Chapter 14 - The Cell at Fairton
The visiting room of the Federal Correctional Institution at Fairton, New Jersey, sat behind three sets of electronically interlocked steel security gates, fifty miles south of Philadelphia.
It was 1:15 PM on a damp Tuesday in November.
The room smelled of floor wax, industrial bleach, cold stainless steel, and the flat, sour reek of three hundred men breathing recycled air. Outside the narrow, wire-reinforced clerestory windows, the pine barrens of southern New Jersey stretched away into a flat, gray horizon under a weeping winter sky.
Sitting on the prisoner’s side of the laminate partition, wearing an un-ironed khaki jumpsuit with the letters BOP stenciled across the shoulder blades, was Ethan Hale.
The six years of polished, architectural entitlement had been stripped away by nine months of institutional discipline. His dark hair was roughly buzzed; his sharp jaw was covered in an uneven gray stubble; and his hands, once adorned with an eight-thousand-dollar IWC chronograph, were resting flat on the plastic table, the fingernails clipped down to the quick.
Sitting across from him was Richard Gantry—not as his legal counsel, but appearing under a court-ordered administrative deposition subpoena issued by the federal liquidation trustee.
"Sign the final distribution schedules, Ethan," Gantry said softly, sliding a three-page document across the plastic surface. "The bankruptcy case is closed. The Southern District court entered the discharge order on Friday."
Ethan did not pick up the pen. His bloodshot hazel eyes scanned the bottom lines of the document:
FINAL UNENCUMBERED BALANCE: $0.00 SATISFACTION OF CLAIMS: 100% COMPLETE RESIDUAL DEFICIT: WAIVED UNDER JUDICIAL FORFEITURE
"The Carver Street parcel," Ethan whispered, his voice cracking into a dry, reedy rasp that sounded like dead leaves dragging across concrete. "Who owns the title?"
"The City of New York," Gantry replied flatly, packing his briefcase. "The demolition was completed in May. The city broke ground on the public river park three weeks ago."
Ethan’s knuckles whitened against the laminate table. "And Serena?"
Gantry stopped zipping his bag, looking across the table at his former client with the cold, exhausted disdain of an attorney who had spent twelve months cleaning up another man's crimes.
"Mrs. Ashcroft is the Chief Architect of the New York Waterfront Resiliency Commission," Gantry said, every word falling with the clean, surgical finality of an execution warrant.
"She opened the Fourth Avenue transit bridge two weeks ago.
She lives in Brooklyn Heights.
Her name is carved into the cornerstone of the new marine center at Pier One."
Ethan’s breath hitched in his throat, a ragged, choking sound that died behind his teeth.
"Does she... does she ever ask about me?" he whispered, his eyes wild with a sudden, pathetic glimmer of that ancient, toxic vanity.
Gantry stood up, picking up his leather bag, looking down at the man in the khaki jumpsuit with absolute, unvarnished pity.
"No, Ethan," Gantry replied quietly.
"She doesn't ask about you.
Nobody asks about you.
The city forgot your name the day they tore your house down."
May you like
Gantry knocked on the heavy steel door.
The lock buzzed, the hydraulic latch disengaged with a concussive CLACK, and the lawyer stepped through the portal into the free world, leaving Ethan Hale alone at the laminate table beneath the buzzing fluorescent lights.
