The Last Act: A Novel

by Brad Parks

  “That’s not going to be exactly true for a little while,” Danny said, his voice modulating higher on “exactly.”

  I felt my eyes narrow. My mouth had become some fractional amount drier.

  “It is vitally important for the operation—for your safety, really—that we maintain the appearance that you really have committed a crime,” Gilmartin explained. “If anyone starts getting suspicious, you have to look legitimate. Your fellow inmates, including Dupree, will have access to their lawyers, and their lawyers have access to Westlaw, LexisNexis, things that allow them to look up cases. We have to lay down a paper trail that appears to be genuine.

  “You will plead guilty to a federal crime, likely bank robbery, because that’s clearly under FBI jurisdiction. You’ll then be sentenced by a federal judge, just like anyone else. The assistant US Attorney we deal with will know the real story, but no one else will. For six months, you will technically be a convicted felon. You need this piece of paper that says we acknowledge you didn’t actually do what you were convicted of. That’s how you know we can get you out after six months.”

  Which answered Amanda’s question about how I got into and out of prison. It was the FBI pulling strings, as I thought. They were just heavier strings than I anticipated. More like ropes.

  Or chains.

  “So no one at FCI Morgantown will know I’m not really a crook?” I asked.

  “Not even the warden,” Danny confirmed. “We’ve had problems in the past where someone who works at the prison tells someone else on staff, who tells someone else, and the next thing you know . . . Well, I’m sure you’ve heard the phrase ‘snitches get stitches.’ It wouldn’t be quite that literal at a minimum-security facility, because everyone there is keeping their nose clean. But, believe me, even there, you do not want anyone knowing you’re with us. We have a liaison with the Bureau of Prisons who works with us, but he’s in Washington. Everyone on-site is what we call operationally dark. That’s why we give you that toll-free helpline number. In case you need to get out in a hurry, you know we have your back.”

  Gilmartin amplified this: “As far as the bureau is concerned, if you’re working for us, you’re one of ours. We’ll treat you like we would treat any agent. We don’t hang our people out to dry.”

  I nodded. Amanda was right. I really was putting my life in Danny Ruiz’s hands. I looked at him, sitting there in his FBI suit, with his FBI shield in his pocket. He had grown up a lot since the days of Danny Danger.

  We both had, I guess.

  “So talk to me about the timeline here. If I agree to all this, how soon can we get started?” I asked, thinking about Amanda’s pregnancy. I wasn’t thrilled about the prospect of being absent for a large portion of it, but I damn sure was not going to miss the big event at the end.

  “Immediately,” Gilmartin said. “Once you sign the paperwork, we’ll take you to West Virginia, where we’ll introduce you to the assistant US Attorney we work with down there. He’ll get you in front of a magistrate, where you’ll plead guilty. We can ask for the sentencing to happen as quickly as possible, but we don’t have total control there, because we’re at the mercy of a federal judge’s calendar. Plus, the judge needs a presentencing report from the probation office, and those take a few weeks. In total, you’re looking at a month or two.”

  “How soon after I go in front of the judge do I start serving my time?”

  “Again, immediately,” Danny said. “Part of the deal you’ll strike with the US Attorneys Office is that you’ll be serving your time at FCI Morgantown. Those kinds of requests are not unusual in plea deals. Morgantown is close by, and we double-checked with the Bureau of Prisons: It has empty beds. You’d be processed in the same day you’re sentenced.”

  Meaning the clock would start ticking when Amanda was, at most, two months pregnant. I’d be out in time, even if she ended up delivering a little early.

  “What if I want a lawyer to look this over?” I asked.

  “I’d encourage you to. But that would be at your own expense,” Gilmartin said. “My guess is you could probably find someone who would look at this for a thousand or two.”

  Money I didn’t have. Not yet anyway.

  “And when would I get paid?”

  “As soon as you sign these documents, we’ll put the requisition in,” Gilmartin said. “We wouldn’t be able to get it today, because of the holiday. But usually they do twenty-four-hour turnaround. You’d probably have the money by Wednesday.”

  So it was a catch-22. I couldn’t afford a lawyer until after I signed the agreement.

  I’d simply have to serve as my own. I had signed numerous contracts during my years in the theater. This one wasn’t as dissimilar as you might think.

  “Okay, you guys mind if I do some reading here?” I asked.

  “Only if you don’t mind that we eat while you do it,” Danny said. “I’m starving.”

  * * *

  • • •

  We fell silent as I tucked into both the pancakes and the documents in front of me. Now that I was no longer skimming, I saw they were relatively straightforward. I could leave at any time I wanted, though I would forfeit any monies not yet paid to me. In the event of emergency, I was to contact the agent assigned to me, but the FBI also had a toll-free helpline that was staffed at all times. After six months, the parties could extend the agreement until such time as the work was finished, but only by mutual consent.

  Most of the verbiage was dedicated to the notion that if I got hurt or killed, it wasn’t their fault, and neither I nor my heirs or assignees could sue them.

  I had gotten through the main agreement and was moving onto the exoneration agreement when Gilmartin excused himself and disappeared around the corner, toward the men’s room.

  As soon as Gilmartin was out of earshot, Danny leaned in and said, “Hey.”

  I looked up.

  “Ask for more money,” he whispered.

  “Really?” I whispered back.

  It didn’t occur to me I could do that. This perhaps explains why I became an actor and not a business tycoon.

  “Definitely. The asset seizure fund is like Monopoly money to my bosses. It’s easy come, easy go. But it’s real money to you, am I right?”

  “Yeah, sure,” I said.

  He continued talking fast and low. “There was an operation in Houston a few months back where the actor got paid one-fifty, plus a one-fifty bonus for indictments. And the targets weren’t nearly as high-level as the ones we’re gunning for here. When Rick comes back, tell him you want twice as much. He’ll push back, because he can’t increase the payout without approval from higher up. Just hold your ground. Worst thing that happens is our boss says no.”

  “All right,” I said. Then I added, “Thanks.”

  “Just looking out for you, Slugbomb. Now do me a favor and wait a little bit before you hit him with the request. If you do it right when he gets back from the bathroom, he’ll know it was my idea.”

  “Got it.”

  I went back to the documents. When Gilmartin returned, I kept reading, like nothing had happened. I waited until I finished the exoneration agreement and the nondisclosure agreement, and then I got myself in character.

  No longer was I Tommy, the easygoing actor. I was now Mr. Jump, the shrewd negotiator. I gathered the papers, butted them together, and placed them in a neat pile in front of me.

  Then I fixed Gilmartin with a steely look.

  “Well, this all seems to be in order except for one thing,” I said.

  “What’s that?”

  “The money,” I said. “It’s not high enough to account for the risk I’m taking, going to prison for you guys. I want a hundred when I go in, a hundred after six months, and two hundred if you get any indictments.”

  I snuck a glance at Danny, who remained impassive. Then I swung
my gaze back to Gilmartin, who looked ruffled for the first time since I met him.

  “You want the money doubled?” he said. “That’s outrageous.”

  “It’s a big ask, Tommy,” Danny said, pretending to pile on.

  “I don’t think so,” I said. “If you want me to sign something saying the FBI isn’t liable for my death or dismemberment, I want to be paid accordingly.”

  Gilmartin had crossed his arms and was scowling at me.

  “Well, I can’t . . . I can’t authorize that,” he said.

  “Then why don’t you talk to the person who can?” I said.

  Gilmartin grimaced. “I hate bothering our SAC on a holiday weekend. Can I at least tell him that you’re in if he says yes?”

  “Why don’t we just see how the phone call goes,” I said.

  Gilmartin’s grimace had turned into a full-on frown. “All right,” he said. “I’ll call him. Hang on.”

  He slid out of the booth and walked outside. At the moment he disappeared from our view, Danny shot me a wink. Then we saw Gilmartin pacing near the Chevy Caprice, talking in an animated fashion.

  The phone call lasted two or three minutes. Toward the end, Gilmartin seemed to be doing more listening than talking. Then he slipped back into the diner, calmer than before.

  “Our SAC said he can’t double it, because if word got out that would create problems for him with some other operations,” Gilmartin said. “But he’s willing to meet you halfway. Seventy-five and seventy-five, plus one-fifty for indictments. However, he wants me to stress that this is the best he’s willing to do, and he says the offer expires at high noon today. He either wants you in, or he wants us to move on. This is now take-it-or-leave-it time. What’s it going to be? You in or not?”

  I looked out the window, down the hill toward where my pregnant fiancée was right now starting to pack our meager belongings into boxes.

  High noon. It was very spaghetti western of them. It meant there wasn’t time to get a lawyer, which I hadn’t really wanted to do anyway. I simply had to make a decision here.

  If I said no, I didn’t know what we were going to do next. I could hope for Arkansas to come through. Amanda could hope to sell a painting or two. We’d be barely scraping by.

  If I said yes, my six-month sacrifice would support our family for years to come.

  “Okay,” I said. “I’m in.”

  CHAPTER 7

  Natalie Dupree didn’t have a lot of time for revenge fantasies.

  She was the mother of two kids who needed regular feeding, chauffeuring, attention, affection, homework help, reminders about practicing the saxophone, and other parental services she delivered lovingly—and alone, now that her husband was in prison.

  Her parents? She loved them, too, but they also came with a formidable set of challenges. Her father suffered from dementia and cancer, which were having the slowest race ever to decide which would kill him first. Her mother’s macular degeneration had recently resulted in two minor fender benders, the loss of her license, and a burgeoning set of logistical issues. Natalie had heard people use the term “sandwich years” to describe this phase of life, when you were caring for both your children and your aging parents. That still didn’t seem to adequately describe how squeezed she felt.

  On top of that, she was the solo head of a household that was a study in entropy, one that suffered from spasmodic eruptions of dust bunnies, dirty laundry, and leaky faucets even as it settled into greater states of disorder, chaos, and decay.

  She was also a part-time sales associate at Fancy Pants, a boutique that catered to women who desired overpriced clothing precisely because it was overpriced. Natalie could barely contain her resentment toward certain customers—these women who acted like having to hire a new housekeeper was life’s greatest inconvenience—but when she was forced to reenter the job market, Fancy Pants was the only employer that offered flexible hours and didn’t stumble over the fourteen-year gap in her résumé that child-rearing had created.

  Natalie had read articles about how incarceration didn’t just punish inmates; it punished their families, too. And then some. Not only had she been deprived of her husband’s contributions—financially, emotionally, physically—she now had another person dependent on her.

  So, no, she didn’t really have time for this.

  And yet there she was, back in Buckhead—the tony Atlanta neighborhood where they used to live before Mitch’s legal fees and their imminent bankruptcy had forced a move—parked outside the kind of house she couldn’t afford anymore.

  It was a neoclassical monstrosity with white columns, a three-car garage, and, most ostentatiously, a pair of stone lions guarding the front door.

  Natalie hated those lions.

  Almost as much as she hated the man who lived there, Thad Reiner.

  It being Labor Day, she wasn’t even sure if Reiner was there. He could well have been off at Tybee Island, frolicking with all the other rich families who had second homes there.

  She had taken the usual precautions all the same. She was wearing dark sunglasses and driving a used Kia that was unrecognizable to anyone who knew her when she lived around here. Her hair was a different color too: Now that she could no longer afford going to the salon every two weeks for highlights, she was dyeing herself straight blond out of a bottle from the drugstore.

  Still, it was absurd. All of it. Absurd that a suburban housewife would be staked out in front of someone’s house. Absurd that she daydreamed about confronting the man who lived there. Absurd she thought hurting him would in any way improve the daily battle with resource depletion that was now her life.

  But, really, imagine there was a man who had taken nearly everything from you. He had taken your husband—the father of your children, your best friend and lover—and left you with an empty bed at night. He had taken most of your money and any hope you might ever achieve financial security and left you with anxiety about what would happen if the car’s head gasket crapped out. He had taken an existence of yoga classes, salon visits, and volunteer work and left you with Fancy Pants and aching feet. He had taken your dignity, your standing in the community, and many of the people you once counted as friends and left you ostracized, with people who treated you as either a pity case or like you were bathed in radioactive material.

  Imagine he had done all that and not suffered so much as a moment of retribution. He had gotten to go on living his comfortable life, in his massive house, with his stupid lions and his endless pretentions, while you and your family were relegated to shame, infamy, and impoverishment.

  Natalie Dupree didn’t have to imagine any of this.

  That’s what Thad Reiner had done to her.

  And that’s why she kept finding herself back here, parked in front of his house, imagining scenarios where she finally delivered the reckoning he so richly deserved.

  CHAPTER 8

  With two FBI agents schlepping boxes, Amanda and I needed less than an hour to empty our apartment and cram everything into our Ford Explorer.

  It probably wouldn’t have taken much longer had it been only the two of us. This was a trick we had performed many times. We knew which objects fit where, right down to the houseplants that rode buckled into the back seats.

  As we finished the job, it felt like the end of an era. Before too much longer, everything we owned would no longer be contained by one SUV. Couples could do that. Families could not. What I knew about babies could fit inside a napkin holder, but I had a dim understanding that they came with a lot of bulky accessories.

  Our last act in the old apartment was also the official first act of our next chapter. Rick Gilmartin presented me with the three documents I needed to sign, including the updated agreement, which now had 75,000 dollars and 150,000 dollars in the appropriate spots.

  I let Amanda read them over, then signed everything on the kitc
hen counter.

  We departed for points south shortly thereafter. I drove. Amanda was in nervous good spirits, doing her best to tamp down her natural pessimism and let my optimism have a moment to frolic. This was our new adventure.

  Danny and Rick followed behind us as we started down the New York State Thruway. They let us set the pace but had warned me not to go too fast: Unless it was an emergency, they weren’t allowed to use their FBI badges to evade speeding tickets.

  My mother was expecting us that afternoon, so I called and alerted her we were on our way. Then I told her we would have company and that she needed to be on her best behavior. I didn’t want her subjecting Danny or Rick to the Barb Jump Inquisition, an interrogation that lasted half as long as the Spanish version but was at least twice as painful.

  Our plan was that we’d stop in Jersey for the night and dump most of our stuff in her basement. Then we’d continue to West Virginia the next morning.

  Now that I had signed the documents, everything during our journey—gas, meals, hotels, whatever—would be paid for by Danny and Rick, in cash, courtesy of the asset seizure fund. We just had to remember to grab receipts to keep the FBI’s accountants happy.

  Already, we had filled our gas tank and bought sandwiches. It was a little strange to think my roast beef was being funded by drug money. But it was probably better than what it would be buying if the FBI hadn’t seized it.

  On the way down, Amanda exercised her phone, both finding an obstetrician and confirming that my Actors’ Equity insurance, which she qualified for as a domestic partner, wouldn’t lapse while I was out of work.

  Then we talked for a while, agreeing it was too early to start telling people we were pregnant. Including my mother. Especially my mother. One of her nicknames was BBC, the joke being that if you wanted to know what was happening in Hackensack, all you had to do was listen to the Barb Broadcasting Corporation. The bigger the news, the wider she spread it.

  It was midafternoon as we crossed over the Jersey border and merged onto Interstate 80, toward Hackensack. Traffic was almost nonexistent. Everyone was either “down the shore,” as Jersey folks said, or barbecuing.