The Embalmer: A Steve Jobz Thriller

by Vincent Zandri

  “You’re scaring me now, Miller,” I say. Turning to the mortician. “That what this old dead guy is to you, Mr. Fitzgerald? A work of art?”

  “And then some. This process isn’t only about helping the grieving process. It’s also about creating an illusion. The illusion of the dead being somehow still alive. Having entered another state. A state that’s very different from the living, but a state whereby they are going to sleep for a very long, long time. One day, they’ll see him again, after having entered into the same state.”

  “Smoke and mirrors,” I say.

  “Sort of,” Fitz says. “But then, isn’t that the point of all art? To rearrange reality so that it now represents something that’s more alive than it was before?”

  “You see, Jobz,” Miller interjects, “It's all about our instinctual need to suspend reality and to believe what we want to believe.”

  “And our killer,” I say, “whoever he is, didn’t just do a job for which he was fired. He was creating a performance piece.” It’s sort of a question, to which I sort of already know the answer.

  “He was creating a miracle, so to speak,” Fitz adds. “I imagine that whoever your mortician killer worked for, and he must have worked for some funeral outfit or else he would not have been able to collect unemployment insurance, must have viewed him as a master. A maker of miracles.”

  “What miracle?” I ask.

  “Like Dr. Frankenstein,” he says, “he was making the monster come to life.”

  “Anybody like that ever work for you, Fitz?” Miller says.

  He bites down on his lip, shakes his head. “Workers come and go. They’re usually pretty weird given the circumstances of their job. Have you tried the crew at Comer-Gannon Funeral Services?”

  “That chain funeral operation?”

  “They’re not like us, Nicky, a close-knit family operation. They’re strictly corporate. They’re always hiring and firing. You can get lost in their system.”

  Miller writes down the name of the place. “There’s a Comer-Gannon funeral home on Washington Avenue Extension just outside the West Albany City limits.”

  “That’s right,” Fitz says. Then, refocusing on me. “What do you say, Steve? Ready to go to work? Ready to create the illusion of life?”

  He holds out the razor and the shaving cream. I take them into my hands, set them on the side of the table. I spray a dollop of cream onto the palm of my right hand and dip the finger on my left hand into it. Then, I slowly bring the fingers to the old man’s face, and for the very first time in my life, touch the flesh of the dead.

  He’s careful not to park right outside the funeral home. Instead, he parks on a cross street, behind a pickup truck and beside an old brick church where a big oak tree is growing out of the sidewalk, making the concrete heave and crack.

  He waits for the arrival of the hearse.

  When it comes, he feels his many, already conflicting emotions colliding with one another like the clash of the titans on some distant ancient battlefield. It’s almost as if he were about to run into an old girlfriend he hasn’t seen since college. The girl whom he fell head-over-boot heels for. The one who jilted him for another guy. The guy she fell heels-over-head for, literally. Now, he’s meeting her again, totally by chance. He wants her to see what she’s been missing all these years. Even if she is dead.

  He glances at himself in the mirror. Fixes the little tuft of hair that’s left on his forehead while the remainder of the once thick black hair continues to recede like the Red Sea on steroids. His face bears a puffiness that didn’t exist in his younger years. But he’s not half bad looking for his age. The girls still give him looks. The nerdy ones anyway. Dudes give him looks too, on occasion. A lot of it is in the attitude. The way he carries himself.

  He breathes in and out, his heartbeat elevated.

  He focuses on the hearse as it backs up to the funeral parlor’s side Employees Only entrance. Two men dressed in black emerge from the hearse, go around to its back, open the gate. Together, they reach in and yank out a casket that’s supported on a mobile gurney.

  “She’s in there,” he whispers to himself. “She’s in there, and I can feel her presence, even if that horrible pathologist cut her up, destroyed my precious work.”

  She disappears inside the building, and he is left feeling all alone. How wonderful it was to work on her. How wonderful to see her so beautifully recreated. How wonderful it was to be inside her, when he had her all to himself with not even her soul getting in the way of their brief love.

  He starts the van, but still, his eyes are focused on the hearse. There’s a pit in his stomach, and his eyes have filled. Pulling out of the space and onto the road, he reaches into his jacket pocket, finds the little plastic bag where he stores his little blue Cialis pills. Popping one into his mouth, he dry swallows as he comes to a stop sign, hooks a left out onto the main road.

  By the time he’s reached the interstate, he’s already set his sights on his new love. The one who will have sex with him right away. The one who will embrace his entire meaty manliness. The one who won’t look away when he climaxes inside her. The one who will have become his newest work of art.

  The drive from Cohoes back to Albany and to Washington Avenue Extension all the way on the far west side of the city takes twenty minutes. I haven’t said a lot during the ride since my stomach is still doing flips. Now that we’re about to enter into another funeral home, I can’t say I’m exactly excited about the idea. But I agreed to sign on for the duration of this tour, so rather than turn tail and face yet another dishonorable cop discharge, I do the right thing and suck it all up.

  The parking lot is filled to the gills which means Miller has no choice but to park on the grassy meridian in the center of the lot.

  “I’m a cop,” he says, turning off the engine. “They can make an exception for me.”

  We get out and approach the main entrance to the white stucco, single story structure. The place resembles one of those ginormous banquet facilities that can accommodate up to eight weddings at a time. There’s even a cheesy fountain out front with colored lights shining on the water sprays. Must look like Vegas at night.

  Stepping past a crew of men and women smoking cigarettes and looking uncomfortable in their suits and dresses, we enter into the building. Just like I assumed, the joint is currently facilitating no less than four funerals. The names of the deceased are posted on a giant LED flat-screened television mounted to the far wall in the wide, white marble-floored vestibule.

  An older man with white hair, a black tuxedo with tails, and white gloves on his hands approaches us. He looks like a butler from a 1920s silent black and white film.

  “Name of the deceased,” he says in a soft creepy voice.

  “We’re not here to pay our respects,” Miller, says pulling out his badge and flashing it for the old guy. “We’re here to see the manager. Is he in?”

  The man’s face goes stiff, like a, well you know . . .

  “Mr. Nardillo is, in fact, in,” he says. “But he’s terribly busy at the moment. Is there something—”

  “Alfred,” barks a man who enters the vestibule from a door in the wall under the LED television. “It’s okay. I can speak with these gentlemen.”

  “That really your name?” I ask. “Alfred?”

  “Why yes, it is?” the old man says. “Why should that surprise you, young man?”

  I smile.

  “Never mind,” I say. “It just makes perfect sense.”

  The second man is now standing before us. He’s about my height, but more wiry. Clean shaven and a head of thick black hair. Brown eyes.

  “I’m Frank Nardillo,” he says, holding out his hand. “I’m the director of this facility. What seems to be the trouble?”

  I take the hand in mine squeeze.

  So does Miller.

  “Good to see your CCTV is working as it should,” the detective comments.

  “We get our fair share o
f creeps, believe you me,” Nardillo says.

  “We need to speak with you about a former employee. Or, someone who might have been a former employee.”

  The director nods.

  “Well, lots of turnover in this business, but I’ll do my best. Come on back.”

  He turns, and we follow him to his office under the television.

  The interior of the office isn’t anything I would expect from a funeral home director. A big mahogany desk is situated before a massive glass wall that supports floor-to-ceiling vertical blinds. The glass looks out onto an interior open-air courtyard which sports another marble fountain with multi-colored electric lighting installed in its center. An expensive black leather couch has been positioned up against the wall to my left. Seated on the couch is a white man who’s about the size of a Trailways bus. He’s also dressed in a black suit.

  Nardillo goes around the desk, extends his hand as if to say take a seat. Miller sits in one of the two matching black leather easy chairs set before the desk. I sit in the second one. I can’t help but notice the three attached computer monitors set on the far side of the desk. I can’t make out entirely what’s broadcast on the screens, but I can bet one of them is reserved for the operation’s CCTV, and for certain, another is broadcasting New York Stock Exchange quotes since I can make out the reverse reflection of them on the glass wall.

  “This is my associate, Walter,” Nardillo points out, as he sits back in a leather and stainless-steel swivel chair that likely cost more than my houseboat.

  Miller and I turn, nod. Walter doesn’t nod back. He merely moves his bottom lip, ever so slightly.

  “Friendly,” Miller says, as he once more faces Nardillo. “He the goon you send out after the families that don’t pay on time?”

  The director’s face grows tight. He sticks his index finger into his collar and pulls on it as if he’s not getting enough air.

  “You always this pleasant, Detective?” he asks.

  Miller chuckles. It’s a fake chuckle.

  “Just fuckin’ with you,” he says.

  “So, what is it you need? As you can see, I have several events going on at once, and at Comer-Gannon, we strive to offer as personal an approach to the natural and inevitable transition from earthly life to eternal life as we can possibly manage. Isn’t that right, Walter?”

  Walter moves his lip again. The expression on his granite face suggests he’d enjoy nothing more than making Miller and me Comer-Gannon clients.

  “The stock ticker you keep staring at with your good eye is a dead giveaway,” Miller says.

  Nardillo makes a point of looking into Miller’s eyes, unblinking.

  “I’ll try and be brief, Mr. Nardillo,” Miller goes on, crossing his long legs. “I’m gathering information on a man who might have once been an employee of yours.”

  “You got a name, Detective?”

  “Not exactly.”

  Nardillo joins his hands together at the knuckles, cathedrals the index fingers. He poses, “How do you expect me to help you, Detective, if you do not have a name?”

  “All I can offer at this point is a profile. Have you heard of the Mortician Murders?”

  Maybe it’s me, but I swear I see the director shoot the quickest and subtlest of glances at the goon on the couch. He might even be aware of me noticing his glance because he rapidly refocuses on Miller.

  “Why, yes,” he says. “I am quite aware of them.” Clearing the frog from his throat. “I mean, how could I not be aware of them, am I right? Not all that often a serial killer plagues Albany and its surrounding communities.”

  “Thank God,” Miller says. “Our profiling experts tell us that the perpetrator would almost definitely have worked for a funeral outfit like yours. That in terms of a physical description he would be middle-aged, maybe with a receding hairline, and a bit of a paunch—.”

  “Color.”

  “Excuse me?” Miller says.

  “Color,” Nardillo says. “What color would he be? We try to maintain an equitable employment opportunity operation here, you understand, Detective.”

  “He’d be a white guy,” I interject.

  Nardillo smiles, chuckles.

  “So, the number two has a voice box after all,” he says. “Well, whaddaya know about that, Walter. The number two speaks.”

  All eyes on Walter, like the big goon is about to issue some words of wisdom. But all he does is crack a hint of a grin. It’s like trying to watch granite move. I could say something witty as a retort here. Something like, “Go fuck yourself, Nardillo. But I sense that Miller would rather I shut up, so that’s what I choose to do.”

  Eyes back on the detective.

  “As stated,” Miller goes on, “he’d be a white guy. Married, but not happily. Maybe even a guy who likes to get it on the side, even if he has to pay for it. He might pretend to be social, but he’s essentially a loner. A brooder. Not many friends.”

  “Sounds like most of my employees, so far,” Nardillo comments. “This is a funeral home after all and a very successful one. It’s a . . . how shall I put this delicately? A somber environment.”

  “A morbid environment,” I add. “People just dying to get in here.”

  Nardillo, shoots me a glare. No one says a word. No one laughs or even pretends to laugh.

  “Sorry,” I say, a little under my breath. “Just trying to lighten things up.”

  Shaking his head, Nardillo refocuses on Miller.

  “Can you give me something else to go on, Detective?”

  Miller uncrosses his legs, then re-crosses them the opposite way.

  He says, “Here’s what we think makes our perp different from all the rest. He would have been outstanding at his job.”

  The director exhales or should I say, sighs. He releases his hands and sits up. His eyes have gone from droopy bored to squinty and interested.

  “Whaddaya mean by outstanding exactly?”

  “I mean, he would have not only been the best at what he did here in terms of preparing a body for the afterlife if you wanna call it that. He would have been perhaps more talented than even you or big Walter over here.” Cocking his head in the direction of the goon. “He might have been so good in fact, Mr. Nardillo, that he would have openly shown his disdain for the less qualified even if the less qualified, in his mind, were his own boss or bosses. Often times, you might find him taking his frustration out on his fellow employees in the form of verbal assaults. Or maybe even yourself.”

  “In other words,” Nardillo says, “what we have here is a gifted worker who was major league insubordinate.”

  “Something like that, Mr. Director. Now you’re catching on.”

  A smile—a sly smile—slowly grows on the director’s lips. It’s like he’s about to reveal a name to us and suddenly our investigation is about to get a lot more heated. I can almost hear the angels harmonizing, their harps strumming.

  But then Nardillo’s smile dies as quickly as it was injected with life. He stands, smooths out his suit with his open palms as if it requires smoothing out. Ever the loyal employee, or bodyguard, Walter also stands.

  “Sorry, Detective,” Nardillo says. “Can’t help you.”

  For the first time since we entered the office, Miller shoots me a glance. I haven’t known him for very long or at all for that matter. But I hear the words clear enough just by listening to his unblinking gray eyes.

  Nardillo is a lying son of a bitch.

  Miller gets up. So do I.

  “Well, I’ll thank you for your time then,” he offers, sarcasm painting his voice like a death shroud.

  “Walter will be happy to show you to the door,” Nardillo says. “Won’t you, Walter?”

  Walter issues us a smile that’s all teeth. Teeth he’d love to dig into us along with a fine Chianti and a side of fava beans.

  “Gentlemen,” he says, in his deep baritone. “If you please.”

  He gestures towards the door and opens it for us. We step ou
t and back into the vestibule. He leads the way to the front door of the facility. As we make our way across the marble floor, I nod a farewell to Alfred. He nods back, his face as grave and ashen as his clients. Walter opens the door for us.

  “Have a nice evening, gentlemen,” he says. But what he really means is, have a nice life.

  We exit the funeral home, both of us suspecting that the Mortician Murderer was once employed here.

  Driving. Back in the direction of the state office complex.

  “So, what did you think of our little exchange with Nardillo?” Miller says after a time.

  “Is this like a test?” I pose, recalling my little quip about the dead dying to get in there. “Or you truly looking for my opinion?”

  “A little of both.”

  My eyes on the road, as the highway bypass turns into a congested city boulevard. I think about it for a few seconds.

  Then, “There’s an old saying fly fisherman use.”

  “Jeeze, you’re not getting philosophical on me, are you, Jobz? ‘Cause I’m not in the fuckin’ mood.”

  “No, just hear me out, Miller.”

  I catch him rolling his eyes.

  “Okay, go,” he says. “Didn’t know you fly fish, by the way.”

  “Used to guide,” I say, remembering my days on the water . . . the Upper Hudson, the Postenkill, the Kinderhook. “Before joining the cops.” Turning to him, grinning. “It was a way of avoiding growing up, facing my father’s murder.”

  “I see what you mean,” he says. “Like to fish myself. Anyway, you were saying . . . The old fly fisherman.”

  “They say, if it looks like a trout, holds water like a trout, swims like a trout and casts a long wavy shadow like a trout, it’s probably—”