West Palm: The Complete Novel (19 page)

“Dewayne,” said Danielle, as if that explained the musician's moodiness.

The preacher was circling back in their direction, mopping his forehead with a handkerchief. “Whatever brought you here don't signify,” he said to Smoker. “I've seen it happen before. A man comes for what he thinks is his own business, but once he's here, God gives him a taste of glory.”

“For which I'm grateful. But I still have to do the business I came for.”

“And it has to do with your friend?”

“Actually, he's not a friend,” said Smoker. “He was raised in a church like yours, but he went wrong.”

“And you're taking it upon yourself to bring him back to God.”

“He's killing women.”

Silence fell on the congregation.

Even the snakes seemed to fall still in their boxes.

“Can you help me find him?” Smoker asked. “The first murder he committed was thirty miles from here.”

He reached into his pocket, took out the photo of Zachariah Whitman, and handed it to the preacher, who studied it and indicated his okay by passing it on to Danielle.

She said, “That's the child Emmy Meeks took to rear.”

She passed it along to the strychnine-drinking lady, who said, “He was the youngest of Emmy's niece's kids.”

She passed the picture to the next woman at the table, and then, as the keepers of local genealogy, they all chimed in.

“His ma didn't want him around 'cause she thought he was foolish.”

“He weren't foolish.”

“Just different.”

“And Emmy made him differenter.”

“Keep on testifying,” said the preacher. “Root it on out. We aren't here to shield Satan.”

“Emmy never had a child of her own and she was too old to learn on that boy.”

“She did her best, but it weren't natural.”

Smoker asked, “Where can I find her?”

“In the cemetery,” said Danielle.

“Can you tell me anything about her?”

“She was the last of the washers.”

The strychnine-drinker explained to Smoker, “Before the undertakers took all that over.”

“She washed the dead?”

“And laid them out.”

“She made that boy help her when she got too frail.”

“He learned good too. After Emmy died, he laid her out something beautiful. Then he left. We never saw him again.”

That seemed to be the end of the testifying.

“Azariah Whitlock,” added the preacher, and the others nodded their agreement. That was the name of the boy old Emmy reared. And that, thought Smoker, is close enough to Zachariah Whitman. Like so many felons who changed their names, Zach hadn't strayed far from the original.

Silence again claimed the congregation.

“Thank you.”

“Let the Holy Spirit guide you,” said the preacher.

Smoker sensed them gravely watching as he left the lonely church.

He stood outside beneath the mountains in the cold, pale sun. After the high emotion of the service it surprised him to see how few vehicles there were parked in the field. Slowly he moved toward his car.

Footsteps behind him made him turn. Danielle was walking toward him. He felt the current between them, and thought, How am I going to get out of this one?

“You going back to Memphis?”

“Florida,” he said.

“How is it down there?”

“Warm.”

“I don't like when it gets too warm.” She brought her braid around again and laid it down over her possums.

Holding his gaze she said, “Emmy never should've made that boy wash women.”

So she hadn't followed him outside because she found him irresistible. Something more serious was on her mind.

“My baby sister, Myrt, was only twenty-three when the Lord took her . . .”

She fumbled in her bag, opened her wallet, and showed him a worn snapshot of a pretty blonde. “I did wrong to let that boy touch her body when she was dead and helpless.”

She lifted her eyes to Smoker's for an answer that didn't come.

“That's what gave him the taste, isn't it?” she asked.

“We can never know these things.”

“That sounds like fancy city talk to me.”

An image forced itself into Smoker's mind, of a young adolescent boy alone in a room with a pretty blonde lying naked on the bed. His job is to purify her for heaven. And in that hour they spend together, he's bewitched.

A
zariah Whitlock, Also Known as Zachariah Whitman
. . .

Zach stared at the screen of his laptop in dismay. There he was on the first page of the
Palm Beach Post,
exposed to the world as who he really was. But how had they discovered his real name?

His two names, old and new, and a description of him were underneath the familiar photo. Beside it was a sketch of him in a black hat and beard.

He put his hand to his face, running his fingers over the stubble he'd settled on as a compromise, neither bearded nor clean-shaven. So far, Aunt Emmy had kept him safe, but now he had the claustrophobic feeling of being trapped between his past and future as if they were two packs of wild dogs closing in on him.

In his trailer at his latest no-questions-asked trailer park, he'd been careful not to sit outside, or do his neighbors favors, or even say hello to anyone, though it went against the manners Aunt Emmy taught him.

Peering in the mirror above the kitchen sink he didn't think he looked like either picture in the paper, especially when he put on his baseball cap and chain sunglasses.

Even so, it was time to go. Good-bye to the trailer park. Good-bye to Florida altogether. Good-bye to his angel.

He looked at his city map and located the Greyhound bus station. He would head for Louisiana. He'd always wanted to see New Orleans ever since reading about the death cults there. It would be easy to disappear in a big city like that, until he was called upon again. He imagined the next woman, going about her business in New Orleans. She'd never heard of him, this unknown woman, but her smile was a beacon guiding him. This was the way it had always been, a string of angels beckoning to him.

He slipped the laptop into his knapsack, packed his saddlebags, fastened them and his sleeping bag onto his bike, and left the trailer park. The moment he was out and rolling along in the darkness, he felt better. The wild dogs were still barking, but he was ahead of them. If things got bad, he could cross the border at an unprotected point and escape into Mexico. From working in the fields with migrant pickers, he knew enough Mexican to get along. Maybe his next love was beckoning to him from Mexico.

Lately he'd been losing track of hours and the days of the week. He wasn't sure if it was Saturday or Sunday, just that there were hours to go before dawn. Pedaling toward the Greyhound station, he glanced at the few trucks and cars passing him, and thought, as he often did, about the normals. He could never be one of them, but he didn't want to be. They were slaves to lives of triviality, while he was free. This very moment proved his freedom. He could survive anywhere. Nobody could pin him down. Not even time could pin him down. He had been touched by glory.

And suddenly he realized who the Judas was who'd betrayed him to the normals.

He decided to delay his departure for a few more hours.

O
perators were flooded with calls from concerned citizens who said they'd spotted Azariah Whitlock aka Zachariah Whitman. Every crank in the county phoned in leads, from the usual hopefuls who wanted a reward to a gaga old broad named Mrs. Zuckerman who claimed the killer used to do her shopping for her.

The two who knew Zach best—Red at his trailer park and Fiorello at his funeral home—didn't call, having nothing profitable to report.

Red was sleeping in his bed while the hunted man was pedaling through the darkness. As for Fiorello, he was beginning to look back on Zach with nostalgia, as a paragon of punctuality, reliability, and diligence, if you overlooked the small matter of decorating corpses. Subsequent night watchmen had been moronic, sloppy, and irresponsible. The last one hadn't even phoned, just hadn't shown up, which explained why Fiorello was reluctantly filling in himself, dozing on a couch in the smaller of the two viewing rooms in Fiorello's Funeral Home. It was a sign of the times that a night watchman was even necessary. Only eight blocks over, a funeral home had been broken into and an Aegean copper casket stolen, either for the burial of a beloved criminal or to strip down for scrap metal. The cremation urns would undoubtedly show up in pawnshops throughout the state.

So Fiorello was spending the night on the premises. Maybe he wouldn't have been sleeping so peacefully if he knew that Zach had made a copy of the key he'd used while working there. Zach always copied keys, as part of his impeccability.

Zach ascertained that the only vehicle parked outside the funeral home, other than the hearse and limo, was Mr. Fiorello's Lexus. He wouldn't have to wait for the boss to show up.

He wedged his bike behind the hearse to keep it out of sight, and stealthily unlocked the main door, which opened into the elegant entrance hall. The night-lights shed a bluish glow on matching couches and wing chairs. Potted palms and unlit standing lamps loomed like lords of the underworld in the semidarkness. The familiar hushed and holy atmosphere brought his lost happiness rushing back. This was the paradise from which Mr. Fiorello had expelled him.

The plush carpet muffled his steps. At the end of the hall stood a handsome grandfather clock, a symbol of tradition and of time ticking for all men. To the left was Mr. Fiorello's office and the casket selection room, a dormitory of deluxe double-decker beds; those on top stood open or half open to reveal opulently cushioned interiors; caskets too costly to keep in stock were displayed in framed photographs: gold plated, elaborately carved, or oversized (increasingly popular for the weight-challenged loved one), with adjustable headrests for the restless dead.

To the right were the two viewing rooms, and it was in the first of these that Zach saw a body stretched out on a couch, hands folded on its chest like a proper corpse. But the corpse was breathing.

Creeping silently across the thick soft carpet, Zach saw it was Fiorello.

He took out his knife and held it close to Mr. Fiorello's neck. His first impulse was to slash the funeral director's throat for betraying him and calling him a sick fucker. Zach did not forget such things.

He would've been pleasantly surprised to know that Mr. Fiorello looked back on his former night watchman's reign as a golden age. Zach too saw it as a golden age. During that entire year he hadn't needed to create corpses. His soul had been satisfied with the corpses he attended here. Until Mr. Fiorello fired him and then squealed on him.

And here was the big mouth himself, drooling as he slept. When Zach thought about it, it seemed incredible how much he'd admired this drooling traitor. On second thought, he wouldn't kill him while asleep. He wanted Mr. Fiorello to know what a mistake he made in getting rid of such a talented employee who could've become one of Florida's foremost embalmers.

With his free hand Zach shook the sleeping man awake.

Fiorello opened his eyes, waking from a delightful dream into a nightmare. “Oh Jesus.”

“You shouldn't have gone to the police.”

“I didn't go to the police,” answered Fiorello, alarmed to find Zach's eyes meeting his for the first time in their relationship, if relationship was the word.

“They know all about me, and you're the only one who could've told them.”

Fiorello managed to keep his tone as soothing and sympathetic as ever. “I swear it wasn't me.”

“Then who could it have been?”

Pinned by Zach's crazy eyes as well as the knife at his throat, Fiorello didn't hesitate to shift the blame. “It was that private eye.”

“What private eye?”

“The one who came around here asking questions. He already knew about you. I didn't tell him anything. He just came around. I didn't say a word.”

“But he must've known I worked here.”

“I have no idea how he found out.”

“What's his name?”

“Smoker. I've got his card. It's in my office. If you'll allow me . . .”

Zach let Mr. Fiorello slowly rise, and nudged him toward the office with the sharp tip of his knife.

Fiorello touched a wall switch, and his office was flooded with the warm peachy glow in which he had counseled and comforted countless clients. Now he was facing the biggest counseling challenge of his life. He had learned his counseling methods from his father, while nowadays students at colleges of mortuary science received special courses in psychology. Fiorello felt certain these courses didn't cover counseling a homicidal maniac.

He opened his top desk drawer, wishing to God he had a gun in it, but funeral directors don't carry guns. Their customers are already dead. Out of the corner of his eye he looked for something he could brain Zach with. His eyes alighted on a Heavenly Harmony brass keepsake cremation urn. But the pressure of the knife in the back of his neck told him this was not the opportune moment for the Heavenly Harmony brass keepsake cremation urn. If it came down to a struggle, Zach was all muscle, and he, Fiorello, had allowed himself to get soft, hiring people like Zach to do the heavy work while he limited himself to jobs that required finesse, like shaping the mask of the dead. And selling.

Now was the time for selling. He handed Zach the PI's card. “This is the guy you want. Not me. I've done my best to protect you.”

Zach still looked dubious. “If he's a private eye, somebody must've hired him.”

Anxious to throw any bait at the maniac, Fiorello quickly ran through the cast of possible players and reached for the first that came to mind. “It was the girl you attacked on the boat.”

“Tara?”

The peculiar way he said the name made Fiorello realize he'd just signed the girl's death warrant.

Zach stuck the card in his pocket. “You fired me, and I had the makings of a great embalmer.”

“You're absolutely right. I made a mistake and I regret it. I'm not perfect. I'm only human,” continued Fiorello in the tones of the professional condoler.

Zach studied Mr. Fiorello in silence, thinking it over. Fiorello had seen the look before, in the eyes of the bereaved when they weighed the cost of the casket being pushed on them, a mahogany Presidential Masterpiece hand rubbed for sixteen hours, against the cardboard Eco-Coffin they'd originally had in mind. The moment was always a tense one.

To clarify matters Fiorello added, “Your unconventional approach is what confused me. I now see that decorating the corpses as you did was simply an expression of your sympathy for the deceased. But at the time it was a shock to me. I wasn't used to such original work. And I was half smashed on eggnog.”

Zach continued studying him thoughtfully.

“In time,” continued Fiorello smoothly, “we could've reached an understanding. And it's not too late.” No, it's not too late. I'll rehire the murderous fucker and he can tinsel their tits to his heart's content. “Let's start all over, Zach. I just lost my night watchman. Come and take your old job back.”

“I don't believe you mean it.”

“Have I ever lied to you? You were like a son to me.”

“You threw me out, and now they're looking for me. It's too late.”

“It's never too late. Except for them . . .” He gestured toward the rear of the building where corpses cooled in preparation for their big day. Beyond the preparation room was the crematorium, where ashes to ashes was the order of the hour.

“I wish I could trust you, Mr. Fiorello.”

Fiorello was impressed by how well Zach's funereal voice matched the tone of the establishment. Maybe he really was meant for the business. Zach himself had no question he was made for it. Glancing around the tasteful office that should've been his, he felt how easily he fit in. If anybody was the servant of the dead, it was him. “It would be nice,” he added.

“Hell yes. It would be just the thing for you,” said Fiorello, hope rising, as it did when he saw a client veering toward a solid bronze Promethean with double-locking fourteen-karat gold hardware, a casket that required eight pallbearers to lift. I've sold him, he thought, looking at the madman optimistically.

“I have the touch,” said Zach. “And I'll prove it to you.”

“You will, you will,” said Fiorello enthusiastically.

“And your soul will see.”

Fiorello didn't like this reference to his soul, but this wasn't the time to quibble over terminology. “I've got a fresh loved one in the refrigerator right now. Wait a minute, here's his picture. It's always best to shape the face the way it was when living.”

Zach looked at the double photo—one front view and one profile. They didn't arouse him, men never did, proving he wasn't perverted no matter what the papers said. It appeared to be a mug shot, so chances were the deceased had died of a bullet wound. He looked like the type to inflict a bullet wound rather than receive one. But the challenge for the embalmer, aside from any bullet wounds, was that the guy had about a hundred braids, and every corpse, no matter what the hairstyle, had to have his hair shampooed, so all those braids would have to be unbraided and rebraided. Probably Mr. Fiorello would hire a hairdresser.

“Let's go to the prep room and dig in,” suggested Fiorello. He led the way through to the back wing of the building, the knife against his neck guiding him along. He switched on the bright unforgiving laboratory lights. If you could make a loved one look good under these cruel lights, the loved one would look like a million bucks in the color-corrected lamps of the viewing rooms.

Ignoring the blade at the back of his neck, Fiorello gestured grandly. “A mortician is both a scientist and an artist.”

“That's what we are, Mr. Fiorello.”

“Of course it is.” To keep agreement going, he waxed eloquent. “With science we hold off decay, and with art we erase death's imprint.”

He taped the deceased's mug shot on a cupboard near the porcelain table, and filled the embalming machine with chemicals and water. The odor of formaldehyde flooded Zach with nostalgia, sharply bringing back the golden year now gone.

Laying out his trays of instruments, Fiorello reverently named each one of them, to indicate Zach's training had begun. “Trocar, aneurysm hook, cannulae, ligature . . .” Zach liked the words; they sounded appropriately important.

“Suit up,” said Mr. Fiorello, opening the closet that held the protective garments.

They put on white paper gowns and booties, masks and gloves.

“We're in this together, Zach,” said Mr. Fiorello more confidently. “Tonight a star is born. I'm going to teach you everything I know, things I learned from my father, tricks I've learned on my own, a lifetime of knowledge.” Just keep the maniac occupied, he told himself, until you can ring for the police. He surveyed Zach in his disposable ensemble. “You're perfect for the job. It's obvious to me now.”

“Too bad it wasn't obvious to you before.”

“I admit that freely, but that's behind us. We've got a fresh corpse and a clear mind.” Fiorello turned away toward the cooler, and Zach put a choke hold on him and pressed.

Fiorello thrashed around until suffocation was complete. Then Zach undressed him and laid him out on the porcelain table, with a head block underneath his head to raise his face. The tools were at hand.

“I know you're watching, Mr. Fiorello, and now you're going to see who it is you called a sick fucker and fired. Now you're going to see what I can do.” There were tears in Zach's eyes when he thought how it could've and should've been.

As he carefully shaved the corpse's face, he thought, I'll embalm Mr. Fiorello now, and when he's done I'll do the guy in the refrigerator.

Slowly, conscientiously, he massaged and washed the body with germicidal soap, not neglecting any orifice, not at all repelled by the fact that Mr. Fiorello had shit and pissed himself. So far, so good. But he knew that professional embalming wasn't as simple as washing and grooming and filling cavities with fragrant herbs like Aunt Emmy taught him. Here he had to fill the leaking cavities with wads of cotton. Until today he'd been an artist of the dead. Today he had to be what Mr. Fiorello said, an artist and a scientist. He had to follow correct procedure.

During that golden year he had studied what he could, but the trouble with being an autodidact was you didn't get to go to classes for hands-on training. He examined the eye caps, little plastic things that fit underneath the eyelids to give that healthy rounded look. With a hook he raised Mr. Fiorello's left eyelid and tried to get the cap to stay inside, but it slid back out like the second eyelid of a cat. Glue, he remembered. He applied glue to the cap, and began again, but his nervousness must've screwed up his angle because instead of grappling onto the lid he hooked the eyeball out. It hung on Mr. Fiorello's cheek, staring remorsefully at Zach.

“Sorry, Mr. Fiorello. But this wouldn't have happened if you'd sent me to embalming school.”