"I'll cut a deal with my buddy at the mortuary across the highway. He'll do the dirty work after hours, but he'll never know what's in the fluid."
"My Uncle George who had the strokes, he was done by your buddy,” she said. “At the funeral, he looked like he'd been stolen from a wax museum."
"This process is at an entirely other level. The clients will be under my close supervision every step of the way."
"You have all the answers. Who'd be your clients?"
"Zillionaires. Egomaniacal politicians. Anybody who yearns to be immortalized and can afford it. Don't you think a glass-topped casket would be a nice touch in a presidential library? We'll charge a half million, minimum. Plus scheduled maintenance. Franchises too. The sky's the limit."
"Show me the money,” Sally Jo Stockwall said.
* * * *
Larionov appeared at nine a.m. sharp. As the gaunt, shaggy Russian approached, Sally Jo Stockwall made a face and hissed at her husband, “What the hell is that?"
"I knew he'd be here. Commies have to eat too."
"Ick."
"Our golden goose, gumdrop. Make nice. Do you realize how long Lenin has been in Lenin's Tomb? In the photos, he looks like he's taking a catnap."
"I'll stay upwind of Rasputin, thank you."
Their vintage turboprop wobbled into the air, climbed above the Gulf of Mexico, crossed the northern tip of the Yucatan Peninsula, and deposited them at Cancun International Airport. The Stockwalls and their companion took a taxi through a warren of streets to a seedy walk-up hotel.
Larionov and the Stockwalls checked into adjoining rooms. Sally Jo made doubly sure the connecting door was locked and frowned out a flyspecked window. “Where's my beach?"
Wally winked and said, “Cancun City is where the smart money stays at a fraction of the cost of the Cancun hotel zone, lovey pie. The impoverished natives employed at the posh resorts reside in this quaint burg. All we have to do is slip on our trunks, hop a bus, and we're there lickety-split. In Mexico, the beaches are public domain."
"You are there lickety-split,” Sally Jo said, aiming and clicking the remote.
"C'mon, kiddo, it's an adventure into the unknown."
Oprah miraculously materialized in English.
"Let me know what you discover, Captain Kirk."
* * * *
Standing in the aisle, hanging on for dear life, Vladimir Illyich Larionov and Dr. J.D. Stockwall rode a crowded, speeding bus to a boulevard of high-rises. Wally could take or leave Cancun. Phantasmagoric from what he'd seen thus far, a blend of Disneyland, Waikiki, and Taco Bell. More bikinis than in an Avalon-Funicello movie. Drunken American college kids and humidity that wouldn't quit.
They got off at a hotel shaped like a mock Maya pyramid. Stockwall picked it at random on the basis of garishness and size. Leading Larionov through a chilled marble lobby, he pointed at the glass atrium, watching the disoriented Russian gawk at bougainvillea dripping from walkway railings.
He said, “Is this paradise or is this paradise? The good life exponentially. The promised land is a trite way of stating it, but if you have the wherewithal, why not? As a man of science, you're entitled to appropriate compensation. Luxury is a natural component of your advanced education and expertise. This is a new age, Larionov. It's acceptable to be rich, even in the former Soviet Union. Billionaire Russian plutocrats are a fact of life. Private property and wealth building are here to stay. This is the twenty-first century, my friend."
Dr. Stockwall was attired in too-tight dark slacks and a too-too-tight tangerine golf shirt. Larionov wore sandals, filthy argyle socks, red plaid trunks, and a Hard Rock Cafe T-shirt. The orthodontist's capitalist gobbledygook swirled over his head with a couple of persistent flies.
They passed through to the patio, a pool that looked to Stockwall as large as Lake Michigan, and the beach. A turquoise sea lapped against sand as white as granulated sugar. Stockwall took off his loafers and white socks and said, “Fun and sun. The quintessential good life."
"Never have big sun until Havana,” Larionov said, squinting upward. “In Mother Russia, if you want to see water, you saw hole in ice. Is too warm for me."
"Likewise. Shall we retire to a shaded table at the patio bar for a libation? My treat."
By the time the blistering midday sun descended across the boulevard, Wally was out of cash. They were drinking on his plastic, vodka rocks for Larionov while Wally nursed beer. Larionov remained exasperatingly sober, but he was finally talking shop.
"Process is eternal. Vladimir Illyich is constant toil."
"Yes. Immortality certainly isn't easy. You alluded to scheduled maintenance."
"Must constantly monitor temperature and humidity. Must touch up twice a week by secret process. Every year or eighteen months, we study body and rub fluids on. We change suit of clothes as liquid seep and spot."
"Outstanding,” Stockwall said, thumbs up. “We're essentially incorporating a mandatory service contract into every job. It's a license to print money."
He lifted his beer bottle in toast. “To a world-class biological science that cannot fall extinct. It would be an unspeakable tragedy to mankind."
"We do for love,” Larionov said, gulping his vodka.
"Yes, love.” Wally framed his thumbs and forefingers. “A slogan comes to mind. ‘Keeping the Dead Alive Since 1924.’”
Larionov sneered.
Stockwall threw up his hands. “You can't do for love if you've starved to death, comrade."
Larionov gazed into space.
Stockwall persuaded the Russian to join him for a walk on the beach. If Wally had to throw up, better there than here.
"A stroll clears your thought patterns,” he said. “Allows for sharper analysis."
As they trudged in the sand, Wally upped the ante. “What do you think about relocating to America?"
"Me?"
"You."
"America?"
"I have important contacts who can resolve your visa and passport issues,” he lied. “Face reality, Larionov. You're basically a man without a country."
"America?"
"I guarantee you a home and hearth, not to mention freedom,” he went on. “I have a funeral director associate, a legend in his field. He'll provide us a professional venue. We'll pursue the estates of billionaires and politicians.
"We'll bid the jobs aggressively. We should be satisfied if the first assignments provide a modest profit. We'll be establishing ourselves. When we're in the chips, we'll immortalize your idols pro bono. Castro and that little North Korean kook with the funny hair. Whomever."
"What is bid?"
"Bid means to compete monetarily to perform a professional service. Don't think for an instant your former colleagues won't jump on the bandwagon once we hang out our shingle. With us lowballing initially and you as chief scientist, they won't be able to touch us in regard to either price or quality."
"Monetary bid is not right."
"Please don't be offended when I say efficient business models are not a strength of your culture. I strongly recommend leaving that end to yours truly. To get us out of the starting blocks in a timely manner, I recommend we relay your formula and application procedures to my funeral director associate so he can evaluate the solution and purchase ingredients."
"No."
"You and your nyet attitude. I'm at my wit's end, Larionov,” he whined. “I'm being reasonab—"
Wally tripped over something at water's edge. The obstacle wore only swimming trunks and was spread-eagled flat on his face.
Wally got up and said, “Sorry, friend."
"No hear you."
"Passed out,” Wally said in disgust. “These kids who come to Cancun to party can't hold their booze."
Larionov knelt and rolled him over. “Is dead."
Wally gaped in horror at a fair-skinned man in his early twenties, average weight and height, mouth open, goggle eyed. This was his first dead body. Dr. J.D. Stockwall had never lost
an orthodontic patient.
"Shouldn't he be bloated?"
"No drown,” Larionov said, probing him and sniffing. “Acute alcohol poisoning. In Moscow, in winter, people freeze solid on sidewalk."
Stockwall noticed an empty tequila bottle an arm's length from the corpse. “We have to notify somebody."
"Splendid condition,” Larionov said, holding Wally by a cuff.
The dictator-preserver's eyes had had no definite color, but now they glowed banknote green.
Stockwall asked, “What are you suggesting?"
"Dentist, did not like your greed before I have raw material. Raw material change everything. Has been so long."
"Larionov, we aren't in Russia. Cancun is almost America. We can't."
"What is it in your nation you call a sample of what you sell? Large capitalistic consumer good?"
"A demo,” Stockwall said.
"Demo?"
"Short for demonstrator."
Larionov hoisted the dead man's clammy wrist to his shoulder. “Hurry, take other arm. I brush sand off him."
"What on earth are you doing?"
"Demo,” Larionov said, raising his burden to its knees. “We have demo."
* * * *
Larionov and Stockwall walked their toe-dragging, head-lolling demo from the beach to the boulevard.
"Too much tequila,” Wally said to passersby, who nodded knowingly. This was Cancun.
As the Russian held the corpse in an awkward embrace, arms dangling over his shoulders, Wally hailed a taxi.
"Too much tequila,” he said, their prize wedged upright between them in the back seat.
"Sh—,” the driver said, “Muy mucho tequila."
In their hotel lobby, they shuffled by the desk. Wally grinned sickeningly and told the clerk, “Too much tequila."
"Excuse me, señor. Uno minuto."
Oh no, thought Wally. Oh no, oh no, oh no, oh no, oh no, oh no.
"The gentleman is an extra guest?"
"Um."
"Extra guests are to be paid for, señor."
"He'll be staying with Comrade—Mr. Larionov. Put it on my tab."
The clerk thumbed through his card file. “His name, please."
Name? A dead gringo. A gringo. Gringo. Greg. Greg the Gringo.
"Greg,” Wally said.
"Greg what?"
"Uh, Greg Gregg. Two g's on the second Greg. Gregg."
The clerk duly recorded the extra guest. On the landing, a perspiring and panting Wally Stockwall said, “Larionov, should we be doing this? We need to be asking ourselves that question. At first blush, while creative and opportune, there is a substantial downside."
"Open door."
Wally fumbled with the lock, dropping the key twice. In Larionov's room, they laid Greg on the floor.
"Please, Larionov."
"Go to room to wife. We begin tomorrow."
Wally couldn't get out of there quickly enough.
* * * *
Wally Stockwall awoke in the morning to a hangover and Sally Jo's snoring. Appalled by what he and Larionov had done, he lay there, eyes clenched, pleading to any deity who cared to listen to transform yesterday evening into just a hideous dream.
No miracle was forthcoming. Suppressing a groan, Wally slipped out of bed and quietly dressed as he decided how to proceed. They'd wait until nightfall and dump Greg whence he came. Larionov, the lunatic, Wally would ditch the rummy Bolshevik too and cut his losses. He realized he was not soaring on a fast track to a fortune, he was plummeting into poverty and jail.
He unlocked the connecting door and tiptoed through. The emaciated dictator-preserver sat cross-legged on the floor, wearing only the red plaid shorts. He looked like a deranged monk.
"Brr,” Wally said.
Larionov gestured to the purring air conditioner in the window. “Powerhouse machine. Temperature like Mother Russia."
In bed, covered to the neck, was Greg Gregg the Gringo. His eyes and mouth were closed. Blissfully, Wally thought.
"Larionov, I've been thinking."
"Cannot sleep. I watch demo all night. Is young and fresh."
"What I've been thinking is the laws we've violated. I understand that religious issues, the sanctity of life and so forth, are abstract and inconsequential to a card-carrying Communist. While the general concept of this demonstrator is fine, execution is dicey."
Larionov gazed adoringly at Greg. “Can make him so we ship to America by United Service Parcel. Not worry."
"I can't stop worrying. You don't grasp the ramifications."
Larionov thrust a list at him. “Buy. Hurry."
Wally perked up. “The formula ingredients?"
"No. Generic. Makeshift, not ideal. Chemical be sent from Russia later. We get, we purge demo and revitalize. Hurry, dentist. Go."
* * * *
The shaken Dr. Stockwall set out to comply, abundantly aware that he should have his head examined. He stopped for a breakfast of eggs and toast and beer. After his third cerveza, Larionov's position seemed less untenable. It behooved Wally to be open minded in the gray areas. Greg was unidentified, possibly unloved, a wretchedly unhappy alcoholic, vacationing alone to his ultimate oblivion. The risk could be mitigated. It wasn't as if they'd be showing their demo at flea markets.
At last, this might be his shot.
Wally found what Larionov needed. Fortunately, the merchants took plastic and the clerks spoke rudimentary English. From a pharmacy, he bought chemicals, funnels, and tubing of various diameters. The only compound he recognized was formaldehyde. A supermarket provided paper towels, soap, rubber gloves, trash bags, buckets, and vodka. Most alarming was his stop at a hardware store: industrial-duty needles, pry bars, twine, knives (boning, serrated, and cleaver), and, Lord help him, a small saw.
When Wally returned, his feet were as cold as the dictator-preserver's room. “I didn't like the way the druggist looked at me."
"Look, you say? Look? Not worry about look. I look at demo, his youth, his vigor. Cannot stop looking. Could be Vladimir Illyich in firebrand days."
Greg wasn't in the bed. “Where is he?"
"Bathtub. Ready to be immortal. Come see."
"No thanks."
"Your wife at door, ask for you. I say no see you."
"Good."
"Go to her. I finish."
* * * *
Sally Jo Stockwall wondered outloud where Wally had been. He said he'd taken a long, solitary stroll. “You were sleeping so soundly I didn't want to awaken you, lovey."
Despite him avoiding eye contact and smelling like a brewery, Sally Jo accepted his story. She even felt charitable toward Wally's stinky Russian golden goose. Some day, a Wally Stockwall scheme had to hit the jackpot. It was the law of averages. Why not pickled zillionaires?
For lunch the Stockwalls went to the Cancun Hotel Zone, which was a narrow island shaped like a 7. They ordered chips, salsa, beer for him, and a frozen daiquiri for her.
Sally Jo asked pleasantly, “What's new with your mad-scientist friend?"
"I'm working on him. He hasn't entirely changed his mind, but he's weakening. I'm making definite headway."
"I knocked on the common door earlier and he came unglued."
"Larionov has a lot on his plate, weighing the pros and cons. The profit motive is alien to him."
Sally Jo dipped a chip and said, “Well, I hope you settle this soon. We're not made of money."
Wally tried again to tally the number of crimes they had committed. Even if they got away with the offenses to date, how could they slip Greg through customs like souvenir pottery?
Would Sally Jo stand by him if he were arrested? Would she agree to false alibis and perjure herself as a loving wife should?
Wally's hangover was competing with his declining morning buzz. He gulped his beer.
"Take it easy, Wally. You'll make yourself ill."
I already am ill, he wanted to scream. I have never felt worse in my life.
"I'm okay
, kiddo. Your concern is nonetheless appreciated."
"Something is wrong."
"Nothing, sugar pie,” Wally said. “Nothing in the whole wide world."
* * * *
At their Cancun City hotel, Sally Jo Stockwall took a nap. Two frozen daiquiris and she was drowsy. Poor girl, she couldn't handle any excitement. To a background of his wife's snoring, Wally slipped out and rapped lightly on Larionov's hallway door, thinking that he had to put an end to the loathsome insanity posthaste.
The Russian admitted Wally to an odor that was part chemistry lab, part butcher shop. He slumped queasily against the wall.
"Do not worry, friend,” Larionov said, patting him on a shoulder. “Am done. Lovely, yes?"
Greg Gregg was, as before, under the bedding, as if counting sheep. Greg looked no different, but Wally knew better.
"Full garbage bags in bathtub,” Larionov said. “Go to sea tonight. Does Cancun have shark? Barracuda?"
Wally pitched to the toilet. He came out sniffling, dabbing his face with a washcloth, and said, “Comrade, we have issues. We have, essentially, basically, an unworkable business plan. Immoral, if you're inclined to split hairs."
Larionov passed him the half-empty vodka bottle. “Drink. Good for digestion. Make you at ease."
"No thank you. We have to end this, Larionov. Terminate the project."
Larionov addressed him with melancholy, rheumy eyes. “End? What of my masterpiece? My opal magnum."
"Your opal what?"
"What you call artistic masterpiece."
"Magnum opus."
"Yes. Magnum opus! Is what I say."
"Larionov, this ... creature isn't a symphony."
"Is superior to music,” Larionov said.
"Regardless, it—he—has to go. I didn't think this out thoroughly. Mrs. Stockwall constantly chastises me vis-a-vis my investment strategies. I draw the big picture and falter on the details."
Greg Gregg the Gringo sat upright and said, “Ahhhhoooouuuu."
Wally yelped and crouched in a corner. Larionov clapped his hands and cackled. He kissed Greg on the chin and rearranged him in a covered prone position.
"Vladimir Illyich and Uncle Ho do same,” he said. “Vladimir Illyich have flailing arms. Like punching you. Remember Georgi Dimitrov?"
AHMM, May 2008 Page 6
