by Jerry Stahl
“What I want to know,” said Manny, “is why would he do something like that?”
“I guess he wanted a bike for Christmas,” she said bitterly. “He barreled in ranting about how he hid something under my mattress, but when he came back for it, it wasn’t there. I don’t know why he was mad at me. Only thing I ever tried to hide was a quart of Thunderbird I bought from Snooks the janitor. And that got pinched when I was out doing recreational therapy. They got us makin’ moccasins. I look like a Navajo to you?”
She set her ravaged face in profile, and Manny had to look away. “So Tony didn’t tell you what he hid?”
“Alls I know is, he said it was gonna get him millions and he lost it all on account of me. Tony’s a crap artist. If he asked, I’d’ve told him it was a stupid place to hide anything. The girls change the damn sheets once a week. Leastways, they’re s’posed to. But whenever the hell they change ’em, if they find a goddamn prize under the mattress they take it. I would, I was making five dollars an hour cleaning up after a bunch of old toads don’t have the good sense to be dead.”
“What was it?” Manny inquired, more casually this time.
Mrs. Zank treated him to a scowl. “Some kind of envelope, he said. It couldn’t have been too bulky or I’d’ve felt it. Like the princess in ‘The Princess and the Pea.’ I’ve always loved that story. It’s romantic, like. So gimme the juice.”
“Not yet.” Manny calculated how much longer he could grind her. “Where’s Tony now?”
“Someplace stupid,” she sneered. “I guarantee, if I know my boy, that’s exactly where he is.”
Manny stood up, tapped the bottle in his pocket, and gave her a chipper smile. “Sorry, Dolly. Not good enough. Have a nice day.”
He bet himself he’d get five steps. The old lady caved on three. “Wait a minute!” she croaked. He turned back and Mama Zank was shaking her head. She sighed dramatically and raised her gaze to the ceiling. Then, going for full-on martyr, she sniffed loudly and squeezed out an off-color tear.
Out of respect, Manny gave her time to perform. He’d had experience with snitches. Like most, Tony’s mom was trying hard to convince herself she felt something. Years from now, when she woke up sweating at three in the morning, she’d remember these tears. She’d forget they’d been fake and go back to sleep. Family members always put on the best show.
“Tony’s my son!” the old woman reminded him, her eyes staying hard and mean beneath the pantomime of anguish. “That should be worth at least…three bottles.”
“I agree,” said Manny. “At least three. The bad news is, I’ve just got the one. Tell you what, though. Give me somethin’ that helps, I’ll see to it personally you get a whole case of poison under your bed.”
Suddenly, Mrs. Zank was all business. “Pawnee Lodge, out on Saw Mill Run. All the rooms got them Indian hats over the door. They call ’em ‘cottages.’ Ha! Tony gets in trouble, that’s his hideout. He thinks I don’t know, but seeing as he pays with the Visa he stole outta my purse, it’s hard to keep it a secret. God love ’im, he got his late daddy’s brain-pan.”
Manny nodded thanks. Then he stepped to her bed, lifted a pillow, and slipped in the Four Roses. Before he could move away, she placed a fractured hand on his wrist. With her other one she threw back the blankets, revealing seven decades of thigh.
“I like a man that’s not too good-lookin’,” she cooed.
“Tempting,” Manny said, then backed out of the room before she could show him more.
THIRTEEN
Tina’s visit to the funeral home left her in sugar shock. From the outside, the place looked like a supper club, and she’d driven in and out of the lot twice before she noticed the sign, MARTINO AND SONS MORTUARY, between a pair of stunted pines. There was plenty of parking.
Mister Edward, as she’d psychically surmised, was indeed a sallow young gentleman with questionable skin. Along with a bad case of adult acne, he sported a quartet of moles on both cheeks. Tina spent the first moments of their meeting trying to decide whether his right and left mole-squares matched, or if the right was more oblong. His mortuary office was a tasteful imitation mahogany, decorated with numerous renderings of Julius Caesar.
“One of our greatest Italians,” he explained, steering Tina to a seat with a hand on the small of her back. “Did you know he had a sweet tooth like a five-year-old? I’ve done some research. His favorite was marshmallow creams.”
The candy thing, apparently, was Mister Ed’s way of justifying the half dozen jars of gumdrops, jelly beans, sour balls, and assorted other treats that cluttered his desk between Caesar busts. It was easy to see how he’d gotten his skin problems.
“I never knew the Romans had Mallomars,” she said, smiling to let him know she was as fascinated by Caesar’s candy habit as he was. She certainly wasn’t going to tell Mister Edward that if he cut out sweets, maybe his pimples would clear up. If the police ever asked, she’d need the mortician to recall her as a polite, grief-stricken, and demure-type widow.
Not that Tina didn’t think hooking up with Manny could stave off such difficulties. They’d never officially announced, “Well, now we’re involved!” But somehow, from the moment they met, it had felt that way. Still, a girl had to take care of herself.
For the appointment, she’d eschewed makeup, going for a tear-streaked au naturel look that pretty much screamed VICTIM!
“Actually,” Mister Edward was saying, “the Romans invented candy bars. They spread honey over blocks of nougat and baked them in clay ovens. They served it at state funerals. I like to think I’m continuing the tradition.”
“That is lovely,” Tina offered, adding shamelessly, “you really seem to care.”
Mister Edward blushed, his blemishes glowing a deeper scarlet. He clamped one hand over the other, as if to keep it from hopping up and raiding the gumdrop jar. While her host droned on about the ins and outs of “final care” and “after-life maintenance,” Tina found herself popping sweets compulsively. She’d worked her way from gumdrops to jelly beans, on across the desk to the heavy ammo, knuckle-size wrapped caramels and chocolate-covered cherries on a silver platter. Normally she tried not to eat sugar, and the sudden overload made her feel anxious and giddy at the same time, as if she’d IVd bad speed.
“What I’d like,” she told him after his spiel, “is a simple cremation.”
Mister Edward winced and went for the gumdrops. “Memories,” he said meaningfully, patting what looked like a soap sculpture of Caesar on the head as he let the word sink in. “What we provide here at Martino and Sons are the final, beautiful memories of your loved one. What we believe, Mrs. Podolsky—”
“Call me Tina, please.”
“Tina,” he said, flushing again. “What we believe, Tina, is that a life is like a house. A proper funeral is like the roof of that house, the final element that makes the structure complete. If you decide to forego that last—and I believe necessary—aspect of your husband’s time here with us, you’ll have a sense of incompleteness, a lack of closure that, I regret to say, may let the rain in on your peace of mind….”
He stole a glance at the jelly-bean jar, grabbed his left his hand with his right to keep it in line, then gave up and snatched a handful of the little sugar eggs and threw them in his mouth before continuing. “Will you at least consider holding off on the decision for twenty-four hours?”
Tina dabbed at her eyes with a hanky she’d stashed up the sleeve of her dress. “I’d prefer a traditional ceremony,” she said, “it’s just….” She dabbed again and blew her nose, she hoped, with what looked like tragic bravery. “It’s just that Marvin left instructions—specific instructions—that he was not to be buried. He was adamant. What I want, Mister Edward, doesn’t matter. I wouldn’t feel right defying his wishes.”
“I understand,” said the mortician. Tina felt his attitude change, as though a NO SALE sign had popped out of her collar. Or maybe it was something else. “Perhaps we should discuss the service,” he went on.
“Will family be arriving?”
“No family.” Tina shut her eyes and shook her head from side to side. This is difficult! she wanted that head-shake to say. This is sad! “We met in an orphanage. It was not having a family that brought us together, that made us mean so much to each other.” She cupped her hands over her nonexistent belly and tried to look mournful. “That’s why I feel so bad for my baby, little Marvin. Now he won’t ever get to know his daddy….”
To Tina’s horror, Mister Edward smiled. Maybe it sounded as ridiculous to him as it did to her. Busted, she thought, and was mentally preparing her escape when he swallowed his jelly beans and announced, in a tone of all new intimacy, “I’m an orphan myself, Tina. Only I never found my little orphan girl.”
His smile was so hideous, Tina almost missed the fact that he was hitting on her. She could not stop staring at that smile. His face seemed embalmed. Only the lips moved. Tina could think of absolutely nothing to say, and was hugely relieved when Mister Edward stopped waxing romantic and plunged on with the business at hand. “Will you be interring, or would you prefer to keep the cremains?”
“I’ll take him to go,” Tina said, catching herself when she saw the look on the undertaker’s face. “I mean, I’ll be taking him to go to India. His spiritual homeland. Marvin wanted his ashes spread over the Ganges.”
Disappointment pinched Mister Edward’s lips. “Well, the Italians are doing wonderful things with urns. You can select one today, or I can give you one of our catalogues.”
“Can we just do it?” Tina asked, her nineteenth gumdrop going to her head and making her skin tingly.
Unable to stop himself, Mister Edward leaped out of his seat, upsetting a bowl of malted milk balls. “Mrs. Podolsky…Tina…I have to tell you….”
Tina stiffened. Was he going to jump her? Did he plan on kissing her right here, in front of the Caesars? The thought of his creepy skin coming anywhere near hers made her gorge rise. God knows what you could catch from an undertaker.
“Mrs. Podolsky,” he began again, slightly hysterical, “I’m sorry, but I think you’re making a terrible mistake. You are a creature of deep passions, I can see that. If you cremate your husband, I just know you’ll regret it. Trust me! A funeral is the last act of love we perform for the departed. The last”—he lowered his eyes dramatically—“act of love….”
Tina wondered if this pitch worked with other widows. She forced herself to meet his eyes, doing her best to make her gaze as sincere and longing-packed as his. Maybe she could get a discount.
“I’d like to take care of it today,” she said, pulling a pair of fifties out of her purse. She’d pawned Marvin’s vid cam and computer on the way down to the home. “Here’s a down payment.”
“But that’s just not possible,” said Mister Edward.
Tina almost lost it. “Why not? Look, I’m not gonna plant the guy, so give it a rest.”
“Tina, please,” said Mister Edward, “it’s not that.” The mortician tried to hide his shock. “We don’t…have the body. I’ve been trying to think of a way to tell you.”
“What are you saying?”
“The police are holding your husband. They want to do an autopsy.”
“I see.”
For one reeling second all Tina could think about was ground glass, how she’d explain the lightbulb salad in her husband’s belly. Death by Drano was one thing, but would anybody believe Marv had committed suicide by drinking drain cleaner and eating a GE 40-watter?
“When will they be finished?” she asked, hoping her fear would look like grief to anybody outside her head.
“I don’t know,” said Mister Edward. “But a Detective Rubert called and asked you to phone him when you were through here.”
The mortician handed her a piece of paper with Manny’s number on it. Tina thanked him. She was almost out the door when he called her name again. “Tina, please…” When she turned around his eyes were wet with pleading. “Take some Jujubes. You’ll feel better.”
FOURTEEN
The place Tony Zank called home, a dank, cottage cheese–ceilinged railroad flat, occupied the top floor of a building that had, until years earlier, been the general headquarters and processing plant for Bundthouse Fresh-Taste Sausages. Bundthouse had once stood proudly as the region’s Number Two employer, second only to Jones & Laughlin Steel. Both industries disappeared at around the same time. But, unlike the sulfurous odor of J & L, which dissipated once the mill closed, the stench of dead-pigs-walking lingered on. And no amount of air freshener could cover up the eau de sausage factory that persisted, with varying intensity, in cold weather and warm. Not that Tony bothered with air freshener. The smell seemed to live in the very walls of the Bundthouse Arms, which was one reason he picked it in the first place. Since you practically needed a gas mask to live there, the rent was dirt cheap, and there were no other tenants. For some reason, no one wanted to live in a converted slaughterhouse.
“Man, I don’t know how you can hang here,” whined McCardle, hunkered in front of Tony’s full-length mirror. He held a Bounty paper towel–wrapped ice cube to a tiny bump on his forehead, the result of a collision between his face and the dashboard St. Christopher in Carmella’s Gremlin. “I had to breathe this stink every day, I’d chop my nose off.”
“You already chopped your nose off,” Tony replied, knocking back his seventh Iron City. When he wasn’t guzzling Colt .45, Tony liked his Iron whenever he smoked crack, which he’d been doing since the second they stumbled in. He loaded the rocks into a glass stem that’d been broken so many times it was now only an inch long and had to be held with an oven mitt. After each puff his voice came out warbly. “You threw your real nose away and glued on that Caucasian niblet instead. You say you didn’t, but I know you did.”
“You’re obsessed,” said McCardle. “You got some kinda thing about my nose. My therapist, back at Riker’s, told me when you’re obsessed with one thing it’s usually ’cause you’re really worried about something else.”
“That’s right.” Zank sprawled on the floor in his boxers, arranging and rearranging Dee-Dee Walker’s notes. “I’m worried about who to kill first, you or that bitch from Seventh Heaven who stole my goddamn photograph.” He wrapped the oven mitt around the hot glass tube, sucked hard. “Oh shit!” he warbled to McCardle. “I can’t close my eyes. I keep seeing that dead lady’s head on the sidewalk. It’s like she’s starin’ at me.” His whole body gave a shudder. “I think she was even talkin’ when we left. Could that happen, man? It couldn’t, could it? I swear I heard her tell me I was gonna get hole cancer.” He started scratching himself. “I need another Iron.”
McCardle gingerly lifted the ice cube and checked his wound. “That lady’s head was dead,” he said. “But I’d bet cash money the last thought in it was about you. And it wasn’t good.”
“Don’t say that!” Tony’s voice quavered, unnaturally high. “Shit, man, what are we gonna do? We don’t even know for sure that chick stole the picture. There’s nothin’ about it in this goddamn notebook.” Tony scooped up a batch of pages and crumpled them in trembling hands. “Nothin’!”
“That’s the rock talkin’, Dog. She’s not gonna come out and broadcast she got a picture of the president’s genitalics. You think she wants the Secret Service all up in her face? Not everybody’s stupid.”
“Don’t talk down,” Tony panted. “I’m warning you.”
“Hey,” said McCardle, “it wasn’t for me, you wouldn’t have that notebook. I’m the one who did the quick thinkin’.”
“My hero,” said Zank. He took a shaky hit off the stunted glass dick, then crept to the window. “I hear helicopters, man. I swear! They got those new kind fly so high they’re invisible to the naked eye. They can see through walls. They’re watching, man! Oh shit, we shouldn’t have done that fat bitch…. I shouldn’t have dropped my mother out the window…. I don’t know what’s happening! I didn’t mean to run over a priest or get that lady decapitated. I’m no
t like that….” He dropped to his knees and hugged himself. “No wait, wait! Maybe it’s you, man. Yeah! They could be FBI choppers, after you! You got a price on your head!”
“You’re tweaking,” McCardle replied nervously. “Enough of that ready-rock and you think Navy Seals are comin’ out of the bathtub. Have another beer.”
“Right, right,” said Zank, talking fast. “Beer’s good. This rock is fucked. I’m never doing this shit again. Is there any more?”
McCardle clucked his tongue and rechecked his tiny injury. “You need some kind of treatment, Tony. I’m not just saying that ’cause you’re psychotic and hurt my feelings. I’m saying that for you, brother. I was you, I’d look into rehab.”
Zank finished the bottle in one gulp and dropped it on the carpet, among the fifty or so others. He felt almost relaxed again. “Look who’s talking, Shovel-killer. I got a sore poop-chute says you’re not exactly nor-male, yourself. Nor-male,” he repeated, “get it?”
“I get it.”
“Yeah, well, if it turns out you have the A-I-D-S, don’t think I’m not gonna kill you sideways before I do myself. I don’t care how I go, but I ain’t goin’ ’cause I got caboosed by some black Twink with a button nose. I get so much as a herpes bump, you’re toasted pumper-nickel, motherfucker.”
“Hey, I been tested. I should be worryin’ about you! I seen what you stick it into. Besides, it wasn’t for me we’d be fighting over grape jelly in the joint right now. You blanked out, man. Did your zombie thing. You did it in the old people’s home, when your mom dissed you, and you did it again after the accident. Shit hits the fan, T-bone, you lose your nerve.”
“Bullshit!” Zank countered, getting defensive. “I was concussed. It was medical. Look at my head! It was already banged up when I conked it again in that midget car. Fucking fat lady drivin’ a Gremlin. What’s up with that?”
McCardle rolled his eyes. In fact, after they’d slammed into the back of Dee-Dee Walker’s Camry, after she slammed into a utility pole five blocks from Tina’s house, Zank had had one of his white-outs. They’d been tailing the newspaper lady so closely, when her Toyota jumped the curb and sailed down the sidewalk for twenty yards, the Gremlin jumped the curb and skidded right behind it. When she crashed, her skull did a full Jayne Mansfield and landed on the manhole cover, looking confused. It was the worst thing either of them had ever seen. Zank zombied out until some mongrel, what looked like part beagle, part Shetland pony, scampered out of nowhere and started lapping the blood off his forehead. Zank came to with a face full of dog tongue. He hadn’t been knocked out. Just stunned. Staring wide-eyed and catatonic at nothing. The horse-dog went whimpering off when Tony shoved his thumb in its eye.
