End of Story

by Peter Abrahams

Was it? Ivy didn’t feel ready, not close. But at the same time—it suddenly hit her—wasn’t this going back over the Gold Dust case a form of surveying, the way she couldn’t make those tapes match up? What if she incorporated—

  Water gleamed on the left, a long, wide lake. Lake Champlain? Of course: on the far side rose the Adirondacks, low and dark, Dannemora hidden behind them. Ivy grew aware that Danny was talking.

  “Sorry,” she said, “I missed that.”

  “No problem,” Danny said. “That dreaminess, all part of where the writing comes from—I get it. I was saying I’ve thought of a cool way of teaching you about finance. So it’ll stick in your head.”

  “What’s that?” said Ivy. Harrow was somewhere over there, Plattsburgh Regional Hospital. She glanced at her cell phone for missed calls: none.

  “I’ll finance The Surveyor,” Danny said.

  “I’m sorry?” Ivy said.

  “Meaning I’ll pay you to write it,” Danny said. “Say what you’re making now at the bar, plus ten percent to cover expenses, throw in a new laptop.”

  “That’s very nice, Danny, but I couldn’t—”

  “In return,” Danny said, “I get the foreign rights.”

  “What foreign rights?”

  “Europe, Asia, South America—there’s surprising overseas market strength,” Danny said. “You retain U.S., of course, plus film and whatever subsidiary deal your agent works out with the publisher.”

  “But there are no foreign rights,” Ivy said. “No agent, no subsidiaries, no book.”

  Danny waved all that away like a pesky fly. “Finance one-oh-one,” he said.

  “And how do you know all this lingo?”

  “I’ve looked into publishing once or twice,” Danny said. “A funny little business, not much to it, really.” He turned to her. “Have we got a deal?”

  “I just couldn’t,” Ivy said.

  “Because you’d feel obligated?”

  Ivy nodded.

  “No obligation possible,” Danny said. “It’s an investment. I just explained.”

  “What if I can’t write the book?” Ivy said. “Or if no one wants it?”

  “Then it’s an investment that doesn’t pan out,” Danny said. “That happens. Finance one-oh-two.”

  “I’d feel bad,” Ivy said.

  “I wouldn’t,” said Danny. “That’s why we hedge.”

  They drove up to Canada Customs.

  “Well?” Danny said.

  “I’ll have to think about it,” Ivy said, although she already knew the answer was no.

  Danny sighed. “I thought artists were supposed to be ruthless,” he said. “Take what they needed, anything to get the work done.”

  That gave Ivy a sinking feeling. She thought again of those faces—Picasso, Brando, Hemingway. Andy Warhol, for God’s sake. Even Joel turned out to be ruthless. Was that what she lacked? Did you have to be born with it, or live some desperate childhood? Could it be grafted on, say only for emergency use?

  The window slid down. They handed over their passports. Danny’s was full of stamps, even had extra pages inserted to fit them all in. Ivy’s was blank.

  “Purpose of your visit?” said the customs agent.

  “Just visiting,” said Danny.

  Twenty-two

  The Edge, who missed his flight or had visa problems or got busted by the Americans while changing planes at JFK—all stories circulated—never showed up, but the music was great anyway. First came Rabbit Lapin, a bilingual group with four drummers; then three singing guitarists who shared a guitar, passing it back and forth; and after that, the fastest-playing band Ivy had ever seen. They sang a song that might have been called “A Fuck to Build a Dream On” and sounded really good. By that time, just about everyone was dancing, including Ivy and Danny. He turned out to be a pretty good dancer, into the music, uninhibited, happy, a beer in his hand. Lots of heady beer around, all from Québecois microbreweries Ivy had never heard of; plus clouds of tobacco and pot smoke; and the steamed-up floor-to-ceiling windows of the old warehouse blurring the city lights.

  “Fun, huh?” said Danny.

  “What?”

  He leaned in close, shouted: “Having fun?”

  “Yeah.”

  A woman with frizzy hair went by, said something in French. Danny said something back in French that made her laugh.

  “You speak French?” Ivy said.

  “Junior year abroad,” said Danny.

  “What?”

  He shouted, “Junior year abroad.” They moved away from the music, stood by one of the windows.

  “You came here?” Ivy said.

  “Paris,” Danny said. Ivy had spent her junior year there, too, but hadn’t come close to fluency, or even a moderate level of understanding. “This is my first time in Montreal,” he said, taking a swig and passing her the bottle.

  “Mine, too,” said Ivy.

  “I’m glad.”

  “Glad?” She drank, handed the bottle back.

  “That it’s the first time for both of us,” he said.

  Danny looked into her eyes. His were very nice, gentle and lustful at the same time. All at once, the memory of Harrow’s eyes overwhelmed them.

  “What?” said Danny. “Is something wrong?”

  “No,” Ivy said. She touched the window, felt music vibrating in the glass. “Nothing’s wrong. I’ll be right back.”

  Ivy went to the bathroom, a huge unisex space with urinals, stalls, bar, couches, and a big party going on. She splashed her face with cold water and went to the bar. A phone book, spotted the moment she’d come in the room, lay at one end. Ivy leafed though it.

  What did she know? That Frank Mandrell—the name now twice removed—had come from Montreal; that the getaway plan involved some cousin of his meeting the robbers on the Canadian side of the St. Lawrence; that Mandrell had dreamed of owning strip clubs. Cousins didn’t necessarily share surnames, of course, and Mandrell’s cousin might have had no connection with Montreal, plus even if he had, there was no reason to think he’d still be here now, seven years later.

  But.

  There were three Mandrells listed in the Montreal phone book: James and Lise; P.; Victor and Gina. Ivy took out her cell phone and dialed James and Lise first, hunched over against the noise.

  A woman answered, old and reedy-voiced. “Oui?” she said.

  “Um,” said Ivy. “Do you speak English?”

  “Yes?”

  “I’m looking for Frank Mandrell,” Ivy said.

  “Frank Mandrell?” said the woman. “You must have the wrong number.”

  “Sorry.”

  Ivy tried P. Mandrell.

  “Yeah?” said a man.

  “Frank Mandrell, please,” said Ivy.

  “Wrong number.” Click.

  And finally, Victor Mandrell.

  “Hello?” Another woman.

  “Is Frank there?” said Ivy.

  Pause. “Frank?” This woman was much younger than the first, sounded a little slow and vague, maybe even high on something.

  “Frank,” said Ivy. “Frank Mandrell.”

  Another pause, this one very long. “There’s no Frank here,” she said.

  “No?” said Ivy.

  “No,” said the woman. “There’s no Frank, like…”

  “Like what?”

  “Like period.”

  Ivy knew.

  “I must have made a mistake,” she said.

  “Must of,” said the woman. “Because there’s no Frank Mandrell, like I told you.”

  “What about Victor?” Ivy said.

  “Victor?” said the woman.

  “Yes,” said Ivy. “Is he around?”

  “Not now,” said the woman.

  “Where is he?” Ivy said. “I need to reach him.”

  “What about?”

  “Business,” Ivy said.

  “Vic’s at the club,” the woman said immediately, as though Ivy had spoken a magic word.

&nbs
p; “Which one?” Ivy said.

  “Huh?”

  “Which club. I thought there were a few.”

  “Uh-uh,” said the woman. “Just Les Girls.”

  “That’s on?”

  “St. Catherine,” said the woman. One more pause. “But, hey—how come if—”

  Ivy clicked her phone shut, turned and found Danny beside her, watching.

  “What’s going on?” he said.

  “Something to drink?” said the bartender.

  “I couldn’t help overhearing,” Danny said “Who was on the phone?”

  Ivy pulled him away. Was this another one of those turning points? They seemed to be coming quickly. Choice A: she could tell him about Harrow, his talent, her belief in his innocence. Choice B: she could just say, Let’s check out a strip club.

  “We need to talk,” Ivy said.

  “About what?”

  “Let’s go outside.”

  “Why?”

  “It’s complicated.”

  He gazed at her. His eyes changed. Ivy thought she saw something impatient there for the first time, maybe even hard.

  “Whatever you say,” he said.

  They went outside, stood under an old-fashioned lamppost. Danny shivered, buttoned his coat to the top button. “It’s cold,” he said.

  Ivy knew it must be—she could see his breath—but she didn’t feel cold at all. “I’ve stumbled into something kind of weird,” she said.

  “Where?” he said.

  “In the writing program.”

  “At Dannemora?”

  “Yes.”

  The look in his eyes: now she was certain. “One of the inmates—Vance Harrow—turned out to be very talented,” she said.

  “What did he do?”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “To get locked up,” Danny said.

  “That’s what I’m getting at,” Ivy said, and out came her story. A complete jumble: the worst hack, a third-rate Tony B, if that was imaginable, would have done a better job of organizing the material. But she hit the high points—the ski masks, the tapes, Harrow’s shielding of Betty Ann, Herman Landau, this new amazing possibility that she’d actually tracked down Frank Mandrell, closing a circle in a way she failed utterly to explain. Her high points didn’t include what she and Harrow had written in that last class, or those late-night calls.

  Danny gazed down at her; a little strange, since she’d always thought they were about the same height. “Now you want to go to this strip club,” he said. “Les Girls.” He made the tawdry name even tawdrier.

  “Yes,” Ivy said.

  He looked away. For a moment, Ivy thought his eyes teared up. Then one of those breath clouds rose over his face, obscuring it. When he turned back, his eyes were dry.

  “What are you doing, Ivy?” he said.

  “I just explained.”

  “You told me a crazy story,” Danny said. “You didn’t explain anything.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like for starters, what makes you so sure he’s even any good?”

  “Any good?”

  “At writing.”

  “Well,” said Ivy, “that’s…” Her strength; a strength that Danny believed in, maybe more than anyone else she knew. Didn’t he?

  “Did you show this work of his to anyone else?” Danny said.

  “No.”

  “Whit, for example?”

  “I didn’t think I could do that,” Ivy said.

  “Why not?” Danny said.

  She had no good reason; in fact, hadn’t even considered showing Whit.

  Danny didn’t let it go. “Isn’t there less vulnerability in pushing someone else’s work than your own?” he said.

  “Probably.”

  “So why not get Whit’s opinion?”

  “It’s hard to say.”

  “Maybe for you,” Danny said.

  “What do you mean, Danny? You’re acting weird.”

  “I am?” Danny said. “Here’s a possible reason you didn’t tell Whit—you didn’t really think the writing was any good, not down deep.”

  “Then why would I be doing this?”

  “Maybe that’s what you didn’t want Whit asking,” Danny said.

  “What are you saying?”

  “Do you remember what I told you the very first time you mentioned this gig?” Danny said.

  “You said Dannemora was an evil place.”

  He nodded. “And I asked why you were doing it. You never really answered.”

  “It’s a good thing to do.”

  “For whom?”

  “For them.”

  “And what about for you?”

  “Yes,” said Ivy. “Good for me, too.”

  Danny shook his head. “For God’s sake, Ivy, it’s a cliché—those women on the outside who get romantically involved with inmates.”

  Her voice rose. “I’m the writing teacher,” she said. “I’m not romantically involved with anyone.”

  Danny stepped back. “Really.”

  She reached out, put a hand on his arm. “I didn’t mean that,” she said.

  Danny pulled away. “I know the truth when I hear it,” he said. He took something from his pocket, gave it to her.

  What was this? A plastic rectangle, baffling for a moment, then understood: the key to their hotel room in the Old Town. She looked up. He was already walking away, fast.

  “Danny,” she called after him. “Don’t.”

  But he did, just kept walking till he disappeared in the night, one last breath cloud hovering behind. Ivy didn’t run after him, saying she loved him, asking for another chance, more time, more talk. None of that. When you came to a turning point you had to be honest. She held on tight to the room key.

  “Les Girls,” said the taxi driver, pulling over. His eyes found her in the rearview mirror. “Ça va?” he said.

  “Sorry,” Ivy said. “I don’t speak French.”

  “This is what you want?” the driver said. “The place here?” He pointed to it with his chin.

  Ivy looked out, saw a big neon woman looking back through her spread neon legs. “Yes,” she said.

  Twenty-three

  The Canadian ten-dollar bill was a beautiful purple thing with a portrait of an unfamiliar thin-lipped man on the front. Ivy handed one over at the door of Les Girls and went inside.

  First time in a strip club. She took a seat at a table near the back. The place was about three-quarters full—lots of men up front by the stage, a few couples behind them. Up onstage, two naked dancers—one black, one white—wrapped themselves around brass poles and left nothing to the imagination, not even the possibility that they were enjoying themselves. The men didn’t seem to mind or even notice: their eyes were filled with satisfaction, maybe of the grim kind.

  A waitress in a G-string came over. “Hey, there,” she said. “Something to drink?”

  “Water,” said Ivy.

  “Still or sparkling?”

  Ivy ordered sparkling. The waitress returned with a small bottle. “Seven-fifty,” she said. Ivy pulled out another purple bill. The waitress’s breasts swung closer as she reached for the money—heavy breasts, with hard cores and a thin pink scar tucked behind each. In that moment, with those breasts in motion by themselves, Ivy caught a glimpse of rib cage, the ribs sticking out the way they did in skinny little girls.

  “Keep the change,” she said.

  “Thanks,” said the waitress. She gave Ivy a quick glance. “You looking for work?”

  “Work?”

  “Most times when single girls come in here they’re looking for work.”

  Looking for work: that was one way to go, but Ivy foresaw scenarios that might end in disrobing, auditions, something else out of the question. “I’m actually researching a book,” she said.

  “You’re a writer?”

  Ivy nodded, a vague little affirmative movement.

  “Awesome,” said the waitress, her breasts bouncing once or twice. �
��I’m a big reader. Have I read any of your books?”

  “Probably not,” Ivy said. “But maybe you could help me.”

  “Yeah?”

  “The main character—the hero—of the story is a guy who owns a place like this,” Ivy said.

  The waitress frowned. “He’s the hero?”

  “Flawed,” said Ivy. “In order to get the details right, I’d like to talk to the owner.”

  “The owner of Les Girls?”

  “If he’s around.”

  “I’ll check,” said the waitress, walking off. She had a snake tattooed on her ass, its mouth opened wide, fangs exposed; Ivy hoped the image wouldn’t pop up in her dreams. She watched a man throw balled-up bills onto the stage, one of the dancers picking them up in a way she wouldn’t have thought possible. Then, beside her, a man said, “You wanted to see me?”

  Ivy looked up: a round little man, fleshy features, gray hair in a Nero cut. Nothing could have turned Frank Mandrell into this. “Yes,” she said. “Thanks. Are you the owner?”

  “Manager,” he said. “You some kind of reporter?”

  “Oh no,” said Ivy. “Not at all. I write fiction.”

  “Fiction?”

  “Made-up stories.”

  He squinted at her, uncomprehending.

  “Like…”—she tried to think of a good example—“Jaws.” The first thing that came to mind.

  “You wrote that?”

  “No,” said Ivy. “It’s just an example.” She held out her hand. “Ivy.” You now entering a last-name zone.

  They shook hands. His was damp and bejeweled. “Vic,” he said.

  “Nice to meet you, Vic,” Ivy said. “In this story I’m developing, the hero owns a strip club.”

  “A gentleman’s club, you mean?” said Vic.

  “I do,” said Ivy. “That’s why I really need to talk to the owner. The details have to be right.”

  “And this owner guy’s the hero?” Vic said.

  “Very much so,” said Ivy. “And the hero’s the most important character in the book.”

  Vic thought for a moment or two. “Like the star of it?” he said.

  “Exactly.”

  “Follow me,” said Vic.

  Ivy got up, followed Vic past the bar and a little alcove where a muscular woman was performing a lap dance for a glassy-eyed man in a hockey sweater—seen from behind it looked like very hard work—and down a dim staircase. The bass line of some R&B tune—“Hold On! I’m Comin’” by Sam & Dave, Ivy recognized it from the jukebox at Verlaine’s—thumped through the walls.