Infernal

1

The New York City Morgue… in the basement of Bellevue Hospital…

I'm seeing far too much of this place, Jack thought.

Just six weeks or so ago he'd walked this same hallway. The tiled walls and floor drains looked too familiar.

He'd picked up Tom at the hotel and they cabbed over. Jack would have preferred walking. It would take longer. He wasn't in any hurry to see his father's corpse. Again.

"That's one hell of a welcome sign they've got back there," Tom whispered as they followed an attendant. Something about this place made you whisper.

"Welcome sign? Where?"

Tom jerked a thumb over his shoulder. "Back there. It says Hie locus est ubi mors gaudet succurrere vitae."

"Which means?"

"It's Latin. 'Here is where death delights to teach the living.'"

"You know Latin?"

"I've picked up some. Unavoidable in my profession. A dead language comes in handy when you want to confound and confuse the hoi polloi. Hence its use by lawyers and doctors."

Jack noticed that Tom's ruddy complexion of yesterday and earlier this morning had faded to gray. His skin glistened with a sheen of sweat that reflected the harsh overhead fluorescents.

"You all right?"

Tom nodded. "Yeah. Fine." A heartbeat later he shook his head. "No. Not really. This has all been abstract until now. Surreal. Like a fever dream. Ever since you called I could almost pretend it hadn't really happened. But after filling out those papers…"

"Now it all becomes real."

It was already real for Jack. He'd seen Dad lying on the air terminal floor, seen the blood, his slack face, his dead eyes… all without a grace period to brace himself.

Tom swallowed. "I'll be okay. I've seen dead bodies before. It's just that none of them was my father."

Just then Jack spotted a painfully thin guy with pale, shoulder-length hair and a goatee coming their way. He wore green scrubs.

Oh, hell. Ron Clarkson. One of the attendants. Maybe he wouldn't see—

"Jack?" Ron smiled. "What're you doing here, man? You're getting to be a regular."

Jack kept walking. "Here to pick up somebody."

"One of our boarders?"

"Yeah."

Ron fell into step with him. "Which one? Maybe I can—"

"Thanks, Ron." He pointed to the other attendant walking two steps ahead of him. "It's all taken care of."

"Yeah, but—"

"Ron… this is a private thing. I appreciate your concern, but everything is arranged, okay?"

"Okay, man. But you need anything, you let me know, okay?"

"Right."

If paid enough, Ron would do just about anything. And on those rare occasions when Jack needed a body part for a fix-it, Ron supplied it. For cash.

Ron turned and continued on in his original direction.

Tom glanced over his shoulder at the retreating figure. "You know people here?"

"Just him."

"What was that crack about being a regular?"

"I had to… identify someone last month."

"Really? Who?"

"Just somebody."

"You were a bit rough on him, don't you think?"

"He's a nosy busybody."

Jack hadn't wanted Ron to know that the "boarder" he was picking up was his father. Ron would then know Jack's real last name. That used to matter a lot—he hadn't wanted anyone from his past to find his present, and no one in his present to know his past—not for his sake but for his family's. Now, with his past encroaching on the present, he didn't know if it mattered much. Still, better to keep things the way they were, especially where a weasel like Ron Clarkson was concerned.

Up ahead the attendant pushed through a pair of swinging doors and held one open for them. Jack propelled his brother ahead of him. Tom had completed all the paperwork upstairs. All that remained now was the official identification of the body and a final signature—Tom's.

As he stepped into the room, Jack heard a voice to his left.

"Jack? That you?"

Who now?

He turned and saw Joey Castles standing by a gurney as an attendant zipped up a black body bag. He was short, maybe five-five, Jack's age, with black hair and dark eyes; the surname on his birth certificate had not been "Castles." He wore a black sport coat, gray slacks, and a black polo shirt. His hair, usually blow-dry perfect and sprayed granite hard, was in disarray today. His eyes looked red and puffy.

Jack stepped closer and extended his hand.

"Joey. Jeez, what happened? Who—?"

His Adam's apple worked, his voice sounded choked. "Frankie… the La Guardia thing."

Jack gave his hand an extra squeeze.

"Oh, no. Christ, I'm sorry."

Joey and his brother Frankie came from a long line of scammers, most prominent among them their father, Frank Castellano Sr.

"He was coming back from visiting Dad—he's got this big place in the Keys—and I was supposed to pick him up but I was late and…"

The words choked off.

"How's your dad taking it?"

Joey shook his head. "You ever hear a grown man cry? Especially your father. It's…" He shook his head again. "A son shouldn't have to hear that. And a father shouldn't have to hear that his oldest son was shot down like a dog on his way home from visiting him. Merda! You know what kind of guilt he's going through?"

"Yeah, I know," Jack said.

Joey looked at him. "You in the same boat? Who?"

Jack hesitated, then decided he could trust Joey with the truth. Joey wasn't a nosy sort? and didn't know or care enough about Jack to check it out.

"My dad."

"Oh, shit, Jack. Fucking shit. I'm sorry."

"Yeah."

Joey's features hardened. "You know that story going 'round about cyanide bullets? True."

Jack felt his gut tighten. "How do you know?"

"Got a connection who got a little look-see at some reports and says it was cyanide-filled hollow-points." His features tightened, his lips drew into a tight line. "Frankie got clipped in the shoulder, Jack. That's all. He might've lived through that whole mess he hadn't been poisoned too." Joey bared his teeth. "Wrath of Allah can kiss my ass. Like to show them where they can stick their—"

"Whoa. Wrath of Allah? What's that?"

"Didn't you hear? Some group of stronzos called the Times and the three networks this morning saying they did it and that's only the beginning. They're gonna keep it up till the enemies of God and helpers of Satan are cleansed from the face of the earth. Or some such shit."

Jack hadn't turned on the TV this morning. He'd figured they'd only be talking about today being a national day of mourning and he'd heard all he wanted to about that.

He squeezed his eyes shut. So it was an Arab thing after all…

"Jeez."

He felt a bloom of rage, but Joey was way ahead of him.

"Dirty, rat-fucking—"

"Hey, Jack?" Tom's voice behind him.

Jack turned and saw his brother, face whiter than ever, lips almost blue, motioning him over.

"They're bringing him out and I don't want to do this alone."

As Jack stepped away, Joey gave his upper arm a squeeze. "Hang in there, Jack. And don't take off right away. Got a little something I want to talk to you about."

Jack nodded and moved toward Tom, thinking about cyanide bullets. Dad had caught one in his thigh, a flesh wound that under normal circumstances would—

Listen to me… "normal circumstances"… shit, what was normal about being shot while waiting for your baggage?

He had little doubt that Dad, like Frankie Castles, would have survived a wound like that from a normal bullet.

Jack's jaw muscles ached from clenching his teeth as he stood next to Tom and watched them wheel out a body bag on a gurney. The attendant, a black guy with short spiky dreads, looked bored. Jack wanted to punch him.

He steeled himself as the guy grabbed the zipper tab and pulled. When he'd opened an eighteen-inch gap, he spread the sides to reveal someone's head.

For an awful instant Jack thought it might not be Dad, that somehow his body had been misidentified or gone missing or been spirited away. But no, there he was. He looked better than yesterday, his eyes closed, his mouth shut, his features more composed.

But still very dead.

Jack heard the air whoosh out of Tom.

"Oh, shit," he croaked. "Oh, shit, it's him. It's really him."

Jack said nothing. He couldn't.