Tough Love

TOUGH LOVE

Amy Eastlake

Published by BooksForABuck.com at Smashwords

Copyright Amy Eastlake 2000-2012

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Chapter 1

It was only a hard metal chair with 'Wisconsin State Penitentiary' stenciled on the back, but to Zoe Anderson, it looked like heaven.

Zoe reminded herself she'd actually asked for this assignment. Begged was more like it. According to the propaganda, the Tough Love prison program scared young offenders into straightening out before they got sent to jail themselves. It sounded like exactly the sort of story she liked to write. More important, it was the sort of program Scott needed.

Nothing else had worked with her wayward younger brother.

She'd failed him as the only adult in his life, and now she was almost afraid to let herself hope that something like Tough Love might reach him. But that's exactly what she was hoping for. This program could be a new start for Scott, and for herself.

That's why she was here in this briefing room, posing as a social worker: why she'd spent the past three hours walking on the prison's hard concrete floors. She was ready listen to the prisoners talk tough to the kids, and worry about how to get her brother into the program. But she wanted to sit down first.

None of the prisoners, the guards, or the kids milling around seemed to be paying her any attention, though she was the only female in the room. She straightened the metal chair and gratefully sank into it.

Except, when her bottom hit where the chair seat should have been, she kept going down.

Completely off balance, she windmilled her arms, tried and failed to regain her feet, and resigned herself to a major splash when she hit the floor.

Out of the corner of her eye, Zoe caught a glimpse of Philip holding her chair and smirking. The oldest of the juvenile troublemakers being exposed to the prisoners in this version of the Tough Love program, Philip had a serious case of facial herpes, the worst set of dead fish eyes she'd ever seen, and the moral conscience of a slug. She didn’t think anything would scare him straight—he thought he was scarier than anything else out there. Zoe didn’t have long to think about it, though. She closed her eyes, tensed her muscles, and got ready for pain when her rear end hit the ground.

Inches before she smacked butt into tile floor, one of her madly circling arms slammed into something hard. And that something caught it and seized it.

Zoe found herself rising. She might have just gone from the frying pan into the fire, but she opened her eyes anyway. She was a reporter, not an ostrich.

Wary, golden brown eyes met her own. A man, one of the convicts, held her and stared into her face. She'd never seen before, but would have noticed if she had.

You all right?

His deep voice sent little shivers down her spine. He should be a politician, not a criminal. With a voice like that, he'd have every woman voter in the state panting after him. If they even bothered paying attention to his voice.

His hard-muscled body could create a traffic jam in any shopping mall in the country.

He had to be the single sexiest man she'd ever seen. On him, even that baggy prison coverall looked good.

F--fine, she finally managed to gasp.

Two years without a man had obviously caught up to her. They didn't give those prison uniforms out for walking old ladies across the street.

Get your goddamned hands off the social worker, Mayoux.

A guard drew his nightstick and hustled over.

I guess this is good-bye, Ms.--

Anderson. Zoe Anderson.

Tom Mayoux. He dropped his light grasp on her arm and turned to Philip.

That chair belongs to Ms. Anderson, punk.

Don't see any names on it. Philip hunkered down in his captured seat.

Don't worry about it, Zoe interrupted. Philip might be only seventeen, but he had to weigh three hundred pounds and had spent all morning bragging about his karate black belt.

It's written right here. Tom gestured toward the back of the chair.

Philip followed his gesture.

In the instant Philip was distracted, Tom picked him up by the collar and belt and tossed him to the floor as easily as if he had been a sack of potatoes. "You can read that, can't you, punk?"

Philip scrambled to his feet, his huge hands making Popeye fists. He took two steps toward Tom, who simply stood there, arms at his side. A slight smile played across the convict's face.

To Zoe's complete surprise, Philip stopped when he was still out of range, muttered something about the guard, and backed off.

Let's get this program on the road, a guard shouted.

That’s when the over-acting started.

You fish better listen, one of the prisoners screamed. He grabbed one of the smaller kids in the program by the shirt and hauled him to his feet. "Around here, we have a name for kids like you.

Yeah. Another convict made slobbering facial gestures. You don't straighten up, the man's going to knock you straight. Maybe you'll end up looking real pretty like me. He gave them a grin showing large gaps in his dental work.

Zoe looked at her prisoner, Tom Mayoux. He stood slightly behind the other inmates, his eyes flicking from person to person, watching, judging, assessing.

What about it, Mayoux? one of the guards called out.

You planning on getting involved with this workshop?

Tom nodded. I thought the guys were doing pretty well.

His eyes bored into each of the young offenders. I wonder if you really know what it's like living as a criminal?

Hey, what do you think we've been doing? Phillip wanted to know. You think we got sent here for helping old ladies across the street?

To Zoe's surprise, the other prisoners fell silent when Tom began to speak. As if they too felt the strange compulsion in his deep voice.

There's a difference between playing kiddie cops and robbers and living life as an outlaw. Let me tell you what it's like. You fear sleep because you never know what might sneak up on you. You have no one to call, because you can't trust anyone. Your friends stab you in the back if they think they can cop a plea. And women… Just for an instant his eyes searched out and met Zoe’s. When it comes to women, you can forget it.

She felt as if he was undressing her, stripping away both her clothes and her defenses, leaving her totally open to whatever he might want to do to her. A small thrill of pure sexual awareness ran through her entire body before centering on her core.

Tom shook his head and Zoe felt a sense of loss when he dropped his gaze.

"Women will love you when you're ahead. Doesn't last though. I've had women abandon me for the price of a dime bag.

Even if Zoe hadn't been a reporter, she would have recognized that the other prisoners parroted words written by a warden. Tom, on the other hand, shared anecdotes of his experiences as a criminal and prisoner. Rather than stressing the evils done to the prisoners by the police and the prison system, he drew them word pictures of the pathetic life of the professional criminal, both in jail and on the outside.

Zoe felt her heart going out to this man as he explained the loneliness of pretending to be something you aren't, of wondering whether the next bullet would come from the police or from one of your own partners.

Completely irrational, she muttered to herself. How could she be getting all teary-eyed about a man who not only admitted to being a criminal but didn't even seem particularly bothered by the moral side of it? It wasn't like anyone had forced him to do whatever he'd gotten locked up for.

So what if he had a tough life? With her con-man father, she hadn't exactly had a life of luxury either, but she'd done all right for herself. And she intended to make sure her brother Scott did too.

So why did Zoe found herself fishing for a tissue to blot away her tears?

Zoe decided not to believe anything Tom said. She couldn't imagine any female would give up a claim on Tom for anything, let alone a cheap hit of crack. The man radiated a magnetic appeal. Even the guards seemed drawn into his story, moving closer to him to hear every softly spoken word.

Even when the guards obviously thought Tom had done enough, said enough, the other prisoners began giving brief answers to questions and encouraging Tom to expand into more of his stories.

That's all I've got to say. Tom folded his arms across his chest.

A hushed silence fell over the room. Zoe wanted to beg him to continue just to hear his insights into people, to learn more about the criminals he spent his life with, and, although she could hardly admit it to herself, to enjoy the sensual pleasure of his voice pouring out like warm honey drizzling over her naked body.

Yeah, sure. If you're so smart, what're you doing in jail? Philip might be reluctant to attack Tom physically, but he didn't appear to have the intellect to take in even Tom's simply worded message.

A team is only as smart as its dumbest member, Tom answered. I got stuck working with people like you.

Whatever had restrained Philip earlier wasn't enough to deal with his temper. He turned an unhealthy purple color and rushed Tom, his gestures right out of a Bruce Lee movie.

Tom watched him, unmoving, until the young man was almost on top of him. Then he stepped to the side and landed one chop to the side of Philip's neck.

Philip collapsed like a three hundred pound Pillsbury Dough Boy.

That's it, Mayoux, one of the guards called out. I've got to have to report this. You can hang up any hope of getting out next week.

Tom nodded. "I guess that's why they call it Tough Love all right."

Philip struggled to his feet, shaking his head and rubbing the back of his neck. Hey, man. That was a good trick. What discipline you learn that from?

Tom looked at him for several long, drawn-out seconds, then turned silently, and walked to the door.

As he stepped through the heavy metal door, he twisted around and looked back. His eyes sought out Zoe's and he actually winked.

Zoe felt like she'd been kicked in the solar plexus. At twenty-eight, she was all grown up. She'd gone through the standard bad-boy crush phase in high school, but she'd outgrown that fast. Even if working with newspapermen hadn't made her immune to the appeal of crooks, a father somewhere in the Federal Prison system would have. With her background, there was no way a criminal could get under her skin. Except somehow, Tom Mayoux had.

She didn't say anything on the bus ride back to Milwaukee. Most of the kids were silent as well, but one had tried to challenge Philip for the back seat he'd claimed for himself. Whether Philip had learned the lessons Tough Love wanted to teach, Zoe couldn't say, but he had learned something. Rather than bluster, he simply picked up the smaller boy, tossed him over three rows of seats, silently shook his head and sat back down.

Zoe almost felt sorry for Philip. Before today, he'd known where he fit into the world and had been happy with it. In a few minutes, Tom Mayoux had changed the rules, smashed his complacency and made him question what he was doing, how he’d planned his life.

Zoe wondered if he'd ever had that kind of thought before.

Zoe could read Philip's face like a book. After all, she was going through exactly the same reaction.

***

Tom grunted under the weights, visualized himself lifting the bar over his head, and then pressed. With the three months the warden had tagged onto his time because he'd hit that Philip kid, he'd had plenty of extra hours to work on his technique.

Yeah man, you've got it, Joey Ivanoff, his cellmate and spotter, encouraged.

He completed the motion, then lowered the weights to the support beam. Getting harder as I get older, he said before standing and reaching out for the water bottle.

"Pretty stupid getting into a fight with that kid in Tough Love, Joey kidded him. You'd 'of been long gone."

Don't I know it? Tom shrugged his shoulders, shaking out the kinks from his muscles at the same time. Eight months in the Wisconsin State Penitentiary left him in better shape than he'd been in since he'd resigned from the Marine Corps.

Joey nudged him again. Sly dog. I heard about the babe you were making eyes at. From what the guys tell me, it would be worth a few months in the slammer to get some action from that little piece. Me, I've never seen a social worker didn't look like she'd just swallowed a lemon.

Tom fought down the urge to smack Joey in the mouth to shut him up. The man had already talked himself into a longer jail stay once, forcing Tom to come up with an excuse to extend his own sentence. That Joey always meant well made things worse, in Tom's opinion. It wasn't even easy to hate the poor slob.

I guess she was all right.

Joey punched him in the stomach. He obviously intended it as a friendly gesture but if Tom hadn't been expecting it, it could have knocked his wind out. ’All right?’ Man, I think you need to get your priorities straight. You need a woman.

Yeah. Like a bullet in the brain.

Joey looked concerned and insulted. I mean it. A man's got to settle down, have a couple of kids. That sort of stuff.

I'll believe it when I see you do it.

Joey grinned. Well, I guess I'm not in a big hurry. Why have one when you can have a couple of dozen?

Speaking of being in a hurry, I'm out of here tomorrow anyway. Don't get into trouble. Tom punched Joey on the arm. Think you can manage for a week without me?

I don't think anybody's going to make trouble for Joey Ivanoff, Joey blustered. They all want in good with my dad.

Don't count on it, friend. The Columbians don't like him much. It was rumored the Columbian drug cartels had a contract out on Joseph Ivanoff, Sr. They'd probably pay something for your life, too.

It would be worse than ironic if Joey got himself killed after Tom invested a year of his life building an identity and rotting in jail to be close to the man. Besides, Tom had actually started to like him. Joey might have the brains of a befuddled housecat and the morals of a cockroach, but he had the loyalty of a golden retriever.

Joey's smile faded. After I get out next week, I'm going back into business with Dad. I want you to come with me.

About time. Tom had planted enough hints.

Nah. I'm going to work alone after what happened to me last time.

Now who's taking chances? There's too many mobs out there looking to take over any private con. Back when it was just the Mafia, you could get away with stuff. Now it's them, us Russians, the Columbians, the Serbs, and the Nigerians.

The hook was set.

Not to mention a bunch of home-grown talent. Tom toweled off his face then looked Joey in the eye. I'll meet with your dad. I'm not saying I'll join you, but I'll talk to the man.

Joey looked completely gratified and Tom felt like an absolute heel.

That'd be great. I'll make sure someone picks you up tomorrow when you get out of here.

***

It took three hours of paperwork to process Tom out of the penitentiary the next morning. He let the prison doctors take prints from just about every body part, he listened to long lectures about where he was supposed to meet his parole officer and how he was to avoid all contact with any of his criminal associates.

He answered every question in a monotone, fighting the urge to tell them to hurry up. If they wasted the entire day, would they send him back to his cell and put him through the same thing the following day? Probably. Jail had always been something like an existentialist novel, but that would be taking the Twilight Zone theme way too far.

Finally, the warden came down from his office on the second floor, shook Tom's hand, handed over an envelope with his prison payroll in it, passed over another envelope with the personal possessions he'd had when he'd been arrested, and let him go.

As the steel door shut behind him, Tom stepped into the open air for the first time in eight months. He took a deep breath and exhaled, trying to get the stench of confinement from his lungs. At thirty-two, he was too old for this kind of thing. One thing for sure, he never intended to get sent back to the slammer. Not for anything or anybody.

A toot broke into his concentration and a tiny sports car pulled up to the curb. Was this his ride?

He glanced down. The blonde hair looked familiar. She must be one of the lawyers who were always visiting Joey, he decided. What Joey lacked in IQ, he made up in hormones. He'd insisted on an all-female legal team and ended up with more female visitors than the rest of the convicts put together.

Tom scowled. In eight months, he'd been visited exactly once. The Milwaukee Police Chief had dropped by to tell him to straighten out and behave. All in all, Tom would rather have had the kind of attention Joey had received.

Sending a lawyer was a smarter stroke than he'd expected Joey to come up with. The guards had to be taking pictures of everyone who came near the penitentiary. He'd be in trouble with his parole officer if he drove off with one of the triggermen who made up most of Joey's entourage.

The passenger side door to the sports car swung open and he took a breath. In for a penny, in for a dollar. He was committed.

You one of Joey's lawyers? Did he send you? he asked as he climbed in, slammed the car door and fastened his seatbelt.

Joseph Ivanoff? Who else? She squealed her tires as she roared away from the jail.

He knew that voice. It had been plaguing his dreams for the past three months. The blonde social worker who looked like a movie star. Zoe something.

Her voice was low, throaty, and made him want to tear the clothes off of both of them. Of course if he did that, he could count on being found in a vacant alley with a small caliber bullet scrambled through his brain. The mob may not respect women, but it certainly didn't let interlopers take advantage of one of theirs.

I thought you were a social worker.

Do I look like a social worker? Come on, Tom.

He'd always thought his name was perfect because it was so ordinary. When Zoe said it, it sounded almost erotic. So what were you doing in that program?

Checking it out. And checking you out.

Tom knew better than to take that personally. Maybe Joey had been more on the ball than he'd thought. Maybe he'd wasted the past three months.

Neither ‘maybe’ gave him especially good feelings. He was supposed to be the one driving this scam; if he misjudged the opposition, he was dead meat.

Zoe drove without talking for several minutes, the silence broken only by the continual racket from the police scan radio she carried. He took the opportunity to admire the confident manner with which she handled her sports car and the responsiveness she got from it.

Not that he'd ever find out, but if she made love like she drove, and like her voice promised, a man might just go down and never come up for air.

So what's the plan? he finally asked. After all, he wouldn't be doing his job if he didn't figure out everything he could.

***

A good question, Zoe decided. Her original plan was to write a story about the life of a career criminal, with Tom in the starring role. But when Tom had assumed she was with Ivanoff's gang, the temptation to play along had been irresistible. She could see the headline. An Insider's View of the Russian Mafia. A thrill ran through her. If she could pull this off, she'd be able to write her own ticket at the newspaper, maybe even win the Pulitzer. One thing for sure, she'd never have to do garden clubs stories again.

Joseph hasn't decided how to fit you in yet, she said.

Tom nodded. Joey doesn't get out for a couple of days. I was guessing you'll want me to lay low until then.

Partly. It's no secret that not everyone thinks Little Joey has the judgment his old man has. They're suspicious of you.

She was taking a chance here but not too big of one.

She'd researched Tom Mayoux. He'd never operated in Wisconsin until about a year before. From the police reports, he seemed well connected in L.A. but nobody respected the L.A. mob. At any rate, he wasn't an insider here in Milwaukee. She knew enough to fake it.

Good. He paused a moment. Got a piece? I feel naked without one.

A shiver went down her spine but she wasn't sure whether his use of the word 'naked' or his cool request for a weapon started it.

Her body had reacted to Tom three months previously, but she'd finally persuaded herself that she'd just had some sort of cave girl reaction to the tough guy who could