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RATMEAT PULLED UP to the County Morgue. Everyone piled out except Starr.
“Sick of viewing dead bodies?” I asked.
He cackled from the bottom of his throat, a rough “Ha, ha, ha” that wasn’t particularly mirthful. His eyes were glassy with fatigue and his skin had a sickly pallor. I wanted to tell him it was his own damned fault for hooking up with me, but we were in this together, might as well see it to the end.
I offered him a hand. “C’mon, big guy. You can do this.”
The roll of his eyes was the last bit of humor he’d impart for a good long while. The least facial expression brought on waves of agony and tears that came unbidden to his eyes. He used my hand to unfold himself from the back seat. In broad daylight, his complexion appeared greenish against the deepening purple of his jaw.
“Maybe you should see a doctor.”
The line of his mouth tightened, his face blanched a shade lighter, and he shook his head, gingerly but decisively. He was more afraid of doctors than dead bodies.
In the morgue, the coroner kept us waiting. We loitered just outside the autopsy room, each of us idling away the time by pacing, our shoes striking up a timpani of clicks and clacks on the scuffed linoleum floor. One of our membership, though, decided to pull up a seat on the floor, lean against the wall, fold his fedora over his eyes, and take a snooze. Starr snored lightly.
The stink of formaldehyde and other noxious odors emanating from behind the double doors was impossible to disguise even with liberal applications of disinfectants, cleaning solutions, and bleach.
A morgue was a temple of death, the place where white-robed priests used scalpels and bone saws to dissect the human body before sending it to its permanent resting place. In a way, this was the purgatory of legend, where those who met with violent deaths awaited the final verdict. The wise guys were particularly sensitive to the implications. If they continued living a life of crime, odds were high they’d wind up on one of these stainless-steel slabs with a Y sawed into their chests and their skull caps removed for examination. Maybe this experience would be their awakening. Maybe they would set aside their guns and find regular jobs that required a punch clock. Maybe I was a romantic, after all. At the end of the day, we all had our crosses to bear.
To break the uncomfortable silence, I asked them, “Exactly who told you I was Monica Seagraves?”
“La donna paffuto con il cappello grande,” Centanni said, gesturing big boobs and a large hat.
I grinned.
He punched the heel of his hand to his forehead. “Stupido.”
Dressed in surgical gown and cap, the coroner came out to greet us. “We meet again, Miss Grenadine. Starr.” He regarded the others.
Elvis held out his hand. “Elvis Presley, sir. Rock ‘n’ roller.”
“Ratmeat ... Clarence ... Cominsky. And my associates Armand Centanni and Mickey Munson with IBM.”
The coroner shook away his puzzlement and said, “Right. If you’ll come with me.”
Starr whispered in my ear, “IBM?”
“Italian businessmen.”
In the autopsy room, the coroner rolled out a drawer and exposed the corpulent remains of one Johnny Kirk, city alderman and ex-mobster. His face was smooth, his jowls flaccid, his complexion chalky, and his mouth expressionless. He looked peaceful. His earthly woes were over. He’d never again torch up, knock back, or dream on. I almost felt sorry for the bastard. “Cause of death?” I asked.
“Like Byrnes and the girl,” the doc said with resignation. “A .38-caliber bullet. This one ripped a hole through the trachea. He choked to death.”
“Then it wasn’t a heart attack.”
“In the strictest sense, since his heart gave out due to lack of oxygen.” Since it didn’t look good for an alderman to buy it in a back alley behind a ritzy hotel, and because one murder with ties to the mayor was bad enough but two murders would have brought City Hall to its knees, the mayor must have clamped down on the press once again.
