Dutch Blue Error (8 page)

“Thank you, sir,” he said, with another bow. “It’s the room to your left.”

I paused in the doorway to get my bearings. The casket sat on a little platform at the far end of the room surrounded by big sprays of gladioli and carnations. A bald-headed man and a fat woman were kneeling beside it, their heads inclined toward the body inside. Along the left wall, a row of straight-backed wooden chairs sat in a line, most of them empty. The rest of the room was occupied by metal folding chairs arranged to facilitate meditating upon the corpse. Most of them remained unoccupied, as well. The mourners evidently preferred to stand together in small clusters, conversing in hushed tones—to facilitate their escape, it seemed to me.

I was anxious to verify whether this Shaughnessey was, in fact, my friend Daniel Sullivan, I moved along the row of chairs against the wall, stooping to take the hand of an elderly woman who clutched a lace handkerchief in her lap.

“I’m so sorry,” I muttered, or something similarly lame. I was grateful that the woman neither looked up nor bothered to respond.

Then I found myself standing by the coffin looking into the paraffin face of Francis X. Shaughnessey. The phrase, “They did a real nice job on him. He looks so natural,” came to my mind. They had done a good enough job so I could tell that this Shaughnessey had undeniably been the Daniel F. X. Sullivan of my acquaintance. Beyond that, he resembled all the other examples of the mortician’s art I had seen. He was a piece of wax sculpture somewhat smaller than life. It always startled me how bodies laid out in caskets could remain so motionless.

And, of course, he didn’t look “natural” at all. He didn’t look as if he had ever lived. His mouth had never smiled or sneered, his nostrils had never twitched, his eyebrows had never lifted or frowned. There had never been wrinkles playing at the corners of his eyes and mouth. Blood had never rushed to flush those rouged cheeks. Even his nose seemed to have been reshaped into someone’s concept of an ideal form, although in Shaughnessey’s case the ideal had been compromised considerably.

I had the sense that the real Daniel Sullivan was hiding under a mask, smirking at me. As I stared down at his shell, it seemed to me that old Dan Sullivan had somehow had the last laugh on me. Not only had he conned me into participating in this barbaric ritual of “visiting” his eviscerated husk, but he had also managed to win our little cat-and-mouse game with the Dutch Blue Error. No matter the price of his victory.

I imagined the eyes of the others in the room upon me, so I knelt beside the body and rested my forearms on the railing. “Where’s that stamp, you old rascal?” I whispered.

After I had knelt there long enough to have recited a couple of Hail Marys and a leisurely Our Father, I stood and moved away from the coffin. I figured if I slid inconspicuously toward the back of the room, I could ease myself out without anyone’s noticing. My mission had been accomplished.

Then I felt a hand on my arm. “I’m Deborah Martinelli. He was my father.”

Vanilla skin, shiny black hair worn long and straight, high cheekbones, and gray eyes like polished silver. With makeup she would be beautiful, I thought. She wore a black sheath which hinted at roundnesses that were not revealed. Her grip on my arm was firm.

“Brady Coyne,” I said.

She steered me toward the back of the room, away from her father’s body. We sat on a couple of folding chairs.

“I don’t know you.” Those pewter eyes searched mine.

“No. We’d only met recently. We were in the middle of a business transaction.”

She nodded. “You and a hundred others. He was always in the middle of a business transaction. Do you sell paintings?”

I smiled. “No. I’m an attorney.”

“Ah,” she said, as if that explained it. Her eyes drifted away from my face. I figured she had done her duty, greeting me, and it was time for me to leave. Which suited me fine. I had found out what I needed to know.

I started to stand. “Well, Mrs. Martinelli…”

“Stay a minute.” It was a command. I sat down again.

“I didn’t know him that well,” I said, “but…”

Her head jerked up. Her eyes were razors. “Then don’t say something insincere, Mr. Coyne.”

I shrugged. “I just…”

“You were going to tell me how natural he looks, maybe?”

I gave an embarrassed little laugh. “Matter of fact…” I waved my hand. “No. Of course not.”

She glanced over at her father’s body for a moment, then swiveled her head around to look at me. “Barbaric, isn’t it?”

“Well, it depends.” I sounded like a lawyer, even to myself. I could equivocate with the best of them.

“We’re supposed to be Catholic. This is how we’re supposed to do it. We genuflect, we mumble our little prayers, the priests come in, the men go out back and drink, the ladies cry, and somehow it’s supposed to make a difference.” She shook her head. “But it doesn’t. Dead is dead.”

“I don’t handle death very well, myself.”

“I don’t
want
to handle death well,” she said. “Especially my father’s.”

“You seem to be doing okay.”

“Do I?” Her smile was ironic. “Good. I’m glad I seem to be. Because I’m not. If I was doing well I’d feel sadness, wouldn’t I? Or emptiness. Loss. I should cry. But you know what?” She squinted her eyes at me. “All I feel is mad. I am really pissed off that my father is dead. Is that doing fine?”

I shrugged. “Maybe it is.”

She tossed her head. “Yeah. Maybe.”

I hesitated. “Look. I’m not very good at this. To tell me truth, I just came here to see if your father was who I thought he was, that’s all, and…”

“And was he?”

“Yes. And beyond that, I don’t know what to say to you. Just, I’m sorry.”

“Well, at least you’re not telling me how God works His will in wondrous and mysterious ways, and that my father now lies in peace with the angels—and all the shit I’ve been hearing lately.”

She smiled quickly when she said the word “shit,” as if she thought it might shock me. It didn’t.

“That doesn’t help much, does it?” I said.

“Makes it worse. He’s dead, and now he looks like pâpier maché, and that’s that.” She cocked her head. “What did you mean about seeing if he was who you thought he was?”

I sighed. “The truth is, your father owns—owned… he had a very valuable item which I was helping a client of mine to purchase from him. It was a very complicated transaction, and for reasons of his own, your father chose not to tell us his real name. I know this isn’t the best time, but…” I reached into my jacket and took out one of my business cards. “This is my card. I’d appreciate it if…” I let it hang there.

She took my card and seemed to stare right through it. Her fingers moved over the embossed letters as if she were reading braille. Then she looked up at me.

“You came here to do business,” she said, her voice flat.

“Well, no, but…”

“Maybe we should work out a deal right here, huh?”

“I hardly think…”

“I think,” she said, standing up suddenly, “that you should get the hell out of here right now, Mr. Lawyer.”

I stood. “I’m sorry.”

“God damn it, just get out of here!”

I shrugged, and as I turned to go I felt a strong hand on my shoulder. “C’mon, pal,” said a deep voice. “Come with me. Let’s leave the lady alone.”

I turned to look into the smooth face of a man several inches shorter than I. He had chocolate eyes, thick, curly hair, and a bushy black mustache. His shiny white teeth seemed to be smiling at me.

“Get that shyster out of here, Philip,” said Deborah Martinelli. “This son of a bitch is trying to do business here, and the body isn’t even cold.”

“This way, buddy,” said the man named Philip, and I allowed myself to be led out of the room and across the hall into a smaller room where several men were standing around smoking and talking quietly.

He released his grip on my arm and held out his hand to me. “Phil Martinelli,” he said. “Son-in-law of the deceased. Estranged husband to that hellcat. Don’t mind her. She’s basically hysterical in the best of circumstances.”

“I didn’t mean to upset her.” I fished out a Winston and lit it. I noticed that my hands shook a little.

“Want a little nip?” said Martinelli.

“Well, sure, I guess so.”

I followed him to a low table in the corner where four other men had gathered. “Excuse me,” he said to them. “This man needs a drink.”

He poured an inch of Cutty Sark into a clear plastic glass and handed it to me, and I didn’t have the heart to tell him I’d have preferred bourbon. I took it in one gulp, trying to focus on the fire in my stomach while ignoring the taste in my mouth. Martinelli took the glass from me and refilled it.

“Didn’t catch your name,” he said.

“Coyne. Brady Coyne.”

“Friend of Frannie’s, then.”

“Sort of.”

He touched one of the other men on the arm and said, “Doc, I’d like you to meet one of Frannie’s friends.” To me he said, “This is Doc Adams.”

He was a graying, vigorous looking guy with washed-out blue eyes and a crinkling smile. I took his hand.

“This is Mr. Coyne,” said Philip. “Deborah just evicted him from the wake.”

“Brady Coyne,” I said. “Nice to meet you, Doctor.”

“Doc is okay. Or Charlie. Mary—that’s my wife—calls me Charlie. But, Jesus, not Doctor. Please.”

“Doc, then. You were his…?”

“Hell, no. I just messed around in his mouth a little. Full set, uppers and lowers. He liked the way I made him look. Wanted me to tinker with his nose when I was done with his teeth. I declined. Beyond redemption, his nose. Fran mainly liked the medication I prescribed for the pain.”

Doc Adams waited, an expectant grin playing at the corners of his mouth. Martinelli chuckled. “Two shots of Cutty, straight up, every four hours, as needed. Right, Doc?”

“Absolutely. The secret to my surgical success. I am very popular with my patients.”

“Understandable,” I observed.

“I’d be happy to introduce you to these other chaps,” he said, “but I’m afraid we haven’t exchanged names.”

One of them turned and said, “We don’t really know each other, either. Just met. Our mutual friend is in the other room.” He held out his hand to me. “I’m Schwartz. This is, ah, Remington—right?—yeah, and Bertinelli.”

“Bertelli,” corrected the eldest of the three.

“Whatever.”

“Coyne,” I said, shaking hands with each of them. They were all older than me. Schwartz I estimated to be in his mid-fifties. He had a thin, fox face and a dark beard streaked with gray. Remington I guessed at sixty—an ex-athlete gone to fat, with a thick neck and bulging shoulders. Bertelli was short and dark and wrinkled and bald. I recognized him as the one I’d first seen kneeling beside Shaughnessey’s casket.

The little room was windowless and oppressive. Doc Adams dropped his empty plastic cup into a waste basket, nodded and waved to us, murmured a few words to Martinelli, and left. I wanted to follow him, but instead I followed the example of the others and opened my shirt collar and jerked loose the knot of my tie.

“Damn tragedy about Frannie,” said Remington to no one in particular. “Damn tragedy.” Remington, I guessed, had knocked back several shots of Scotch already. The flush on his face was from more than the heat of the room.

“You never know,” said Bertelli. “I read where this math professor at B. U. got killed in his own home—fancy place in Winchester, I think it was. Turns out the guy was a faggot and he’d go down to the Combat Zone picking up sailors, whatever, and bring ’em home, and sometimes they’d stay with him for a few days. He’d give ’em clothes, buy them presents. All the time nobody had any idea. Except his wife. She knew all about it. So this one time he makes the mistake of bringing the wrong guy home.”

“Frannie wasn’t like that,” said Martinelli.

“I didn’t mean it that way,” said Bertelli. “Just that you never can tell what’s gonna happen to a guy. That’s all I meant. I didn’t mean nothing about Frannie. You know, they said that math professor got stabbed something like forty times. Blood all over the place. Wife found him. They never did find the guy who did it. I’m not saying nothing about Frannie. It’s just, you know, you think you know a guy…”

I didn’t know what they were talking about, and it must have showed on my face. “You knew what happened to Frannie, didn’t you?” said Martinelli to me.

I shrugged. “I just saw the obit in the paper.”

“Well, Deborah didn’t want it mentioned in the obituary. Frannie was murdered. The story was in the papers when it happened.”

“I missed the story,” I said. Actually, I vaguely remembered seeing something. But because Shaughnessey’s name didn’t mean anything to me at the time, I hadn’t made the connection.

“Yeah,” said Martinelli. “Poor Frannie. Back of his head all bashed in. Police are saying they think it was some kid looking for drugs or money. Or maybe both. Black guy was seen in the area. His apartment was turned upside down. Stuff from the medicine chest all over the place. Course, they don’t know what was taken. Guy busted a window on the first floor. They figure Frannie came home and surprised him.” Martinelli turned to Bertelli. “Frannie wasn’t like that professor. He didn’t have weird friends.”

“That explains it,” I said.

“Explains what?”

“Why his daughter…”

“Why Deborah is out of sorts?” Martinelli laughed. “She’s not out of sorts. Believe me, I know. That’s the way she is. A bitch. Don’t feel bad.”

“Still, it was stupid of me to mention anything to her.”

“Mention what?”

I hesitated. “Oh, just a small business transaction. Nothing, really. Certainly nothing that should be discussed at a wake. If I’d had any idea he had been murdered…”

“Hey, forget it,” said Martinelli. “Like I said, that’s just the way she is.”

“What sort of business are you in?” said Schwartz to me.

“I’m an attorney.”

“Frannie in some sort of trouble?”

“He wasn’t my client.” I lit another cigarette.

“Hey, I didn’t mean to pry.” Schwartz put his hand on my arm. “I had business with him, too.”

I shrugged and sipped the Cutty Sark. It tasted awful, mainly because it didn’t taste like bourbon. I put down the plastic glass and turned to leave. I’d heard enough, and the stifling heat of the little room was beginning to make me nauseous.