The Mayor of Lexington Avenue

Thirty

Jack picked Nancy up at her home in his pickup truck early on Thursday morning for their trip to Raiford. It was a long drive and they were scheduled to be there that afternoon. She looked very lawyerly dressed in a navy blue pantsuit.

“Where’s the Cadillac?” she asked. “I thought we were traveling in style.”

“The Cadillac stayed in Miami,” Jack said. “Along with the style.”

He’d had to do some maneuvering to get Nancy a pass to see Rudy. When he’d called the prison the afternoon before, his request had been forwarded directly to the warden himself.

“We’re already doing you a favor, Mr. Tobin, by giving you a private room. We can’t make it a party,” the warden told him.

Jack had a real distaste for government bureaucrats who reveled in throwing their weight around, but he also knew how to press the right buttons to deflate them.

“I was talking to Bob Richards the other day about my appointment to the state attorney’s position in Cobb County-that’s coming up in a couple of months-and we discussed mutual cooperation among agencies. That’s becoming a problem and Bob wants me to head up a task force to identify the issues. . ” It was typical government double-speak but something the warden caught on to right away.

“You say there’s only two of you?”

“That’s right.”

“I think we can accommodate your needs just fine.”

“Thank you, warden.”

“My pleasure.”

Nancy was overwhelmed that Jack had invited her on the trip, but she didn’t want him to know. She wanted to impress upon him that she was qualified to be his assistant. She had stayed up half the night reading Tracey James’s files. She now knew parts of the case as well as or better than Jack.

“I have a list of questions to ask Rudy,” she told him when they were on the highway heading north to the prison.

“I’ll look at them when we get there,” Jack told her. “But I’m really not concerned about the facts of the case when I visit Rudy. I’ve got a few things I need to ask him-such as, what did he and Tracey James discuss when she came to visit him? Other than that, it’s just a visit.”

“Why am I here, then?”

“You’re working on Rudy’s case so you need to meet him. When you’re representing people, Nancy, there has to be an emotional connection. This is your opportunity. Give your notes to me. Let me worry about the substance. You just concentrate on getting to know Rudy.”

Four hours later, they arrived at Raiford Prison. As promised, the warden had made all the necessary arrangements so that their journey from building to building, and guard to guard, was even easier than Jack’s last visit. Still, Jack could tell from the expression on Nancy’s face that she was freaked out when the first set of steel bars clanged open and then shut behind her. She was now in prison. The sounds, the smells were not something she had anticipated. Jack put his arm around her shoulder as they walked along, just to assure her that she was safe-or, at least, as safe as he was.

They were escorted to the same room where Jack had met Rudy the last time. They sat in two of the bolted chairs and waited for him to arrive.

They heard him long before he walked through the door-steel clanging, chains rattling, his shuffling feet contrasting with the heavy steps of the guards. Two guards entered the room first, followed by Rudy, then two more guards. They must increase security as the execution gets closer, Jack surmised. He stole a glance at Nancy, who was rigid in her chair. He patted her on the arm.

She just looked straight ahead like a seasick angler while Rudy was maneuvered into one of the chairs across from them. Jack knew she would have instantly felt better if she’d seen the smile lighting up Rudy’s face.

“Hey, Jack, how are you?” he said with the ease of a man who didn’t have a care in the world. “And who is this nice lady?” He looked right at Nancy and she finally brought her eyes to meet his. And, in that moment, she felt the fear lift from her. He was a beautiful man, there was no doubt about that-and that smile, and those eyes that danced. She was smitten, but it was something deeper than that, something she had never felt before.

“I’m Nancy,” she heard herself say.

“Pleased to meet you, Nancy. I’m Rudy.” He held out his cuffed hands and she shook them. “Did Jack rope you into this?”

“No. Well, yes and no. He brought me over from Miami.” She felt like an idiot, not knowing what to say.

“So you came from the big firm? How do you like Bass Creek?”

“Oh, I’ve been to Bass Creek before, fishing with my dad. I really like it.”

“You like to fish? I love the water, that’s-that was my favorite thing. I used to go out in this little boat I had, but I usually didn’t fish. I just liked being out there, floating around, watching all the birds and the animals along the shore-I even liked the gators. That was my world, a world that Jack’s trying to keep me from getting back to.” He smiled and looked at Jack. “Isn’t that right, Jack?”

Jack smiled back. “I guess so, Rudy.”

Nancy was mystified. “I don’t understand. I thought we were trying to get you back there?”

“Yeah, I’m sorry, you are, in one sort of way. But I’ve got my heart set on going back in a different way. I’d like to go back there as a bird-like an osprey, soaring over my kingdom.”

“You mean you don’t want to get off death row,” she said, almost in a whisper.

He leaned in, like it was just the two of them there. “I can’t say that-Jack’s here. And now you’re here, and I know there’s a reason for that. I’m just not sure it’s about saving me. Maybe, somehow, there’s another purpose. Something we don’t see yet. But if it is to save me,” he said, and she could almost feel his eyes seeing right into her heart, “then I want to live. And find out what I’m supposed to do with the rest of my life. But if it’s my time to go, I know where I’m going and who I’m going to see when I get there.”

He’d been smiling the whole time. Nancy didn’t know what to say. It was as if this was the first conversation she’d ever had with anyone.

“Who are you going to see when you get there?” she asked, her voice still quiet.

“My mom and dad. They’re waiting for me,” he said, a twinkle in his eye, his smile even bigger. She had a sudden urge to reach across the table and hug him. Here in this cold, dreary prison, she was talking to a convicted murderer she had just met-and she knew this was the man she had been waiting for all her life.

“How do you know? How can you be so sure?” she asked, not out of any disbelief in what he was saying, but with a genuine curiosity.

“When you’re by yourself all day and you know what’s probably going to happen to you soon,” and Nancy dropped her eyes for just a moment before looking up again into his face, “if you let yourself, you can feel and see things you wouldn’t normally see. What I feel and what I see in my mind makes me sure.”

“I never thought about it like that,” she replied. She wasn’t afraid at all now to be honest and say what she was thinking. “But I guess if I was about to die, I’d like to know that somebody was waiting for me on the other side.”

“I’ll be on the other side. I’ll be one of your special people.”

She didn’t know what to say. It was almost too much, and she slipped back into the role she had prepared for. “But we’re here to save you, Rudy.”

“I know, I know-but there’s a reason you’re here whether you save me or not, I just know it. There’s a reason we’re meeting. However it goes for me, you are now one of my special people.”

“And you’re one of mine,” she said, softening again, and reaching again for his manacled hands.

Later, on the drive home, she and Jack talked about the visit.

“I’m sorry, Jack. I’m sorry I talked so much.”

“Don’t be sorry. That’s why I brought you with me.”

“But you had things to talk about and I took up your time. And I was saying the stupidest things-I don’t know where they were coming from.”

“You were just responding to Rudy, and Rudy comes from a different place-a place where few people ever go.”

“Do you really think so?”

“Absolutely.”

“Because that’s what I was thinking. It’s like he sees things nobody else sees.”

“Yeah,” Jack replied. “And they say he’s slow. Maybe we should all be so slow. We might see things a little clearer. Besides, I had enough time with Rudy to get any questions I had answered. Unfortunately, I didn’t learn anything new. We still have no issues to appeal.”

“I’ll find what you’re looking for, Jack. I’ll go through our files tonight with a fine-tooth comb. If there’s something we’re missing, I’ll find it.”

Jack just nodded. He knew now why Pat had insisted on Nancy coming. Pat had known instinctively that the visit would inspire Nancy. And she also knew that he needed the help-an extra set of eyes.

They drove in silence for a while. Jack could tell that Nancy was still going over in her mind the events of that afternoon, trying to make sense of it.

“He just spent the last ten years of his life in jail and he seems happy as a clam.”

Jack just nodded in agreement. He knew there was more to come.

“Do you think he really doesn’t want to live?”

“I’ve thought about that myself a lot. And I’ve come to the conclusion that Rudy is the true definition of the eternal optimist. That’s the way his father was when he was a kid. Rudy is facing death so he’s putting a positive spin on it. That’s not to say he doesn’t see things that we don’t or that he doesn’t believe what he says, because he does. But if we save him, he’ll be just as positive about that.”

“What do you think he meant when he said we might be involved for another reason we don’t yet know about?”

“I have no idea. It’s hard enough to try and understand a human being facing death with a smile. I can’t comprehend any more than that.”

They stopped at a greasy spoon for a burger and ate in silence. When they finally got back on the road it was dark.

“I felt something between me and Rudy,” Nancy said as Jack exited off the highway a few miles from Bass Creek.

“I saw that,” Jack said, looking over at her. “There was definitely something going on between you two.”

“I’d love to go out on the river to some of his favorite spots. The way he described it, it sounds like heaven.”

“I’m pretty sure that’s the way he sees it too.”

Nancy sighed. “We definitely have things in common. It’s just my luck to meet the man of my dreams on death row.” Jack just smiled.