Tim Green - Exact Revenge

“I see what you think,” he says. “The way you roll your eyes sometimes when I talk. But it’s real, kid. It’s all real.”

THE SLIDE CHANGED, and Lexis stared hard at the low country cottage surrounded by a brooding sky. A small peat fire, a single splash of brilliant orange in a world of gloom, fought bravely, if hopelessly, against the bold brushstrokes of van Gogh’s tempest. The screen went black and the lights went on.

Everyone around the long table clapped and blinked in the direction of the curator, who took a slight bow and thanked them all for coming. He’d see them next month and he hoped they would enjoy the exhibit. Lexis left the room, passing by the others piling up outside the elevator. Important people pushing and jostling like everyone else. Lexis would rather walk.

On the outside, the Guggenheim is like an upside-down wedding cake. Inside, the exhibit space is the walls along a long slow spiraling walkway that climbs from the ground floor to the top. Lexis was halfway down the ramp on the Level 4 Rotunda when she heard her name and stopped.

Hurrying after her was Pablo Truscan, the long-legged art critic from the New York Times . Truscan looked more like an undertaker with his gray skin and sunken eyes. He had an old-fashioned, droopy mustache. When he caught her, he touched behind his ear before taking her hand.

“I heard about your paintings,” he said. “I’d love to see them.”

“Thank you,” she said. “I’m flattered but I’m afraid I don’t show them.”

Lexis turned to go, but Truscan hurried after her.

“I understand,” the critic said, touching his ear. “It’s just that I’ve heard about all the pain and emotion in them.”

Lexis continued down the museum’s broad spiraling walkway, her shoes slapping against the smooth floor. She could hear Truscan breathing hard. At the second level she stopped in front of a Chagall painting, Around Her .

Pointing at the face of Chagall’s dead wife, she said, “He lived for her. That’s pain people want to look at. Not mine.”

Lexis began to walk more quickly and Truscan dropped back. Outside, she squinted and made a visor of her hand against the summer sunshine. From the corner of her eye she saw a man in a blue blazer and gray slacks stand up from a bench and approach her. There was something familiar.

“Lexis?” he said, stepping in front of her.

She jumped.

“It’s me, Dan Parsons.”

Raymond’s mentor still had that round red face, but he wore glasses now instead of contacts, thick ones with brown plastic frames that magnified eyes whose sparkle had dimmed. His nose seemed bigger and the curly white hair had receded nearly to the top of his head. He offered her what was left of that once-broad smile and she smiled back.

“Dan, I’m sorry, I just-”

“Don’t be sorry,” he said. “You were thinking. Are you in a hurry? Could you walk a minute?”

“Sure.”

They crossed Fifth Avenue and walked into Central Park, where they took the path that circled the pond.

“Last time I saw you, I was still with my firm,” Dan said. Broad green trees towered above them and sunlight scattered the blacktop path.

“And you’re not practicing now?”

“Here and there. More money in the stock market,” he said, then gave an abrupt laugh. “Until it tanked, anyway. I was up there pretty good. Rode the bubble. Had my own plane. A Falcon. But you know, easy come-”

“I’m sorry,” she said.

“I hate to ask,” he said. “I know it’s been a long time and people generally don’t like to bring up the past, but I’m in a pretty tight spot. I remember what you tried to do for Raymond’s dad so I thought, maybe.”

“What do you mean tried to do?” she asked. She had given Paul Russo twenty thousand dollars in cash to help Raymond’s father when she heard from Dan that he was in serious financial trouble.

“Oh?” Dan said. He stuffed his hands in his pant pockets, looked at her, and then quickly away. “I thought you knew.”

“What?”

“He… well, you know how Raymond’s father was.”

“Was? He died?”

“That winter. After we spoke. They turned off his heat.”

“But Paul Russo was going to give him the money. Anonymously,” Lexis said, stopping and gripping Dan’s arm.

Dan shrugged. “He was proud, Lexis. Too proud, really.”

“Russo,” Lexis said, “that son of a bitch.”

She shook her head and scowled out at the rippled surface of the pond.

“I’m sorry. I don’t know what happened,” Dan said, leading her along by the arm. “Listen, I’ve got a deal that’s pretty exciting. It’s just what I need, but the banks are all scared as hell right now and, well, I know your husband and Bob Rangle are pretty close and I was wondering if you wouldn’t mind, Lexis.

“If I could just get a meeting with him. Someone to jar his memory to the fact that I was a pretty decent contributor of his. That’s all I need. So that’s it. That’s where I am. Can I buy you a hot dog?”

They had come to the path’s end at an entrance on Fifth Avenue. Lexis shook her head no and said, “Thank you.”

“I’ll have one,” Dan said to the vendor, “and a Coke. You want a Coke?”

“I’m fine,” she said. “Of course I’ll talk to Frank for you, Dan. Do you have a card or something I could give him to call you?”

“Right here,” he said, removing a card along with the ten-dollar bill he gave to the vendor. “Hey, I want you to know, I didn’t come here to track you down at your meeting. I had some business and I just figured-”

“No, that’s all right,” Lexis said. “I’ll try. It’s just that Frank is so busy.”

Dan bit into his hot dog, leaving a streak of mustard on his lip, and shrugged.

“Whatever you can do. I understand completely. The old days are… uncomfortable sometimes.”

“And gone,” she said, offering a weak smile and waving to a cab.

“That too,” Dan said, opening the door for her and licking at the mustard.

“But that doesn’t mean I don’t think about them,” she said, getting in. “I do. Every day.”

LESTER QUICKLY SHOWS ME how to spin the drill bit using a small block of wood for the handle. It takes us an entire night of drilling to punch one small hole in the steel. When I ask about the hacksaw blade, he explains that he wore it out completely working his way through the welded seal of the manhole. It doesn’t take long for me to realize that twelve months is a reasonable goal for an opening big enough to squeeze through.

We sleep in shifts and nap during the day. Every waking minute, I am either reading or Lester is teaching me things. Things he knows and things from books he gets at the library. I feel like a man who has a drink after being too distracted to know he was thirsty. Lester is right about the other inmates. They’re dogs and I treat them that way. I ignore their barking and, so far, none of them bite.

I use the time when Lester is working his maintenance job to keep doing my katas and my push-ups and sit-ups. Lester sees me one day and criticizes my training. He says karate without grappling is like a gun without bullets.

“Kid,” he says, “if you want to kick the ass of a bad man, you have to get in close.”

He is old and bent, but he teaches me anyway. At first, I feel silly with my hands wrapped around his thin bones, twisting against the grain of his knotted joints. But whenever I think I’ve really got him, he pokes a pressure point that I never knew about and sends me reeling in pain.

Lester also teaches me about poison.

“It has always been the erudite way to kill someone,” he says. “In case something goes wrong-not that it will-and you end up back in here, you’ll be glad to have it.”