DANCING WITH THE ICE LADY. Ken Salter

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      I WOKE UP WITH A HEADACHE AND MILD HANGOVER. NOT the ideal way to start the day, but the memory of last night’s frolic in the back seat of my Impala was worth the price and more. After showering and loading up on strong coffee, toasted bagels slathered with butter and heaped with jam, I sat down to read the mortuary’s active litigation file.

      The complaint alleged negligent handling of a corpse. It claimed the Simmons Family Mortuary failed in a timely way to ship the body of a fifty-six year-old man named Johnnie Carpenter to Atlanta, Georgia where his relatives awaited its arrival for burial; they’d shipped it to Las Vegas, Nevada instead.

      Mr. Carpenter’s wife and daughter claimed the body had been shipped to the Lone Pine Mortuary in Las Vegas where it had been “improperly and negligently maintained so as to accelerate the decomposition of Mr. Carpenter’s remains.” They further alleged that the six-day delay to send their loved one to Atlanta, with no embalming, deprived the plaintiffs and their relatives the opportunity to bury the decedent in an open casket and delayed the funeral and burial. They contended that the sight and smell of their loved one in such a deplorable condition caused them “extreme emotional grief that should be compensated in an amount in excess of Twenty-Five Thousand Dollars.”

      The mortuary answered the complaint by denying “each and every allegation.” The mortuary was represented by the local Oakland law firm of Bronson and Bronson, a father and son team. Willard Bronson had served as Judge of the Superior Court, but had to resign his judgeship and return to private practice. There had been allegations of sweetheart investment deals with litigants and unprofessional leaks of information, He’d been pressured by members of the local bar to resign quietly and let the dirty business molder under the rug. It was either that or a grand jury investigation and complaint to the state bar association which could result in disbarment. Judge Bronson had served his stint on the bench long enough to solidify his social standing with the movers and shakers in the African-American community and pave the way for him and his son to mount a very lucrative law practice.

      Royce Bronson was a suave ladies’ man and cool cat who frequented the local late night club scene. He was the type of attorney I thought Gloria Simmons would choose to handle her business. I’d seen Royce on many occasions around the courthouse. He was tall, dark and handsome and knew it.

      I made a note to check out both Bronsons with my legal contacts. To my knowledge, Nate had never had any dealings with either the father or son. I hoped to get some feedback on whether the complaint against the mortuary was merely a nuisance suit designed to get a quick insurance settlement or really had some merit that warranted compensation.

      The complaint had been filed by a big-name San Francisco law firm. They wouldn’t give me the time of day. But if Jeff Banes could track the adjuster handling the claim, I might get an inside look at the claim records through Jeff’s good offices. Insurance pros will share info on a tit-for-tat basis.

      It was time to visit the mortuary. As I weaved through the afternoon traffic, I pondered whether Oakland would ever recover from the double whammy of the prolonged recession and the devastating effects of the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake. Many of the older brick buildings downtown were damaged so severely they remained boarded up. I’d heard through the grapevine that a lot of black merchants grumbled that members of the ever-expanding Chinese community were using Hong Kong money to buy the quake-damaged buildings at fire sale prices.

      My sister Tiffany claimed she’d heard of investors arriving from Hong Kong with suitcases stuffed with hundred dollar bills to invest in Bay Area real estate. As San Francisco real estate cost top dollar, smart investors gobbled up Oakland’s cheaper properties on spec. The cash might be buying title, but it wasn’t doing much rebuilding as far as I could see.

      Everywhere I looked, I saw only hard-luck black folks shuffling along in front of boarded up or heavily grilled storefronts. At each corner liquor store, young blacks with no work or prospects waited for a handout, a slug of “gorilla juice” from a malt liquor bottle in a brown-paper bag, or a mark to hit on. Things were not much improved when I arrived at the mortuary at Twenty-Second and Broadway.

      The Simmons Family Mortuary stood out from its surroundings primarily because it was nicely landscaped. It was a little oasis in a desert of early twentieth century wood, brick and stucco buildings. The mortuary was situated on a small rise of land and could have been mistaken for one of the many churches sprinkled through the neighborhood if its signs had not been so garish.

      The roof of the funeral home looked like a large A-frame structure. The row of French windows upstairs on the left side probably housed the administrative offices. The roof on the right side sloped into a covered breezeway to allow the mortuary’s fleet of Cadillac limos and hearses to turn around the building to pick up the casket and the decedent’s family from the side door of the chapel.

      I parked in the lot to the left near the crematorium and walked back to the front of the building and along the curved brick walkway leading to the front door. I had slipped on a tatty tweed jacket I keep in my car to upgrade my jeans, polo shirt and sneakers. I was wearing my darkest shades to hide my eyes and my role as an aggrieved relative I would play to learn how the mortuary operated.

      I was just about to pull the handle of the front door when it suddenly opened as if on command. The dude on the other side must have seen me coming. He was tall, coal-black and slick looking in his double-breasted sharkskin suit. His Fifties’-style threads must have set him back a bundle of C-notes. His designer shades were darker than mine.

      “My name’s Brother Thomas. What can we do for you in your time of sorrow, Little Brother?”

      His sudden appearance caught me off guard and I stammered something unintelligible while I stalled for time. My confusion didn’t seem to faze him. He must have been used to soft-pitching scared relatives in the midst of personal grief who were faced with funeral expenses they most likely couldn’t afford. Brother Thomas looked more like someone’s bodyguard than an undertaker.

      “Uh, it’s about my Auntie. She’s had a bad stroke and the doctor says she ain’t about to make it much longer. I gotta see about СКАЧАТЬ