The Embalmer: A Steve Jobz Thriller Read online

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  The Embalmer

  A Steve Jobz PI Thriller No. 1

  Vincent Zandri

  “A mortician can make a dead man look better than he ever did when he was alive . . . Only God knows the difference.”

  —Vance Havner

  “I wish it were possible, from this instance, to invent a method of embalming persons in such a manner that they may be recalled to life at any period, however distant.”

  —Benjamin Franklin

  Summer, 2016

  Albany, New York

  APD recorded testimony from Mr. Bryan Devane, 44, who is said to have accidentally come upon the third victim in what the media has coined “The Mortician Murders”:

  “Man, you should have seen her eyes.

  “The eyes were wide open and blue, and I swear to Christ, they were still alive. Like they were looking right at me. I mean directly at me. Looking at me so intense-like, and with . . . what’s the word I’m going for here . . . conviction.

  “Yeah, that’s it—conviction.

  “They were looking at me with such conviction that I actually stopped my jog. I mean, I just came to a grinding halt, mid-stride.

  “I turned to her and smiled because she was . . . okay, this is gonna sound weird and all, but she was really very attractive. I’m a single guy, and just because I’m smiling right now and red-faced, doesn’t mean I’m some sort of sicko. I mean, how was I to know she was dead at that point?

  “Anyway, she was smiling at me, and the smile was enough to get me to stop running, which is a miracle in itself because once I get going—once I get these old bones and joints moving—it’s tough to get me to stop. Plus, I’m on the clock, and I got to be at work by nine, like every other working stiff in the city.

  “I stopped, and I said a kind of breathless, ‘Hello,’ to her. And then, because I couldn’t think of anything else to say, I just said, ‘Can I help you?’ I’m laughing, not because I think the situation is the least bit funny, but because, can you imagine what a dolt I must have looked like, stopping my jog to say hello and can I help you? Luckily, she was dead, or I would have been really embarrassed . . . Errr, you can scratch that last comment, right? The part about it being lucky and all.

  “Okay, I’ll just continue . . . So, I asked if I could help her and naturally, she didn’t respond. But up until that point . . . until I moved in closer, I didn’t suspect anything was wrong with her. I mean, she was stone stiff and no longer looking into my eyes, but instead, staring off into the distance. Not that there was anything much to look at. She didn’t respond to me at all or move. But even then, I didn’t think twice about it. I just assumed she was caught up in one of those stares that happen to people, even healthy normal people, you know . . . before they finish their first cup of coffee, for instance. My own mother was like that. She woke up every morning with this thousand-mile stare that wouldn’t go away until at least her third cup of Maxwell House and her second cigarette.

  “Anyway, when she didn’t respond, I said, ‘Hello,’ again. Louder this time. I could make out the occasional jogger behind me, running past. But by then, my entire world revolved around this strange woman. I sat down beside her, patted her knee . . . I’m like that. There’s good touch, and there’s bad touch. But I like to make good touch. Nice touch. But she wouldn’t respond. I think it was then that I made the sudden transition from Happy-that-a-hot-woman-took-notice-of-me to outright There’s-a-disturbance-in-the-force-Luke.

  “I patted her knee again. Harder this time. Again, she didn’t respond. Not in the least. ‘Lady,’ I said, ‘you all right?’ But she just continued staring off into the distance. That’s when I lifted my hand, pressed my fingers against her face. I jerked them back right away, repulsed by what I felt. The skin was cold. It was also stiff, almost tight, like a body of wax.

  “What the hell can I say?

  “An electric charge filled my body, caused me to pull back. The little bit of breakfast I had before jogging—some fresh squeezed OJ and plain wheat toast—came back up on me, and I hurled right there between my knees. Because I knew it then . . . I fucking knew she was dead and that she had either died right there on the spot or worse, someone had killed her and placed her there, seated her on the bench, her eyes wide open, her hair perfect.

  “Did I have any clue that she’d been embalmed? Not the slightest. Or what I mean is, now it all makes sense. Why her eyes were open and alive. Why her skin looked alive, at least initially, why her hair appeared to be blowing in the breeze. Why she was so put together.

  “But my God, who could do such a thing to her? Such a sweet young woman. She had her whole life ahead of her. Who would even think of embalming someone while they were still alive? Some sort of sicko, that’s who. Someone who doesn’t appreciate the sanctity of life. Or . . .

  “Or what, you ask?

  “I don’t know, maybe whoever did this to her hated himself. But I will say this. It was creative what he did. I mean, he was designing her death. The way she died was unique all right, but sick too. Maybe embalming that lady while she was still alive was just his way of torturing himself.”

  “Jobz, get your ass in here, now! You got a visitor waitin’ on you!”

  That would be the loud mouth of Henrietta Hancock, my boss at the state campus Unemployment Insurance Fraud Investigations Agency or what we lovingly refer to as the Insurance Fraud Agency. That’s Hancock, as in John Hancock, the guy who supposedly was the first to sign the Declaration of Independence. The guy with the steel balls who wrote his name so big and obnoxious in the center of the page, you couldn’t miss him.

  Henrietta—or Henry, as we like to call her—probably doesn’t resemble the real John Hancock in any which way, shape, or form, seeing as she’s a large African American woman
who is prone to wearing bright, eye-stinging colors on the worst of mornings, but she can be just as obnoxious and loud. Like she happens to be on this Monday morning when I haven’t even begun to properly nurse my hangover with black coffee and Advil.

  My name is Jobz.

  Steve Jobz.

  I live inside a four-foot-by-four-foot cubicle, forty-five hours per week. A cubicle housed within an airplane hangar of a floor that contains maybe two hundred identical cubicles with poor assholes just like me who also live and work in them for forty hours per week, lamenting every minute of it. But hey, we work for the state, and even though the job pays just enough to keep us living slightly above the lower middle-class level, it comes with all the security you might demand from a government job.

  But then, other than the security, there’s not much more to be said about it. Unless that is, you’re the type who enjoys boredom so extreme and so constant that you sometimes find yourself wanting to get up from your chair, go to the roof, and stand on the edge of the parapet. Not with the intent to jump off, but instead, just to attract some attention. To watch the crowds that gather below you. To hear the whine of the cop car sirens and firetrucks. To see the big red engine stop directly below you as the hook and ladder is extended as high as it can possibly go. To get the freakin’ blood flowing again.

  But wait . . . the ladder can’t possibly reach the top of the parapet. In fact, it’s far too short. You take another step forward, and the crowd below lets loose with a collective gasp. Then another small step forward so that the only thing separating you from falling to your brain-spattering death is the heels on your twenty-year-old, black, lace-up Florsheims which are planted on the tin parapet. Some kind soul yells, “Don’t do it, Jobz!” But then somebody else—an asshole—shouts, “Jump! Jump!” And someone far more evil barks, “Jobz . . . Steve freakin’ Jobz . . . Get your ass into my office right now, or I start feeling a pink slip bowel movement comin’ on.”

  Shake my head . . . Back to reality. If that’s what you call it.

  “Coming, Boss,” I say. “Hold your water.”

  “Now that’s a sexist comment if ever there was one, Jobz,” she yells from her office a few feet away from my cubicle . . . so close I can hear her when she’s on the phone, when she’s eating a candy bar, when she’s humming the tune to some rap trash, when she farts. “I can have you written up for that shit.”

  “All apologies, Boss,” I say, my eyes now focusing on my computer screen and the thousands of blood-sucking-on-the-dole state unemployment collectors who are suspected of gaming the system. More on that in the latter portion of our program. “Won’t happen again, Boss.”

  So, you heard me correctly the first time.

  My name is Steve Jobz.

  That’s my full name . . . No middle name, as if my mother either didn’t have the time or didn’t think I’d be worth the bother. But I know what you’re thinking. Hey, isn’t Steve Jobz that unbelievably wealthy, unbelievably intelligent, unbelievably groundbreaking, life changing, mind blowing, TED Talking technology maverick who literally changed the lives of every single solitary soul on the planet by having invented the personal computer and the smartphone?

  Well, yes and no.

  Yes, in that the name sounds the same, but no in that mine is spelled with a Z on the end instead of an S. You know, Z, as in last in line at the Golden Corral Buffet when there’s no more all-you-can-eat-shrimp left. Anyway, having my name doesn’t come without its perks since it usually elicits a smile or two when I meet someone for the first time. But mostly, it’s turned out to be a curse. What I mean is, if my name were Paul McCartney for instance, people would naturally forgive me if I couldn’t carry a tune or write songs like the Beatles. It would be kinda cool just to have the same name.

  But it’s different with a name like Steve Jobz.

  Because when people hear that name, they automatically think: cash. Lots of cash. More money than God cash. They think intelligence, bravery, and balls (bigger than John Hancock’s even). They think mover-and-shaker. They want to be in awe of you. They see someone they wanna be.

  But instead, they see something that’s as far from the Steve Jobs they have known or loved as the Pope is from Marylyn Manson, and they just give you a confused look. Then, when it hits them suddenly that the real Steve Jobs’ life was robbed from him at such an early age by a horrible disease like cancer, they begin to gaze upon you with actual contempt. As if a man like me, living the life I live, doing the job I do, in the city where it exists, isn’t even deserving of sharing the same phonetic sequence.

  Like I have a fucking choice in the matter.

  Sure, I could change my name, but somehow that seems dishonest, and anyone who’s ever worked for the State of New York knows precisely the bureaucratic, red-tape-heavy, time-consuming difficulty that’s involved with changing one’s name. Okay, yeah, I’ve tried and failed to change it on two separate occasions. Satisfied?

  But then, who can blame me?

  “Jobz,” the voice booms once more. “I’m gonna give you three seconds before I lift my sweet booty out of this chair and come drag you in here myself.”

  “Come on, Jobz,” someone speaks up from another cubicle. A little chubby Chinese American by the name of Lu. “This entire exchange is giving me a headache. Get up, and go into Henry’s office already.”

  I remove my headset, push out my chair, stand with all the enthusiasm of a condemned man about to walk the plank over a shark-filled sea. Back when I was a cop for a brief period, I didn’t spend much time getting chewed out in my boss’s office. I only got chewed out once and once was all it took since I was being fired while being chewed out. Which meant that after I had placed my service weapon and badge onto his desk, I had no problem flipping him off. What the hell did I have to lose after all?

  This one would be different, however. You work for a state agency, you pretty much don’t get fired. Even if you do a pathetically bad job at hunting down Unemployment Insurance abusers like I do. Technically speaking, we have monthly quotas that must be maintained. But I rarely make them. It’s not a lack of talent for the job, it’s more a lack of enthusiasm. Imagine, a man named Steve Jobz showing no enthusiasm for his work?

  I run my hands through my hair. What’s left of it. Push my glasses up the crown of my nose. Straighten my mustard and ketchup-stained tie. Head across the narrow corridor created between the cubicles and the real offices on the opposite side. The vassals and the land owners. I stand inside the open door of Henrietta’s office, knock on the door.

  “You don’t have to knock, Jobz,” she says from behind her wooden desk. “I been calling your skinny white ass for thirty minutes now.”

  I step inside, sit down in one of the two chairs set up before her desk.

  “You just called me a minute ago,” I say. “One . . . minute.”

  She looks at me with that round, annoyed face, her thick black hair pulled back tightly into a bun, her bright red pullover shirt so tight against her water-melon-large bosom that I fear it might explode and shatter my eyeglasses like a suddenly triggered set of automotive airbags. Okay, I’m mixing my metaphors again. But then, unless you’re an editor, I don’t really give a shit.

  I’ve been in her office for almost a full minute already, and in that time, her big eyes—eyes that remind me of one of those fat rubber dolls you squeeze in the middle to make their eyes bulge out—haven’t blinked even once. I’m wondering if she’s human.

  “Just say it, Jobz,” she says, breaking the ice-like silence. “Go ahead. Just say it.”

  “Say what?”

  “What’s on your mind. That you don’t like taking orders from a woman, and a fat black woman at that.”

  My throat constricts, my blood turns to ice.

  “I haven’t said a word, Henry.”

  She pokes the side of her head with a meaty index finger armed with a bright red stiletto fingernail.

  “Yeah, but you thinking it. I can read that
mind like the newspaper, believe me. I should bust you right now for racism. The whole story be on MSNBC in a New York minute . . . Al fucking Sharpton, baby.”

  Okay, pause the tape for quick a second.

  Here’s the deal: Henrietta, or Henry, is actually a pretty nice lady, and all around good people to share a few drinks with. Why she feels she has to put on a show for the rest of the office is either a way for her to maintain control, or simply a means for self-amusement. I’m guessing the latter is closer to the truth. Yup, that’s right, it’s all one big juicy act.

  Right, resume tape.

  “You done yet, Henry?” I say. “Because if you are, I’d like to get back to my cubicle and hating my life for the remaining seven hours in the working day.”

  She leans into her desk.

  “Why you so sensitive today, bitch?” she says, her voice has gone from eleven to somewhere around three. “I’m only busting your skinny white butt cheeks because it’s fun. What’s so unusual about that?”

  “They’re not skinny. I take great offense to that. So, who’s the racist now, beyotch?” When I say ‘beyotch’, I do this faux twisting of my torso and wind-milling of my arms, like I’m Whoopi Goldberg taking down some right winger on The View.

  “Such insubordination,” she says with a shake of her head. “Tell you what, you buy the first round later at Lanie’s Bar and I’ll maybe try and forgive you.”

  “Gee, now I feel relieved. I guess I can put all that chronic depression behind me.”

  “You do realize, Jobz, those lemmings out there depend on me as the captain of their ship. Imagine they find out I’m a Republican?”

  My phone vibrates inside my jacket pocket. I pull it out, gaze at the screen. It reads, “One missed call.” The name on the caller ID is Mom.” There’s a symbol that looks like a telephone handset indicating that she’s left a message. Jesus H, she can’t remember my name anymore, but somehow, she still knows my phone number.