The Embalmer: A Steve Jobz Thriller

by Vincent Zandri

  Glancing over my shoulder at him, he makes like a pistol with his right hand, drops the thumb like he’s just fired a shot. He also shoots me a wink of his right eye while making a kind of clicking sound with his upturned lips.

  “Groovy, Jobzy,” he says. “We’ll get some primo together. Pri . . . Mo.”

  Lu shushes Herman once more.

  “Oh, go fuck yourself, Lu,” he says. “This is the state. Stop pretending you’re actually working.”

  He doesn’t smoke. Not really. Not unless he’s had a few drinks. But the only way he can legitimately find a way to leave the office for ten minutes every hour on the hour is to insist upon a nicotine break. “Them’s the rules, pal,” he likes to gloat to those nonsmokers as he’s casually heading out of the office. “I identify myself as a smoker, and I have my rights.”

  Patting his jacket pocket for the same pack of cigarettes he’s been carrying around now for a month (Marlboro Lights—the brand he’s been smoking since he was a business student at Siena College not far from here), he grabs his smartphone off the desk, heads out of the office, through the metal Emergency Exit door, down the two flights of concrete steps, and out onto the concrete landing.

  Here, at the back of the office building, few co-workers are to be found. He might run into the occasional grounds maintenance man or jogger from the nearby West Albany neighborhoods, but unless it’s lunchtime, the place is usually empty, which means he doesn’t really have to put on a show by actually smoking a cigarette.

  Making his way across the neatly mowed lawn to one of the several picnic tables set up along the perimeter of the property, he sits himself down. Holding his smartphone in both hands, he taps the Tinder App and waits for the results.

  Twelve women that match his pre-programmed prerequisites. All twelve are located within a one-mile radius, which only makes sense since there’s a boatload of women who match his pre-requisites inside his building alone. Not all of them, however, subscribe to Tinder. Which only makes sense. Most of them are married. Unhappily. But still, far be it from them to stray from the family fold—from the hubby who is undoubtedly serially unfaithful.

  He examines the first women. Alice. She’s a short, red-headed thirty-seven-year-old. Nice smile. A little too short for his long frame. He swipes her picture to the left to indicate he’s not interested.

  Next.

  A headshot of a brunette, her hair long and straight, parted in the middle. Like Cher from the 1970s. She’s named Lisa, and she’s fifty. Also, a nice smile.

  “You say our love won’t pay the rent,” he sings softly to himself. “Babe, I got you, Babe . . .”

  Nah, she won’t work either. He’d be singing that old, silly song over and over again until his brain exploded all over the bed sheets.

  Next pic.

  This one is also tall, like a yoga chick. Her name is Jeanesh. Total fucking granola. Probably doesn’t shave under the pits. Big hairy bush that encroaches her thighs. Hates men deep down inside because as much as she’s tried to eat pussy, she hates it. He can’t get rid of the picture/profile fast enough.

  Next.

  A black woman standing beside three other black women, all dressed in leather. Not a single one of them smiling. Female Black Panthers. He feels a cold chill running up and down his backbone just looking at their faces.

  Next.

  Another brunette. A bit on the shorter side, but great smile, big brown eyes. His heart skips a beat because she looks so much like Leslie. But how can that be? Leslie died by overdosing on Valium in her own bed not long after she broke up with him. How long ago was that now? Six years? My God how time flies.

  But my God, it’s uncanny how much this woman resembles her.

  His mouth goes dry, his pulse picks up, he finds it hard to breathe. He feels like a kid again. A high school kid who keeps picking up the phone to call the girl of his dreams, the torn bit of blue lined notebook paper with her number hastily scrawled upon it, set before him. But he can’t work up the courage to get past the fourth number before he hangs up again.

  Of course, he’s older now, and Tinder is far more impersonal than the telephone. Far more anonymous. He uses a pseudonym, and even the photo he’s posted along with his account is distorted on purpose so that he might not be so easily recognizable to the general public.

  He texts, Hello, my name is Larry. Why don’t you meet me for happy hour? I’m buying

  He types in the address for the bar then hits send and waits for a response from the currently online user.

  The response comes right away.

  Be happy to. Peg

  He stands, feels himself smiling.

  “I’m going to fuck you, Peg,” he says to himself. “And then I’m going to preserve you. Just like I preserved Leslie.”

  While I share the elevator with Miller, I listen to my mother’s message.

  “Stevie,” she says, her voice painfully sad and scratchy old. “They took my cigarettes again. They took my cigarettes, and they won’t give me the keys to the car. Can you come pick me up now? I’ve had enough. I need to make dinner for Daddy. He’ll be home soon.” The phone hangs up, and my heart breaks.

  Good Steve: Go see her tonight, you dick.

  Bad Steve: I will. I promise.

  Good Steve: Yeah, I’m holding my freakin’ breath.

  The elevator doors slide open. Miller and I get out. He tells me that, for now, we’ll take his cruiser and later on he can drive me back to retrieve my Mustang. I guess I don’t really have much choice in the matter, being that he’s a city cop and an important cop at that. We exit the building into the fresh air. Free at last, free at last. Thank God almighty . . .

  Miller behind the wheel, we pull out of the state office campus and onto a busy Western Avenue. We drive for a bit in silence that isn’t really silent. Not with the sounds of the cruiser engine humming along, the APD radio chatter coming over a sound system that’s been turned down so low I wonder how in the world Miller can tell if there’s an emergency or not. He’s whistling a tune under his breath. It reminds me of Muzak. Like he’s not engaging in conversation so much as placing me on hold until he’s collected his thoughts enough to have something relevant to talk about.

  “You’re really very lucky,” he says, after a time.

  Awesome. He breaks the ice by posing a provocative statement. Something to shake me up a little, maybe even raise the fine hairs on the back of my neck. A true experienced detective tactic if I’ve ever heard one.

  “Okay,” I say, “I’ll take the bait. Lucky about what?”

  “When you shot that kid. You’re lucky you didn’t land in prison for a while. We serve and protect in some pretty difficult times if you haven’t noticed. Cops aren’t as appreciated as much as they used to be. There’s a war on cops.”

  “If you think cops aren’t appreciated, you should check out the job I’m doing now.”

  He snickers.

  “Yeah, I imagine yanking someone’s unemployment insurance doesn’t exactly make you very popular.”

  “Oh, most people deserve it. They’re gaming the system. Unemployment pays out one hundred million in illegal bennies in the New York area alone per year. But . . .”

  “But what?”

  “But it’s the people who are gaming the system in order to live. The people who, no matter how hard they try and find work, just can’t seem to pull it together.”

  “They could go on welfare.”

  “Most are too proud. Or even if pride has nothing to do with it, it’s absolute hell to try and get your ass into the system.” Turning to him. “You ever actually tried to go on the dole?”

  Of course, I know the answer to that one even before he offers one up, and he knows that I know it. He shakes his head anyway.

  “It’s a red tape nightmare,” I add. “I cut off the unemployment they’re collecting in their dead father’s name, and they have no choice but to sell drugs.”

  “Tough world we live in.”<
br />
  “Getting tougher.”

  He shoots me a smile over his shoulder. “Not for the real Steve Jobs.”

  “He died of cancer. Not even all his smarts and all his billions could save him.”

  The truth is that Jobs refused traditional therapy like chemical drugs, but I’m making a point here.

  “I guess that makes you luckier than him,” Miller attests.

  A full circle conversation. I can’t help but grin, but it’s not a happy grin.

  “Gee, guess I never looked at it that way before, Detective.”

  The silence settles back in like a bad, lingering fart.

  “You always this pleasant, Jobz?”

  “You should see me in the morning before my first cup of coffee and only six hours after my last beer.”

  “Or maybe not,” he says out the side of his mouth.

  We drive on in relative silence. Nah, scratch that. Nothing relative about it.

  We arrive in downtown Albany a few minutes later.

  It’s hot at this time of the summer, and the heat is rising off the pavement as a clear haze, just like it does out in the desert. Not that I would know. The extent of my travels is the television, You Tube, and celebrity writer/chef, Anthony Bourdaine. Only, instead of a dust-covered road two-sided by endless sandy desert plains, the road is book-ended by worn out four and five-story brick and tin-sided buildings. Buildings that might have been new and sleek sixty or seventy years ago but that now, in the 21st century, have become dying relics of their former selves.

  Kids—mostly black kids in their late teens or twenties dressed in baggy blue jean shorts that hang off their asses—roam the streets. I wonder how many are attempting to collect unemployment insurance illegally. How many of them have already shown up in the system. Truth be told, my heart kind of breaks for them. Most of them have no idea who their father is. No idea of what it is to have the support of a “nuclear family”. No way of escaping their fate. People born into a hell on earth despite themselves. Total shit sandwich. And speaking of sandwiches . . .

  “Closing in on lunch time,” Miller says. “We’ll do a working lunch. But first I got some people I want you to meet, Jobz.”

  We pull into a parking lot that’s set directly beside the old three-story Graystone downtown Albany Police Department headquarters. Miller parks the cruiser at an angle in a spot designated with tin signage that reads, Detective Miller. Fancy. Big shot fancy.

  We get out, and I follow the tall cop around to the front of the building.

  “Jack’s Diner,” he says, cocking his head over his shoulder at the eatery set directly across the avenue. “That’s where we’ll eat.”

  There’s a plume of white smoke rising from the old trailer-like diner’s rooftop exhaust. I breathe in the aroma of frying burgers and fryolated French fries. But then, I refocus on Miller as he opens the glass door for me. I step inside, and I’m assaulted by the odor of cheap disinfectant and human sweat. I used to work out of a building very much like this one. It stank too.

  We head past an overweight, gray-haired guard sergeant who’s working behind a bullet–proof glass window. He’s looking at something on his smartphone when we walk in.

  “Who’s your little buddy, Miller?” he says, giving me a smile that’s got nothing to do with cheerfulness.

  “You wouldn’t believe it if I told you,” Miller says, as the solid metal door lock buzzes then unlatches.

  “Aren’t you gonna sign him in?” Guard Sergeant asks.

  “Consider him signed and sealed,” Miller says.

  “So much for protocol,” Guard Sergeant smirks.

  I give him a wink. But he just shakes his head, goes back to staring at his smartphone.

  We head across the wide-open booking room, past a scattering of cops—both uniformed and plain clothes—typing at their computers. One of them, a woman, is interviewing an old lady who is clearly distraught, like she’s the victim of a mugging. The old lady steals a brief second to look up at me like my sudden presence is a total distraction. She smiles, wantonly.

  “How are you?” I say for lack of anything better.

  “Easy, Jobz,” Miller says, opening another door that leads into a brightly lit corridor constructed of white-painted concrete block. “You get too friendly with her, it’ll cost you fifty. And that’s just for a hand job.”

  Me, more than a little shocked. Even for an ex-cop.

  “She looked like such a sweet old lady,” I say.

  “How old are you, buddy?” Miller says, coming to an office door, opening it.

  I tell him.

  “That woman is three years younger than you.”

  “That’s disconcerting,” I say, following him into the small office.

  “Which once again proves that life ain’t always about the years lived,” the detective goes on. “It’s all about the mileage.”

  To my left is an old leather couch pressed against the wall. I place my computer bag on it. To my right hangs a wall mounted bulletin board covered with eight-by-ten full-color glossies of young women. Beneath the photos is a map of the greater Albany area. Strands of colored yarn are tacked to the board. The yarn extends from the photos to specific locations on the map. Each girl gets her own color.

  Miller goes around his desk, sits down, opens the bottom drawer. He pulls out a bottle and two drinking glasses, sets them down onto the desktop. My eyes can’t help but notice the framed photos mounted to the wall behind the desk and beside a calendar. Three of them. In each one, I see a younger, more optimistic looking Miller. I also see a very attractive female. In the first photo, he’s seated at a table at an outdoor restaurant with the woman. They both have tans, and they’re wearing T-shirts. They’re drinking margaritas and laughing it up for whoever is taking the picture. Happy times.

  In the second picture, a uniformed Miller is receiving a plaque from someone I’m guessing is the Chief of Police. The white-gloved Miller is receiving the plaque with one hand and shaking the Chief’s hand with the other. The attractive woman is standing by his side in a very smart looking skirt and matching jacket.

  In the final photo, the woman is wearing an evening gown, and Miller is wearing a tuxedo. In the background, I can make out some revelers, and people wearing fake cardboard top hats or tossing confetti. There’s a long banner on the wall that says, Happy New Year 2007.

  Miller pours two whiskeys.

  “Help yourself, Jobz,” he says.

  Part of me wants to ask him about the pictures on the wall. I may not know him very well, but already, I can tell he’s got this thing about him. He’s nice enough and tough enough. Maybe even superhero tough. He’s neat, and precise in his movements and word choice. But he’s also hard as a rock. Or, that’s not right. More like, he’s wearing a hard outer shell. Or, what did they call it in high school biology? An exoskeleton. I guess if we end up spending enough time together, I’ll find out more about him. But not right this second.

  ‘Course, there is one thing I’m learning about him. He likes his whiskey, and he likes a nip or two during the day. Detective Nick Miller. My kind of superhero. I grab hold of one of the whiskey glasses. He holds his up, as if to offer a half-hearted toast, then downs his shot. I do the same. The whiskey is warm and feels good going down. Suddenly, my burdens seem all the lighter and not nearly so heavy.

  Miller grabs the whiskey bottle, stores it back in the drawer. He stands, goes back around the desk to the bulletin board.

  “Time to get you acquainted with our victims, Jobz,” he says.

  He stands before the board, arms crossed over his chest, staring into the faces of the dead. It’s like he’s trying to read their minds. I’ve worked with more than my fair share of detectives in the past and had I stayed with the cops, I would have gone after the coveted position myself. So, I might not be the smartest M&M in the bag, nor the most colorful, but I know how some of these guys think. Rule number one is to get in the mind not only of the killer but also of
the victims. After all, something—some odd twist of fate or karma—brought killer and victim together in the first place.

  He uncrosses his arms.

  “Victim number one,” he says, his eyes still glued the board, but his left arm extended, index finger pointing at the photo of the cute brunette. “Audrey Harring. Employed at Key Bank Corporate offices in that new office complex they built on the last remaining strands of woods in Albany County some years ago. Up and coming professional. Graduated Siena College summa cum laude, with a business degree. Enrolled in RPI in their MBA night school program. What they used to refer to as a yuppie back in the 80’s and 90’s.” He makes eye contact for a brief second but then pulls away just as quickly. “But she was lonely like so many overachievers seem to be. So, she joined a few of those online dating networks. You know, Match dot com, Plenty of Fish, Craigslist, and another one that’s billed as a, get this, a real-time, location-based social search mobile app for facilitating communication between mutually interested users and allowing said matched users to chat it up.”

  “In other words,” I say, “an I’m-out-to-get-laid app.”

  “Exactly,” Miller says. “It’s called Tinder. And, from what I’m told, it’s very effective.”

  I could tell Miller that I’m well aware of Tinder. Just like I’m well aware of Match and Plenty of Fish. And sure, I’ve gone onto Craigslist more than a few times. I’m a single guy, after all, working in a dead-end job, with no social life other than getting drunk with my boss a couple times a week. I’ve never been much of a dater, because one, I’ve never had much of a golden tongue. And two, women intimidate me. Especially the tall, good looking ones.

  “Our mortician murderer lured Audrey into his web via a dating service,” I say, stating the obvious.

  “In this case, Tinder,” Miller nods.

  He shifts his hand to the next photo. She’s a stunning auburn-haired beauty.

  “Same holds true for the next poor soul,” he says. “Gillian Koons. Thirty-five, originally from Buffalo. Moved here back in the early two thousands to attend the state university. Majored in anthropology with a minor in English lit. Couldn’t find a job that would pay for her student loan, so she’s been working in a high-end jewelry shop at Newton Shopper’s Plaza in North Albany. Or so sources tell me. Son of bitch filled her with embalming fluid after having sex with her, then left her body on a chair outside a Starbucks.”