12

Funerals. I go to way too many of these damn things.

Jack Dugan’s body lies in an oak coffin, the wood burnished to a high shine. Seems a little silly to me; it’s just going to get dirty in about thirty minutes anyway. But it’s all about appearances at funerals, especially open caskets: makeup is applied, hair is combed, fingernails are manicured. Even the most slovenly of shlubs—that guy who doesn’t bathe for weeks on end, or the woman who lets her hair grow into a rat’s nest of snags and brambles—gets to say hasta la vista to life in style.

They’re keeping Jack in guise, though, and it hurts a little to know that he’ll be bound up in his straps and clamps and fake human skin for eternity. Not that I expect him to notice. Noreen told me that the funeral director was concerned about the size and number of the bullet wounds, claiming that trying to cosmetically alter his normal dino appearance would be next to impossible. So they just grabbed one of Jack’s replacement guises from his bedroom closet and fastened it around his body. For that minor service alone, they charged two thousand dollars. Clearly, the reason you can’t take it with you is because the funeral directors can.

“He looks good,” Glenda whispers to me as we pass by the casket. She’s right, too—his face is serene, his cheeks high and bright. “Almost like he’s still alive.”

But he most certainly is not. I was there. I saw it all.

Jack was dead two seconds after he hit the ground. That’s what the doctors said, at least, and since I don’t relish the thought of my friend suffering, bleeding out in the parking lot of a 7-Eleven while we futilely scampered around his dying body, I prefer to accept the report at face value and leave it at that.

Seconds after the gunshots and the chaos, we pulled Jack’s body into the convenience store. With impressive speed and strength, Hagstrom ripped off his boss’s guise, the tough polysuit giving way at the seams, and was pumping on Jack’s chest with all his might, engaging in a furious bout of snout-to-snout resuscitation. But Jack was long gone by that point, frolicking in some mafia version of the Big Rock Candy Mountain where the cops take checks and all crime is neatly organized.

So it was while I was standing there, over my dead friend, fifteen years lost, five days found, forever lost once more, when I realized that it was time to come clean. Sort of.

It took me two hours to get around to it. Jack’s body had already been processed by a medical examiner on the family payroll and delivered to the funeral home; the rest of us sat in the penthouse, shell-shocked, staring at one another with dumbfounded looks on our faces while Hagstrom quietly made sure that the cops in his pocket cleaned up the scene and didn’t ask too many questions.

I was still caught up in the moment, replaying the scene in my mind. The car, the gun barrel, diving down, covering the two people in front of me, Glenda and Noreen—while leaving vulnerable the one I should have protected. Of course, if I’d jumped backwards instead of forwards, it might be me lying on a cold slab somewhere.

But the thing that’s really getting me was the bit that came next: Had Jack actually managed to step out of his wheelchair before collapsing to the pavement? It certainly seemed like his legs were supporting him for a good second or two, and, if that’s the case, does that mean he could always walk, or was it some last-breath spasm of super-strength? What would be the benefit in faking a serious illness like SMA? No one else seemed to mention it, and I didn’t think this was the right time to bring it up.

While Noreen wept openly for her brother, Hagstrom and BB had already gotten down to business. They were discussing the possible culprits, but given the circumstances and the method of execution, only two possibilities came to mind.

“It was Tallarico or it was Rubin. One of the two, no doubt.”

“Who’s Rubin?” I asked, and Hagstrom was too caught up to tell me to shut my yap.

“Compy family,” he says. “Ken Rubin. They’re the only other ones I can think of would pull out fucking . . . guns . . .” His mouth puckers with distaste. “But he’s got no reason to do it. We don’t deal with them. They got their rackets, we got ours.”

“So it’s Tallarico,” said BB. “That’s all that’s left.”

“Tallarico,” Hagstrom repeated. “Fucking Eddie Tallarico. And by now I’ll bet he’s got that compound locked down tight.”

That’s when I opened my mouth and blurted out, “I can get in there.”

“What? Where?”

“Tallarico’s place.”

Now I had their attention. The two of them turned toward me like a couple of desperate insurance salesmen with a hot prospect on the line. “Come again?”

“Eddie Tallarico. I can get into his place. I can find out who did this.”

BB wasn’t going for it. He wore his disbelief like perfume, the acrid stink of his sweat washing over me. “And how do you plan on doing this?”

“I know his brother,” I admitted, and here I knew I was treading along the edge of a very big pot of hot water. I had to pick my words carefully. “Frank. He’s from L.A. It’s a Raptor thing.”

Hagstrom took a step forward. “And you think that will get you in? If they did this thing to Jack—if they’re responsible—they’ll be triple-checking everyone who comes in the joint. How’re you gonna make it?”

“Leave that to me,” I told him. “I’ll take care of it.”

“And then what?” asked BB, still unconvinced. “You find out who pulled the job and off him, right there and then?”

“Uh-uh. That’s your domain. I just bring the guy to you.”

They huddled together for a moment, whispering to each other and glancing over every so often in my direction. I busied myself with staring at the carpet. The meeting continued.

Noreen wiped away her tears and raised her voice: “Let him do it.”

Hagstrom and BB didn’t flinch; they kept right on with their conversation. Noreen stood, and this time her voice carried the weight of her brother; for a moment, I could almost smell him again. “I said let him do it.”

I don’t know if Hagstrom had heard that timbre from his fiancée before, but it either frightened or greatly excited him, because he involuntarily stepped back a foot.

“I don’t think it’s a good idea.”

“He loved Jack,” she said, and sat back down on the sofa. “Let him do it.”

Strangely enough, the L-word was enough for Hagstrom. “Okay,” he said, clapping his hands together and drawing me into his circle. “Let’s hash this thing out.”

Now, at the funeral, Hagstrom and BB are just behind me in the viewing line, waiting to pay their respects to their deceased boss and his family. I don’t ask them what’s become of Chaz; if they want to tell me, they will. I’m hoping they won’t.

Off to one side, I notice Audrey, the older woman with whom Jack spent so much time, speaking softly into a cell phone. As usual, she’s smartly dressed, glasses perched perfectly on the edge of her nose, looking for all the world like that sweet little teacher everyone had in kindergarten, the kind they issue to every classroom before the school year begins.

Glenda and I move down the line, waiting for our audience with Pop and Noreen, who greet guests and accept condolences twenty feet away. Pop’s mask sags off his face, the false skin wrinkling even farther below his jowls. Makes him look ten years older, easy. Maybe that’s the kind of thing that happens when you’re too grief-stricken to apply the proper facial glue in the morning; maybe it’s just the kind of thing that happens when you lose a son.

Noreen’s wearing basic black, an austere number that nevertheless hugs her hips and conforms nicely to her human shape. She’s very Jackie O—grieving, but fashionable.

“So she’s in charge now?” Glenda asks me as we move along.

I nod. “Thought it would be Hagstrom, but Noreen’s pretty much running the show.”

“Makes sense,” says Glenda. “She’s the one giving orders around the house.”

Noreen had allowed Glenda to stay on in one of the suites in Jack’s penthouse. Glenda might not be safe outside their protection, Noreen reasoned, her being a Hadrosaur and, as of last night, a known crony of the Dugan crew. So it was all the free food and Infusion she could inhale, just so long as she kept quiet about it and didn’t make too much of a fuss.

“Treating you nice, are they?”

“It ain’t the Fountainebleau,” Glenda sniffs, “but it ain’t so bad.”

“Hey, it’s a hell of a lot cheaper than the Fountainebleau.”

“Oh yeah, it’s your basic Miami dream vacation,” Glenda drawls. “The special mafia package—two weeks holed up in a high-rise apartment, all you can eat and drink. Very popular down here.”

Pop barely notices as Glenda and I pay our respects. He’s off in some other world, and I can’t blame him. Part of me wants to come along for the ride.

As I approach Noreen, she reaches out with both hands to pull me close, and I hug her tightly. She’s beyond tears; the last two days have been full of them, I am sure, and perhaps it’s just chaste body-to-body contact that satisfies her now. She releases me, and I slowly pull away.

Glenda and Noreen go through a similar, if more impersonal, routine, and soon we’re out of the line and released into the audience, where we find a seat and wait for the service to start.

“You ever find out what they did with Chaz?” Glenda asks me.

“Don’t wanna know right now,” I explain. “It’s not my problem.”

Glenda shrugs. “Still, you delivered him—”

“Not my problem,” I repeat, barely believing the words myself. “I don’t want to get involved.”

“That’s a good one,” she laughs. “You’re a funny guy, Rubio.”

The service begins, and of course it’s full of all the usual crap I’ve heard before. How the deceased was a pillar of the community, how he was beloved by his friends, how he wanted to make the world a better place, and so forth. And maybe it’s all true. To hear his men tell it, Jack did give a sizable amount to charity, and clearly he valued his friends and family above all else, so it’s not like the minister’s lying to us. But just once I want to go to a funeral where they lay it on the line and accept the death for what it is: the end to a flawed life. When I finally go, I want no flowers and no flowery words. I just want someone to stand over my body and announce: Vincent Rubio is dead, and he hopes you all enjoy the free dessert—and then toss me into whatever hole is deemed big enough to fit my carcass.

But Jack has left no such instructions, and so we listen to some poems, a few tunes performed on the harp, and a stumbling speech by Hagstrom, who, though Jack’s closest confidant, isn’t exactly a Dr. King in the public-speaking department.

Halfway through the service, a low murmur splits the crowd, and Glenda pokes me in the side. “Now that takes a major set of balls,” she whispers.

Eddie Tallarico has entered the room. He moves like a drunken rhino, ambling slowly but quietly through the pews, his hips brushing the wooden benches, flanked by Sherman on one side and an unfamiliar Tallarico family member on the other. A long, black coat is draped across his spherical frame; this despite the near-record heat thrown off by the sun on this hot August afternoon.

“That cuts it,” I say. “The guy’s insane. Coming here after what he did.”

Glenda suppresses a laugh. “They’ll tear him apart.”

“No, not here they won’t. And he’s gotta have twenty guys waiting for him outside. This is just a show.”

The service continues, doesn’t miss a beat, but no one’s paying attention to the minister anymore. Tallarico is a magnet for attention, fifty pairs of eyes boring into his head. At one point, he motions to Sherman, who reaches into a bag and produces a slushie, just like the one Jack was drinking when it all came down. Tallarico takes a long drag on the straw, the sluuuurp momentarily drowning out the eulogy. The room fills with an electric charge, the intertwined scents of ten tons of furious reptile clogging the air.

As soon as it’s all over and the officiant bids us all to go in peace, Hagstrom and BB are out of their seats and surrounding Tallarico, ten other soldiers in tow. I duck out of sight, hiding behind Glenda’s flowing dress; it’s better that I’m not seen.

Tallarico pays no attention to the masses on either side. He speaks directly to Hagstrom, as if they’re the only two in the room. “Of course, my condolences. Now that that’s settled, perhaps we should speak about business.”

I’m fully convinced that Hagstrom’s about to answer in a manner that will sell at least ten more coffins for the funeral home, but before he can get a claw in, Noreen steps in front of her fiancé and into Eddie Tallarico’s face.

“If you want to talk, you talk to me.”

Tallarico’s cheeks ripple as his lips pull back into a grimace.

“You?”

Hagstrom pauses momentarily, then backs up a step, allowing Noreen to take her rightful place at the front of the Dugan family.

“That’s right,” she says. “And if we’re going to talk—and I promise you, Eddie, one of these days, we’ll talk—it’s going to be on my terms.”

Noreen stares Eddie down, and for a moment, the two of them are focused so intently on each other that I half expect them to fall into a deep, tender kiss. Eddie drops his gaze first, waving his people out of the room as he heads for the door. “You know where to find me,” he says. “And, again, my condolences.” With that, he disappears through the funeral home’s double doors and into the bright Miami day.

They’re all in a tizzy a moment after he leaves, roaring and growling about the nerve, about the disrespect, about how they’re going to rip him a new one. Most of it is idle talk, routine bravado performed by seasoned thespians—Olivier had nothing on these guys when it comes to high emotion.

Those in command appear calm. Noreen and Hagstrom are already huddled up as BB fields a call on his cell. I stand and approach the trio, but Noreen raises a finger, and I stay my ground.

She’s radiant, even amid the somber business of death, and it’s not so much her physical attributes that get me as the air of confidence Noreen is exuding. As if she stepped not only into Jack’s position, but also into his mind, instantly absorbing the command and presence that was once his alone.

And that breeze of mangoes, still so strong after all these years, has a new strain to it. Maybe I just never noticed it before, but I’d been intimate enough with Noreen to know every inch of her body and every nuance of her smell, and I’m convinced that this change is recent. A bit of lemongrass glides its way in and around her scent, just a pinch of flavoring, but enough to remind me that Jack will always be here, in one form or another.

BB flips his cell phone closed and approaches Noreen, whispers in her ear. She looks shocked for a moment, her nose tightening as if she’s trying to quell an itch, and then covers it. She whispers back, BB nods, and Noreen wags a finger in my direction.

“Are we going outside?” I ask.

“No,” says Noreen. “No interment. Jack didn’t even want a funeral service, but I couldn’t let him go without a few words.”

“We’re taking a drive,” Hagstrom says, standing and smoothing out his pants. “You wanna come along?”

I look to Noreen, who nods. “Guess I do,” I say. “Lemme get Glenda—”

BB steps in my way. “We’ll get someone to take her back to the apartment.”

There’s something about the way they’re treating me that reminds me—quite unpleasantly—of the way I spoke to Chaz the other night. As if getting in this car might not be optimal for my health. But I’ve thrown myself headlong into any number of nasty situations when intuition screamed at me to run like hell, and come out clean every time. Unless you count the broken legs. And the stitches. And the two subpoenas.

“Sounds great,” I chirp. “Which way to the car?”

Chaz’s severed head lies in the mud, undeniably separate from the rest of his body. I’ve never seen him out of guise before, so at first glance, I’m not sure who it is. Just another dinosaur noggin, snout aimed to the sky, no neck or torso to speak of. Small, deep slices along the flesh, each one precise, straight, professional. But I can still get a whiff, however slight, of human sweat, and that cinches it for me.

“That’s Chaz,” I say. “Half of him.”

“Good guess,” says Hagstrom. “But the test ain’t over yet.”

We’re standing in the middle of a muddy mangrove swamp, our pants and shoes covered in a thick Florida muck. We drove for a good hour from the funeral home, heading west along a wide suburban street. The houses soon gave way to thrift stores and auto body shops, then abruptly shifted into retail chain outlets. All of a sudden, the road widened to four lanes of traffic, and we were surrounded on all sides by condominiums and development complexes, boxed in by Chili’s and Outback Steakhouses and every mass-produced emporium I could think to name.

“This is where we’re going?” I asked, wedged into the car between Hagstrom and BB, Noreen up front, driving.

“This is Pembroke Pines,” Noreen called back.

“So what’s here?”

“Everything. Nothing. Pipe down.”

We continued our westerly path and soon popped through the corridor of suburbia and into a more rural environment. Here the houses and stores soon petered out, replaced by thin, winding mangrove trees and a strong smell of compost. Noreen parked in what looked to be an abandoned rec area, and we all trundled out of the car, setting off on foot, deeper into the muck. Three separate times on our walk out to this deserted section of the Everglades, I heard a sucking sound and looked down to find that my right shoe had been completely pulled off my foot by the fudgelike mud. The least they could have done was tell me to wear sneakers.

Noreen, Hagstrom, and BB stand over Chaz’s decapitated head like football players waiting for a huddle. I’m not sure if I’m supposed to get in there and draw up the next play or stand back and wait for my number to be called.

“Where’s his body?” I ask.

“Does it matter?”

“Not really,” I say. “It’s not like he’s complaining about it.”

Another moment of silence. Should I be saying something? “So what’d you get outta him?” I ask, figuring it to be as good a place as any to start.

“Quite a lot,” says Nelly.

“Really.”

“You’d be surprised,” he continues, “what a little persuasion can do. Jack was always squeamish about this sort of thing. But I think he would have understood, given the circumstances.”

I look back down to Chaz’s head, at the small cuts along his snout. Torture, no doubt, which explains the precise nature of the lines. A claw, perhaps; more likely something inanimate, like a scalpel or hunting knife. Which makes the ragged tear below the chin that much more confusing. If they were going to use tools on the rest of him, why be so rough with the decapitation process? It almost looks as if the other section of his body were chewed away.

“So he talked,” I say.

“And talked and talked and talked,” replies BB, and he and Hagstrom share a little smile. “Gave us his mother’s social security number, the names of girls he’d dated back in school . . . Yeah, I’d say he talked.”

“That’s great—”

“But it didn’t take long to get at the most important piece of information,” says Hagstrom, stepping through the mud, his feet squish-squish-squishing as he clomps over toward me.

“The mole.”

“That’s right,” Hagstrom replies. “The name of the guy in our organization who’s been telling secrets they shouldn’t. The guy who worked for Tallarico to set Jackie up.”

“Great,” I say, suddenly anxious at the way BB and Hagstrom have carefully flanked me, more so at the way Noreen has remained in the middle, silent, refusing to meet my gaze. “So what’d he say?”

“The name he gave us,” BB snarls, “was Vincent Rubio.”

Suddenly I’m down in the mud, flat on my back, Hagstrom’s knee on my chest, BB immobilizing my legs. I try to kick out, to get some purchase, but all I’m doing is kicking up a bucket of mud, probably upsetting eighteen different ecosystems in my attempt to get loose. Not that I care right now—I’d personally kill every last manatee if it meant I could work myself free.

“Lemme up,” I grunt.

“Funny,” says Hagstrom, “that’s what the other Raptor shithead said.”

Hagstrom doesn’t even bother releasing his glove—he just lets his claws slide out of their sockets, the sharp edges slicing through the latex skin. He waves a single razor in front of my face, the tip barely brushing the edge of my false nose.

“First thing I’ll do is cut off the guise, piece by piece,” he says, his voice calm, even, as if he’s reciting “The Road Not Taken”—

“And if I accidentally get a piece of your real flesh with it, well . . . whoops.”

The more I struggle, the more I find myself sinking down into the muck. There’s no use—they have all the leverage, and I have none. “Wait a second,” I say, trying to keep my mind clear, my thoughts rational. “Wait, wait—you’ve got this backwards—”

“Ain’t no backwards about it,” BB sneers. But I’m not aiming this at him; I’m hoping Noreen can hear me, twenty feet away. If I’ve got a chance, it’s going to come from her.

“Go through it,” I said. “Please, before we—before you start in. Go through it, bit by bit.”

Hagstrom sighs and glances at BB, who shakes his head emphatically. He wants to start in on the torture, and part of me can’t blame him. The other part of me wants to slap that part silly.

But Hagstrom’s got more brains than I gave him credit for. “Okay,” he says. “We got the guy out here, strapped him down, did our thing. BB pulled a few tricks outta his bag, and he gave you up.”

“Gave me up how?” I insist.

“Said you were the one. Doubling back on us.”

“Of course I am,” I tell them, and Hagstrom’s eyes blink in surprise.

“You are.”

“That was the plan, wasn’t it?”

I can feel a slight reduction in the tension on my arms and legs—they’re starting to groove to my explanation—but I stay put. Gotta be in a helpless position if they’re going to listen to the story.

“I went back there—to Tallarico’s—and I wormed my way in. Let ’em know I was part of their group, a Raptor to the core. Told ’em I would double myself out, give them information. So of course Chaz is gonna tell you I’m the one who’s playing both sides, ’cause I am. Only I’m doing it for you guys, not for them.”

I may have pushed it too far; BB weighs down on my legs again, and I can feel the mud begin to seep in through the nearly microscopic seams in my guise. Hagstrom places his claw to my throat once again and looks to Noreen, five yards away, for instructions. “Give the word.”

She’s silent, her eyes closed. Breathing deeply. I take this moment to apologize to any and all religions I may have ridiculed over the years, just to cover my bases.

“Noreen?” Hagstrom says again. “I need an answer.”

I watch her, standing immobile, dealing with whatever questions and doubts are popping up in her own mind, and I wonder: Will our prior relationship influence her decision? Will the fact that I abandoned her at a bus station on her eighteenth birthday spell my eventual doom?

“Let him up.” Three words, so sweet.

Hagstrom and BB step off and back and let me struggle out of the mud on my own. My clothes are filthy, and this guise is going to need a good dry cleaning soon, but for the moment, I’m just happy my lungs are continuing to fill with air.

“Thank you,” I say to Noreen. “For believing me.”

“I don’t believe you,” she says, and suddenly I’ve got Hagstrom and BB on my case again. She waves them away. “But I believe that you’re not the traitor. There’s something you’re not telling us, though.”

I try to grin. Mud sticks in my teeth. “Girl’s gotta have her secrets.”

Hagstrom paces as he thinks. Why don’t his shoes keep popping off like mine?

“Let me ask you this,” he says. “Why now? Why does all this go down all of a sudden when you drop into town? Seems to me if they had someone in the Dugan family ratting us out, they’d have done this a long time ago.”

It’s a frighteningly good question. I seem to have a predilection for winding up at the center of any number of shit-storms, but I have a feeling this won’t be the answer Nelly’s looking for.

“Only thing I can think of,” I say, “is that someone wanted it to look like I was involved. Like it all had to do with my appearance.”

“Why?”

I don’t have a good answer for this one, but the question goes to the top of my list.

“We’re done here,” says Noreen, as she bends down and wraps her fingers around Chaz’s naked head, digging into the firm, stiffened flesh. “Do something with this.” She tosses the head into Nelly’s arms and turns around, clomping through the Everglades mud on her way back to the rec area. “We’ll wait for you boys at the car. Vincent?”

I follow along at Noreen’s heels, alternately hating myself for acting like a poodle and massively relieved that I’m still alive enough to do so. Once we’re out of sight of Nelly and BB, I allow a little bit of comfort to bleed through.

“That was close,” I say. “I thought they were about to—”

“They were,” snaps Noreen, her jaw clenched. “And I should have let them.”

“What? But we discussed—”

She stops, throwing up a wave of mud as her foot stomps into the ground. “Every part of my brain tells me you should be alligator meat right now. Not one little bit of this adds up, Vincent, and I want you to know that.”

I nod. There’s no way to let her into my mind, to show her how I feel about those days we were together, and, even more so, the days we were apart. But I can try. “Is this the time we talk about the bus station?”

“No,” she says emphatically. “We never talk about the bus station.”

“Noreen—”

“No,” she repeats. “Unless you want me to tell those boys I’ve changed my mind.”

“What bus station?”

Noreen smiles tightly. When we get to the car, she turns and opens the door for me, an almost chivalrous gesture, like she’s just picked me up for a date at the malt shop. There’s no doubt now about who has the power in our relationship.

“Vincent,” she says, “I want you to know something. I’m trusting you because I think I know you well enough to do so. Because I know your scent almost as well as I know my own, and because I believe you would never purposely hurt Jack.

“You hurt me once, Vincent, probably worse than you’ll ever know. I’m over it now, and I’m a stronger person for it, but that doesn’t mean I can take a hit like that again. You used up your mulligan almost twenty years ago. If you betray me again—if you betray my family again, in any way—then the past won’t matter anymore.”

“I understand,” I tell her, and boy, do I. Because it’s not this new facet of Noreen’s personality that keeps me on high alert, this cool calculation and eye for battle that she’s inherited from her brother. What truly scares me is the most basic of elements: her femininity. There’s nothing more dangerous in the world than an injured female. Hurt a woman once, she licks her wounds and limps off into the woods. Hurt a woman twice, and suddenly she feels cornered. Nowhere left to run, nowhere left to hide, and no choice but to lash out at her enemies and take them all down with her.