They had decided to keep the white Caddy out of sight in the garage until they were sure that no one was looking for it, so instead Panov took the Subaru hatchback he’d used on the grocery run. He took the Brooklyn–Battery Tunnel, traffic busy as usual, then headed north up FDR Drive straight to Kips Bay.
He got lucky with a parking spot not too far from the main entrance to the hospital, and inside followed the directions on the directory down to the basement, where the morgue was located.
A heavyset woman in jeans and a man’s white shirt was on the phone behind the reception desk when he walked in. No one else was present.
When she was finished, she hung up. “May I help you, sir?”
“My nephew had a horrible accident earlier today, and I think he was brought here.”
“Name of the decedent?” she asked.
Panov didn’t know the word. “Sorry?”
“Your dead nephew, what was his name?”
“Donni Imani.”
The woman entered something on her computer. “Donald.”
“Donni.”
She looked up with a smirk. “No Donni, only a Donald Imani, age nineteen, involved in a vehicle-pedestrian accident, extensive trauma.”
“He went by Donni, but that’s him.”
“Your name?”
“Tom Raven.” It was the name on his New Jersey driver’s license.
“ID?”
He took it out of his wallet and handed it over. She scanned it into the computer.
“Is that necessary?”
“You have a problem?” the woman asked, handing his license back.
Panov had had enough of her officious attitude. “Yes. My nephew was run over by a fucking garbage truck, and I want to claim his body. Do you have a problem with that?”
“The name of the funeral parlor?”
“I haven’t picked one yet.”
“Come back when you’ve decided,” the woman said. She did something else with her computer. “You can discuss it with his parents when they get here from Miami tomorrow. In any case, they have priority.”
Panov didn’t know what to say, except that he wanted to strangle the bitch.
“Will there be anything else, Mr. Raven?”
“Can I at least see the body?”
“That’ll be up to his parents.”
“For Christ fucking sake—”
“Do I need to call the police?”
Leonid was going to blow his top, and there was nothing he could do about it.
A man in a white lab coat walked in, glanced indifferently at them, and then went through the swinging doors into the back.
“Mr. Raven?” the woman said.
Panov turned and left.