First thing Jason Oosterhuis did when he got out was take the bus to Toronto and check into the Chelsea. It would be one of the last things he’d ever do. Slightly upscale honky-tonk suited his frame of mind—a big, anonymous hotel that had seen better days, just steps away from the centre of action. He strolled around downtown to stretch his legs, stopping only to look at the provocative pictures of dancing girls in the window of the Zanzibar Tavern, then came back to his room to enjoy a long, hot, soapy shower. Getting ready for a little trouble tonight, and wasn’t he way overdue for that. Two hundred a night for the room, shit. Hell of a better deal than the three hundred and fifty a day it had cost to keep him in a Canadian prison.

Not that he minded it. Kept himself out of trouble, which took a little doing on account of wife beaters didn’t exactly rank highly on the social scale there, even though actually doing it was perfectly understandable to many men he met doing time. Sentence was six years, but he got out after thirty-nine months for good behaviour—and wasn’t that a fucking joke.

Now Jason was soaking up his freedom, thinking of Stephanie and her Lhasa Apso she called Jill. The dog that wouldn’t stop barking. Lively, playful, devoted, obedient, fearless, intelligent, she said when they got her, Stephanie reading from the brochure. The dog was really only good for one thing, though, which was barking every time he was beating Stephanie up.

She sent him the divorce papers soon after he got in. Well, let’s see how much in demand she is now on the open market, with that jaw he broke one time, and that badly bent nose.

Jason—Candy to his friends when he had some—was thinking of maybe heading south somewhere, Cuba or Costa Rica, although Costa Rica was starting to crack down on guys like him, sex tourists no longer simpatico con la pura vida. There was Thailand, but he didn’t think the little nest egg he’d put away would take him that far with enough left over to have any fun. He’d managed to squirrel away a bit of money working those three years legit after his first conviction, the one for sexual assault. Could have been for a hell of a lot more, too, that one. Got four, out in two. Fuck, how about beating the system twice like that?

First time’s always the best, no? That little bunny Sara Jane McGoohey. Remembering her, just eighteen and a half, Bimbo Barbie, proud of everything and always showing it off, only not so foxy with it when he kept her in his basement for nine hours, having his fun and finishing with the duct tape when she made too much noise. At least he didn’t bust up her pretty face. Oh, they could have got him for forcible confinement, too, but his lawyer plea-bargained that one away, raising reasonable doubt about whether Sara Jane was there against her will or by consent. To the Candy Man, it was always a bit of both. See—and he’s thinking of the lawyer now, not Sara Jane—the whole secret to life is just knowing someone who understands the system you have to deal with.

The parole board held up his release a few months because a psychologist called him a remorseless psychopath whose violence toward women was likely to escalate to serious bodily harm or death. He just waited them out. Shit, they were right about that, though, weren’t they?

Maybe he’d just phone Stephanie up before he skipped bail, tell her what she could do with the divorce. Yeah, and even how that might go, them talking together after so long.

“Why are you calling me?” she’d probably say. “I’m finished with you, Jason.”

“Well, I sure ain’t finished with you, you try asking for support.”

“You never supported me when we were together. Why would I bother now, you bastard.”

Stephanie could be quick like that. He’d liked it at first but it got old fast, like her complaining and that fucking dog.

Or maybe he’d tell her she’d better go into hiding, knowing how he was. Make her go live with her pilot brother and his wife, give him a chance to do something to them, too, maybe make them watch through the drapes for him a lot. Stephanie, who married him on parole the first time, didn’t even ask what he was on parole for, the stupid bitch.

Maybe she’d be dumb enough to ask how he got out so soon. That would be good, too. Give him a chance to tell her what the system looked like from inside, prisons crowded to overflowing so they had to let some out early so they could let all the rest in. Or about the bloodsucking lawyers, like his guy, good at fucking over the system, knowing which rules they could bend, getting rich on all the poor bastards careless enough to get caught. Imagine the holiday he could have had with the ten grand or so he had to fork out?

Or maybe he’d want to leave Stephanie with some of the thoughts he’d had that time in solitary. Like why women make up more than half of all crime victims but are a minority of offenders? Because most of their violence is caused by their mouths, and that hasn’t been made illegal yet, although it sure as fuck should be. Or why they’re mostly attacked by people they know? Don’t have to strain yourself to figure that one out, either.