The Undertaker (15 page)

I raised my head a few inches and looked around. Whoa! No wonder I was cold. I was lying flat on my back, stark naked, on a long, stainless steel table, and it was ice cold on my bare butt. How odd. The table had a deep, rounded gutter and a raised lip that ran all the way around its outer edge. I looked around. The rest of the room was still fuzzy, probably from whatever was in the hypodermic needle Varner gave me. Varner! There was a hot corner of hell reserved for quacks like him.

I tried to get up, but there were three wide, leather straps holding me down to the table. One ran across my chest, one across my waist, and one across my knees. The one across my waist passed under my forearms and had two separate buckles that held my wrists down, rendering my arms immobile. The one across my knees held my legs down. I struggled with them for a few minutes and found I could raise my shoulders, but that was as far as I could get and I stopped. It was no use, anyway.

But where was I? I strained my ears, listening for any sound, but all I heard was the soft humming of the air conditioners. My nose twitched. What was that smell? Soap and disinfectants? Yes, but underneath I swore I smelled was the sugary-sweet aroma of flowers. My head dropped back on the stainless steel table with a painful “Clang.” I tried to think. As I did, I realized my head was slightly higher than the rest of me. No, that wasn't quite right. It was the table. The top was sloped. The far end where my feet were was three or four inches lower than my head.

Then it hit me. My head shot up and I looked around the room in stark terror. I knew exactly where I was. I was in the in the embalming room in the basement of Greene's funeral home, strapped to an embalming table. I strained at the straps in earnest, thrashing and flopping back and forth like a cod on the deck of a Gloucester fishing trawler. I tugged with all my might, but it was no use. A Clydesdale could pull a line of beer wagons with one of those leather straps and there was no way I was going to break free from them.

There was a large, round clock on the wall. It showed 9:20. But 9:20 when? Morning? Night? I had no idea how long I had been lying there unconscious and I found it strangely unnerving to have no idea whatsoever what time or even what day it was.

To my right were two other embalming tables. They were identical to the one I was strapped to, except the far table, where I saw my clothes, all neatly folded in a stack. On the far wall, beyond the other tables, was an elevator and a short flight of stairs that went up and turned to the right before it passed out of sight. To the right of the stairs stood a row of stainless steel refrigerator doors designed to hold a half-dozen bodies. No matter how cold I felt lying on that stainless steel table, I knew I'd be a whole lot colder if I ended up inside one of them.

Twisting around and looking back over my shoulder, I saw a row of tall, white enamel cabinets lining the wall. They had glass doors and glass shelves. In the first cabinet, I saw a gruesome array of brightly polished scalpels, scissors, saw-toothed knives, augers, forceps, and clamps of all sizes, lying neatly on clean, white towels. In the next cabinet, were large-bore needles, coils of rubber tubing, bowls, basins, sponges, jars, and tubes of makeup, combs, hairbrushes, and sprays.
Well, you sure can't beat Larry Greene for a good time, can you?

I turned and looked the other way. High above my left shoulder, my eyes were drawn to two tall metal cylinders clamped to the wall. Clear, plastic tubes ran down from the top of the cylinders and plugged into a metal box that sat on a small stainless steel table below. The box had dials and switches and it plugged into an electric outlet. I figured it had to be a pump of some kind and there was a second yellow-rubber tube coming out the front, with a nasty looking, big-bore needle at its end. I tried to read the label on the cylinder closest to me. It was upside down, but it had a line of cute green and yellow daises running across the top, the name “Nature's Own,” and the word “Formaldehyde” in red. Below that was a black skull-and cross-bones emblem, the word “Poison” and the warning “Keep Out of Reach of Children.”
Can't argue with that one,
I thought. Too bad they didn't keep it out of the reach of me too, because I had a good idea what Greene had in mind for that tank of “Nature's Own” and for that big, ugly needle.

“Excellent! You finally woke up,” I jumped as I heard Tinkerton's loud, west Texas twang call to me from the bottom of the stairs. He wore the same dark business suit he had worn in his office. “For a moment there, I thought Varner gave you a bit too much of his “joy juice.” He's such a quack, you know. He doesn't appreciate you nearly as much as I do and it would have been so very unfortunate if you had left us prematurely, Pete.”

“I couldn't agree more, Ralph.”

“Ah, that's the ticket. You're regaining that irrepressible sense of humor of yours. And that's a good thing,” he said as he walked across the room toward me. “Bright-eyed. Bushy tailed. With all your faculties intact. That is marvelous, because I will have your undivided attention when we have our important, but somewhat brief conversation.”

I jerked at the straps again, wishing I could wrap my undivided attention around his throat. “Look, Ralph,” I forced a smile. “I can take a joke as well as the next guy...”

“A joke? Is that what you think this is?” he said as he circled the embalming table, looking down at me.

“You've made your point, okay?”

“And what would my point be, Peter?”

“That I should mind my own business and get the hell out of town.”

“Oh, you'll be doing that,” he chuckled. “You'll be getting out of town soon enough. I have no doubt about it. And you'll be happy to know that Larry Greene has picked out a lovely spot for you in the back row up at Oak Hill, right next to the other Talbotts and your old pals from New Jersey.”

He stopped at the far end of the table near to my feet as he looked down at my body from toe to head with a cold, professional eye. “You have my compliments. You are in excellent physical condition. Trim. No fat. Good muscle tone. Nice coloration.”

“Gee, thanks. You have no idea how good that makes me feel.”

“Well, the body is God's temple, you know.”

“And God doesn't think much of you tying his temple down to this table, Ralph.”

“Probably not, but most of Larry's customers don't try to get up and run away.”

He turned toward the intercom on the far wall and punched one of the buttons. The sparking notes of a Mozart Piano Concerto filled the room. “I hope you like that,” he said as he closed his eyes and drank it in. “You have no idea how much I detest that crap they play upstairs.”

Tinkerton opened one of the lower drawers in a supply cabinet and pulled out a starched, white surgical gown. “You know, when you cut away all the flowers, the organ music, and all that other sanctimonious crap, even Larry Greene admits it's a pretty simple process – cut and flush, that's about it.” He unbuttoned his suit jacket and hung it on a peg near the cabinet. “Any amateur can perform one, really.” He pulled the smock on over his white shirt, pausing to look at the big, solid-gold Rolex on his wrist. “The night is young,” he said as he turned toward me. “And you and I have all the time in the world.”

“I'm afraid you've lost me, Ralph. What are you talking about?”

“What am I talking about?” He paused and looked down at me with a puzzled expression. “Why, the embalming process. That should be obvious by now.”

“Embalming?” I asked, not knowing whether to laugh or scream.

“Precisely. It is crucial that you understand what is going to happen. Once you do, and once I begin, you
are
going to tell me everything you know. Everything. In fact, you'll be so damned eager to tell me, the truth will come gushing out of you like shit from a Christmas goose.”

“You can't be serious.”

“Can't I?” he answered, smiling at me as he buttoned the smock. Even now, I think that was the coldest and most malevolent smile I had ever seen, before or after. “I'm as serious as lung cancer, boy. In fact, you've never met anyone in your miserable, little life who is halfway as serious as me. You see, when you showed up yesterday, you caused a great deal of consternation, not with me, because I know what I'm doing. I believe in our mission and I know it's right, but you really spooked the others. I'm sure that was exactly what you had in mind, but now it is my turn. Simply put, I want to know why you
are
here, why you're bothering us, Mr. Whomever-you-are. I want to know what you know, everything you know, and who you're working for.”

“Who I'm working for?”

“Is it Jimmy Santorini's people or Rico Patillo's? If it isn't one of them, maybe it's someone at Justice or the FBI who suddenly developed a queasy stomach over our little operation. Is that it? Or, are you really working for the local snoops downtown, as you said you were? Which is it?”

“You can't get away with this.”

“Peter, Peter,” he looked down at me, amused and disappointed. “Do you have any idea how many times I've gotten away with ‘this’? No, you couldn't, could you? Well let me assure you that the handful of graves you found up in Oak Hill with those grease balls from the Santorini mob in New Jersey, they are only the very small and most recent tip of a very large iceberg.”

“I'm going to be missed, Ralph.”

“By whom? We've tracked back on all your cell phone calls, the ones you made and the ones you received. And we've analyzed every piece of plastic in your wallet, your bank records, and every credit card charge you've made for the past year.”

“My phone calls? My credit cards? What ...”

“Every dime you've spent and everything there is to know about your pathetic little life — where you've been staying, what you had for breakfast, your shoe size, where you had your car fixed, everything you've bought, every bill you paid, everything.”

I was stunned. And I'd never felt more alone in my life.

“As a fellow professional, I must admit that the legend they wove for you — all the background and documents -– they are first class, as good as I've ever seen. Someone went to an amazing amount of trouble to put you in place. Unless of course you really are who you say you are.”

“That's what I've been trying to tell you.”

“Ah, but that's the problem, isn't it? We need to find out which is true.”

“People know I'm here.”

“Who? Your friend Doug in Boston? If that's who he really is, then that's one more loose end we'll have to take care of, all in due time of course, but it will be taken care of. A little “collateral damage,” I think they call it.”

I pulled hard again on the straps holding me down, desperate to find some wiggle room, but there was none.

“Please understand, I
will
get the whole story out of you before this evening is over, in about twenty minutes, I suspect. As “Old Blue Eyes” sang, “Set 'em up Joe, there's no one in the place, except you and me.” Nooo-body, Pete, nobody except you and me.”

He circled the table again, staring down at me with that same thin, sadistic smile. “You know what the men in our little detachment down in El Salvador and Nicaragua called me? They called me the undertaker. Funny, isn't it? Here we are in Larry Greene's funeral home and I'm the one they call the undertaker,” Tinkerton chuckled. “It started as a little joke Sergeant Dannmeyer came up with. We were part of an ecumenical little group that was tasked to liaison with the local counter-insurgency people. Liaison, my ass. Our job was to eliminate the communist infrastructure in the villages. Eliminate, disappear, call it what you like, it was a polite way of saying we killed people. We needed information and we made people talk to get it. That is what I do. I pry the truth out of people and I'm quite good at it. Yes, before the end comes tonight, as you feel yourself slipping away into that dark forever, you'll start to talk, all right. You'll talk, and you'll talk, and you'll talk, until you can't talk anymore.”

“Look, Ralph...”

He dismissed the protest with a wave of his hand. “All in good time. All in good time. I just wanted you to appreciate where we are headed, that's all. Like a good vintage wine, a little terror helps one focus the mind.”

He opened the door of one of the glass cabinets and examined the knives. “What marvelous toys. When I was in counter- intelligence, we never had nifty tools like this. Just coat hangers, penknives, electric cords, pliers, and our boundless imaginations, of course. But this stuff of Larry's is great.”

He picked up a scalpel and let the light flash off the razor-sharp blade. “I watched Larry do a couple of them down here. Professional interest, of course. First, he opens a vein or two and lets the blood drain out. Not much to it really, and it doesn't take very long. A small incision in a major vein in one of the lower extremities, a couple of shunts, and gravity does the rest. Personally, the system is a bit messy for my taste, but that's why the table is sloped and what the gutters along the sides are for.”

“Look, Ralph, you've got this thing all wrong.”

He completely ignored me. “Then he opens an artery or two up top and pumps in the formaldehyde to flush everything out. Nothing tricky about that either. After he's finished, a couple of clamps, a half dozen stitches, a bit of Crazy Glue, and voila! Finished, except for the makeup and the cosmetic repairs.” Tinkerton looked down and smiled. “Sorry, but we won't be worrying about the artsy stuff tonight.“

Tinkerton reached his hand out and I felt a cold finger touch me at the base of the neck above the collarbone. I jumped as if I had been touched by a high power line. “That's where the carotid artery and the jugular vein are located,” he chuckled softly. “Larry likes using them. Simple and easy to get at, you see.”