West Palm: The Complete Novel (20 page)

He shoved the eyeball back, jammed the cap on top, and lowered the lid, but either he didn't shove it in far enough or he used too big a glop of glue, for the effect was strangely bulbous. He managed to insert the second cap without removing the eyeball, but he couldn't get the lid to stick completely shut. So Mr. Fiorello was left glancing flirtatiously out of a half-lowered lid on one side and, on the other side, looking like a frog.

Straightening his back to get out the kinks, Zach found himself staring at the mug shot on the cupboard. The man with the braids was glaring at him, as if he knew that he was next and was growing impatient. “Your turn will come,” said Zach reassuringly.

He bent back down to do the mouth. As far as plumping out the features went, the mouth was more important than the eyes, especially on people like Aunt Emmy who had no teeth. Back in the holler they didn't sew the gums together, but Mr. Fiorello did, and so Zach would do it too.

He threaded the needle gun, pulled back Mr. Fiorello's lips, aimed for the top gum, and fired. The needle missed its mark and shot through the tongue instead. He yanked the needle and the wire out, but he must've yanked too hard because Mr. Fiorello's tongue now hung out like a panting dog's. Hoping he'd have better luck on the lower gum, he aimed but missed again, driving the needle through the lower lip. By the time he got the wire free, the lip was stretched so much it made him think of those African girls in picture books who wore plates in their lower lips to make them huge. He supposed they saw it as a sign of beauty. He tried to see it as a sign of beauty in Mr. Fiorello, but time was flying by and he couldn't afford to worry about Mr. Fiorello's gigantic lower lip. The main thing was to forge ahead, nail those gums top and bottom, and secure everything firmly shut. Obviously this needle gun routine took some practice; it was several more tries before he hit the bull's-eye. In the end Mr. Fiorello was left with wires hanging out of his mouth like the threads on a shrunken head.

Now came the serious surgery. This is where he would excel. This is where he had experience. “You'll see, Mr. Fiorello.”

From his yearlong studies he knew the incision should be an inch or two above the right collarbone. “Scalpel,” he said to an imaginary assistant.

He took his time and made a perfect incision. “What do you think of that, Mr. Fiorello?”

Having achieved this perfect incision, he pulled apart the slit with the embolism hooks so he could peer inside and figure out which was the carotid artery and which the jugular vein. Scrounging around with his hooks he drew out a vessel considerably thicker than the others, and felt sure it had to be the artery. “Ligature, please,” he said to his assistant.

He tied two pieces of string along the pulled-out loop of artery, took a pair of scissors, and cut between the knots. Then with a screwing motion, he managed to fit the bent metal end of the embalming tube into the section of the artery that rose up from the body, and pushed the knot around the tube to make sure it would stay in place. “First time, Mr. Fiorello, and I got it right.”

Next, the jugular.

You'd think, with all his experience, he would recognize a jugular vein, but he'd always made his incisions—as he thought of them now—a little bit higher up. He'd been more of a neck specialist.

Guessing which one was the jugular, he made his knots on what he hoped was the correct vein, snipped the vein apart, plugged the bottom end with what he thought was a drain tube, and hung it in the low sink.

Then he switched the embalming machine on high.

With a thrill he saw blood pouring out through the tube into the sink and knew he'd done it right. But it seemed to be running out fast. Too fast, he decided. So he tied a tighter knot around the vein and temporarily shut the blood flow off. Give it a rest, he thought.

Sections of the corpse already looked less gray with the embalming fluid pumping through it. “Looking good, Mr. Fiorello.”

While the pump was going, Zach decided he might as well go ahead and aspirate the organs to prevent smelly and unseemly fluids from oozing out the nostrils and the eyes during the viewing. “We can't have that, can we, Mr. Fiorello.” And then to his assistant, “Trocar, please.”

Just as he was about to plunge the sharp end of the aspirator tube into Mr. Fiorello's belly button, he heard, or sensed, what sounded like a series of tiny pops. And they weren't coming from the belly button vicinity.

Looking up, he was horrified to see the veins of Mr. Fiorello's hands and arms and legs and groin were so bulged out with embalming fluid they were bursting open underneath the skin. And then with a violent pop, the veins erupted through the skin itself.

Zach stared in frozen fascination as Mr. Fiorello turned into a fountain, with little geysers of embalming fluid and blood squirting out of him. Fissures opened up along his arms and legs like sausages splitting in a frying pan.

Zach ran to the sink to untie the end of the jugular vein and release the pressure, but before he could reach it the jugular exploded, shooting blood all over the preparation room, while the carotid artery reared up and waved around like a spitting snake.

What was he supposed to do now? Where was Mr. Fiorello when he needed him?

Mr. Fiorello was right there, bubbling.

Slowly Mr. Fiorello's eyes opened and tears of blood and embalming fluid rolled down his cheeks. From between his wired-together mouth, the same mixture gurgled out, causing the lips to move like a baby trying to speak. The last torrent shot from Mr. Fiorello's nostrils like a gush of snot.

Zach looked down at the bubbling mess that had been Mr. Fiorello, and he realized that he wasn't a great embalmer. He had killed a great embalmer.

Morning was streaming through the window. He'd been so absorbed he'd lost track of time. People would be here any minute, and all he had to show for his work was an exploding corpse.

Addressing the gurgling body, he quoted the great funeral director himself. “I made a mistake and I regret it. I'm not perfect.”

It seemed an insufficient apology for what he'd done to his former boss. But what more could he say? He had to get away before the staff arrived.

He peeled off his gloves and mask and gown, dropped them on the floor, and hurried through the hushed and dignified viewing room, leaving bootie-shaped tracks of blood and embalming fluid in his wake. Only when he got outside did he realize he was still wearing the booties. He flung them on the pavement, mounted his bike, and fled.

As he pedaled off, he experienced the revelation that was to turn his life around.

Aunt Emmy hadn't sung to him before he choked Mr. Fiorello.

Aunt Emmy hadn't sung to him at all.

Aunt Emmy's soul had flown away.

M
edical Examiner Singh surveyed Zach's work in disbelief. “It's not enough he murders them. Now he's fucking embalming them.”

“It looks like he used too much juice,” suggested Detective Estrada.

Singh examined the pools of blood and embalming fluid shining on the exploded corpse. The mixture had a quality all its own.

“What are those wires hanging out of the mouth?” asked Estrada.

“That, my friend, is the undertaker's art revealed.”

Estrada caught sight of the photo on the cupboard. “Hey, they've got DeJohn Davis here.”

“It's a small world.”

O
nce again Zach put off his trip to the bus station and did what he often did when the enormity of his transgressions became too much for him. He headed toward a little bit of wilderness. The flat terrain of John Prince Park wasn't like the hills and hollers of Tennessee, but it would have to do.

He pedaled past the open area around Square Lake, skirted the entrance to the campground, and wheeled his bike into the Custard Apple Trail, named for the pond apple trees that grew there. Though the urban madness that he hated had given him opportunities, this little marsh he walked beside told him where he really wanted to be. He longed for the peace of nature, the virtue of the birds and other wild creatures, and he knew it was impossible for him to return to it. To do that, he'd have to be born again, as another type of person, maybe a native in the jungle.

He watched the ducks and moorhens glide among the leaves. That was innocence. He knew, on occasion, an alligator would work its way into the marsh, and that wasn't so innocent. This lifetime he was fated to be the alligator. And his jungle would have to be another city. New Orleans.

Following the looping trail away from the marsh, he made his way into the cover of the trees and performed the next chore on his agenda.

He opened up his knapsack, and took out a can with a yellow stripe on top and black below, the colors of a tiger.

He removed the lid, turned it upside down, and sprayed repeatedly until all the aerosol was gone. Then he punched a hole in the can, poured the liquid into a jar, and screwed the jar tightly shut.

On his way from the park, he placed the empty John Deere starting fluid can in a trash container.

People who littered drove him crazy.

J
anine, in her role of former day care teacher, had the habit of making suggestions for redecorating Smoker's office and for redecorating him. She'd recently instituted an ergonomic program which involved the two of them performing stretches every hour along with deep-breathing exercises, whose only effect was to make him long for a cigar or cigarette, both of which she'd previously banned from the office. He was lucky she didn't make him take naps.

But today, thank God, was Saturday, so Janine wasn't redecorating him. Dottie too was away, delivering a cake to a wedding at the Harriet Himmel Theater, which also hosted mixed martial arts fights, for which no cake was required. In any case it was a quiet day for him, with time to study the activities of Mrs. Vladlena Chalmers, a lady who took regular vacations to obscure places with nothing to recommend them. He picked up on the second ring.

“It's me, Windsor. What'd you find?”

“I have a very large pill for you to swallow, Bob. Just think of it as a vitamin.”

“Get to the fucking point.”

“Your trusted associate, Vladlena Chalmers, who you've had to your house for dinner, who gives your children birthday presents, who goes shopping with your wife, is the one who's been shopping you.”

“No fucking way,”

“Your auditors are a bunch of useless suits. Nosy, on the other hand—”

“Nosy?”

“Noah Jackson, my auditing guy, has a sixth sense for the disappearing dollar, and he knows how the dollars disappeared from the Windsor chain of golf communities.” Smoker pictured his auditor of choice, who at six foot four and a hundred-twenty pounds resembled a stilt-legged shorebird. All he cared about was numbers. When faced with fishy data, he plunged into the deeps, and emerged with his long neck extended like a snake, a bogus entry impaled on his pointed beak.

“Every weekend,” went on Smoker, “Vladlena's at a different casino, though she's cagey enough to avoid obvious places like Vegas or the Seminoles here in Florida.”

“You're saying she has a habit?”

“Hogback, New Mexico, and Cape Verde, Arizona, aren't beauty spots, Bob. She has no family there. The only thing these destinations have in common is they're on Indian reservations. Either Vladlena's attending Native American tribal conferences, or she's enjoying the more modern Native American ceremony of invoking the great spirit while feeding dollar bills into slot machines.”

A long silence ensued, which Smoker figured was the large pill going down with some resistance, and then it landed. Windsor spoke. “I hired Vladlena. You wanna know why?”

“Good legs?”

“She and my wife were college roommates. Vladlena was an accounting major.”

“That's where she learned how to fiddle the books.”

“I'll rip her fucking heart out.”

“As an alternative, tell her it's like Monopoly. Go directly to jail, or she spends the rest of her life paying you back.”

“The only way she could possibly do that is if I keep giving her the exorbitant salary she's getting now.”

“Is she competent?”

“Obviously. She's been ripping me off for three years without anybody noticing. Not even the auditors. It took your Nosy guy.”

“Sounds like she's a valuable employee. Just needs some reorientation.”

“I'll tell you something about women and friendship. My wife is going to forgive her. They'll go to lunch, they'll cry, they'll leave a big tip. And she'll still be coming over for dinner.”

“And giving presents to your children. Keep that in mind.”

“What I don't understand is the appeal of slots. If you put your money in a Coke machine and nothing comes out, you hit it with a hammer.”

On this philosophical note, Windsor said good-bye, and Smoker added up the hours he could now bill the Windsor chain of golf communities. The Windsor website was up on his computer screen. He clicked on the virtual tour, and
Music to Golf By
guided him from hole to hole, then through a leafy maze of Mediterranean mansions, swimming pools, tennis and shuffleboard courts, seniors listening to lectures, watching entertainment, enjoying happy hours, dancing, singing in unison, painting in the open air, putting bowls in a kiln; the activities were evidently endless. He hoped that the several million Vladlena had been skimming off would in future go toward keeping the greens pristine for all these happy retirees.

An arm like an iron V swung around his neck. His ears plugged up as if he were hurtling through a tunnel. The pressure quickly mounted in his head. I'm not having a stroke, he told himself, it's just an unfriendly visitor come to call. He dug his thumb into the nerve behind his attacker's elbow bone, wrapped his fingers around in front, and squeezed.

Having broken the choke hold and crushed his assailant's elbow, he proceeded to ram his head beneath the bastard's chin and drive it up into his sinuses. Or that was the plan . . . but . . . he . . . was . . . proceeding . . . in . . . slow . . . motion . . . because a dripping cloth was covering his nose and mouth, and the smell was the smell of oblivion.

When he came to, groggy from ether, he was seated on the floor, his arms stretched out painfully wide behind him, wrists handcuffed to the legs of Janine's built-in desk. The whole office had been ransacked, and the killer he'd been tracking was sitting at his computer. Even from behind, Smoker could see he was tightly wrapped with muscle, not an ounce of fat, except for the swollen elbow.

Hearing Smoker stir, Zach swiveled around in his chair. “What does a private eye need with handcuffs? I thought all you snoops did was peek in motel rooms. Which is what you should've stuck to, instead of peeking into my life.”

He showed no sign of being aware of his wounded elbow, which Smoker knew must hurt like hell. His voice was as flat and expressionless as a robot's, and his face wore the same expression as it had in the photo, as if he were undergoing a visionary experience. The contrast between his voice and expression made him stranger in the flesh than anything the camera captured.

“You think you've got my number,” he continued. “But you missed everything that matters.”

“What have I missed?”

“How could a normal like you understand me? And you don't understand her either . . .”

He adjusted the computer so Smoker could see the screen, and Smoker saw the reason for the visionary gaze in Zach's eyes. The screen was filled with the amazon's high school yearbook photo,
Cinderella goes to the ball,
which Smoker had downloaded from the Web and Zach had enlarged.

Smoker knew what was in that file. Everything. Including her address in Flamingo Park. His vulnerable amazon was now more vulnerable than ever because he'd failed to bury her file deep enough in his computer. It should've been locked and sealed with a gold key. And how could he keep this maniac from going after her when he was handcuffed to a desk?

The maniac turned back to the computer, and Smoker's concerns turned to Dottie, due back from the Harriet Himmel. He prayed she didn't come walking through the door. For twenty-five years he'd walked in her footsteps, and she in his. Let it just be me he kills. Not her.

He looked at his favorite picture of her on the wall, taken at Disney World when the boys were small, her dimples and black cherry eyes reproduced in the laughing little faces of the twins. Beside it was a photo of the boys on the steps of their university, wearing mortar boards and holding diplomas. It seemed to him that the life the four of them had together was the only real thing in his world. In the face of that reality, his fascination for the amazon dwindled to a dream.

But he still had to protect her. Which he couldn't do if he was dead.

Zach followed his eyes to the wall. “That's your wife, I suppose, and those are your kids. You got it all.”

“Do I look like I got it all?”

He wondered why Zach had left him alive this long.

“How come you're just a class C private eye?” Zach pointed to the license hanging on the wall beside the pictures. “Why don't you rate an A or B?”

Fighting for time Smoker said, “Class C means I work alone.”

“Like me,” said Zach, and Smoker heard the ring of truth. Zach was alone in the way every psychopath is alone, cut off from the world, and because of that, able to quench out life without a second thought.

“I see you were a cop.” Zach indicated the other framed certificates. “Medal of Honor . . . Combat Cross . . . you must think you're hot shit.”

Again Smoker heard the machinelike quality of Zach's voice, a voice without inflection. He runs on automatic, Smoker thought. How do you reason with a machine?

Zach fingered a gold medal hanging from a red, white, and blue striped ribbon. “What did you win this for?”

Dottie claimed he kept her gold medal in his office as a joke, and he let her think so, but the fact was he was proud of her. “It's my wife's. Her cake won best in show at the American Culinary Federation convention.”

“That's why you're fat and slow.”

“Unlock these handcuffs and try me if you think I'm slow.”

Zach held up the handcuff keys, jingled them, and put them in his pocket.

Smoker thought back to occasions when he'd talked men down in domestic hostage situations. But he had nothing to promise here. Even if he had authority, Zach was wanted in too many states for anyone to cut him a break.

Zach's eyes were fixed once more on the computer screen. “Who's Zaratzian?”

“Just a friend.”

In his relentlessly pedantic way Zach said, “It says here he hired you. You typed in the date and everything. He's the one who's paying you to hunt me down. I knew it wasn't Tara.”

“That's right, it wasn't Tara. She had nothing to do with any of this. You need to kill someone today? Limit it to me.”

“The hero. They'll put another piece of paper on your wall for your widow to look at. You think you're brave? I've got every agency in the South looking for me. How do you think you'd handle that?”

To keep the conversation going, Smoker said, “Not as well as you.”

Zach took down the boys' graduation picture. “I taught myself better than a college could. I bet I've read more books than they have.” He sounded like he was reading at that very moment, not like someone carrying on a conversation with another person.

“I'm sure you have,” said Smoker. “They goofed off a lot.”

Zach took down the Disney World picture, and smashed the two photos together, shattering the glass. Smoker strained against his handcuffs. Since the desk was attached not only to the wall but also braced to the floor, he'd have to tear the whole house down to get free.

Zach tossed the picture frames at Smoker's feet, and Smoker thought—Nothing wrong with lying to the bastard. “I've still got friends in the police,” he said, “and I'm tight with the DA. If you turn yourself in, I can make things easy for you. I can get you a deal.”

“If I go down, I'm not going down that way.”

Smoker had to admit he would feel the same. He would take his chances on the run. He saw in Zach the mountain boy who could survive in the wilderness. He could fish and he could hunt. The only problem was he also hunted women.

“You think I have nothing to offer,” said Zach. “I'm going to give you something no one else could give you.”

He rose from the chair, turned the radio on full blast, walked out the door, and shut it behind him.

Smoker was left with amplified guitars drilling through his brain and the question: Why am I still alive?

What's that fucking madman got in mind?