The Embalmer: A Steve Jobz Thriller

by Vincent Zandri

  Reaching for the glove box, I push the button. But the car is fifty years old, and the button release hasn’t been replaced in all that time. It’s stuck. But then, even if I could open it, I doubt there’d be a pencil or paper in there. Probably only an old insurance certificate from 1989, maybe the remnants of an old moldy pack of cigarettes.

  Use your damn smartphone, idiot, barks the internal voice once more.

  Jesus, why didn’t I think of that earlier?

  I pull out the smartphone and thrust the Mustang into park, pull off my seatbelt and stand. The van is pulling away from the window when I begin snapping pictures. But like I said, the beers and shots I drank have settled on an empty, lost-lunch-stomach, and I’m having trouble balancing. Sitting in the hot summer sun in my convertible hasn’t helped at all either.

  The phone slips from my grip. No choice but to sit back down, feel for the device with the tips of my fingers. A horn honks from the vehicle directly behind me. A vehicle right up on my tail.

  “Move up, retard!” insists the driver. A young voice. When I look into the rearview, I can see it’s a college age kid and his girlfriend in an open-topped Jeep Wrangler. He’s beefy and buff like he just got out of the gym. His perfect long black hair is done up in one of those cranium cap-topped man buns that are all the rage these days.

  He honks the horn again.

  I grab the phone, stand awkwardly, my knees jammed against the steering wheel. Aiming the phone in the direction of the van, I snap away. I don’t know whether I’m catching pictures of it or not, but what the hell else can I do?

  The van disappears.

  The kid behind me honks again.

  “Hey asshole!” he shouts. “Pull . . . the fuck . . . up!”

  I’m not usually the angry type. I can stand patiently in line at the bodega with my coffee and donut, while somebody consumes the register for ten minutes or more purchasing hundreds of dollars’ worth of lottery tickets with their welfare check. I can calmly eat my lunch inside a diner booth while a toddler in the booth behind me throws a tantrum. I can even put up with some jerk who tailgates me on the highway, so long as I allow him to pass me by within a reasonable amount of time. But what I can’t take is someone who is an outright bastard. Or, put another way altogether. A bully.

  So, here’s what I do to put this particular bully down: I reach under my seat, pull out the miniature Louisville Slugger I store there for emergency purposes. I don’t have a carry concealed or open carry permit anymore since New York State Law requires ex-cops to turn in their side-arms along with their badge when the cop show is over. The bat gripped in my hand, I get out of the car, leave the engine running. Approaching the kid’s brand-new Jeep, I purse my lips together, try to make like Dave Starsky from beneath my sunglasses.

  Man Bun gives me the once over, looking me up and down and up again.

  “Looks like the old-time dude ate his Wheaties,” he comments to his girlfriend. Man Bun’s wearing a wife beater and his arms are jacked. Maybe jacked from the gym or maybe from human growth hormone or both. The girlfriend is blonde, young and hot, and also jacked in her tight-fitting Dick’s Sporting Goods latex workout clothing. The music coming from his dash-mounted stereo provides the perfect loud and obnoxious soundtrack for the likes of Man Bun. But he turns it down. Not to be polite, but to hear himself speak.

  “Yo, dude,” he says, “you’re blocking the drive-through. I’m hungry. My girl is hungry. And you’re up my ass.” He laughs at his own witticisms. A sure sign of excessive self-confidence. I will once more refer to the human growth hormone portion of our program.

  “No, son,” I say. “You’re actually up my ass. So close we’re practically trading paint, or else you would have driven around me by now. So, tell you what, why don’t you get out and we can talk about this like adults.”

  Several people have gotten out of their cars and trucks by now, and more interested in what’s happening with me and Man Bun than they are their fish filets, Big Macs, and super-sized french fries.

  “The old man wants to dance,” Man Bun announces. “Your funeral ain’t far off anyway.”

  He gets out, stretches himself tall. About six inches taller than me. Both in height and girth.

  “You’re out of your league, old man,” he adds. “You know that, right? Or are you high?”

  Well . . . I’m not about to answer that or I’d have to lie.

  “Fuck him up,” says Blonde Girlfriend from the front seat. “Make him your bitch, Charlie.”

  “That your name, Man Bun?” I say. “Charlie? Charlie with the bun on top?”

  He doesn’t like my referencing his man bun, and his smile disappears.

  “Oh, come on now, Charlie, boy,” I say. “Turn that frown back upside down.”

  He takes a swing. A full, John Wayne right hook round-house that whiffs miserably when I duck. The whiff only makes him madder, as evidenced by the amount of blood that fills his face. I straighten myself up, and he attempts the same maneuver with the sledgehammer fist on his left arm. Same deal. I duck at the last second.

  “Hell you doing, Charlie,” Blonde Girlfriend says. She must be bored because she’s not looking at her boyfriend anymore. But instead her cell phone. “Dude’s like your dad’s age.”

  “Shut the hell up, Chloe,” Man Bun snaps.

  “Yeah, shut the hell up, Chloe,” I repeat.

  “Don’t you insult my girl!” Man Bun Charlie explodes. “Apologize, bitch!”

  “No, Charlie,” I say, calmly, collectedly. “I will not apologize.”

  Raising both hands, he attempts to bull rush me. But there are some things a former cop never forgets, and that’s how to use a baton. I allow the kid to come within six inches of me before I thrust the fat end of the mini Louisville Slugger into his gut.

  Allow me to pause the video for a moment . . .

  Sometimes, perps will keep coming at you no matter how hard you nail them in the underbelly. Especially if they’re cranked up on synthetic amphetamines like crank and crack. But for some reason, this kid, for as big and stacked as he is, stops on a dime and drops to his knees. He also does something I never would have expected. He starts to cry. Oh well, like they say, the bigger they are . . .

  Resume video . . .

  The crowd that’s exited their cars start to clap and cheer. For the first time in a long time . . . maybe in forever . . . I feel empowered. Like I’ve stood up to Goliath and won the day, the week, the year. I need something to commemorate my victory with.

  My eyes go from Blonde Girlfriend Chloe, who is still looking at her phone and now frantically typing something in with her thumbs, back to the sobbing Charlie Man Bun. I stare down at his head and the bun that tops it. That’s when it comes to me.

  I gaze out into the crowd.

  “Who’s got scissors?” I say.

  A couple of people look at one another, until an older heavyset man, reaches into the glove box on his F150 pickup, comes back out with a pair of heavy duty scissors, like a contractor might utilize for cutting electrical wire. He walks them over, hands them to me. Maybe it’s the alcohol swimming around my veins . . . the way it combines with the adrenaline . . . but I can’t help smiling proudly when I take hold of Charlie’s bun and snip it off.

  The crowd roars with cheers as I raise the bun high overhead like an Aztec warrior holding up the head of his sworn enemy. Just as the police cruisers come screaming into the parking lot.

  Chloe bolts out of the Jeep, goes to Charlie, sets her hands on his shoulders, tries to help him up. But he’s crying so hard, he doesn’t have the strength to lift himself off the ground. Maybe the story about Hercules and his hair isn’t all bullshit after all.

  “You thought I was texting, jerk,” she says. “But I was calling the cops. You’re going to jail for this shit.” She points to the pale bald spot on top of Charlie No-Longer-Man Bun’s head.

  “It’ll grow back,” I say, swallowing more than a hint of regret. “It’s not
like I scalped him . . . Errr, sort of anyway.”

  The cops shoot out of their cruisers, service weapons gripped in hand.

  “Drop the weapons!” shouts the first uniformed officer. “Drop the weapons and down on your knees. Now!”

  I drop the scissors and the mini-Louisville Slugger, the bat making a hollow wood sound when it bounces off the pavement. As ordered, I raise my hands overhead.

  Surrender.

  Take it from me, you don’t mess with cops, especially when their service weapons are drawn.

  “Down on your knees!” Blue Uniform repeats.

  I do it.

  It occurs to me on the way down that I haven’t eaten and that despite my minor altercation with the big not-so-bad bully, I still have the munchies something fierce. The realization hits me like the fat end on my Louisville Slugger. I’m not going to get my Big Mac. But maybe my lawyer won’t mind bringing me one when he comes to bail me out.

  That is, if only I had a lawyer.

  He goes into the house through the back door off the kitchen, sets the bag of McDonald’s junk food onto the counter. He immediately goes to the refrigerator, grabs a bottle of beer, pops the top, drinks down half of it while standing inside the open door.

  “Pumpkin, is that you?” he hears coming from the living room.

  Wendy.

  Just the nasally timber of her voice is enough to make his veins burn. Like an injection of the purest, pink, embalming fluid.

  “Who the hell do you think it is? Your boyfriend?” He laughs at that one as if he can’t get over his own humor. Like a boyfriend, much less ever getting laid or getting out of bed again for that matter, is a remote possibility for her.

  “Stop it with your mean mouth, Pumpkin,” she insists. “I’m sick, in case you haven’t noticed.” Then, as he’s drinking down the rest of the beer. “Did you . . . umm . . . happen to bring me something to eat?”

  “You know I did, Wendy,” he says, setting the empty bottle down into the sink. “You could probably sniff it out from a mile down the road.”

  He pulls out another bottle, pops it open, but instead of pounding this one, he sets it on the counter, like it’s a fine red wine he intends to breathe. Grabbing the big McDonald’s bag, he brings it with him into the living room. As soon as he enters, her puffy eyes light up. She tries to sit up, but she can’t. She’s got no choice but to satisfy herself with just scrunching up a little against the sweat-soaked pillows.

  “Is it Big Macs?” she says, excitedly. “Large fries? Cherry pie?” Then, her emotions doing a belly flop. “Pumpkin, why do you do this to me? Make me eat this . . . this wonderful junk?”

  “Because I like full-figured gals,” he says, reaching his hand into the white bag, coming out with her first Big Mac, setting it onto her chest, along with the red pocket-like pack of French fries.

  She says, “Oh you naughty, naughty boy, Pumpkin. You super-sized it all for me. You do still love me. Or you hate me. Or, jeepers crow I can’t figure out which it is.”

  “Don’t think, Wendy. Eat. Feed those heart valves. Clog those arteries. Obstruct those bowels. Raise that blood pressure. Burst that brain matter capillary.”

  “Oh, you and your jokes, Pumpkin. Just like a feisty little boy.”

  She opens the Big Mac box, grabs hold of the two-all-beef-patty-special-sauce-Lettuce-cheese-on-a-sesame-seed-bun burger one-fisted, and shoves it into her mouth, stealing a bite that reduces its mass by a third even before she’s had the time to set the second Big Mac onto her barrel chest.

  Reaching into the bag once more, he pulls out a small cheeseburger.

  “Is that for me too, Pumpkin?” she says with a full pie hole.

  “It’s my dinner if you don’t mind,” he says. But then, staring at her as she forces a pile of French fries into her already overly congested mouth and adjoining cheeks, he suddenly feels his appetite slide south. He sets the cheese burger onto the still uneaten Big Mac.

  “Oh, you lovely doll,” she mumbles as if through a ball gag.

  “Bon appetite,” he says, shuffling back into the kitchen. Then, to himself he whispers, “At least she doesn’t need to be bathed again.”

  Stealing a sip of beer from the bottle on the counter, he opens the back door.

  “Pumpkin,” Wendy calls out. “Are you leaving me again?”

  “I have to grab something from outside,” he says, voice annoyed and raised more than it has to be. “You mind?!”

  “You don’t have to shout, Pumpkin!” she cries. “Sheeesh. Cranky man. Crankster spankster. Pumpkin schmumpkin eater.”

  He goes out to the vehicle, opens the side door and is immediately relieved to see that the girl is still out cold and that she’s breathing. Pulling her out the door by her legs, he crouches and hefts her up onto his shoulder in a classic fireman’s hold. He quickly transports her through the back door into the kitchen. Luckily the sun has gone down on Albany, and he is able to work under the cover of darkness. The neighbor’s house is only a few feet away. A man, a late middle-aged widower, resides there. The widower has been known to do plenty of snooping through the rear window. What the hell else has he got to do with his life?

  Making his way over the linoleum-covered floor, he opens the basement door, flicks on the lights, and proceeds to carry her down the wood steps into the cool, damp, recently renovated basement.

  “Pumpkin!” Wendy shouts, “what on earth are you doing down in that cave of yours?”

  It’s been two minutes since I gave her the food, he thinks. It’s almost definitely entirely consumed by now. When will her heart finally give up? Of course, it’s a blessing the heart is taking its own sweet time before going into arrest. He relies on the permanent disability payments to supplement the numerous unemployment checks he receives on a weekly basis.

  He lays the girl out on the stainless-steel draining table that’s been set up in the center of the basement space. Surrounding him are all the elements of the mortician’s trade. An overhead, adjustable LED ceiling-mounted lamp. A stainless-steel sink set in the center of a stainless-steel counter with matching glass-faced cabinets. Medical waste bins and tanks for the delivery of water to the table along with the collection of fluids. Newly tiled walls and a tiled floor with a drain in the center. There’s a vat of hydrofluoric acid for dissolving unwanted waste and flesh parts. And of course, embalming fluid tanks.

  The rose-colored fluid is supplied by a personal business associate and delivered directly to his home in unmarked packaging. Thus far, not a soul has suspected a thing about his operation, especially considering the medical style setup he has created in the living room, and the amount of medical waste he’s constantly disposing of due to his incapacitated wife. And that’s the way it shall remain.

  Stripping the girl of her clothing, he then straps her tightly to the steel table, and places a ball gag in her mouth, strapping it tightly to the back of her skull. He does it just in time too, because she’s beginning to come around. When she awakens, her eyes go wide, and she attempts to yank her arms and legs free. But moving them is an impossibility. Still, she heaves her chest and hips. But it’s all wasted movement.

  Her eyes focus in on something. Or so he can’t help but notice. He looks at her and then shifts his focus in the direction in which she’s gazing.

  “Oh,” he says, with a wide smile. “I see you’ve met, Leslie. My true love, Leslie. How beautiful does she look, Peg? Even after all this time, she still makes my blood rush.”

  He steps over to the shelf, picks up the big clear jar that contains the head of his deceased lover, Leslie, her eyes open wide, her mouth ajar, tongue curled upwards unnaturally, her thick black hair swimming in the rose-colored embalming fluid. He brings the jar to his lips and kisses it in the precise place where Leslie’s lips are. He then places the jar so close to Peg’s face, her lips are practically touching the glass.

  “Oh, where are my manners,” he says. “Peg meet Leslie. Leslie meet Peg. Leslie isn’t muc
h for talking these days. But then, you’ve got a mouthful going yourself there, young lady.”

  He recalls the day he was able to steal her body from the funeral home he worked at, and how no one ever connected him to the robbery. He’s proud of himself for pulling that one off. It allowed him and Leslie to live together for a couple of weeks longer before the embalming fluid could no longer prevent the stench of decomposition and he had no choice but to take off her head while dissolving the limbs and torso in an acid bath.

  Them’s the breaks.

  Peg is struggling, her eyes full of tears. He feels for her.

  “It’s like a nightmare, isn’t it,” he says, softly. “Your worst nightmare. I bet you’re telling yourself to wake up now. I bet you want to believe this is a dream. Only it’s not a dream. You’re not going to wake up because you’re already awake.”

  She screams into the ball gag once more. A futile gesture at best.

  He smiles, shushes her. He runs his fingers through her hair, feels the giant lump on her skull where the hammer connected with it. He presses down on it. She winces, and even with the gag stuffed into her mouth, he can make out her high-pitched cry.

  “There, there, young lady,” he consoles.

  Turning he goes to the counter, where a stereo system is set up. It’s the same Panasonic system he’s had since the mid-1970s when he was in high school. The same setup his mother bought for him on the Sears credit card after his older sisters left for college. He flicks it on and pushes the play button on the bulky 8-track tape that’s still inserted into the tape player. Suddenly, the sound of trumpets, electric guitar, drums and vocals fill the basement. The beat is disco and the tune is all about making love.

  “Do a little dance, make a little love, get down tonight . . .”

  The music inspires him, and he does a pirouetting spin on the heels of his feet. John Travolta ain’t got nothing on me, he thinks. John Travolta is a pussy.

  “Let’s get you ready for making a little love honey,” he says.