The Last Act

by Brad Parks

  It was Hazelton. Or worse.

  With that fresh in my mind, I limped over to Health Services for my medical screening. No one, it seemed, was much impressed by my hobbling, though I was working hard not to overplay it.

  Once in the examining room, I got myself gingerly up on the table and allowed myself to be examined by a diligent nurse practitioner. She made no comment on my lameness as she methodically took my vitals and gave me a general once-over.

  Then, finally, she gave me an opening. “You seem to be in excellent health,” she said. “Any issues we should be aware of?”

  “No, ma’am,” I said, because Pete Goodrich was a ma’aming sort of guy. “I’m healthy as can be.”

  I held my perfect-patient smile for a moment before I let it cloud over. “Only thing is, my knee is acting up. But that’s nothin’.”

  “Your knee?” she asked.

  “Messed it up playing soccer a bunch of years back,” I explained. “Insurance wouldn’t cover surgery, so I’ve just had to live with it. One of those things, you know.”

  She looked down at some papers in a folder she was holding. “There’s nothing about knee problems in your presentencing report,” she said, without raising her head.

  “That’s because most of the time it’s fine. It just flares up now and then,” I said, rubbing it as I drew breath through my teeth. “Locked up during the ride here. It was kind of tight in that van.”

  The nurse wasn’t buying it for a second. “If you’re trying to get me to write you a scrip for painkillers, you’re going to have to try a lot harder than—”

  “No, ma’am. Wouldn’t even want anything like that. Tried them once and they made me feel all fuzzy in the noodle,” I said, tapping my skull. “Most of the time it’s not even an issue. Especially when it’s warmer out. Only gives me trouble when it gets colder. Every once in a while . . . well, like I said, it just flares up. Don’t like winter much.”

  Tommy would have said winters could be a real bitch. Pete didn’t use that kind of language around a lady.

  “I see,” she said cautiously, still wondering what I was driving at.

  “Seriously, I don’t want drugs,” I said, fixing her with sincere eye contact. Then I added, “Only time it really bothers me is going up and down stairs. There aren’t any rooms on the fourth floor here, are there?”

  “No, nothing like that,” she said, looking back down at some paperwork. “They have you marked down for one of the cottages. Those are all one floor, though they have steps leading up to them.”

  “Oh,” I said, looking a little downcast, rubbing my knee. “Is there anything with, I don’t know, a wheelchair ramp or something? I can handle those, no problem.”

  “We have an ADA-compliant cottage,” she said. “I could put in a recommendation for you to be placed there. It’s called Randolph.”

  Bingo.

  I winced, rubbed my knee one more time, and said, “Well, if you think that’d be best.”

  CHAPTER 14

  For all the times she had been to New York City, and all the years she lived there as a student, Amanda always felt like the quintessential country mouse the moment she passed into Manhattan.

  It wasn’t merely that its city-that-never-sleeps hustle, its tall buildings, or its cultural importance—self- and otherwise—made it feel like the municipal opposite of Plantersville, Mississippi.

  No, really, it was its people. The guys hanging out in the parking lot at the Better Buy could scoff at New Yorkers all they wanted. To Amanda Porter, these were the people who had been selected—by dint of their high birth, their elite educations, or their prominent talents—to be in Manhattan, the cultural center of the nation.

  They were chosen. And she was not.

  Not yet.

  Which was the purpose of her long-anticipated visit to the Van Buren Gallery. Located on Madison Avenue, just above Seventy-Eighth Street, the Van Buren Gallery was near the Met, the Guggenheim, and more accumulated capital than she witnessed throughout her entire childhood.

  Fittingly, the gallery’s proprietor, Hudson van Buren, was so old-money that his fortune was said to go back to the city’s Dutch founders. He was named after the explorer, not the river—back when he was born, the river was so polluted you could get cancer from looking at it too long—and he rather resented all the bridge-and-tunnel parents from Park Slope, Maplewood, and Montclair who had made his name so common with their children.

  With his money, contacts, and influence, Hudson van Buren had long been a kingmaker on the New York art scene. If Hudson van Buren declared an artist was the next big thing, she became so practically overnight. He’d lift the phone and the artist’s work was on the cover of The New Yorker, or at MoMA, or wherever else he desired. And, of course, that meant her pieces were for sale at his gallery. He made a fortune selling paintings precisely because everyone knew he didn’t need the money.

  When van Buren had e-mailed Amanda and suggested that October 9 might be a good day to meet in person, it had felt like fate. That was the day of Tommy’s sentencing. It was a time for new beginnings.

  After a tearful good-bye with Tommy, she had driven up from West Virginia, then taken the bus in from Hackensack. She was nervous enough during the ride that her hands dampened the magazine she was attempting to read.

  There were other galleries and other influencers. But none who could change her life quite as quickly, or quite as completely, as van Buren.

  She had donned a shirtdress with the top two buttons undone, black nylons, and low heels she wouldn’t have to worry about tripping in. She had pulled her curls away from the sides of her face, gathering them with a simple clasp, but wore it down in back. Tommy always liked it that way.

  At precisely four o’clock, the time of her appointment, Amanda entered the glass front door of the gallery and was greeted by a receptionist whose exquisitely styled hair immediately made Amanda feel like a peasant. The receptionist called up to an executive secretary—also impeccably presented, wearing shoes that easily cost more than Amanda’s entire outfit—who then led Amanda up a brushed-steel spiral staircase, through a discreet door, and into some offices that looked down on the open gallery space below.

  Here the feeling changed. Out were the glass and steel. In were the mahogany and exposed brick. Before long, Amanda was being escorted through a door—again, wood, not glass—into the inner sanctum of Hudson van Buren.

  He was tall and wore a linen suit that was perfectly tailored and remarkably unwrinkled given the hour of the day. Amanda knew from articles about him that he was nearing sixty, though his sandy-colored hair and unaged complexion made him look younger. As Amanda shook his hand—hers clammy, his soft and warm—she guessed he never passed more than a few days without a manicure.

  “It is such a pleasure to meet you,” he said with a smooth baritone voice and a sincere smile. “I really have enjoyed getting to know your work, and now I look forward to getting to know you.”

  “Thank you for meeting with me,” Amanda said.

  “Oh my, and where is that accent from?” he asked.

  “Mississippi,” she said.

  “Wonderful. Mississippi. I spent a weekend in Biloxi a few years back. Beautiful city.”

  “Yes,” she said.

  “Hold my calls, Marian,” he told the secretary.

  “Yes, sir,” she said, then exited.

  “Come in,” Van Buren said with a sweeping gesture.

  The square footage alone was intimidating. Amanda was accustomed to a student’s Manhattan, where three women crammed into a unit meant for one and every inch had to be maximized. Van Buren’s office was bigger than any apartment she had lived in. In Manhattan, as in few other places, space meant power.

  Through the office’s huge picture window, Central Park’s leaves were just beginning to turn. The fresh-cut flower
s inside, and the vases they were arrayed in, had been selected to match.

  She immediately recognized most of the pieces on the walls around her. They were by the kinds of artists Amanda wanted to be when she grew up, all of whom had been discovered by Hudson van Buren when they were roughly Amanda’s age.

  Now here she was, perhaps ready to join them.

  Van Buren pointed Amanda toward a couch that was part of a tastefully decorated sitting area. Amanda sat on the end closest to the window. There was a bucket of champagne icing on the coffee table in front of her. Van Buren poured them each a flute, pressing the crystal into Amanda’s hand before she could consider objecting. In Plantersville, they didn’t even serve champagne at weddings.

  “I figured we should celebrate,” he said.

  She wasn’t sure what they were celebrating—did this mean he was going to accept her work?—but he touched his glass with hers, then brought it to his lips. She hesitated, thinking about the baby. The websites said a little bit of wine now and then was okay, right? Still . . .

  Then she considered how important Hudson van Buren could be to her unborn child’s college fund and took a sip.

  “Mmm,” he declared. “You like it?”

  “Yes,” she said, even though she had barely tasted it.

  “Good. Drink up. There’s more where that came from.”

  He then sat at the opposite end of the couch, crossed his legs casually, and began mansplaining the qualities of her work. He lavishly complimented both her composition and her subject matter. It was so different, so fresh. Compelling in its themes. He had clients—“especially the limousine liberals on the Upper West Side”—who would soon be engaging in bidding wars for her stuff.

  “Five figures will be a starting point,” he said confidently.

  Amanda just nodded along, awestruck. They would split revenues fifty-fifty, as was standard. He was considering giving the entire gallery over to her work for a month—a real statement—then having her share the next two months with other artists. That’s if there was anything left at the end of the first month. He had at least two dozen specific clients in mind who would probably clean them out.

  The room was soon spinning. Partly because of the praise. Mostly because of the champagne. She had been throwing up all morning, pulling off the highway to heave every time she got the urge, emptying her stomach. She hadn’t wanted to drink anything beyond the first few sips, but he filled her glass the moment it was anything less than full, and she felt that unshakable southern politeness.

  Van Buren had moved toward her on the couch each time he refilled her glass and was closer to her end than his when he said, “You seemed nervous when you came in here. Were you?”

  “I was,” she allowed.

  “Don’t be. Don’t be,” he said. “Look, I know my reputation. Just ignore it. You and I, we’re going to be partners in this. But we’re also going to be friends. This business, it’s so personal. For you, the act of creation is personal. For me, the selling is personal, because I’m not just selling the art, I’m selling myself. So we . . . we have to be in this together. And there can’t be any nervousness or hesitation. Do you know what I’m saying?”

  “Yes. Yes, of course.”

  “Here, just relax,” he said.

  Before she could respond, he had grabbed her by the shoulders, turned her toward the window, and was massaging the base of her neck.

  “You’re too tense,” he said. “We’re going to be just fine, you and I. This is the beginning of wonderful things for you and your career.”

  As he spoke, he worked down to the muscles in her shoulders. It was surreal to Amanda. How had a business meeting turned into a back rub?

  Then he reached around and loosened the third button of her dress.

  “What are you doing?” she asked.

  “Just trying to get to your neck a little better,” he replied, his hands already back to work.

  Since when is my neck located at the front of my dress? But she was too frozen, too tipsy, too uncertain to react.

  “You’re really very pretty, you know that?” he said. “A lot of the young women I see, they don’t even know what they have. The way you carry yourself, with such confidence, it makes you even more alluring.”

  She felt heat in her face. He reached around, undid the fourth button, then returned to her shoulders, working the bare skin.

  “In the art business, you’re what we call the total package,” he continued. “Talented. Beautiful. Great personality. And that accent! You are destined for big things, Miss Amanda Porter. All you need to do is let it happen.”

  Finally, a lucid thought broke through the alcohol: Wait, let what happen?

  She needed to stop this. Immediately. This was totally wrong.

  “I’m sorry, I’m married,” she lied, turning toward him so he couldn’t rub her back anymore.

  “So am I,” he said smoothly. “My wife and I have an open relationship.”

  Does she know that?

  Amanda looked down with detachment at the pale pink lace of her exposed bra.

  “But I’m . . . I’m not interested in . . . in this part,” she said.

  “Hey, it’s okay. We’re okay here. Just relax.”

  His hand went to her thigh, which he began massaging. He started near the knee and worked upward, lifting her dress as he went. She could barely believe it was her own leg. His face was flushed and focused on her crotch, his breathing suddenly raspy. Up close, he didn’t look so young anymore. More like a gross old man.

  Was this what he really wanted all along? Had it ever been about her art? She felt cheapened, repulsed, manipulated. The country mouse hadn’t come all this way to be a meal for a snake.

  “Stop, stop,” she said.

  She stood up, slipping away from his hand. She yanked down the hem of her dress and then began hastily fastening the buttons, the two he had undone plus another.

  “Hey, what’s the matter?” he said, still smooth as ever.

  “I told you. I’m not interested in this.”

  He sat up a little straighter.

  “You know what I can do for you and your career, right?” he asked.

  “Yes,” she said.

  “Then sit back down. There’s no hurry. We can take it slow.”

  “No, we can’t,” she said firmly.

  He rose from the couch, and for a moment Amanda thought he was going to come after her, maybe back her into the corner. He was much bigger than her. She wouldn’t be able to fight him off physically. She prepared to scream, to kick him in the groin, to scratch and claw and show him what Mississippi fight looked like.

  But he walked past her, to the door of his office, which he opened.

  “It’s been very nice meeting you, Amanda,” he said loudly. “Your work is quite promising, though it needs a little more time to mature. You let me know when you’re ready for me to give it another look.”

  CHAPTER 15

  They made me wait in Health Services for a while, for what reason I couldn’t say.

  It gave me time to parse and overparse the nurse practitioner’s words. She’d recommend I get housed in Randolph. That didn’t mean it was a done deal. Or did it?

  Finally, a corrections officer invited me to gather my bedroll and new clothing, then escorted me out.

  “Where we goin’?” I asked, pleased with how down-home Pete Goodrich was sounding.

  “Your housing unit,” he replied, which didn’t exactly tell me what I really wanted to know.

  I limped onward. We passed a small, human-dug pond ringed with benches that formed the centerpiece of campus. It was maybe forty feet long and twenty feet wide, rectangular in shape, with an oddly greenish hue that wasn’t going to get it confused for Walden anytime soon.

  “The pond have a name?” I asked.
<
br />   “People call it ‘the pond,’” he said, without a trace of irony.

  We passed what was clearly the chapel on our left. Then he walked me inside the largest structure on campus, which he called the education building. It included classrooms—both GED and vocational—and the library, as well as a pair of gyms, one filled with cardio equipment, the other an open space with basketball backboards at either end.

  Then we were back outside, moving in the general direction of the large hill that loomed over the southern end of the facility. According to Google Maps, which I had pored over for hours during the previous month, it was known as Dorsey’s Knob Park.

  “What about the hill?” I said, pointing toward it. “What do people call that?”

  “The hill,” he said, again with total sincerity.

  Then we took a path that angled to the left, and I saw—with considerable relief—we were now pointed toward a squat, tan-brick building that had a wheelchair ramp built onto it.

  Hello, Randolph.

  I squeezed my fist in triumph. Just a little.

  But now, having accomplished my first objective—get into Randolph—I was onto my second.

  Find Dupree.

  It probably wouldn’t be that difficult, assuming Gilmartin’s BOP liaison was correct. And, Lord, I hoped he was.

  I certainly wasn’t going to ask the CO, so I just tried to keep an eye out for Dupree as I limped ahead. Other than the wheelchair ramp, Randolph appeared to be identical to the four other cottages in the layout. It was designed like a lowercase t—a sans serif t, without the little tail. We had entered at what was essentially the t’s armpit.

  The interior walls were concrete block, painted white. At my feet, the floor was polished white tile with little dark flecks that I guessed were supposed to imitate marble. Above me was a corkboard drop ceiling with recessed fluorescent lights. In other words, it looked like pretty much every other publicly funded building constructed between approximately 1945 and 1985. Who knew prison and high school had so much in common?