses, he looked like a man very low on the feeding chain of a midlevel accounting firm. He greeted Noah with a brisk handshake and a surprisingly charming smile. “I enjoyed your first book,” he began as he took his place behind his desk. “And I’m already enjoying the second.”
    “Thank you.”
    “And should I assume you’re here gathering information to write another?”
    “I’ve just spoken with Sam Tanner.”
    “Yes, I’m aware of that.” Diterman folded his small, neat lands on the edge of his desk. “I cleared the request.”
    “Because you admire my work or because of Tanner?”
    “A little of both. I’ve been in this position in this facility for five years. During that period Tanner has been what you’d call a model prisoner. He stays out of trouble, he does his work in the prison library well. He follows the rules.”
    “Rehabilitated?” Noah asked with just enough cynicism in his tone to make Diterman smile again.
    “That depends on which definition