The Death Box. J. Kerley A.

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СКАЧАТЬ perched on single legs. I hit the buzzer and heard the gate unlatch.

      I walked down the drive to his home, a combo of styles, Moorish Art Deco, I suppose, the Moorish displayed in two stories of textured stucco tinted yellow and topped with terracotta tiling, the Deco reflected in flamingo-themed grating over wide and manteled windows. The drive ended in a portico shading a blue 500-series Mercedes and a spiffy red Beamer convertible. The plate on the Merc said FUNRL 1, the Beamer’s said ZAZZI.

      The front door was iron-belted mahogany recessed within an arched vestibule, more Moor. Marble slabs framing the portal sported bas reliefs that echoed the Deco flamingos. The door opened as my hand reached for the iron handle. Instead of Dubois Burnside, I beheld a handsome black woman in a floor-length red gown with a décolleté my eyes did not follow to its conclusion because that would have been impolite. I judged the lady in her early forties, and she was not much shorter than my six feet.

      “You must be Mister Ryder. I’m Delita Matthews.”

      She extended her hand on a long and slender arm dressed in silver hoops. “Dubois will be with us in a minute. I told him to change into some decent clothes and not wear them saggy old pants. Every time I catch up to them pants I toss ’em in the trash.”

      “And every time I fish them out, baby,” Burnside said as he strolled into the room in threadbare cargo shorts beneath an extravagantly embroidered Mexican wedding shirt. His feet flapped in ancient huaraches.

      Delita aimed a long red fingernail at me like I was Exhibit A in a courtroom. “We got company.”

      “He ain’t company, he’s our neighbor.”

      The woman shot Burnside a raw glare but when she spun to me the eyes were Kahlua and cream. “You must be thirsty, Mr Ryder. May I get you a drink?”

      “Actually,” I said, pulling the bottle, “I brought this along. It’s supposed to be pretty fair and I thought—”

      “Hot damn,” Burnside said, plucking the bottle from my hand and squinting at the label. “This is thirty-year-old brandy.” He held the bottle up to Delita Matthews. “Company brings hoity-toity wine, girl, neighbors bring fine brandy. Grab us a couple tumblers.”

      “We have brandy snifters, Dubois.”

      “I wanna drink it, not slosh it around.”

      But snifters it was and I poured hefty tots for Burnside and myself, Miz Matthews demurring. “I’m meeting friends at the Saddle Club in a few minutes,” she said. “There’s an orchestra and dancing, but Dubois refuses to go.”

      “I boogie,” Burnside proclaimed. “I don’t cha-cha.”

      Miz Matthews sashayed across the floor to the door, opened it and started out. A second later she leaned back in. “You using them coasters ain’t you, Dubois?”

      “Baby, you got ’em covering the table from end to end,” Burnside called over his shoulder. “A man can’t set down his glass without landing on a coaster.”

      The door closed and Burnside took a sip of brandy. “I don’t know what this thing is I got for bossy-ass women, but I got it. Had four wives and ever’ one had a face like an angel and a thumb built for mashing me down.”

      The psychologist in me wanted to ask about his mother, the diplomat in me demurred. We shot the breeze for twenty minutes, Burnside providing the low-down on local bars and eateries. Talk inevitably drifted to occupations. “In my line of work I’ve seen some badly mangled bodies, Dubois,” I offered. “I’m always amazed when I see what a good mortician can do.”

      Burnside set his snifter on the table – between two coasters – and leaned forward. “Remember that scene in The Godfather, Sonny’s been shredded by machine guns and Marlon Brando tells the mortician to make Sonny presentable at the funeral? I been there, Carson.”

      “You knew Marlon Brando?”

      “Ha! I mean I’ve had to do reconstructions where the body was more putty and paint than person. A couple decades back two workers were on a catwalk at a paint company, standing above a huge mixing vat with these big steel propellers choppin’ through the paint. The catwalk tore from the wall and these two poor guys got dumped into the vat. Before the machine shut down the bodies got all busted up and mixed in together.”

      “Jesus,” I said, aghast.

      “You wouldn’t believe the time I had getting the deceased cleaned and arranged in whole bodies again. It was like doing a jigsaw puzzle with meat.”

      Pictures started to arrange in my mind. I saw bodies whirling in paint. Arms, legs, faces became a kaleidoscopic jumble as I set my glass down on one of a dozen coasters.

      “I gotta go, Dubois. I need to make a call. Give Delita my regards.”

      “You all right, Carson?” Burnside frowned. “You look like you’re seeing a ghost.”

      I blew out the door and dropped into a sprint with a gibbous moon lighting my way. I had to call Roy and have him set up a meeting first thing in the morning.

      Dance music pulsing from below, Orlando Orzibel sipped a mineral water and considered his escapade with Leala Rosales. He’d lost control, a bad thing. But the little bitch had it coming, talking to him like that. Before leaving he’d told the weeping girl to wash herself, rinse the sheet, and keep silent on the matter if she valued her mother’s life. The little whore would not talk.

      The cell phone buzzed from the glass table beside Orzibel. He snatched it up, checked the number, grinned and put the phone to his ear. “You must be finished with the business in the trunk, Chaks … Got that Ivy planted, right?”

      After a few seconds the grin inverted, his voice a tense whisper. “A tent? A fucking tent? Bulldozers? I figured that hole would stay hidden until Christ himself showed up.”

      Orzibel hung up and threw the phone to the couch. He went to his desk and retrieved a second phone, a burner, to be used and discarded. He dialed a number from memory.

      “It’s Orlando, Jefé. It seems we have a problem.”

       9

      Roy had set the meeting at eight a.m. Instead of the three promised members of the investigative crew there was only Valdez. Luckily, Delmara, Morningstar and Gershwin made the table look less empty.

      “Where’s Tatum and Canseco?” I asked Roy. “Degan?”

      “Turns out they had other commitments.”

      I gave him a look. He said, “They’re busy boys.”

      “I got a crime scene needs me,” Morningstar said, long and elegant fingers ticking colorless nails on the tabletop. Gershwin yawned in his tipped-back chair. Delmara sat a pen and pad in front of him and scratched his beak.

      “Dr Morningstar,” I said, laying out my case to the small audience, “would you outline the scope of the injuries you’ve been able to identify?”

      “Like I’ve said, I’m СКАЧАТЬ