A month before he was due to be released. Shadow sat in a chilly office, facing a short man with a port-wine birthmark on his forehead. They sat across a desk from each other; the man had Shadow’s file open in front of him, and was holding a ballpoint pen. The end of the pen was badly chewed.
“You cold, Shadow?”
“Yes,” said Shadow. “A little.”
The man shrugged. “That’s the system,” he said. “Furnaces don’t go on until December the first. Then they go off March the first. I don’t make the rules.” Social niceties done with, he ran his forefinger down the sheet of paper stapled to the inside-left of the folder. “You’re thirty-two years old?”
“Yes, sir.”
“You look younger.”
“Clean living.”
“Says here you’ve been a model inmate.”
“I learned my lesson, sir.”
“Did you? Did you really?” He looked at Shadow intently, the birthmark on his forehead lowering. Shadow thought about telling the man some of his theories about prison, but he said nothing. He nodded, instead, and concentrated on appearing properly remorseful.
“Says here you’ve got a wife, Shadow.”
“Her name’s Laura.”
“How’s everything there?”
“Pretty good. She got kind of mad at me when I was arrested. But she’s come down to see me as much as she could—it’s a long way to travel. We write and I call her when I can.”
“What does your wife do?”
“She’s a travel agent. Sends people all over the world.”
“How’d you meet her?”
Shadow could not decide why the man was asking. He considered telling him it was none of his business, then said, “She was my best buddy’s wife’s best friend. They set us up on a blind date. We hit it off.”
“And you’ve got a job waiting for you?”
“Yessir. My buddy, Robbie, the one I just told you about, he owns the Muscle Farm, the place I used to train. He says my old job is waiting for me.”
An eyebrow raised. “Really?”
“Says he figures I’ll be a big draw. Bring back some old-timers, and pull in the tough crowd who want to be tougher.”
The man seemed satisfied. He chewed the end of his ballpoint pen, then turned over the sheet of paper.
“How do you feel about your offense?”
Shadow shrugged. “I was stupid,” he said, and meant it.
The man with the birthmark sighed. He ticked off a number of items on a checklist. Then he riffled through the papers in Shadow’s file. “How’re you getting home from here?” he asked. “Greyhound?”
“Flying home. It’s good to have a wife who’s a travel agent.”
The man frowned, and the birthmark creased. “She sent you a ticket?”
“Didn’t need to. Just sent me a confirmation number. Electronic ticket. All I have to do is turn up at the airport in a month and show ’em my ID, and I’m outta here.”
The man nodded, scribbled one final note, then he closed the file and put down the ballpoint pen. Two pale hands rested on the gray desk like pink animals. He brought his hands close together, made a steeple of his forefingers, and stared at Shadow with watery hazel eyes.
“You’re lucky,” he said. “You have someone to go back to, you got a job waiting. You can put all this behind you. You got a second chance. Make the most of it.”
The man did not offer to shake Shadow’s hand as he rose to leave, nor did Shadow expect him to.
The last week was the worst. In some ways it was worse than the whole three years put together. Shadow wondered if it was the weather: oppressive, still and cold. It felt as if a storm was on the way, but the storm never came. He had the jitters and the heebie-jeebies, a feeling deep in his stomach that something was entirely wrong. In the exercise yard the wind gusted. Shadow imagined that he could smell snow on the air.
He called his wife collect. Shadow knew that the phone companies whacked a three-dollar surcharge on every call made from a prison phone. That’s why operators are always real polite to people calling from prisons, Shadow had decided: they knew that he paid their wages.
“Something feels weird,” he told Laura. That wasn’t the first thing he said to her. The first thing was “I love you,” because it’s a good thing to say if you can mean it, and Shadow did.
“Hello,” said Laura. “I love you too. What feels weird?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “Maybe the weather. It feels like if we could only get a storm, everything would be okay.”
“It’s nice here,” she said. “The last of the leaves haven’t quite fallen. If we don’t get a storm, you’ll be able to see them when you get home.”
“Five days,” said Shadow.
“A hundred and twenty hours, and then you come home,” she said.
“Everything okay there? Nothing wrong?”
“Everything’s fine. I’m seeing Robbie tonight. We’re planning your surprise welcome-home party.”
“Surprise party?”
“Of course. You don’t know anything about it, do you?”
“Not a thing.”
“That’s my husband,” she said. Shadow realized that he was smiling. He had been inside for three years, but she could still make him smile.
“Love you, babes,” said Shadow.
“Love you, puppy,” said Laura.
Shadow put down the phone.
When they got married Laura told Shadow that she wanted a puppy, but their landlord had pointed out they weren’t allowed pets under the terms of their lease. “Hey,” Shadow had said, “I’ll be your puppy. What do you want me to do? Chew your slippers? Piss on the kitchen floor? Lick your nose? Sniff your crotch? I bet there’s nothing a puppy can do I can’t do!” And he picked her up as if she weighed nothing at all, and began to lick her nose while she giggled and shrieked, and then he carried her to the bed.
In the food hall Sam Fetisher sidled over to Shadow and smiled, showing his old teeth. He sat down beside Shadow and began to eat his macaroni and cheese.
“We got to talk,” said Sam Fetisher.
Sam Fetisher was one of the blackest men that Shadow had ever seen. He might have been sixty. He might have been eighty. Then again, Shadow had met thirty-year-old crack heads who looked older than Sam Fetisher.
“Mm?” said Shadow.
“Storm’s on the way,” said Sam.
“Feels like it,” said Shadow. “Maybe it’ll snow soon.”
“Not that kind of storm. Bigger storms than that coming. I tell you, boy, you’re better off in here than out on the street when the big storm comes.”
“Done my time,” said Shadow. “Friday, I’m gone.”
Sam Fetisher stared at Shadow. “Where you from?” he asked.
“Eagle Point. Indiana.”
“You’re a lying fuck,” said Sam Fetisher. “I mean originally. Where are your folks from?”
“Chicago,” said Shadow. His mother had lived in Chicago as a girl, and she had died there, half a lifetime ago.
“Like I said. Big storm coming. Keep your head down, Shadow-boy. It’s like…what do they call those things continents ride around on? Some kind of plates?”