Chapter 8 - The Visitation
Three weeks later.
The visitation room at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Lower Manhattan was dark, smelling of stale floor polish, industrial bleach, and lukewarm coffee.
I sat behind a thick sheet of reinforced Plexiglas, wearing an elegant cream-colored wool coat, my hair pulled back into a simple, neat ponytail. The bruise on my left cheek had faded into a barely visible pale yellow mark, and my eye was fully healed.
The heavy steel door on the inmate side opened with a loud, mechanical clank.
Julian walked inside.
He was wearing an oversized orange jump suit that hung loosely off his shoulders. He had lost at least fifteen pounds in twenty-one days. His sandy hair was greasy, uncombed, and his blue eyes were bloodshot, surrounded by dark, hollow circles of exhaustion.
He sat down on the metal stool across from me, his hands trembling as he picked up the gray plastic telephone receiver attached to the wall.
I picked up my receiver.
"Clara..." Julian's voice came through the speaker, raspy, high, and broken. "Clara, please... you have to help me. You have to tell the prosecutor that it was a mistake. They're putting me in a cell block with violent offenders, Clara! I can't survival in here!"
I looked at him through the glass. I didn't feel anger. I didn't feel hatred.
I felt nothing at all.
"You look thin, Julian," I said softly into the telephone.
"They won't let me out on bail!" Julian sobbed, pressing his forehead against the cold Plexiglas. "My mother is sick, Clara! Her blood pressure is through the roof! She's sixty-five years old and she's sleeping on a steel cot! Please... talk to Sarah Lin. Drop the domestic violence charges. I'll sign the divorce papers! I'll give up every cent! Just get us out of here!"
"You don't have any cents to give up, Julian," I reminded him gently. "The court declared your personal assets fully forfeit under the victim restitution order yesterday afternoon. Your car, your golf club membership, your tailored suits... they've all been liquidated to pay for my medical bills and the legal fees associated with clearing my father's company."
Julian stared at me, his eyes wide with a wild, pathetic terror. "What about Vanessa? She promised her legal team would handle this! She said her lawyers were working on a plea deal!"
I let out a soft, dry laugh.
"Vanessa entered a blind guilty plea to three federal wire fraud counts two days ago," I told him. "She agreed to testify against you and Harold Vance in exchange for a fifteen-year sentence at the Federal Correctional Institution in Danbury instead of twenty-five years in a maximum-security facility."
Julian's mouth opened, but no sound came out for five seconds.
"She... she sold me out?" he whispered.
"She gave the federal prosecutors four hours of recorded phone calls where you bragged about beating me to force the signature," I said, keeping my voice smooth and measured. "She called you a 'useful idiot' in her official deposition, Julian."
Julian slammed his hand against the Plexiglas, tears streaming down his hollow cheeks. "She lied! She was the one who came up with the plan! She was the one who told me to pull you out of bed!"
"It doesn't matter who came up with the plan, Julian," I said, leaning closer to the glass. "What matters is that you followed it."
I set the telephone receiver back down on its wall hook.
I stood up, adjusted my cream coat over my shoulders, and picked up my leather handbag.
May you like
Julian grabbed his receiver, hammering his fist against the glass, screaming words I couldn't hear through the soundproof barrier as two correctional officers grabbed his shoulders and forced him back toward the heavy steel door.
I turned my back on him and walked out into the bright afternoon sun of Manhattan.
