West Palm: The Complete Novel (2 page)

The downside of this particular clientele arises when tempers clash at the funeral home itself, as happened when fourteen mourners were shot outside the Funeraria Latina Emanuel in North Miami. Fiorello prefers his bullets to be limited to the person being buried and not disbursed in the bodies of the mourners or, perish the thought, himself.

But Mr. Fiorello has no time to think about gold teeth, past or present. He's got to take the tinsel out of the corpses' hair. He's got to be sure that, half smashed on eggnog, he gets out every goddamn strand.

He fortifies himself with fruitcake.

God rest ye merry . . .

Z
ach rides his bicycle south on Dixie, the string of flicker-flames waving from his back pocket. He's too upset to go home.

Even Mr. Fiorello, who should know better, proved himself incapable of understanding Zach's feelings toward the dead, especially his chivalrous feelings toward the girl. Her spirit had been there, hovering over her illuminated form, grateful for his attentions. Other men might turn away from her dead body, desiring her only when alive; Zach adored her immortal essence. It was a love affair so brief, so rare, and so rudely interrupted. At Mr. Fiorello's entrance, her shy, already shocked soul had been forced to fly away.

Zach knows about women's souls. He believes he knows more about them than anybody. And this soul was pure, the soul of an angel. Now he's cut off from his angel. And like any misunderstood artist, he's in need of consolation.

He can't face his bed, or his trailer, or the trailer park itself, which is a pit. Though he faithfully pays his rent, every month he receives an eviction notice. It's a standard notice sent out to all the tenants on the theory that most of them won't be paying their rent. And unfairly it's sent to him too. This is the kind of milieu Zach keeps falling into, among Mexicans, Guatemolies, you name it. Not that he has anything against illegals, he's worked with them often enough in the fields.

Probably that's where he'll wind up again, picking fruit and vegetables. This is not his favorite season for picking. His favorite season is late spring when rusty old school buses with their windows and seats removed are filled with watermelons, like severed heads being sent to school to learn to be good melons. Piling those shiny heads into yellow buses always lifts his spirits.

When tax season comes he might work for Liberty Tax, dancing on a street corner dressed like the Statue of Liberty. It isn't a bad job, as long as you ignore the drivers you're out there to attract and concentrate instead on the music on your iPod. There are more permanent jobs available to unskilled workers, like at McDonald's, but Zach doesn't like dealing with living people.

As he rides through the night on his bike, his anger against Mr. Fiorello shifts to anger at himself. It's always the same problem, the curse of being born in ignorance. Once again stupidity forced his hand, leading him to take chances when he should've patiently bided his time. Now he has to start again at the bottom, find another job as a night watchman, then climb to assistant embalmer, embalmer, and finally funeral director of his own establishment, where he'll be able to play forever with the beautiful dead.

The trouble is in the current economy it won't be easy getting another mortuary job. Skilled workers are out there competing with the unskilled, providing a bigger pool of unemployed men strong enough to lug corpses around.

But the embers of hope flare up. He knows he'll get the job he wants. His suitability will be recognized, because his attempts to rise up out of ignorance have made him an aristocrat, or at least an autodidact, a word he likes better than self-educated, even if that's what he is. There is the stupid Zach who was born in the holler, and Zach the scholar who owns dozens of library cards, from the dozens of places where he's lived. Being a connoisseur, he's discovered that every library has its own intellectual drift, and the tenor of books in each library has determined his learning.

It was from a picture book about King Tut that he began to understand the arcane needs of the dead. It's not enough to clean them up and bury them to get them out of the way, topped off by an empty funeral service. They must be freed to ensure they aren't born into suffering again.

But try telling this to people. Even someone like Mr. Fiorello, who's in the ancient tradition, can't grasp the significance. Gifted as Mr. Fiorello is, his understanding is superficial.

Zach could've been like other people, a nobody, and sometimes he wishes he were. It isn't easy marching to a different drummer. He contemplates his own gift, and for an instant is overcome by its greatness.

The moment passes, his greatness eludes him, and he sees himself as he appears to Mr. Fiorello. He hesitates to frame the awesome word in his mind, the word he came upon one day in his library perusals.
Necrophiliac.

Mr. Fiorello may think what he likes, but Zach knows the awesome word is a shallow description. To articulate what he actually is confounds him. It's so tremendous, mysterious, and godlike. It's his alone to carry, his burden.

He cycles left, toward the Intracoastal Waterway. The illuminated palm trees and fountains of Seafarers Landing beckon.

It isn't the first time he's penetrated the grounds of this giant condo complex. No one ever stops him because there's hardly anybody there. The place is hanging on by a thread, largely untenanted owing to the collapse of the real estate market.

Seafarers Landing resembles pastel towers of ice cream—peach, pistachio, vanilla, and strawberry. The penthouse roofs are mansard, which contrasts oddly with the jutting balconies below. Zach knows from his haphazard studies in libraries that this is an example of postmodernism. How many people seeing those ice cream palisades realize this?

Zach approaches from the side where motes of Christmas color radiate around the splashing fountains. He gets off his bike and wheels it.

Ignoring the crescent-shaped stone benches, he descends stone steps, walking his bike stealthily between the fountains and the inlet where a few small motor craft are tied. These are owned by the management and rented out on weekends. Along the front of the complex, piers protrude into the Intracoastal; hence the name Seafarers Landing. The idea was that condo owners would conveniently tie their boats up here, but since there are so few people living at Seafarers Landing, slips are rented to outsiders, and there aren't many of them.

Zach's route leads him to the jetty, which marks the southern boundary of the property. On the other side of the jetty is a narrow tangle of vegetation, ideal for brooding.

Lowering himself onto his haunches, he's hidden by darkness and the overhanging branches. He scans the handful of pleasure craft tied up at the piers, but there's no sign of life. Christmas Eve is a time to be at home with family and friends.

A magnificent yacht has been moored at the end of the longest pier for several days. The name on the boat's hull is
King Rat,
and whoever owns it has nothing to do with Seafarers Landing. A yacht that size is worth more than all the Seafarers condos put together. In the radiance of the moon and the few lights on the pier, it looks like a wedding cake in which Zach and his angel can float away forever.

He closes his eyes and lets the briny breeze flow over him. From his library books he's learned the art of meditation.

When he opens up his eyes, a new angel is standing on the deck of the big yacht, and Aunt Emmy is singing softly.

Oh, lovely appearance of death,

What sight upon earth is so fair?

He recognizes the familiar rushing of his blood through his veins, the pressure on his brain. He takes out his camera, focuses, and captures his new angel standing beneath the deck lights.

She retreats inside the yacht.

After a while, a light goes on in a room on the deck above.

Presently the room is plunged in darkness.

But its placement is imprinted in Zach's mind. Furthermore, she hasn't drawn the drapes.

He slides from his leafy hideaway and makes his furtive way to the pier. He knows it's happening again, this destiny that keeps him moving from one town to another, from one state to another. He climbs the iron ladder to
King Rat
's gleaming deck, knowing what he must do. This is the longest he's gone without it, this year he's spent working with the dead. He could've been a great embalmer. No one understands. What he's about to do isn't his fault. It's the burden of his gift.

For he has traveled far beyond men like Fiorello. Fiorello's pleasure is limited to attending to the corpses. Zach's is the ecstasy of creating them.

He is the chosen one, unknown and unacknowledged. The only acknowledgment he gets is from a woman pleading for her life.

After which, he liberates her.

T
ara stood in the ship's salon, but didn't turn on any lights. She preferred the glamour of moonlight coming through the wall of windows, its silver beams picking out the rounded shapes of the grand piano and the lacquered furniture.

Despite being alone on Christmas Eve, she was filled with gratitude for where she'd ended up. A month ago she'd left the Coast Guard after eight years and the conviction it would be her permanent career. And she'd resigned for the worst of reasons: Boatswain's Mate First Class Kevin McElroy.

Kevin hadn't exactly dumped her. But finally she got it through her head that his attention had shifted to a woman higher than her in rank and higher in his affections. It was mortifying that with all her training she couldn't calmly sail through the tempest of love, a fact that baffled her, capsized her, and caused her to stupidly jettison her job. Just as she was beginning to realize the enormity of her mistake and wonder what on earth she should do with her life, her harbormaster friend had introduced her to the owner of
King Rat
.

No more chasing armed smugglers or distress calls for her now. The owners of
King Rat
didn't know the meaning of distress. A fifty-meter trideck,
King Rat
was designed for pleasure and pleasure only. And she was its first mate. They were on their way to a six-week cruise in the Caribbean, and between cruises she'd still be living on this stupendous boat, earning far more than she had in the Coast Guard.

Mr. Zaratzian had hired her on the spot. No doubt the harbormaster had touted her qualifications, but the interview itself was startlingly brief.

The little billionaire had gazed up at her and said, “They didn't tell me you were an amazon,” then held out his hand for her to shake. “Mickey Zaratzian. It's not a hard name to remember. Just think to yourself:
Mickey's a rat
.”

Ever since, she'd seen him as an amiable rodent, a feisty furry mammal with a fast metabolism. She'd overheard him on his cell phone with business acquaintances around the planet, and it sounded like he was buying companies with the same speed he'd hired her. As reckless as this practice seemed, the wealth he'd generated proved he knew what he was doing.

Through the salon windows she gazed across the Intracoastal toward the glittering lights around the pool and arches of the house where the Zaratzians were spending Christmas Eve with friends. The captain and crew were off celebrating too. There was a man in West Palm Beach she might've spent the evening with—really the best friend she'd ever had—but his partner gave her the creeps. So she was celebrating by herself.

She sat down in a puffy armchair upholstered in a pattern called Jazz. Mrs. Zaratzian had explained that the geometric patterns, shiny wood, and curved edges of the furnishings were modeled on the art deco style, or
streamline moderne,
in imitation of the great era of ocean liners. In 1922, she said, there'd been a mania for ancient Egypt following the discovery of King Tut's tomb, and the influence could be seen throughout the boat. The Zaratzians' private suite was turquoise, gold, and terra-cotta, with Egyptian gods and hieroglyphs marching across the carpet. Everything in the suite appeared to be carved with scarabs, sacred birds, and fans. The mirror-columned bathroom with its heated marble floors was especially fit for a modern pharaoh.

Electric doors opened as she stepped out onto the aft deck with its dining table for fourteen. In bad weather it could be shaded by a retractable awning, but there'd been no bad weather yet. She felt she would never know bad weather again.

Dual stairways led to the lower deck and diving platform. She'd gotten her scuba diving certificate near where she'd been stationed in Virginia, but the Caribbean was a scuba diver's dream. A world of underwater marvels lay before her. Who needs heartbreak? she thought. It sounded like a country-western song. Who needs heartbreak? she repeated. She'd be damn careful before she let herself fall in love again.

She returned to the salon and walked forward to the formal dining room. The table here seated only ten. It was a beautiful pale wood traced with ebony, and above it hung a magnificent sunburst chandelier, in honor of the Egyptian god of the sun. Mrs. Zaratzian knew an awful lot about ancient Egypt; she'd learned it from her decorator.

But the most eccentric item on the ship had nothing to do with ancient Egypt. It traveled on the aft top deck—along with the hydraulic crane and tenders—a 1959 white Cadillac convertible. Tara knew the measurements of its rocket tail fins, the history of its jet pod taillights, and all the other specs, because Zaratzian had pointed them out to her. She'd marveled with him over the voluptuous red leather interior, the wraparound panoramic windshield, the leering double-decker grille in front and the dummy grille in back. It was more important to him than anything on board, more important than his wife's furniture or the sun god chandelier.

Tara had spent hours learning the procedure for raising and lowering the precious object as if it were the mummy of King Tut himself. When the giant car rolled off the pier in Virginia, with the little rat at the wheel, all the bystanders applauded. At this stopover in Florida, it was easier for him to visit his friends across the Intracoastal in a tender, so the classic Caddy was up there now, gleaming in the moonlight in all its period perfect splendor.

She went upstairs and entered the bridge. It seemed to her as if the soft glow of the instrument panels on standby was her own Christmas tree. Behind the white leather captain's chair was a curved leather banquette where guests could sip their drinks and imagine they were personally at the wheel. Here were all the monitors and screens and data from black boxes—soundings, radar, cameras, and navigation charts. She'd gotten her captain's license in the Coast Guard, and a few years' experience on
King Rat
would qualify her to captain a yacht this size herself. But why think about the future when the present was just fine?

Seated in the captain's chair, she gave silent thanks to the harbormaster who'd introduced her to Zaratzian. Despite his wealth, despite the mirrored columns and the vintage Cadillac, the little mogul made no effort to sound like anything other than a poor boy born in the Southern Caucasus and brought up in a New York slum. He'd risen from the dust to the heights like some mythical Egyptian bird. The word that came to her mind was uncorrupted. She didn't know about his business practices, but he was uncorrupted in an essential way.

There were two cabins on the bridge deck, the captain's and her own. Hers was sleek and black with a white duvet and jazzy zebra carpeting. She opened the window, got undressed, lay down naked on the bed, and let the tropical breeze caress her. Florida's moist heat had already softened her winter skin. It made her hair curly too. Clearly she was born for the tropics. With every nautical mile between herself and Kevin, she felt the rope around her heart loosening.

She was drifting peacefully asleep when the cabin door swung open.

She grabbed her heavy metal flashlight with its blinding beam, but the intruder was on top of her before her fingers could find the switch. The searing pain started under her left ear, went across her neck, and only missed going through her jugular because she hit his forearm with the flashlight's barrel, driving the knife away. She tried to knee him in the groin, but she couldn't get enough leverage to hurt him. With her free hand she shot her fingers toward his eyes. He ducked his head aside and slashed out again with his knife.

She was strong, but the more she struggled the more excited he became, as if relishing her strength. The only sound in the cabin was his panting. The moonlight streaming through the window showed a face of hard angles and an expression that was freakishly affectionate considering he was trying to kill her. As he drew back his knife to plunge it downward into her she managed to ram the end of the flashlight into his ribs.

There was an audible crack of bone, his eyes widened, and time hung suspended just long enough for her to twist around, lunge toward the hanging locker, and grab the gun Zaratzian had left with her. “Amazons are supposed to use bows and arrows,” Zaratzian had said, “but I prefer a nice little twenty-two revolver.”

He was on top of her again before she could turn the gun in his direction. She fired blindly.

The sound of the blast drove him backward.

She kept firing, but he was already through the door.

She heard him fleeing down the stairs as she staggered across the carpet, her bare feet crunching glass.

She stumbled into the head, grabbed a towel, and pressed it to her throat to stop the bleeding.

She had no intention of dying. Weakening, she made slowly for the bridge, and dialed 911.

But when the operator answered she discovered that her voice was lost somewhere in her lacerated throat. All that came out was a hideous animal croak. In horror she realized he'd cut the voice right out of her. She fought against her hysteria by telling herself he couldn't have severed anything vital or she'd have lost more than her voice.

With one hand clutching the towel to her throat, she took the safety cover off the DSC's red distress button, and pressed . . . then tried the panic button on the security panel. The security siren wailed in her ears, lights flashed, and she zigzagged drunkenly back to her cabin like a wounded animal returning to its den.

Stay alert, she ordered herself.

Help will come.

Just stay awake . . .