The Dead Celebrities Club

by Susan Swan

  The C.O. quickly turns the boat around and heads over.

  27

  Tim Nugent

  TIM CALLS THE prison and speaks to the warden, who informs him that Dale Paul has escaped and the prison is on lockdown. The warden says he doesn’t expect Dale Paul to get far in the Five Swamps. He’s already sent out a squad of guards and called in the New York State Police. They will find Dale Paul, the warden says.

  The warden’s news doesn’t make Tim feel any better. But he thanks the warden and hangs up. There is nothing to do now except wait. When he knows what he wants to say, he will call Meredith and tell her about Dale Paul.

  28

  Dale Paul

  THE HEAT OF the day still hangs in the trees. The warden is waiting for me at a picnic table near the tennis courts while some C.O.s barbecue hamburgers nearby. The warden has on a casual short-sleeved shirt and reflector sunglasses. The effect of the mirrored spectacles on his black, perfectly spherical head makes him look like a gangster.

  Bowles, the new C.O., takes me to him. I can’t stop shivering. I haven’t been allowed to change out of my damp and sandy prison clothes, and the cut on my left hand is stinging unpleasantly. There are more cuts on my face and neck.

  The warden lifts up his mirrored sunglasses and eyes me angrily. So you made a break for it?

  I jumped in the lake, good sir. To cool off.

  No more bullshit, Dale Paul. I’m pissed with you.

  Warden, I decided to come back and serve out my time.

  He looks at me suspiciously. That doesn’t sound like you.

  I am sincere, I assure you.

  You, sincere? He snorts and shoos Bowles away. Okay, Dale Paul. Did somebody help you escape?

  He gives me the fish eye when I shake my head. You realize I have been trying to help you? Or maybe you didn’t notice?

  I appreciate you introducing me to Bergler.

  Ha! But you haven’t read him yet, have you? Goddamnit, Dale Paul, you should read that shrink! You might learn a thing or two. You like the fear that comes when you push things too far. Know what I’m saying?

  I don’t put much stock in psychological theories.

  Okay. I get that. He scowls. But read him anyway. And like I said, I’m pissed with you, so you’re going to the shu for three days. After they fix you up in the infirmary.

  I can’t help myself. I smile.

  You crazy, man? What are you smiling about?

  Encouraged by his softened tone, I say: Warden, I’ll be safe there.

  Safe from what? he asks.

  Somebody at Essex is trying to kill me.

  He does a double take. Who is trying to kill you?

  Mr. Jack and some others.

  Aren’t you two pals?

  I thought so, but no, not now. I looked inside the box with your letters …

  You looked in my private papers! His voice rises.

  I know, but I needed to know the name of the mystery celebrity, and I discovered that I am the mystery celebrity. Do you understand what I’m saying? If I die, someone will make a lot of money.

  How are they going to do that? The jackpot is Starbucks coffee. Nobody is going to get rich on a few coffee beans. You’re in shock, Dale Paul. Get ahold of yourself. You don’t have a fucking clue what solitary confinement is like. But, heck, just because you want to go there, I’m going to change my plan and dock your swimming privileges. For three months! Do you hear me?

  I believe so.

  Say, Yes, sir, he growls, turning to accept a plate of barbequed food from a C.O.

  Yes, sir, I reply, struggling to keep my face composed. He rolls up his shirtsleeves and starts to eat, gulping down his burger in the same slovenly way I saw him do on my first day in prison, the meat churning around in his half-open mouth.

  29

  WHEN THE INFIRMARY is finished with me, I return to my dorm. From all around I hear the laboured noise of sleeping men, a din reverberating with whistling snorts and other revolting respiratory exhalations. Despite the ministering of the nurse, I remain chilled to the bone. I have also come down with a painful earache, which, in turn, has brought on a case of tinnitus. The constant ringing in my ears makes me feel I’m going mad. Nevertheless, I manage to fall asleep.

  In the middle of the night, a pa announcement wakes me. When I sit up, I notice the sheets on my bunkmates’ cots have been stuffed with pillows to create the illusion that human bodies are lying under the covers. A note is taped to Bailey’s pillow: Meet me at the pool or Bailey gets another shower.

  I’m not interested in taking a new idiotic risk, not with everything that has gone wrong in the last twenty-four hours, but the thought of Aldo hurting Bailey alarms me. Aldo, with his repugnant vulgarity, his lowlife clownishness, stands for all that is crude and crackbrained; all that is distasteful and indelicate; all that is coarse and cruel.

  Weaving unsteadily, I put on my prison sweats. My joints throb from the strain of the day’s exertion, but anger is propelling me forward, as if I am on the final lap of the day’s horrendous journey. I pad out of the dorm and silently pull off the screen on the window above the outside staircase. Someone must have used the window before me because its latches are unlocked. I climb through, lower myself to the landing, and proceed down the derelict steps, trying not to make a sound. For several minutes, I wait nervously in the shadows, listening for the C.O. who is posted in the yard. In front of the dorm the searchlights move slowly across the lawn.

  When the searchlights swing in the opposite direction, I head for the Olympic complex, lurching from one shadowy area on the lawn to the next. The door of the pool building has been left unlocked. Cautiously, I open it and peek in. Somebody is moving around inside, although the lights in the building have been turned off. In the gloom, I spy Bailey lying on the floor, trussed up like one of Irene’s roasting chickens; his hands have been bound behind his back with thick strips of grey duct tape. Another strip of tape is plastered across his mouth. Aldo is bent over my bunkmate, taping Bailey’s feet. Aldo notices where Bailey is looking and spins around.

  Aldo, you skunk-faced jackal! I shout. Get away from Bailey!

  Aldo rushes me, clutching a swim weight. When I open my eyes again, I’m on the floor. The wound on the back of my skull is throbbing painfully. Was Aldo cunning enough to strike me on the spot where he hit me before? Bailey’s words drift back: Aldo so stupid he smart. And now, worse luck, a familiar clammy sensation is spreading up my back. I can’t faint. Or have I fainted already? I am too weary to know, but possibly I have missed a beat. Bailey lies only a few yards away, his knees tucked up under him, his eyes terrified behind the lenses of his spectacles.

  Get up, Aldo says. Get up or you’ll be sorry, Brer Fox.

  Aldo has bound my hands but left my feet free. I try to stand, and when I do, I fall back down. He kicks me in the ribs. Well, Brer Fox, got any big words now?

  He is standing over me, his arm extended as if he is ready to punch me. Instead, he grips my arms and helps me to my feet.

  Walk, he growls.

  I take a step. He shoves me hard again, and I stagger forward. When I reach John’s swim chair, he presses down on my shoulders, forcing me to sit on its seat so he can bind me to it with duct tape. When he’s done, my arms and legs are stuck to the odious chair. Sniggering with glee, the ruffian twists my head in the direction of the observation window overlooking the pool. In the dim light, the silhouettes of three men are visible behind the glass. I know without being told that Martino and John are watching. But who is the third man? I can’t see his face, although the shape of the man’s head is familiar. Then someone switches on the light, illuminating the observation room. I feel sick at heart: the third man is Derek. While Aldo tries to kill me, my friend and ally is standing there egging him on.

  You got an audience, Brer Fox, Aldo chortles. Ready
for a little joyride?

  Aldo is serious; he intends to drown me. Panicked, I start thrashing about, but he’s taped my legs and arms too tightly.

  He presses the button on the remote control panel and the chair swings out over the pool, its seat rocking unsteadily. The three men at the observation window pound the glass. I think they’re cheering.

  Without warning, my son’s face appears in the air of the pool building. A listless sadness washes through me. Will I ever see my boy again?

  There’s a screech and the chair swings sideways and stops. Through a fog of dizziness, I see a light as big as the sun; it is coming my way, moving slowly and purposefully. It is not like any light I’ve seen before.

  I saw. I tell you, I saw.

  EPILOGUE

  Dale Paul

  IT SEEMS JOHN Giaccone was right: Aldo is a bumbler. The swim chair was designed to not go below the surface of the water. But who knows what would have happened if Derek hadn’t changed his mind and gone to fetch a C.O.

  Since my heart attack, I’ve been reassigned to lighter duties. That’s why I’m repotting dahlia bulbs on the warden’s patio; the warden’s old collie dog, Jessie, sleeps nearby.

  Martino, Aldo, and John Giaccone have been sent to maximum security. Derek was sent there with them, although he won’t stay long because at the last minute he changed his mind and stopped Aldo from drowning me. I have accused Aldo and Martino and John of attempted murder, and, due to the magnitude of my accusation, it is being treated as an outside charge. That means the police will investigate and a prosecutor will take it over.

  I ran into Derek while he waited for his escort to maximum security. Glancing around nervously, he pressed something smooth and metallic into my palm. It was Martino’s gold ring with the Bitcoin insignia. You get the jackpot if you drop the charges against John, he whispered.

  Before he could say anything more, four C.O.s rushed toward him, their beefy torsos straining the shoulders of their blue jackets; their broad, hairy wrists glinting with chunky watches; their thick-heeled boots hammering the ground.

  Derek held out his wrists so the guards could cuff him.

  Why did you save me? I couldn’t help asking.

  I figured you can be more help to me on the outside, mate! He saluted me with his shackled hands before the C.O.s led him off to the prison van.

  That was three weeks ago. Derek would be pleased to hear I am meditating again. Meditating helps with my convalescence, and occasionally, if I am well rested, I see glittering lights in the air. Perhaps I am seeing what the apostles of Christ called the sign of the Holy Ghost, and I admit that swatches of Sunday school texts pop into my head during these moments, but I don’t see an image of the Virgin Mary or hear the voice of God. Moreover, I have no idea how I went from being Dale Paul, the hedge fund whale, to the man who is now able to see that I ruined the lives of thousands and made it hard for my own son to love me. For the most part, it’s enough that I’m privy to the sight of those homely spikes of light, although others are more deserving than I am of religious visions.

  In fact, I often talk around my experience that night in the pool. No one would believe me if I described the physical sensation of something opening inside my chest, as if my bad, old heart were one of the pine cupboards from Quebec that Esther used to buy, a quaint woodworker’s cabinet, in other words, with all its small doors and drawers of tools flung open to the air.

  There is one subject I can discuss freely: I derive large jolts of pleasure from apprehension and fear, and I will do what I can to create circumstances that ensure I experience those emotions. Like the schoolboy who enjoys waiting for a tongue thrashing over a bad report card, I am addicted to the dread you feel when something frightening is about to unfold.

  As for Nugent and my memoir, I have cancelled my book. I am more interested in the changes I am experiencing than in rooting around in my past. Nugent seemed pleased to accept a kill fee from my publisher and says he will use the funds to pay for his honeymoon with Meredith.

  And now it’s time to tell you about Caroline. Some days ago, a work gang was attacking the roots of a bittersweet vine climbing up the warden’s porch. A C.O. was supervising. I stopped my gardening work and ambled over.

  The C.O. was one of the guards who used to watch me clean the washroom. When I told him the men were destroying Celastrus scandens, the harmless vine known as American bittersweet, he yelled at them to stop. As he said thank you, his pager rang. He put it to his ear and nodded: You have a visitor.

  I followed him down to the visitors’ section by the lake. It was a cloudy afternoon, and an eerie sadness hung over the woods, as if the thousands of dead tb patients who came here looking for a cure had left behind their melancholy hopes.

  Near the cyclone fence, a pretty blond woman sat waiting on a picnic bench. While the C.O. frisked me, I watched her pull out a sheaf of stationery. Perhaps it was a fundraising letter for her Great Danes. She stopped and scribbled a note, the corners of her lovely, downturned mouth twitching from the effort of concentration. There isn’t much I dislike about Caroline, I confess.

  She jumped up as I lumbered toward her, ever the lowborn knave, and, stretching up on tiptoe, she air-kissed my cheeks. I tried to hug her, and she gently pushed me away.

  I’ve brought some treats, she said, exuding an air of false cheerfulness, and from a wicker picnic basket she fished out a baguette oozing with rosy-red slabs of beef and frills of lettuce slathered with mayonnaise. You poor man! she exclaimed. You must be longing for good food.

  I went off red meat after my heart attack. Strictly vegan now, Caroline.

  Of course! How silly of me! But you’ve lost weight. If you keep on like this, you’ll be as skinny as a rake.

  If you had to eat the prison food, you’d lose weight too.

  I see you’ve kept your sense of the absurd! She reached over and stroked my cheek. The touch of her fingers evoked a shudder. I grabbed her hand and kissed it.

  Tell me, how is your appeal going? she asked, gently removing her hand.

  Malcolm de Vries doesn’t hold out much hope. Not that he’s done much for me while I’ve been here.

  I’m so dreadfully sorry! But maybe something will happen. You always had luck on your side, didn’t you? I am sure it’s still with you — somewhere.

  Maybe so, but at the moment, I am just glad to see you.

  She gave me a puzzled look.

  Have you heard from Davie? I asked.

  Have you? she countered.

  He hasn’t been in touch. But why did you come? Our relationship has been over for a while, hasn’t it?

  I’m afraid I have been quite cowardly, Dale Paul. You see, I didn’t want to tell you during the trial, although perhaps it was wrong of me to keep you hoping. But there is just no future for us now that you are — where you are. I have a demanding job back in London, a job I adore, by the way, and a sick brother, or maybe you’ve forgotten about Charles. He is often disoriented and difficult. Do you know he still asks if you could give him some dosh? I have explained over and over that you don’t have a penny.

  He’ll never believe you. With all due respect, it’s not in his dna. But if I had money, I would give it to you.

  She looked at me strangely again. You surprise me, Dale Paul. You really do.

  I am in love with you. You know that, don’t you?

  I suppose I do know that, yes. She brought out a handkerchief and blew her nose. When she glanced at me again, her eyes looked sad.

  Oh dear, it’s ten after four. I need to get back to the city. And about us, she adds. There’s really no point, is there?

  Not unless you’re right and my luck returns.

  I hope it does. She paused. You know, you seem different.

  People tell me that. Well, I appreciate your coming such a long way to see me. Say hello to Charle
s.

  She broke into a lovely smile and walked away. I watched her go, my blood thundering.

  A GUARD IS escorting a prisoner to the parking lot. The prisoner is very tall and dressed in a double-breasted suit that no longer fits properly around the shoulders. There’s a cat inside the wicker case he holds in his arms.

  A group of men are watching the prisoner from behind a wire fence. He waves farewell, and they shout their goodbyes. Sometimes he tells himself the change he feels is just the shadow side of his personality trying to right the balance. Some think such things happen when we stray too far from ourselves. Some say that’s why saints dream of robberies and thieves dream of angels.

  He has received a presidential pardon for risking his life to rescue his bunkmate. The warden wrote the president on his behalf, and the day his pardon was announced, the New York Times printed a full page of angry letters from the military families whose pensions he’d gambled and lost. And then he quickly ceased to be a story of much interest. Newer scandals were unfolding.

  His cousin is late. He was surprised and pleased when she offered to pick him up, although she has gone out of her way to be kind since his heart attack. He glances at his watch. What’s holding her up?

  There’s the rumble of an engine. An ancient pickup truck is pulling into the lot. Well, it’s not Meredith. His cousin wouldn’t be caught dead in an old jalopy.

  Through the windshield, he glimpses a youthful face. The passenger door opens. For a moment, he just stands there. His son looks older, more sure of himself. He has put on weight, and the tangle of blond hair has been tied back in a ponytail.

  The cat hisses inside its wicker case.

  Don’t get too close. He’s scared of strangers.

  I forgot you liked cats.

  So did I.

  It’s only later, at a bar off the highway, after his son has gone to the washroom, that he takes out the Bitcoin ring. He rolls it around on his palm, then puts it on his finger.