After the Darkness

"All gone?"

"There was a few hundred million left. I was using that to pay dividends and cover occasional redemptions. And to bankroll our lifestyle, of course. I always wanted you to have the best, Grace."

Grace thought about the nightmare of the past two years of her life. "You wanted me to have the best?" she murmured.

"Yes. People think success is measured in wealth, but it's not. Not in America. It's measured in the perception of wealth. If people perceived me as wealthy and successful, they would continue to lend to me. And they did. Until Lehman went down. After that, everyone got jumpy. People started to do the math and I knew I had to create an exit strategy.

"I put some money aside for myself and John. We didn't need much. We always planned to live simply, didn't we?" John nodded. "Madagascar's a simple island, Grace, you know that. That's why you and I both loved it so much. You know, I'm so happy you're here, darling." He stood up and threw his arms wide, as if expecting her to embrace him. "It'll be like old times, the three of us together again. I've missed you, Gracie, more than you know. Won't you put the gun down? Let bygones be bygones?"

Grace laughed, a loud, joyless roar of a laugh. She laughed till her body shook and tears streamed down her face. Then she stood up and pointed the gun between Lenny's eyes.

"Bygones? Bygones! Have you totally lost your mind? You set me up! You stole and murdered and lied and cheated and you left me to take the fall. I went to the morgue, Lenny! I saw that corpse, that bloated hulk of the poor man you killed, and I wept. I wept because I thought it was you. I LOVED you!"

"And I loved you, Grace."

"Stop it! Stop saying that! You left me for dead. Worse than dead. You had John rig my trial! They locked me up and threw away the key and you let it happen. You made it happen. My God. I believed in you, Lenny. I thought you were innocent." She shook her head, bitterly. "All this time, everything I've been through, it's all been for you. For your memory. The memory of who I thought you were. Do you know why I came here today?"

Lenny shook his head.

"To kill John. That's right. I was going to shoot him, because I thought he'd murdered you. I thought he'd stolen the money and framed you."

"John? Betray me?" Lenny seemed to find this idea amusing. "My dear girl. The entire world has betrayed me, and you single out the one man, the only man, whose loyalty has never been in question? That's priceless."

"What about my loyalty, Lenny? My love? I'd have given anything for you, risked anything, suffered anything. Why didn't you trust me? You could have talked to me when things started going wrong at Quorum."

"Talked to you? About business? Come on, Grace. You never looked at the price tag on anything in your life."

It was true. Grace looked back at the naive, idiotic person she'd been back then and felt ashamed.

"Look, perhaps I should have trusted you, Gracie. Perhaps I should've." For the first time, a look that might have been guilt passed briefly across Lenny's features. "I did love you. But it's like I said. I had to survive. People wanted a scapegoat for their own stupidity. Quorum investors, America, the world. They wanted a sacrificial lamb to atone for their own greed. It was you or me, darling." He shrugged.

"And you chose me." Grace's finger caressed the trigger. "You heartless son of a bitch."

John Merrivale whimpered in fear. "P-please, Grace."

Lenny asked, "What do you want me to say, Grace. That I'm sorry?"

Grace thought about it. "Yes. I would like you to say you're sorry, Lenny. I'd like you to say you're sorry for that poor man you butchered. Sorry for the millions of people whose lives you destroyed. Sorry for me, for what you did to me. Say you're sorry. SAY IT!"

She was screaming now, hysterical. Lenny looked at her dispassionately, the way one might observe a rampaging animal in a zoo.

"No. I won't say it. Why should I? Because I'm not sorry, Grace. I'm not. And if I had a chance to do it all over again, I'd do it exactly the same way."

Desperately, Grace searched his face for any sign of the man she remembered. Any hint of compassion, of remorse. But Lenny's eyes blazed with defiance.

"I'm a survivor, Grace. That's what I am. My father survived the Holocaust. He came to America with nothing but the shoes on his feet. And yes, he made a god-awful mess of his life, but that was only because he was poor. He survived, that's the point. He had a life, and he gave me life, and I devoted my life to escaping poverty. I wasn't going to make the mistakes he made. I wasn't going to be a second-class citizen, another poor little Jewish boy begging to be let into the goddamn country club. I owned the country club, okay? I owned it! I had all those preppy, Protestant Walker Montgomery the Thirds begging me for acceptance. I even married one of their daughters."

Grace winced. Is that all I ever was to you? Cooper Knowles's daughter? A status symbol?

"You expect me to apologize for surviving? For fighting to the end? Never! I came from nothing, Grace, from less than nothing. I built Quorum up out of dust." He quivered with anger. "What do you know about hard work? About prejudice? About poverty? About suffering?"

Grace thought about the grinding days at Bedford Hills. About living hand to mouth, on the run from the law, knowing the entire world was prejudiced against her, that not a soul on earth knew the truth. She thought about fighting off rapists, of bleeding half to death from a self-induced abortion, of slashing her wrists with the pin of a brooch. What do I know about suffering? You'd be surprised.

Lenny went on. "You were the American princess. Life handed you everything on a plate and you took it, accepted it as your due, as your right. You never asked where it came from. You didn't care! So don't stand there and try to take the moral high ground with me. I'm sorry that you suffered, Grace. But someone had to. Maybe it was your turn."

My turn.

"Yes. Don't look so horrified, darling. You made it out, didn't you? You learned to survive, yourself. I'm proud of you. You're here, you're alive, you're free. We all are. You wanted the truth and now you've got it. What more do you want?"

And that's when Grace knew for sure.

"Vengeance, Lenny. I want vengeance."

The shot rang out, its echo bouncing off the high stone walls. Lenny touched his chest. Blood seeped through his fingers, soaking his white linen shirt. He looked up at Grace, surprised. John Merrivale screamed, "NO!"

Another shot was fired, then another.

"Grace!"

Grace turned. Mitch Connors was running through the drawing room toward the garden, his blond hair stuck to his forehead with sweat, his gun drawn. "Stop!" But she couldn't stop. John Merrivale had run into the house. Grace swung back to face Lenny but he was gone, too. No! Then she saw him, crawling toward the summerhouse on his hands and knees, a thick trail of blood staining the ground behind him. Grace took aim again. She raised her arm to shoot, but Mitch Connors ran past her, throwing his arms wide to make a human shield between Grace and Lenny.

"It's over, sweetheart. Stop, please. Put the gun down."

Grace screamed, "Get out of my way, Mitch. MOVE!"

"No. This isn't right, Grace. I know you want justice, but this isn't the way."

Lenny was getting away. She couldn't bear it.

"Move, Mitch, I swear to God! I'll shoot."

She heard a commotion inside the house. Doors slamming. Men running. Through Mitch's legs she saw Lenny had almost reached the safety of the summerhouse. Out of the corner of her eye she saw John Merrivale running out of the house screaming, waving a shotgun. The footsteps behind her grew louder. "Police! Drop your weapons!" It was now or never.

Grace fired her gun for the last time. She watched in horror as Mitch pirouetted on the grass, the bullet tearing through his flesh. Mitch! She screamed but no sound came out. The razors were tearing at her, too, her side, her arms, her legs. She was on the grass, bleeding. Sound faded. Grace opened her eyes to a silent ballet of running feet. Mitch was still, slumped on the lawn. She looked for Lenny but she couldn't see him, only the red haze of her own blood, blotting out the sun and the sky and the trees, falling, falling, heavy like thick velvet on the theater stage: her final curtain.