Fahrenheit 1600 (Victor Kozol) (15 page)

Chapter 29

Digging Out

By 6:00 a.m. Vic is back at the funeral home
apartment. He is watching Karen get dressed and glad to see her leave so that
he can do some serious thinking. “

Well Karen, the garage and crematory are gone, but
luckily no one got hurt. I will be busy handling all of the details created by
this in the next couple of days; so I probably won’t be able to call you until
later in the week.”

“Since you’re so distracted with the fire, maybe I can
help you with the Smerkosky funeral that came in last night.

“Oh no thanks, but I got that covered, next time you
will be my number one assistant.”

With that Karen leaves for her shift at the hospital
and Vic is left to prioritize his next actions.

“There are certainly bone fragments in the retort
from last night’s cremation of his mystery case from New York,” Vic theorizes.

If they could only disappear, then the fire can be
something else or even undetermined origin.

Vic calls his friend Chief Wills to find out the
status of the garage site. Wills says it is up to the State Fire Marshall to
come down from Dunmore to determine the cause. But since the site is still hot,
he is scheduled to arrive tomorrow. For now the chief has had the site cordoned
off with yellow danger zone tape. Vic would love to go right over, but not now,
it is still too hot and there is too much light. His plan is to wait until dark
and then go over to retrieve the remains.

On the second question of calling Sam in New York,
Vic will hold off on that until he has the situation here under control. No
sense prematurely bringing who knows what down on himself.

At 10:00 p.m. Vic takes a cardboard box, a broom,
and a small shovel with him to the garage site. He parks outside the bright
yellow tape line, and crosses in with a flashlight in hand. Going straight to
the front of the retort, he finds the steel doors are warped but intact.
Because the hydraulic fluid that operates the door has evaporated with the
fire, the doors pry open easily with the help of the shovel. Just as he
expected, the skeletal remains of ‘John Doe’ are in the chamber, the rest of
the body was consumed in the enormous fire. Vic sets the box on the ground in
front of the open doors and begins to sweep and shovel the remains into the
box. The large bones from the legs and arms are brittle and they crush easily
and fit into the box. Vic now sweeps out what is left and then scatters a few
light ashes to cover the sweep marks. He then closes the door and smudges up
the scratch marks on the doors made by the shovel, and closes the box. Just as
he is returning to his SUV, two bright lights pierce the darkness of the
deserted street. It is one of the two Duryea police cars, Vic panics, puts the
box down just as a cop with a blinding flash light barks,“Who goes there?”

“It’s me, Victor Kozol the owner.”

The cop now recognizes Vic as a former high school
classmate that he once hung out with. Ned O’Brien says, “Vic what are you doing
here this late?”

“Oh, Hi Ned, I called my parents in Florida to let
them know about the fire and my mother said there were some heirlooms of hers
that may still be in the garage, and would I try and retrieve them for her.”

“Did you find them Vic?”

“I found very little, just a couple of metal picture
frames that didn’t burn, but at least it’s something.”

Vic’s heart is still pounding. If Ned says open the
box, it’s all over.

“Okay, no one is supposed to contaminate the site
until the fire marshal gets here tomorrow, but you’re the owner so go ahead.”

Vic is sweating under his coat, as his old friend
leads him back out to his SUV. That was close and one advantage of living in a
small town; if that had happened in Scranton, I would be toast, Vic thought.

 Vic returned to the funeral home and with a
hammer pulverized the rest of the bones that remain. The electric pulverizer
called a processor was of course lost in the fire. Finally, it is off to the
Main Street bridge over the Lackawanna River Vic where he dumps the lumpy
contents of his box into the swirling waters below. His immediate tasks
complete, he goes home and relaxes, but not completely, because he still has to
deal with Sam in New York. Vic figures, he might as well tell him straight on.

With that, he picks up the phone and dials Sam’s
private number. Sam answers groggily, “This better be important waking me up
after midnight.”

“It is Sam; we lost the crematory last night.”

“How can you lose a piece of machinery that weighs
ten tons Vic?”

“It was destroyed in a fire.”

“Didn’t you just get a ‘shipment’ from us last
night?”

“Yes, and that part went alright, I took care of
business for you and then went to bed, after that the fire occurred.”

“Your version of this better be right Vic, because
this is certainly bad news.”

“Vic asks, “Where do we go from here?”

“Look I will have to talk to my investors and see
what we can do about this. In the meantime, I hope you have insurance for the
loss.”

“Of course I do, but for now we are out of business
with the crematory.”

“Keep me posted Vic and try to keep the publicity
down, I’ll get back to you as to our next move.”

“So long Sam.” Victor hangs up.

Now Sam, who has been quite the star with his
‘firestop’ project has to tell Carlo and the others that they are no longer
able to make bodies disappear from New York. Unlike the last few dinner
meetings at Rosselli’s, this one was not going to be good for Sam.

At Sam’s portion of the business meeting the news
was received as he already knew it would be, with great shock and anger. In the
last few months, the project had taken five bodies out of the investigations,
and made sure that several members of the family were not going to be
prosecuted for their crimes. No one other than this select group of ‘made men’
knew where the bodies were going, but everyone else was sure they weren’t in
the New York City Medical Examiner’s Office for autopsies and evidence
collection. This had given them a freer hand to eliminate problems in the past
year.

The agreement around the table was to try to
resurrect the program in the quickest possible time. Sam was directed to
investigate what went wrong in Pennsylvania and see if the old program could be
restored with rebuilding or must a new approach be taken. Sam further was given
the authority to punish Vic if it comes out that his carelessness caused this
to happen. Meanwhile, it was decided that termination orders for several
deadbeats and canaries that were pending, but not pressing, would be put on
hold until this wrinkle could be ironed out. Meeting adjourned 11:10 p.m.

The next day Vic was pacing around his apartment.
“The more problems I solve, the more keep coming at me. I guess I don’t live
right,” Victor blurts out to no one in particular.

There are now three fires to put out coming out of
the one two nights ago. First, the fire marshal is going to be combing through
that pile of rubble across town and trying and find out what really happened to
start the fire. Second, he has to wait to hear from Sam about what they are
going to do about the lost crematory. He does’t expect this to be a friendly
confrontation. Third and worst of all, he has to pick up his father, who is now
on a plane from Fort Lauderdale to Avoca, the local airport. He of course wants
to know what happened to some of his now charcoaled real estate. What if he
stumbles onto the fact that over half of the clientele that he left in Victor’s
hands are now at the competitors? None of which are going to be good!

Vic was thinking, “Life isn’t fair; I never wanted
this damned business in the first place. My two cousins are living the good
life downstate as doctors and here I am stuck in this place. Maybe I should
have studied when I had a chance in college; too late for that now; the old
man’s plane lands in an hour.”

Albert Kozol has Victor cornered in the tiny first
floor office in the rear of the funeral home.

“What the hell happened to a garage that stood for
seventy years until you got hold of it.” I don’t know Dad, but that’s why they
have fire insurance, because no one knows when or where a fire will break out.”

“Was it the gas in those two old Cadillacs we stored
there?

“Dad, like I’ve been saying, we won’t have any
answers until the fire marshal does his investigating.”

“Other than that, have you been busy with funerals?”

“Well you know it’s always been feast or famine.
Sometimes I could use four guys to help me, other times, like now, it is slow.”

“Hmm, well at least after I raised hell with you the
last time, you are sending my checks on time, so I guess business can’t be too
bad. However, some of our old friends say it’s not the same since I left.”

“Dad, they always say that when a younger generation
takes over, they naturally yearn for the good old days.”

“Take me to the garage, I want to see it.

What the hell is that huge steel box on the floor
son?”

“That’s our new crematory retort.”

“Where did you get the money to buy that?”

“Easy, it’s leased. See Dad it’s the modern way, you
have to keep up with the times. The younger generation doesn’t want burials
anymore, and it is helping pay the rent to you.” (If only Albert knew how much
of the rent the retort was paying.)

“Okay, but what if that furnace took the building
down?”

“Dad, I keep telling you, we don’t know that yet,
and besides there’s insurance.”

“I’ve seen enough, we can go to dinner tonight and
I’ll be flying out on the 7:10 a.m. flight back to Fort Lauderdale.”

“I just wanted you to be satisfied with everything,
Dad.”

The next morning Vic drove his father to the airport
and breathed a sigh of relief; Dad was too disturbed by the fire to look at the
books of the business or call up any friends to ‘chew the fat’ with. Thank god
for that, now onto the next problem.