The Last Act: A Novel

by Brad Parks

  I could attempt to steal Doc’s phone, but I didn’t know where he kept it. And I doubted I could find it simply by sneaking into his room and looking around. It had to be well hidden—that’s why he still had it.

  Did I try to follow him around and hope he tipped off his hiding place somehow? Possibly.

  Did I use my can bounty and try to buy the phone from Doc? Again, possible.

  Except either of those solutions ran into the same problem: If he had successfully snuck in one phone—and found a good hiding spot for it—there was every reason to believe he could do it again. And then I’d be back in the same predicament.

  All I could do, in the short term, was hope that the phone was stashed somewhere that he couldn’t access immediately and pray Mitch wouldn’t have a two A.M. epiphany about the name of the musical he and his wife had seen a decade earlier.

  As for the long term? I was no nearer to any kind of idea by the next day after lunch. My plan had been to meander up toward the rec area in the hopes Mitch would be playing bocce, allowing me to use our newly established friendship as an excuse to let him teach me the rules.

  Instead, I saw Doc, sitting on one of the benches that ringed the pond. Given that he and Mitch seemed to be best friends, it made sense to get friendly with him, too. So I changed direction, angling toward the pond.

  He was staring down into that weirdly green water with his long legs stretched out in front of him. I stopped when I was five feet away. He still hadn’t moved or acknowledged my presence, so I said, “Mind if I join you?”

  He looked up, genuinely bewildered, like he hadn’t been aware there was another human being on the planet, much less one who was close enough to reach out and touch him.

  “Oh hey, yeah,” he said.

  I sat on the other end of his bench and nodded toward the viridescent surface in front of us. “You thinking about buying some waterfront property?” I asked. “I hear it gets crowded during tourist season, but May and September make it all worthwhile.”

  He smiled, though it was one of those sad, prison smiles.

  “No, just thinking about the vagaries of life,” he said, sighing.

  “Like what?”

  “Like how one day you’re an internist, running a thriving little family practice, and then one thing leads to another and you’re suddenly at a federal prison.”

  “Oh, so you really are a doctor?” I asked.

  “I was,” he said. “Then one of my nurses guessed my computer password and started forging prescriptions for painkillers. I was running one of the most notorious pill mills in the entire state of Delaware and I didn’t even know it until the DEA showed up at my door with a warrant one day.”

  “Why didn’t they send the nurse to prison?”

  “Because I couldn’t prove it,” he said. “If I had been auditing my own prescriptions like I was supposed to, I would have caught it and I could have approached the authorities with, ‘Hey, something isn’t right here.’ But when they caught it first, I lost any benefit of the doubt. By the time I figured out what was really going on, it was way too late. I had already been indicted, and at that point I sounded like just another crooked doctor, blaming everything on my nurse. They laid everything out and told me I’d get ten years if it went to trial, then offered me eighteen months if I took a deal. My lawyer told me I’d be a fool not to take it.”

  “Man, that’s rough,” I said. “How much time you got left?”

  “Ten months. I know to some guys around here, that’s nothing. But there are times when I swear I can’t remember my life before I came here, and I can’t picture what it’ll be when I get out. It’s like this is all there is.”

  “I know what you mean. I’ve only been here a week and a half and it already feels like a year. Morgantown is like a time warp.”

  “Mmm,” he said in a way that sounded like agreement. “So what’s your story?”

  I didn’t hesitate: “Robbed a bank.”

  “You don’t seem like the type.”

  “Didn’t think I was the type either. I was just a teacher, struggling along like everyone. We were living paycheck to paycheck, but we were getting by. Then my wife got injured on the job and still somehow didn’t qualify for disability, so we started having to skip payments. The next thing I knew we were three months behind. I went to the bank and saw the residential loan guy, Mr. Solomon, and asked him to restructure the loan or accept interest-only payments for a while or something. I said, ‘Mr. Solomon, please, I’m begging you here. I’m working three jobs to try to feed my kids and keep up with these payments.’ And you know what he did?”

  I balled my fist before continuing: “He plugged everything into a formula the bank developed. And he said, ‘Sorry, you don’t have enough equity in your home to qualify for that. We have to foreclose.’ I’m sitting there in front of him, a man with his hat in his hand and tears in his eyes, working myself to the bone for that damn bank. And he’s looking at me like I’m nothing. Nothing but a number to put into a damn computer. And after that I just . . . I snapped. I was barely sleeping, and I lost my mind. I thought robbing that bank would solve all my problems and get me a measure of revenge to boot. Obviously, it didn’t work out too well.”

  Even as I kept my head down, appropriately forlorn, I was thrilled with myself. A seasoned actor knows how to read his audience, and Doc was hanging on every word. Pete Goodrich had totally nailed that soliloquy.

  “This was how long ago?” he asked.

  “’Bout four months ago. I was like you: They had me dead to rights, so I took a deal.”

  “You still hurting for money?”

  Where was he going with this? I wondered. But I sighed and said, “Oh yeah.”

  “Then explain something to me.”

  “What’s that?”

  He looked directly at me for the first time. “Why did you throw the game last night?”

  I sat very still for a moment, my mind devoid of cagey responses. All I could think was to play dumb.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “When I got back to my room, I looked at the cards you slid under the deck. I know that’s not good etiquette, but I wanted to know who I was playing with. You had pocket kings.”

  “Did I?”

  “Don’t try the innocent act with me. You had full-boat kings over queens. That pot was yours. Why didn’t you take it?”

  Without meaning to, I squirmed in my seat, which had grown both harder and hotter.

  Doc wasn’t letting it go. “What are you playing at, Pete?”

  “I don’t know,” I said at last. “Guess I worried if I won the first time, you guys wouldn’t want me back and I . . . I need some friends in here. I had this game on the outside with a . . . a few teachers and . . . Playing with you guys just brought me back to that. For a little while last night, I wasn’t a convicted bank robber anymore. I was just a guy playing cards, and I liked it, that’s all.”

  He was studying me carefully the whole time, and he didn’t stop when I was through. Miserably, I added, “It was only a few cans.”

  “Yeah, I guess,” he said.

  And then he gathered his long legs underneath him and stood up.

  “But if you ask me, a guy who’s broke wouldn’t go throwing away a perfectly good poker pot.”

  * * *

  • • •

  He walked away, leaving me with the pond to myself.

  It was a stretch to say Doc was onto me. But I had this feeling he’d be watching me closely now. That alone made him a threat. The cell phone made him even more of one.

  It was time to eliminate all those threats. And in one flash of inspiration, I already knew there was one sure way to do it.

  Snitch.

  The moment the thought occurred to me, I immediately recoiled at myself, which speaks to how thoroughly
I had embraced the role of inmate. I had to remind myself that, thinking like a law-abiding citizen for a change, it actually was quite illegal for Doc to have a cell phone; and that, by snitching, I was furthering the public good.

  No, the only real quandary here wasn’t the moral, should-I-or-shouldn’t-I issue. It was how to do it without getting caught. From what I had seen, Danny was right: Morgantown wasn’t a snitches-get-stitches kind of joint. But I would still be socially ostracized if anyone figured out what I had done. I’d be booted out of the poker game for sure, whether I paid off Bobby Harrison or not. And my chances of befriending Mitch would be shot, too. I’d be serving out the remainder of my six months with no chance of success.

  The most direct method of snitching would be to go through the unit manager, Mr. Munn.

  Except I could easily envision Munn going straight to Doc’s room and attacking it like it was a pretend Guadalcanal machine-gun nest. I worried Mitch would know that (a) he had slipped up and mentioned Doc’s phone, (b) Doc’s room had been raided, and (c) I was the new guy looking to get in good with my unit manager. It would be too easy to put a, b, and c together.

  I sat on that bench, tossing around other possibilities in my mind. Then Karen Lembo walked across my sightline.

  She wasn’t coming to see me. She was just crossing the middle of campus, on her way to another special snowflake in need of motherly love.

  But it was all the prodding I needed. Mrs. Lembo was the perfect emissary for my snitching. There was nothing that tied the two of us together. And—unlike a socially inept, heart-disease-prone World War II reenactor—she would be prudent with the information.

  I lifted myself off the bench and walked toward her office, which was in the education building, a safe space. I wasn’t creating any rumors by going there.

  There was a secretary in the office suite when I entered. With a friendly smile, I borrowed a pen and a piece of paper and wrote in neat block letters:

  JIM MADIGAN HAS A CELL PHONE. BUT PLEASE BE SMART ABOUT HOW YOU GO AFTER IT. I DON’T WANT ANYONE TO KNOW SOMEONE SNITCHED ON HIM.

  Folding it once, I handed it to the secretary, who promised she’d make sure the note got to Mrs. Lembo. Then I walked out, headed back toward Randolph.

  I shoved my hands in my pockets and began whistling, like a man without a care in the world, all the while lobbing prayers into the universe.

  CHAPTER 28

  Over the past few weeks, Amanda had come to dread 4:09 P.M.

  Or sometimes 4:07. Or sometimes 4:13.

  That was when Barb, who worked from seven thirty A.M. to four P.M. each day, got home from work, usually full of pep and sass from a long and energizing day of extroverting. She would then scrutinize her future daughter-in-law for flecks of paint on her hands or sniff the air for turpentine.

  Then, already knowing the answer, she’d ask the same blasted question.

  Did you paint today?

  And, no, she hadn’t. At least not anything worth keeping. The truth was, she didn’t even try to paint most days. And on days when she did? Goop. Slop. Muck. College Pro Painters could have done better.

  This day, like so many recently, had been another one of Those Days. And when Barb arrived home at 4:10 P.M., Amanda was on the couch, cozied up with Mansfield Park, because lately she much preferred the early nineteenth century to the early twenty-first.

  Barb took one look at her and didn’t even bother asking the question. Instead she said, “Okay, that’s enough.”

  Amanda looked up.

  “You’re not moping around here anymore,” Barb announced. “You miss Tommy. I know. I miss him too. But guess what? He’s gone for a little while longer. You can’t just spend all day in the house. You’re an artist. You need to be creating. It’s in your blood. But you can’t put anything out if nothing is coming in. I get that. Art’s not so different from comedy, you know. So you’re going out tonight.”

  “Excuse me?” Amanda said, purely horrified.

  “I said you’re going out. Tommy has a friend, Brock DeAngelis. Lovely boy. He did all the musicals at Hackensack, so he and Tommy became buddies. Brock was always the leading man. I’m telling you, he should have been on a soap opera by now. He certainly had the looks for it. And the name. Brock DeAngelis. Is that a soap opera name or what? Anyhow, I’m going to call him up, and he’s taking you out. It’s not natural, a young woman like you, just staying around the house all the time.”

  “Barb, that’s very nice, but I—”

  “Yeah, yeah. That’s enough out of you. If I wanted your opinion I would have given it to you. Get in the shower. Get a dress on. You’re going out.”

  Amanda didn’t move. Barb walked up to her, removed the book from her lap, and pulled her up with both hands.

  “Let’s go. You’re getting in the shower, young lady. If you don’t go by yourself, I’m getting in there with you. And, believe me, you don’t want to see what you’re going to look like thirty years from now. I could practically wear my boobs as a belt. Now go.”

  With that image searing her brain, Amanda stumbled off toward the shower. She washed herself, took extra time blow-drying her hair. As a kind of reflex, she added a dab of perfume behind each ear. Then she put on her face, as her Mississippi-born mother liked to say, and donned a dress, as Barb had ordered.

  She studied herself in the mirror. Fine. Good enough. Whatever. This whole thing was ridiculous. She didn’t want to go anywhere. Except maybe to a place where Barb wasn’t riding her like a sad county-fair pony.

  Perhaps an hour later, the doorbell rang. Amanda was back to her Jane Austen, without harassment this time, and Barb answered the door. Amanda finished the paragraph she was reading, then looked up.

  What filled her vision was a solidly constructed young man whose upper parts were somewhere in that stratosphere above six feet. His shoulders extended out from his neck for a considerable distance. His skin had a hint of olive. His hair was dark and just long enough that it got a little kinky at the ends.

  He was wearing a blazer, jeans, a white button-down shirt, and a contrite smile.

  “Hi, I’m Brock,” he said, his hands shoved in his pockets.

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah, move it out, you two,” Barb said. “I feel a hot flash coming on. Get lost so I can strip.”

  Neither needed further motivation. They were soon out the door.

  “Sorry about Barb,” Amanda began as they descended the front steps. “She’s a little—”

  “If you start apologizing for Ms. Jump, we’re going to be here all night. I learned a long time ago it’s better to just go along with whatever she says.”

  He opened the passenger-side door of his Mini Cooper for Amanda, and soon they were off. Brock recounted his friendship with Tommy. They ran with the same crowd, the basically good kids who were all going somewhere and doing something with their lives, even if their high school ideas about what those things were now struck him as comical.

  “Tommy was the only one who really knew what he wanted,” Brock said. “What’s he up to these days, anyway? Ms. Jump just said he was out of town.”

  Amanda delivered the lie she and Barb had manufactured for everyone in Hackensack: Tommy was with a national touring company doing Mamma Mia! and wouldn’t be back until April. They kept the story consistent because Barb, of all people, knew how the gossip went.

  Brock accepted it without question. Before long, they were in Tenafly, an upscale suburb, and he was escorting her into a restaurant called Axia, a place with swank to spare. There was a fireplace going; live guitar music, soft and unobtrusive. They were greeted warmly by a maître d’, who knew Brock’s name, and then escorted them to a corner table.

  The menu was Greek. Brock ordered without looking at it. Amanda concentrated on selecting something that would neither harm her fetus nor make her throw up.

  Th
ey kept talking. Yes, he had done some acting in high school. But Barb was barking mad if she thought he was going to make a career out of it. His family owned DeAngelis Jewelers. His father, Angelo DeAngelis, was a classic immigrant success story, having come to America with nothing more than a work ethic and his skills with precious metals. He had started with one store that then became two, then three. It had since turned it into a thriving chain across New Jersey, New York, and Connecticut.

  Brock’s mother, Mrs. DeAngelis No. 3, was a former fashion model who gave Brock his long limbs and some important portion of her striking good looks. Brock’s half siblings—there were four of them—had no interest in the family business. That left Brock to take over for his aging father. The younger DeAngelis was now more or less running the show. He traveled to Europe and Africa half a dozen times a year to make buys.

  They shifted to talking about art next. He was surprisingly literate on the subject but also deferential to her expertise.

  Before she knew it, she was enjoying herself for the first time since Tommy had gone to prison. His incarceration was this fog that Brock cleared without even being aware of it. She was free to laugh, which she never felt like she could do around Barb, whose son was in prison. She didn’t realize how much she missed being able to be twenty-seven and—at least for a little while—frivolous again. Things didn’t have to matter quite so much.

  They could talk about their shared affinity for Olivia Newton-John. Or how they were quietly mortified by people who described things as being “very unique.” Or how they hated roller coasters with the white-hot passion of a thousand exploded suns and truly did not understand people who enjoyed the sickening lurch of having the bottom drop out from underneath them.

  They even shared a birth month and, very nearly, a birthday. He was November 9. She was November 11.

  After he insisted on paying for dinner—“It’s seriously no big deal,” he said—she was quite sure they were done for the evening. Then he proposed they go out dancing. It was Thursday, the perfect night for dancing, he insisted, because it wouldn’t be too crowded, and there wouldn’t be too many drunks out. And he knew just the place. They danced until their legs ached, laughing and talking and generally having a fantastic time.