Kill City USA

by Warren Roberts

  I strolled back to the hotel along the still busy streets.

  6

  The telephone woke me next morning at eight.

  ‘Morning.’

  ‘Yo bro. You alone?’ It was Jonah.

  ‘That’s a loaded question in which you are making various assumptions,’ I said. ‘It presumes a certain moral laxity on my part and on whomsoever may be with me.’

  ‘My honky friend, I don’t do whomsoever this early in the day.’

  ‘So. Is the purpose of your question whether or not we can speak in confidence?’

  ‘Nah. Jay just said to ask as she was curious. We had a bet.’

  ‘My date last night didn’t order a plain salad.’

  He laughed loudly. ‘OK. I think that she won.’ I could hear her laughter in the background. ‘We got your message and we’re on our way. This is some crazy woman in Jay’s house. Jay’s cool, but her friend –’

  ‘Yeah. I heard her answerphone message. There’s a lot happening here, so I need you pronto. Bring Jay, if she wants. I’ll brief you when you arrive. I don’t trust the hotel phone.’ I heard Jonah telling Jay they were coming to Miami.

  She took the phone. ‘Hi there Milo, how’s it hanging bro?’ She’d been spending quality time with Jonah.

  ‘Hi there. Any news of our friends in London?’

  ‘They left a message on my home machine saying they know I’m in Florida. I’ve no idea how they found out. They said they hope to see me there soon, so I guess that they’re coming as well for some reason.’

  ‘Well, they’ll lose home court advantage here. Let’s wait and see.’

  ‘I’m so glad to be coming to you in Miami. I haven’t seen my friend in a while and she’s become… difficult.’ Jonah said something in the background. ‘Yeah Jonah, a good seeing-to from you’d be better therapy than her HRT pills.’

  I let their laughter die down. ‘You can stay in my business partner’s guesthouse. You’ll be welcome and safe there. So rent a car and get your asses here. I’ll see you soon.’

  We said our goodbyes. I went to the pool and swam for half an hour, thinking about London villains and psycho wiseguys. The tangled web.

  Back in my room I had coffee and fresh orange juice while I enjoyed the view of the beach and the sea beyond. A shower, then I dressed in jeans, black Timberlands, a blue T-shirt and a light cotton jacket. A blue one. I clipped my holster rig inside the back of my denims.

  The sky had turned slate grey. A storm was said to be forming in the Atlantic. I tasted the salty tang in the air as I walked down Ocean Drive towards the office.

  A middle-aged couple were waiting in our reception area, holding hands. They looked like potential fee paying clients so I said a polite hello to them. Tonique was at her desk, and she offered me my morning jag of Cuban caffeine. She also gave me a cell phone and showed me how it worked.

  Dooley was waiting for me. I told him Jonah and Jay were on their way and briefed him about my conversation with Cza last evening. He knew most of the background story.

  ‘Tomas called. He’s had a visit from Moresco. They want a meeting on Sunday. To finalise matters.’

  I said, eyebrows raised, ‘Finalise?’

  ‘Yeah. Let’s hope that they’re not being too literal.’

  ‘Well, sounds like things are rolling. Why don’t you give Tomas a call and have him get me invited as his financial advisor, or stormy petrel, whatever. But there’s no way he goes to that meeting alone.’

  ‘They won’t like that,’ said Dooley.

  ‘’Course they won’t. So get Tomas to say I’m there to help him facilitate the deal. Tell him to use his imagination. It got him into this mess.’

  I called my answering service in London while Dooley was on the phone to Tomas. No messages, not even anyone chasing me for money.

  Dooley’s conversation with Tomas in fast-forward Spanish was animated in the way that Latin languages are. His tone and finger-pointing were spelling the rules out to his brother-in-law in potently short syllables and less than brotherly tones.

  Dooley finished his call. ‘He’ll organise it.’ He was pissed.

  ‘What do you know about this Viscione woman? Quaranto’s friend at the funeral parlour,’ I said.

  ‘Not much. I’ll make a call to a friend of mine at Coral Gables PD.’

  He called and spoke awhile in Spanish while I enjoyed my coffee and the comic pages of the Miami Herald. I believe the Harvard University study that said a man’s longevity can be predicted with a degree of probability by the section of the newspaper he reads first. Or as Confucius probably said – man with levity live long. Dooley finished his call as I was reading Doonesbury.

  ‘She’s a bit of an enigma. All sorts of rumours but so far she’s immaculate as the conception. Has heavy friends and not just the Eyeties. Tight with Quaranto and his crew. Probably why the Feds have recently been nosing around,’ he said. ‘Urban legend has it she’s also evidently got some involvement in Palo Monte.’

  ‘Tell me,’ I said.

  ‘Comes from the Congo – it’s voodoo mixed with witchcraft. Sticking pins in effigies, that sort of shit. You get bored with that you meet its cousin Abakua, where the initiates have to kill the first passer-by they meet after initiation. It was big in Cuba in the sixties.’

  ‘Bigger than Chubby Checker and the Twist?’

  ‘Somewhere in the middle between him and Little Richard.’

  ‘So what do I do? Wear a string of garlic around my neck?’

  ‘If it’s Kevlar flavoured,’ he said. ‘My friend told me he received some sort of complaint a while ago and had to send a squad car there. The young Cuban cop who met with Viscione had heard a bit about her. He was a devout Catholic, impressionable superstitious fucker. Claimed he had headaches and sweats for weeks after shaking her hand. Adding to the urban myth.’

  I walked to the door. ‘OK. Message received. I’ll take care.’

  ‘Just remember, Milo, this ain’t some Ed Wood B movie. Voodoo Meets the Mob, with Bela Lugosi. This here’s the real deal.’

  ‘I’ll hope it’s just a Feydeau farce.’ I saluted, about-turned, and left the office.

  One of the toys that Tomas had bought when times were good was a retro-style motorbike with sixties spiked chrome wheels and the old-type tank knee pads. Plus a distinctly non-retro six-speed gearbox. I’d arranged for Tomas to drop it off for me at the office. Florida had repealed its motorcycle helmet law and I was looking forward to riding and feeling the warm wind in my hair. Riding a bike helmetless on a warm day is right up there with playing Tuesday night poker with the guys and being dealt a full house on a jackpot hand. I went outside. The bike gleamed black, silver and chrome. I gunned its sweet-sounding motor and put on my Serengeti shades, and it rolled me away. I rode past the port toward downtown, then took the I-95 south.

  Coral Gables is the sort of city you live in if you like manicured lawns and manicured minds and manicured poodles. And restaurants that have dress codes. Its costly Mediterranean and colonial style homes have tradesmen’s entrances and sculptured shrubbery and pristine flower borders. This was Merc, Jag and Reebok heaven where Range Rovers never ranged.

  The funeral home was on SW 8th so I followed a map but soon got lost, many streets being unsignposted, to keep trailer trash like me from finding their way round.

  With my lost motorcyclist look, I asked my way at an outdoor cafe where four predatorily-jawed high-maintenance women were sipping harmless coffees and Perriers au naturel. They diverted their eyes in unison from their imported convertibles to me as I approached them.

  I said, ‘I’m looking for the crematory on SW 8th.’

  ‘If you wore a helmet, you mightn’t need to,’ said the one in the unblemished trainers.

  ‘You sound English. Would you like a cup of tea, a spot of tiffin,’ said the one in the mock-bovver boots with a designer logo on the toecaps.

  ‘I’ll tell you if you give me a ride on your bike,’ sai
d the third, as she turned her tan checked pedal-pushered legs towards me.’

  I said, ‘Maybe later.’

  The tassel-loafered fourth made her contribution. ‘So. Young Lochinvar, riding in from the west. Do you believe in love at first sight?’

  ‘Only as a side effect of drinking too much,’ I said. ‘I believe in love at fourth gin.’

  I was obviously the high point of their day. They gave me the directions, and Black Boots gave me her card as I declined their offer to join them for a mineral water. It was almost tempting.

  Their directions were as explicit as they were and I soon found the street and the home set back among lush foliage behind a sign:

  SWEET CHARIOT FUNERAL HOME AND CREMATORY

  TWO CHAPELS AND FOUR VISITATION ROOMS

  CERTIFIED GRIEF COUNSELING BY APPOINTMENT

  TRESPASSERS WILL BE PROSECUTED

  TO THE FULL EXTENT OF THE LAW

  The funeral home was a two-storey white stucco, red brick and wooden building at the end of a sweeping asphalt drive. The building was partially covered with vines, and there was a sickly sweet smell of bloom in the air. It was as inviting as a funeral home could be.

  I rode up the drive and parked the bike beside a charcoal grey Lincoln hearse, a pristine sixties model. It was being polished by an elderly Hispanic in apt black overalls and trainers. He ignored me.

  I walked up the stone steps into a large reception area with jet Italian marbled floors. The marble walls were ashen grey, and the white plaster ceiling had moulded angels round a circular glass dome of black and grey stained glass. A mournful alto sax was absent.

  The sticky floral scent from outdoors had been replaced by a distinct malodour, a mixture of death and pine air freshener. Sombre piped organ music played in the background.

  Signs to the chapels and visitation rooms pointed to the right; to the left, offices and a reception area. A blinking video pod aimed itself at me.

  I went to the reception area and pressed the buzzer. A funereal Victorian undertaker appeared. His skin had the colour and texture of raw veal, and his shoulders drooped over his scrawny frame like a heavy tweed jacket does on a bent wire hanger. His nose was slightly hooked and his wispy grey hair was combed diagonally, accentuating his baldness. He reminded me of Montgomery Burns.

  He nasally whined like he spoke through a jew’s harp, ‘How can I help you sir?’, as the end of his flaccid wrist offered me a hand as limp as an adulterer’s alibi. His forefingers gripped my palm while the clasp was completed by his thumb. Eventually I retrieved my hand. It was moist.

  ‘My name’s Milo. I fear the band of angels may be coming to take my dear mother away from me soon to a life everlasting. I want her to start her final journey from a praiseworthy place on this earth.’

  His hands were clasped in front at crotch level, like Jonny Wilkinson about to kick a goal. ‘ Mister Milo, pleased to make your acquaintance sir. My name is Turner. Mister Turner,’ he said, underlining the mister. ‘You have come to such a place. Praiseworthy indeed.’ He cringed his head and shoulders towards the door, a signal for me to follow.

  We walked down a corridor to a room marked Heaven’s Journey as I looked round for the one marked Dante’s Inferno. The walls were dark stained oak and the carpet was oyster grey. A half dozen black leather armchairs were in front of a large flat TV screen, and a couple of leather sofas were against the wall. A table in the middle of the room was a rosewood coffin with a padded crimson satin interior, on four black wrought iron legs. A sign invited customers to try it at home for only $3,999.99 (low interest, easy instalments) before they’re with it a long time to come.

  The windows were the same stained glass as the reception dome and the ceiling was black, dispersed with white celestial constellations that blinked like a come-on sign at a Soho brothel. Pallid fluorescent lighting completed the tasteless effect of a room interior designed to get maximum dismalness for the bereaved’s dollar.

  He scraped his body toward me. ‘Are you interested in cremation or burial?’

  ‘Cremation. My mother’s an environmentalist.’

  ‘Excellent choice. Excellent.’ He’d mimicked the waiter at Pacific Time, when I’d ordered the Cloudy Bay Sauvignon Blanc, having gone to the same Miami-Dade Charm School with servile flattery as a major. He handed me a black folder.

  ‘This will describe our cremation services. And by the way, do I detect you’re English?’

  ‘That’s right. I am.’

  ‘Excellent. Excellent.’ He washed his hands together. ‘Well then, you might be interested in our new webcam cyberservice or sweetchariotwebcremation.com,’ he said, without pausing for breath. ‘Her loved ones back home could observe on the internet the solemnities from the time of visitation in the viewing room right until the ashes are deposited into the urn.’ He spoke with the exhilaration of a railway announcer.

  ‘Including the cremation?’

  ‘If you mean the liberation to ashes, then yes. We have cameras installed in all rooms involved in the emancipation process.’

  He stooped slightly toward me. His eyes followed his fingers pointing at the floor.

  ‘How about the embalming?’

  The question didn’t trouble him. ‘That could be arranged.’

  The angle at which he lowered himself toward me had not changed since we’d met.

  ‘If you’ll take a seat I’ll play you a short video so we can share ourselves with you.’

  He pushed a remote control button and the screen flickered into life.

  ‘One thing,’ I said.

  He revolved his body towards mine.

  ‘I want to meet with Maria Viscione.’

  He thoughtfully paused the VCR as he decided what to say to me. Eventually, with a flicker of emotion, ‘She’s very busy.’

  ‘OK. Then forget the cremation. Tell her then I’m now interested in the Nefertiti bit for my English mummy. Canopic jars, natron embalming, amulets, scarabs over the heart, mummification, a sarcophagus, a pyramid. The Full Monumental.’

  He gave the matter some thought. ‘I’m sorry. That’s a service we don’t provide,’ he said.

  So I tacked to starboard. ‘Then tell her I’m a pal of Paul Quaranto’s and he sent me here.’

  He stiffened at the mention of Quaranto’s name and stared at me as he straightened his body from its stoop. And I swear he creaked.

  I was getting impatient. ‘Well?’

  He thought a little longer.

  ‘I will let her know you are here.’

  He restarted the VCR with the remote control, then closed the door firmly behind him after a measured look at me.

  The video opened with a shot of the mausoleum and its crypts for the bodily remains in their urns. In its centre a large bronze of a cowboy and cowgirl looked skywards as they hung up their saddles before their departure into the sunset of the happy hunting grounds. Tasteless to the end.

  I was tempted to watch the rest of this bizarre show but decided instead to have a look around. I stepped out into the corridor. To the right were the chapels, and to the left was a corridor leading to a door marked PRIVATE DO NOT ENTER. An open invitation.

  I passed into a long passageway leading to a UNAUTHORIZED ENTRY STRICTLY PROHIBITED sign. Through this door were glass windows opening into an office, where a couple of guys pecked on their computer keyboards.

  I opened a door at the end. Inside a large room a memory stirred from somewhere deep down. It was an involuntary and unwelcome remembrance of fetid cadaverous air that cannot be removed by antiseptic or by air freshener. Or even steam cleaning. It becomes ingrained and entombed in the walls and the floor and the ceiling.

  There were several stainless steel embalming tables in the middle of the room, and a multi-drawer stainless steel fronted refrigeration unit was against one wall. A couple of video camera pods flickered on the ceiling as they recorded the grim picture.

  Another NO ENTRY door told me that I was going into the RETORT RO
OM where more lights winked, reminding me I was still on Candid Camera.

  Four large steel-doored furnaces stood against one wall of the warm and unlovely room and they weren’t for reheating Domino’s pizzas. I expected a caped figure with a hood and a scythe to enter at any moment. Instead the door was opened by Mister Turner.

  ‘What the hell you doing here? Didn’t you see the signs?’ he said. He looked at me and the CCTV cameras in rapid succession. He was fevered.

  ‘I wanted to see the facilities for myself so I can report back to Mother. You will be pleased to hear they pass inspection. So I’m giving you eight and a half out of ten. No. Make that nine.’

  Too unnerved to listen, he alternately watched the camera and me.

  ‘Ms Viscione has agreed to see you. Now. Follow me.’

  If he had a leash he would have clipped me to it. Instead he walked very close behind as if I’d told him to heel. We arrived back in the reception area and went up the marble stairs. An ornate door was at the end of the first floor landing, made of heavy frosted Lalique glass framed in bronze, around opalescent images of sirens and dancing nymphs, flute players and Bacchanalian revellers and butterflies and bats. It wasn’t from Wal-Mart.

  He pressed a buzzer and spoke into a wall-mounted microphone. The door clicked open.

  The room was about forty feet long with glass-doored shelving along one wall. Underneath were illuminated fish tanks, their creamy-yellowish neon lights providing the room’s subdued lighting. A gentle hum came from the tank’s air pumps. I watched a couple of young piranha swimming lazily amongst the eel grass and water weed and white coral in one tank. We’d learnt about them in the SAS, in the same lecture we’d been told about the deadly dangers in the Amazonian basin of curare tipped arrows, or of getting an incurable dose of Urubamba Urethritis, that rare form of jungle clap that probably wiped out the Incas.

  Their upper bodies were dark and mottled and scarred and their well-fed crimson bellies complemented the ruby rings that framed the jet black pupils of their eyes, giving a congenitally unrehearsed air of menace. Crushed coral lined the tank’s base, far removed from their natural habitat in the Amazon. At the far end of the room two frosted Lalique glass windows were discreetly lit, their designs matching those on the door.