The Last Act: A Novel

by Brad Parks

  She started slowly, but her left hand—like a lot of artists, Amanda was a southpaw—quickly picked up its pace, as often happened once she hit her stride with a piece. This was pretty much the only area in her life where she could let go of the caution that otherwise defined her. When she painted, she allowed herself to be totally uninhibited. Her strokes were bold and unafraid. They lived, they breathed.

  The critics might call this genius. Amanda called it practice.

  Entering a kind of artistic trance, she could knock out a rough draft of a work in just a few hours. Later, she went back and added details. But by that point, shape and form and theme had basically been decided.

  As this one leapt off her brush, what appeared was a man, peeking out from behind a curtain. There was darkness behind him, light ahead. He was about to go somewhere.

  Half his face was visible, and perhaps a quarter of his body. He was not a tall man. But he was handsome. Dark hair. Dark eyes. His curled arm was thick with muscles. He was leaning toward something, about to propel himself forward. His momentum was undeniable.

  What she had really captured was his yearning. This was a man who wanted something. It was in front of him, not behind him.

  She worked into the afternoon. Then, gradually, the light changed. Amanda found herself looking at the painting in a different way.

  Then she realized whom she had painted. And suddenly she couldn’t bring herself to look at him. She knew what he wanted, and it scared her.

  Removing the canvas from the easel, she wrapped it in two large garbage bags.

  Then she walked outside and dropped it in the trash.

  CHAPTER 20

  The guy’s name was Sal Skrobis. He was a former librarian, of all things.

  According to the backstory Masri had gathered, he was originally from Wisconsin until life led him to North Carolina, then to the Shenandoah Valley in Virginia. There, he supplemented his meager librarian’s salary with organic farming.

  Which might have been well and good, except Sal Skrobis’ most lucrative crop was marijuana.

  He grew it on his property, wedged between his corn and his sunflowers, and some years it got higher than both. Putting his master’s degree in library science to use, he exhaustively researched how to grow the sweetest, most mellow weed anywhere. And, after a time, he got quite good at it. Maybe too good. He began sharing it with friends, then neighbors, then friends of friends, then acquaintances. As word got out, people started coming from as far away as New York to buy his stuff.

  Then, as happens, one of the customers got caught with it and ratted him out. Which likely explained why he was now so cautious renting out the unicorn.

  With this in mind, I made a research trip to the library shortly after lunch the next day so I could prep myself for the role I needed to take on. Once properly educated, I went looking for him.

  Masri had described him as “a Rip Van Winkle–looking sort.” Skrobis had managed to convince the prison administration that his religious observance did not allow him to trim his beard. The religion primarily seemed to involve a stringent aversion to razors.

  I found him at a picnic table under the pavilion next to the recreation area. His beard was, as advertised, long and white. What little hair he had on his head was tousled and windblown. The hair coming out of his ears was far thicker. He was so thin his uniform billowed on him.

  He was sitting cross-legged on top of the table. As I neared, I realized he had his eyes closed. His palms were upturned in his lap, and his middle fingers were pressed against his thumbs.

  Meditating. The guy was meditating right there next to the prison rec yard.

  FCI Morgantown, meet Sal Skrobis.

  I halted a few steps away, unsure if I should come back later or wait for him to descend from his higher state of consciousness. In my indecision, I was basically standing there, like a statue of a moron, until he opened his eyes.

  “May I help you?” he asked in a placid voice.

  “Mr. Skrobis?”

  “I am.”

  “Pete Goodrich,” I said, though I didn’t feel like Pete Goodrich at the moment.

  “What can I do for you today, Mr. Goodrich?”

  I attempted to get back into character by using a trick one of my directors had taught me long ago. He called it “locking it down.” It was based on the belief that in order to inhabit a character, you needed to start by feeling like that character physically. You took a deep breath while readjusting your shoulders toward whatever you were supposed to be facing: the audience, another character, whatever. That shoulder wiggle was when you took the opportunity to lock the character down. It was like a little do-over.

  Which is what I did before saying, “I used to be a history teacher. I was hoping to offer you a history lesson.”

  I was still speaking too stiffly. But maybe it was okay for Mr. Goodrich, former history teacher, to be a little more formal around Mr. Skrobis, former librarian.

  “Is that so?” he asked.

  “World history was one of my favorite subjects,” I said. “The first unit is on Mesopotamia, the Fertile Crescent, starting about ten thousand years ago. You can really blow kids’ minds when you explain to them that what they know as Iraq, which they think of as one big sandbox, was once productive enough land to give birth to human civilization. Many of the plants and animals we still eat today were first domesticated there. It’s where humans developed writing, which most people know. But did you also know there were many great artists?”

  “Can’t say I did,” he said.

  “Yep,” I said. And it was the “yep” that made me start to feel more like Pete Goodrich again. I gave him my best folksy smile as I hit him with the next line.

  “Matter of fact, did you know Mesopotamian artists were the first people to depict unicorns?”

  “Ahh, I see,” he said.

  There was no return smile. But there was interest.

  “Yes, sir. Unicorns later spread all over—China, India, Greece, you name it. Just about every culture has a mythology about a one-horned horse. But it started with the Mesopotamians. They believed the only people who could capture unicorns were virgins.”

  “Hmm,” he said. “And I suppose now you’re going to tell me you’re a virgin?”

  “I am, sir. Blushing and chaste and unspoiled.”

  “Mr. Goodrich, is that what you said?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I appreciate the history lesson. Now I’m going to give you one on astronomy.”

  “Oh?”

  “Tomorrow night is a new moon.”

  A new moon. As in, dark. As in, a good night to run the hill.

  “I understand. That is a good lesson.”

  “It’s the kind of night a virgin just might be able to capture a unicorn.”

  “Well, I sure would appreciate—”

  “However, there is the matter of compensation.”

  “Of course. Thirty cans, right?”

  “That’s what it used to be,” he said. “Not anymore.”

  “Sir?”

  “I don’t need cans,” he said. “I’ve got more than I know what to do with already. What I really need are seeds.”

  Seeds? As in . . .

  And then I got it. He missed being able to grow—and smoke—his favorite type of plant.

  Just to make sure I hadn’t misunderstood, I asked, “What kind of seeds?”

  “You seem to know a lot about me,” he said.

  “I know what I’ve heard.”

  “Then you know what kind of seeds. I don’t need many. A dozen would do fine.”

  And there it was. Sal Skrobis wanted me to smuggle marijuana seeds into a federal prison.

  “You really . . . You got a place around here to plant them?”

  “Let me worry about t
hat. Your only concern is getting the seeds.”

  “I’ll need the unicorn to be able to smuggle them in,” I said. “You know that, right?”

  “I’ll allow payment to be made after the rental is completed.”

  “Okay,” I said. “But for twelve seeds, I don’t want to just rent the unicorn. I think that should be enough to purchase it.”

  His bushy white eyebrows raised.

  “You want your seeds? This is how it’s going to be,” I said. “And, look, if you’re able to start cultivating a cash crop like that, you won’t need the unicorn for income anymore.”

  His wizened face squeezed, then released.

  “Okay,” he said. “This can be a purchase, not a rental. Are we agreed on our price?”

  “Let me make a phone call first.”

  “To the Mesopotamians?” he asked, smiling for the first time.

  “Something like that.”

  “Very well,” he said. “I’ll be here again tomorrow at this time. You let me know then.”

  He closed his eyes and resumed meditating.

  * * *

  • • •

  Taking that as my cue to exit, I walked back toward Randolph and went straight for the phone. If this needed to happen during the new moon, I had to get my request to Ruiz and Gilmartin quickly.

  I plugged in my TRULINCS account number, then dialed Danny. A recording informed him he was receiving a call from an inmate at a federal correctional institution.

  As soon as the announcement ended, he unleashed a cheerful, “Slugbomb! How’s it going in there?”

  I felt my teeth jam together. I had been so careful to maintain my Pete Goodrich–ness, it galled me to have him make a reference to my old life so casually. Even if the chances of this conversation being monitored were slim, it was still careless of him.

  “I don’t know who Slugbomb is,” I said tersely. “This is Pete Goodrich.”

  “Oh, right. Sorry. How’s it going?”

  “I had a hunch about some lottery numbers,” I said. “I was hoping you could buy some tickets for my mom.”

  “You got it, pal. Hang on. Let me get a pen and paper.”

  He rummaged around in his desk, or went into the glove box of his car, or did whatever he had to do. I was resentful of the time. Every second he spent screwing around was one less second I would be able to talk to Amanda or my mother that month.

  “Okay,” he said, finally. “Shoot.”

  “Thirteen, five, forty-seven, five, sixty-one, twenty . . . ,” I began, and kept going until I had spelled out my message:

  M-E-E-T M-E T-M-R-W N-T D-O-R-S-E-Y-S K-N-O-B P-I-C-N-I-C A-R-E-A O-N-E A-M.

  As soon as I finished, I said, “Did you get all that? I know it was a lot of tickets.”

  “I did. Anything else?”

  “I’m hungry. Really, really hungry. Especially when I wake up at one o’clock in the morning. I get these strange cravings.”

  “I understand. What for?”

  “Chicken of the Sea fillet of mackerel packets,” I said.

  “Uh, okay. Really?”

  “They’re delicious. I swear I could eat hundreds of them. I bet I could eat more than I could even carry. And I’m lifting these days. So I could carry a lot.”

  “Hey, when you’re hungry, you’re hungry.”

  “Starving,” I confirmed. “But I almost forgot. I think Kelly needs some lottery tickets, too. I’m just feeling really lucky today.”

  “Go ahead with those numbers.”

  This time, I spelled out: B-R-I-N-G T-W-E-L-V-E M-A-R-I-J-U-A-N-A S-E-E-D-S, again including enough numbers above twenty-six to throw off anyone listening.

  “Oh my,” he said when I finished.

  “Is that a problem?”

  “No, no,” he said, chuckling a little. “I’m sure I can get my hands on some. I’ll just . . . Well, whatever. I’ll find some.”

  “Good. So are we on, then? You’re going to buy all those tickets?”

  “Yeah, although there’s maybe one more set of numbers you should think about.”

  “All right,” I said.

  “Nineteen, sixty-two, five, five, forty-eight, twenty-seven . . .”

  He continued until he had spelled out, S-E-E Y-O-U A-T O-N-E T-M-R-W.

  “Got it,” I said.

  “Hey, one more question before you go.”

  “Shoot.”

  “How many phones do you have there in Randolph?”

  I looked at the line of phones, each separated by a small partition that gave the appearance of privacy, but no actual privacy.

  “Four. Why?”

  “Just wondering. Talk to you soon.”

  CHAPTER 21

  I was all jitters throughout the remainder of that day and the beginning of the next. Pete Goodrich may have been in federal prison for bank robbery, but Tommy Jump’s most serious offenses were limited to parking violations.

  And now I knew why: I didn’t have the stomach for lawbreaking.

  Masri probably didn’t help matters much, because while he had solved one of our problems—he had managed to secure a key to the maintenance warehouse and told me where to store our cans temporarily—he pointed out another that we hadn’t really addressed yet: Once the unicorn was ours, we needed to find a place to hide it.

  Obviously, it wasn’t impossible. Skrobis had been stashing it successfully for years. Still, we needed to come up with something more secure than wherever Masri planned to scatter the cans. Those were expendable to a certain extent, and if a CO came across them, it wouldn’t raise much concern. The same could not be said of the unicorn.

  Masri said he’d work on it. My first job after lunch was to let Skrobis know I’d be able to deliver on our deal.

  I practically burst out of the dining hall, walking as fast as I could toward the pavilion without looking like a man in a hurry. Skrobis wasn’t there yet. It was possible his unit was still at lunch.

  Rather than sit there and be nervous, I took a lap around the jogging track. Then another. When I returned from the second lap, with a light sweat popping on my brow, Skrobis was there, having already assumed his meditative pose.

  I walked up to him silently.

  “Greetings, my friend,” he said, opening his eyes. “Any news?”

  “Yes. We’re on.”

  “I figured as much.”

  “How did you know?”

  “Your aura is very yellow,” he said, as if that made perfect sense.

  “I’m sure it is. So how are you going to get this to me?”

  “Pull up your shirt,” he said.

  “Huh?”

  He was already yanking up the hem of his own shirt.

  “Be quick about it,” he urged.

  Then I understood: He had the unicorn on him. He was off-loading it like it was the One Ring from Lord of the Rings, having already possessed it long past the point where its mere presence was driving him mad.

  And now it was about to be mine. Its power. And its curse.

  He reached under his shirt and pulled out a bulky, roughly rectangular package. It had been wrapped in a white plastic garbage bag that had telltale dirt stains on it, which was suggestive of where Skrobis had been hiding it.

  I fumbled with my own outfit, my nervous hands moving more thickly than I would have liked. When he judged me ready, he slipped the unicorn out of his shirt and passed it to me. I tucked it under my T-shirt, then retucked my shirt.

  “Excellent,” Skrobis said. “And you’ll have my payment ready at this time tomorrow?”

  “Sure hope so,” I said. “If I don’t, it’s because I got caught and the COs are busy fitting me for a noose.”

  “If that’s the case, you don’t know me.”

  “Of course not,” I said.

/>   I gave him a solemn nod, then retreated. It was maybe 150 yards between Randolph and the pavilion. Five steps into the journey, I could already tell the return trip was going to feel twice as long. My T-shirt flattened out the package a little, but otherwise the bulge in my midsection made me look more pregnant than Amanda probably did at the moment. The lump for the radio was particularly unwieldy, like a tumor growing out of my large intestine.

  There were other inmates coming my way in ones and twos from their dorms, ready to take advantage of a fine fall afternoon in the rec yard. It may have been my imagination, but I swore they were staring at me like my stomach was a glowing neon sign pointing the way to beer and naked ladies.

  Then, to my increasing horror, a small, brown-haired woman emerged from around the corner. It was Karen Lembo, one of the prison social workers, and the moment she saw me, she made a direct line toward me.

  I had met her during my orientation, and she was what you’d expect from someone in that role: high-energy, perpetually up in people’s business, convinced she could save every lost little soul in her care. She had gone out of her way to assure us that just because we were incarcerated didn’t mean we weren’t still one of God’s special creatures in her eyes.

  Which was the last thing I needed right now. Forget my precious snowflake individuality. I yearned to be indistinct.

  She was wearing black pants and sensible flats, and I was trying to keep my attention trained on the area near her shoes so we could just pass by without an exchange of any sort. Except even in my peripheral vision, I was aware she was making very direct, very intentional eye contact.

  I was already sweating from the jog. And the tension. But now there was an extra burst of perspiration coming from my too-hot face and my belly, which was smothered by that plastic bag.

  If I could just slip by her, this would be—

  “Hello, Peter,” she said.

  She had stopped in front of me, blocking my path. She wore a knowing smile, like she could tell I was up to something.