He pulled off the highway and found a phone book at a grocery store. The only listing under Marvelle was for a Cassandra. A few minutes later Taki was standing in front of the address, a decaying mansion on a cliff overlooking Manhattan. The sign in front of the building read LORD GOD ALMIGHTY SALVATION CHAPEL AND FUNERAL PARLOR.
Taki was shown a seat next to an open coffin with a thin black man inside, very dead. After ten minutes an enormous and elderly black woman entered. Her bearing was regal. She was dressed in a black silk dress and held her head like a queen.
“I looking for Sergeant Marvelle,” said Taki, rising.
“Who wants to see him?”
“I old friend. Army buddy.”
“You don’t look like no army buddy I ever saw.”
“We friends in Japan. Nineteen hundred forty-six. Best buddies.”
“My brother been dead for six years. High blood pressure. I laid him out myse’f.”
Taki sat down and began to cry.
Miss Marvelle couldn’t believe her eyes. She finally calmed Taki down, took him upstairs to her living quarters, and had her cook, a feebleminded woman known only as Aunt Sally, fix him lunch.
They talked about Caesar and the funeral business through the afternoon and into the evening. Miss Marvelle was getting on in years. Lately she had been seriously thinking about finding someone young and energetic to help her out.
“You bein’ a friend of Caesar an’ all, mebbe I can trust you. You interested in learning the funeral business from the ground up? Can’t pay you much, but the job comes with room and board.”
The next day Miss Marvelle paid the Bonaducci brothers for the truckload of spoiled fish, and Taki moved his few belongings from the YMCA. Miss Marvelle was true to her word; Taki learned the business from the ground up—she started him out sweeping the floors.
EIGHT
“It’s a what?” gasped Lucy, holding a limp hand to her throat.
“Funeral parlor,” beamed Tak Wing.
“Neat ‘n’ Tidy?”
The little man nodded vigorously, his white teeth gleaming.
“New concept. No more embarrassing looking at dead body. No more big, expensive funeral. Cremation only. Cremation now fifteen percent of all funerals, up from three percent when I start. Be twenty-five percent within ten year. Growth industry.”
“Think of that,” said Lucy. But she wasn’t thinking of that. She was thinking of the chimney belching white smoke atop the gingerbread house. And her hotel bill.
“Neat ’n’ Tidy,” Wing continued enthusiastically. “One phone call, no worry.”
“For those who care but can’t be bothered?” said Lucy.
“That good,” beamed the little man. “You have talent for this.”
“Please don’t say that.”
“I inherit,” Wing continued, ignoring her. “Miz Marvelle. Kind lady, dear friend. She die five year ago.”
His broad smile suddenly disappeared and Lucy watched, astonished, as he wiped away a tear.
“Funeral used to be biggest expense in most people’s lifetime after house and car,” said Wing, wistfully. “But things change. Young people not want spend fortune on making corpse happy anymore, yes? Want everything fast. Fast, fast, fast. Cheap, also. Cheap, cheap, cheap.
“So I make business fast and cheap. I make like McDonald’s. ‘You deserve a funeral today.’ Call up Wing: station wagon come, take loved one away. Four hundred dollars, soup to nuts. Family have plenty of cash left to put new deck on house.”
“That’s really … fascinating,” said Lucy politely. Wing grinned cockily, adjusted his top hat, and folded his arms in front of him.
“Wing have the experience,” he said confidently. “Wing have the technology. Wing have the vision.”
Lucy herself had the distinct feeling that things were getting out of hand. Over and over she asked herself, “Do I really need a job this much?” The answer kept coming back—yes.
“Show facilities now,” said Wing, standing suddenly. “Come!” Lucy’s résumé fluttered from his lap to the floor. He had barely glanced at it, just marveled over and over, saying, “To think Harvard woman working for Wing.” Lucy felt like a snail about lying to him, but what choice did she have?
“Wing give tour,” the little man squealed, motioning wildly with his pudgy hands. “You see. Humble place of business. Very modern stuff.”
“No, really, you don’t have to … .”
“Come come!”
Reluctantly Lucy rose. Wing bowed at her. She bowed back. He bowed again. Lucy bowed. Wing bowed again. Lucy left it at that and followed him past the smiling punk receptionist and into the house.
After passing several empty offices they came to a large, homey room, lined with organ pipes and paneled in dark wood, where half a dozen women typed on computer keyboards.
“First floor used to be big profit center.” Wing sighed. “Four viewing rooms. Fond Farewell Chapel. Heavenly Rest casket showroom. All gone now. Administration only.”
“It looks very advanced.”
“Everything computerized.” He brightened, punching buttons on a vacant terminal. “Handle paperwork for all of chain here.”
“Chain?”
“Twenty Neat ’n’ Tidies in tri-state area,” he said, walking to the door. “Big expansion going on, you be very impressed.”
Lucy followed speechlessly.
Wing poked his head into several other offices, some empty, some full of efficient-looking men and women. All the rooms were wood-paneled and nicely carpeted. The house was the sort of place where one would expect to find an elderly aunt.
“Not that I really want to know,” Lucy finally said, unable to contain her curiosity. “but where are the bodies? This seems like just a nice old house.”
“Funeral operation totally separate. In basement. Customers brought down ramp, side of house,” said Wing proudly, his eyes twinkling. “Let’s go see.”
They proceeded down the center hall until they came to what looked like a closet. Wing opened the door and Lucy followed him into a tiny elevator, vaguely relieved that she didn’t have to go down a ramp.
“I live on second floor,” said Wing, pressing the button marked B. “Your room third floor. Private staircase. Very cheery.”
The elevator hummed noisily. In a minute a gentle clunk indicated that it had come to rest. Wing opened the door into another world: stark, white, antiseptic.
They were in a cavernous basement hall. It looked and smelled like a hospital. The lighting was fluorescent. Against the low ceiling were bundles of pipes, each a different size and color.
“This is more like what I expected,” said Lucy, looking at the pipes.
“Formaldehyde on tap,” said Wing, leaning over conspiratorily. Then he darted into a door to their right. Lucy shuddered and hastened after him. She found herself in a room with two stainless steel gurneys supporting man-sized black vinyl bags.
“Wing meet all state requirements,” he said, motioning at an empty table in the center of the room, proud as any owner of a modern noodle factory. Lucy’s eyes wandered to the drain in the middle of the floor and the curled-up garden hose. She wasn’t about to ask what the state requirements were. Wing was pointing to what looked like built-in file cabinets.
“Cold storage.”
Lucy nodded.
“New, high-efficiency, electric crematory ovens,” said Wing in the next room, motioning at two rows of small iron doors set into the wall. Lucy tried to look interested, or at least not sick.
“I call them ‘snappy retorts,’” he chortled. “A little funeral parlor humor. Ha ha?”
“Ha ha,” agreed Lucy.
They pushed through three more rooms. Wing introduced her to several nearly normal-looking people in white coats, held up shiny tools of his trade, poked into cupboards and cabinets, cracked what he obviously thought were jokes.
“Well,” said Lucy finally, “that was very impressive, Mr. Wing. About my
cab fare …”
“Please, please, Ms. Trelaine,” said the little man, leading her to another door, this one steel, which he unlocked with a key from his ring. “My triumph. Will change course of funeral industry. Please, please,” he begged, bouncing up and down, holding on to his top hat, which he apparently never took off.
“I don’t think I really need to see …”
Whatever argument Lucy intended to muster instantly became moot. Tak Wing had opened the door and was urging her in.
Beyond the metal door was a gray room dominated by a machine, a monstrous iron contraption covered with intricate wiring, intimidating valve mechanisms, several chambers of varying sizes, and four polished hydraulic arms leading to gigantic pistons.
“Latest invention,” said Wing, rubbing his hands together. He pulled a long lever. Lucy involuntarily took a step back.
Steam hissed out of a chamber, an engine revved up, governors spun. Slowly the piston arms began to move, then picked up speed, until finally it seemed like they were standing in a locomotive. Wing pressed a button and Lucy could hear the sounds of gears engaging. It was like a Frankenstein movie.
“What’s in here?” Lucy shouted above the din, pointing at a chamber the size of a small garbage can that had begun to rotate in front of them.
“Mrs. Hernandez!” hollered Tak Wing as he pulled another lever.
Without another word Lucy ran for the door. Wing ran after her, grabbing her arm.
“No worry! No worry! She already dead. Just ashes, no sweat. Come, come, come.”
He ran back to his machine. Lucy stood frozen at the door. She wanted out of here, out of Weehawken, out of the state. She also wanted to be reimbursed for her cab fare. Resignedly she walked back to Wing, who was fooling with levers. The noise was deafening. Suddenly he pressed a red button and the racket stopped, the engine ground to a halt, the pistons hissed and died.
“Come, I show you,” said Wing merrily and led her around the machine. There was a small chamber at the back, directly in line with the larger chamber, which had now stopped turning. This he opened and took out a polished gray cylinder a little longer than a flashlight battery, a little shorter than a stick of dynamite. He handed it to her.
Lucy examined the artifact cautiously. It was heavier than it looked, some kind of stone, almost like the granite or limestone facing on an office building.
“Mrs. Hernandez,” announced Tak Wing with obvious pride. “Final version.”
Lucy dropped the cylinder in shock. Mrs. Hernandez didn’t break.
“Compression is key,” Tak Wing said, picking up the cylinder. “Plus a little epoxy. No more messy ashes to spill on living-room rug. Beloved relative now rest peacefully on desk or coffee table.”
“Seems a little callous,” Lucy sputtered, “turning your family into paperweights.”
“Better turning them into flower beds?” Wing shrugged and walked to the other side of the room. He deposited the cylinder in a small lathe-like device, then tapped on a nearby computer keyboard. “Now for icing on cake.”
“There’s icing?”
Wing grinned. The contraption spun for a barely a minute. When it stopped, Wing opened the hatch and took out the gray cylinder. There was now an inscription lettered on its side in gold:
Mrs. Maria Hernandez
Rest in Peace
“Neat and tidy, you see?”
“I see,” said Lucy.
“So you want assistant to entrepreneur job?”
“Well, this …” said Lucy, nodding at the machinery, “ … this isn’t exactly what I look for in an entrepreneur.”
“Not waste you here. Job upstairs with me.”
“What exactly is this job?” she asked suspiciously.
“Thirty thousand dollars, plus good benefits. Medical plan with dental. Room and board. Growth opportunity.”
“I really don’t think—”
“Okay, thirty-one thousand dollars. You very persuasive. Harvard do good job.”
“Really, Mr. Wing …”
“Come, come. You see room now.”
Wing popped Mrs. Hernandez in his pocket and bowed.
“Your predecessor,” he said absentmindedly, patting his pocket and walking out the door. Lucy followed at a run.
NINE
Lucy sat next to Neal Bell, Tak Wing’s driver, in the front seat of the white Cadillac limousine—white being the funeral color in Japan. Neal was an older black man with a pencil-thin moustache and a voice like a pipe organ.
Lucy looked at her watch. It was 12:30. At least they were out of that horrible tunnel. It had seemed like all New Jersey was trying to get into Manhattan for lunch.
“It’s not much farther,” said Neal.
“That’s good.”
He had been talking the whole trip, pointing out landmarks, editorializing about the good old days. Lucy didn’t feel too much like talking.
“You’ll like Weehawken. It’s a real nice place.”
“I’m sure.”
“You know I worked for Miss Marvelle for ten years. That was the lady that owned the place before Taki. That’s what we call Mr. Wing. Taki. I used to drive the families to the cemeteries. No call for that anymore. Now we just send the ashes. COD.”
Lucy grunted, totally confused about what to do. At least Wing had given her a couple days to think it over.
The best thing about the offer, ironically, had nothing to do with the work. It was the suite of rooms she would be able to live in.
After the tour of the basement, Wing had taken her up a narrow, poorly lit staircase from the kitchen at the back of the house. The door at the top was a dark slab, like the entrance to a tomb. Wing opened the ancient lock with a key from his ring. Lucy was expecting a dusty garret at best. Instead she found a huge, clean space that the morning sun lit up like a lantern.
There were windows on all sides. The ceilings were the insides of the gabled roof—a maze of right angles, a three-dimensional crazy quilt. Every wall was a different size, the floor of each room a unique geometric shape. The pale patterned wallpaper might originally have been deep red. Washed with light, it was now the faintest pink, the tiny flowers barely visible.
There were four rooms in all: a large sitting room with a fireplace, a bedroom, a smaller room that had been fixed up as a study, and a huge bathroom with old-fashioned brass fixtures. It took Lucy a moment to realize that the blue picture on the ceiling above the tub was a portrait of the morning, framed in a skylight.
“When you start?” Wing had asked, bouncing up and down on the bed.
“I still don’t understand what the job is.”
“See? Lots of room for creativity. You help me run business. We team, like Yankees.”
“Don’t you want to interview anyone else?” Lucy was still too stunned to think straight.
“Why? Wing decisive guy. You Harvard woman. You enthusiastic—phone on Sunday. Have good sense of humor—laugh at my jokes. You pretty. I like you.”
“Look, Mr. Wing if you think …”
Wing hung his head.
“Please accept apologies. Wing no sexist pig. Meant only compliment. No funny stuff. Promise.”
He held up his right hand and made a crossing motion over his chest with his left.
“No dead bodies?” asked Lucy warily.
“Strictly management.”
“I might need to get into the city during the week sometimes … .”
“Hours flexible. Neat ‘n’ Tidy never sleep.”
“Well, I’m used to working for more money … .”
“Profit-sharing plan. Three weeks’ vacation. Room and board. Free cremation if you croak … .”
Lucy was surprised at how tempted she was. It would be great to have the sunny apartment and a salary while she looked for clues to her past. Wing had even reimbursed her for the cab. He seemed on the level and her hotel bill was only going to get higher. Still …
“What happened to Mrs. Hernandez?” Lucy as
ked as the car turned onto Fifty-seventh Street. Bell shrugged.
“Natural causes,” he said melodiously. “I guess.”
The limo was pulling up behind a parked tour bus in front of the hotel.
“What would you do if you were me, Mr. Bell?” Lucy asked sincerely.
The man raised an eyebrow and studied her for several seconds.
“Well, honey,” he said kindly, “I think I’d start by wiping the lipstick off my teeth.”
Lucy shrank an inch. Bell laughed. She got out and stood at the curb as he drove away, acknowledging his wave halfheartedly.
“God, give me a sign,” she murmured at the sky.
God didn’t answer, but the doorman gave her a strange look. Lucy turned and walked into the hotel, feeling uneasy, worried, confused.
The lobby was full of loud women who smelled like gardenias and men in peach-colored pants and white shoes. Lucy’s thoughts wandered involuntarily toward Neat ‘n’ Tidy. The marketing possibilities were endless.
“Why only gray paperweights?” she asked the empty elevator. “Why not pastel paperweights? Why not paperweights with holograms? Paperweights with American flags?”
The door opened on the seventh floor and Lucy got out.
“Don’t tell me I have a talent for the funeral business!” she muttered at the dimly lit hall as she walked toward her room. “I can’t lose my perspective about this. It’s just a job, just a way to earn money while I wait for Theresa Iatoni to come back.”
Lucy noticed that her door seemed to be ajar, but she automatically pushed it open. The scene didn’t register at first. Drawers were open, clothes littered the floor, the mattress was askew on the bed. Was she in the right room? No, those were her suitcases lying open on the floor, and that was her underwear scattered on the bed.
Suddenly Lucy understood. God had given her a sign all right. She’d been robbed.
“Any break-ins before?” said the cop, one of a pair of matching blue walruses Lucy mentally had tagged Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum.
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