Icarus

THIRTY-SIX

It was 11 a.m. and already feeling like a midsummer instead of late-spring morning. The air was warm and starting to buckle with humidity. Jack had had no more than five hours' sleep but he felt well rested and, unlike most of the New Yorkers who were already in a sweat-induced stupor, energetic. He was oblivious to the city's clamminess. He was oblivious to just about everything other than the fact that he was standing outside an elegant double town house on East Fifty-fourth Street, looking up at a tastefully engraved brass plaque on the front of the building that identified it as the Migliarini Funeral Home. Underneath that, in smaller engraved letters, it said: Joeva, Inc. The building blended in nicely with the rest of the ornate brownstones on the block. There were several foundations, one embassy, and a few private homes. This was a monied street and every penny showed on its surface. Jack was wearing a suit and tie now and he smoothed down the tie, straightened the front of his jacket, then buttoned the middle button. He gathered himself, went up the three steps to the funeral parlor in a surprisingly jaunty manner, and opened the front door.

He found himself in a subdued lobby. It all looked very… well, funereal. A receptionist eyed him, a look that conveyed her immediate condolences, then in a sympathetic and hushed tone asked if she could help.

"Yes," Jack said, matching her semiwhisper. "I'd like to see Eva Migliarini, please."

"Do you have an appointment?"

"No," Jack said. "But tell her I'll only take up five minutes of her time and it's very important."

"May I have your name, please? And may I tell her what it's about?"

"Jack…" He stopped himself suddenly. "Sorry. Tell her that Kid Demeter is here to see her." He fingered the painful lump on the back of his head and said, "I think she'll know what it's in reference to."

The receptionist picked up the phone and pressed an intercom button. In the same whispered tones, she passed along Jack's message and then waited for a response. It took a little longer than she expected so she gave a perfunctory smile to Jack while she waited. It was the look of someone who was used to smiling vacantly at grieving people. In a few moments, she nodded and murmured, "Yeah, okay," and hung up the phone. "Ms. Migliarini said she can see you in about fifteen minutes. She'll buzz up when she's ready." He thanked her politely, then she pointed to several chairs off in a corner and said, "Please have a seat. I'll let you know when she calls."

Jack sat facing the receptionist and realized he was nervous. He was tapping his foot on the black-and-white marble floor and the index finger of his right hand on the arm of the dark wood chair. He forced his foot to stay still and, to occupy his hand, he reached into a small bowl filled with matchbooks and pulled one out. The matches had a black cover with plain white lettering that simply said, "Joeva, Inc." For no particular reason, he put the book in his pants pocket, then did his best to bide his time and study the lobby.

It was all quite properly somber. Marble floors, two overly-elaborate Greek-style columns that looked as if they were holding up the ceiling but which, Jack was sure, were purely decorative rather than structural. There were five doors that led to other rooms. He assumed these were waiting rooms for groups of mourners. The walls were thick and soundproof because judging from the hearses waiting outside – Hearses! Those were the registered vehicles he'd seen on CylockHolmes, he was sure of it – there was at least one funeral in progress but he could not hear a word being spoken nor a note of music being played. Jack nervously fingered the matchbook in his pocket with his left hand and began tapping with his right again. Finally, he heard the receptionist's now familiar husky whisper carry across the room.

"She can see you now, Mr. Demeter. Just take the elevator down one flight."

Jack nodded and rose. He sauntered across the room to the elevators – there were two – and walked into the one on the left when it arrived. He took it down one flight, pressing the button labeled "B," and when it stopped he stepped out.

The elevator door closed behind him and Jack found himself in a long, sterile hallway. The floor was covered in a cold-gray industrial carpet; the walls were almost the same dirty gray. There were no arrows pointing him in any particular direction and the two doors that he could see did not look as if they'd lead to any kind of executive office. He thought perhaps he'd misheard the receptionist, that she'd said go up one flight, then he figured he'd at least walk to one end of the hallway and check it out. He made a right and got about ten steps from the elevator. That's when he realized that the receptionist had not made a mistake. She'd sent him where they wanted him to be sent.

At the end of the hallway, appearing from around the corner, was a man in a gray business suit. The color of his suit, as well as his complexion, so matched the color of the hall that he almost faded into the background. Jack was fairly certain that this was the man who'd hit him when he was in Kid's apartment the day before.

He turned around to see what was behind him and he was not at all surprised to see a second man in a gray suit, probably the other man he'd seen in the apartment. This man was much shorter and had a little bit of a tan but looked just as unpleasant. Both men moved slowly and steadily toward him and Jack realized he did not have a hell of a lot of options.

"Fuck me," he thought and he wasn't aware he'd said the words aloud until the first man, the taller one, said, "That's right, pal. Fuck you."

The little one got there first and before Jack could turn around, he was rabbit-punched in the small of the back. He moaned and started to twist to the side but the tall man grabbed him and threw a compact right to Jack's stomach. All the air went out of him and before he could either speak or move, they were on either side of him, they'd grabbed both his arms and shoved him through the first doorway Jack had seen when he stepped out of the elevator.

The room was dark and Jack was hunched over, trying to get his breath back. It wasn't until the smaller man flicked on the light that Jack could see where they were.

They were in a morgue.

Several dead bodies were laid out on stainless-steel tables. One was half dressed – a man wearing a shirt and suit jacket but no pants. Another had clearly not been touched yet; it was an old woman and she was clothed in a simple cotton nightgown that was bunched up around her waist. There were probably twenty drawers built into the wall that had the look of big, heavy filing cabinets. Jack did not particularly relish finding out what was being filed in them.

He looked up to speak to the taller man but he was not in much of a listening mood. The man slashed down with his fist and hit Jack a hard blow over his left eye. Jack again started to go down, but the smaller man held him up and wouldn't let him go. Jack felt a trickle of blood on his forehead, sliding down onto his cheek.

"Listen, pal," the taller man was saying. "Let's get this straight. It'll be a lot easier for all of us if you pay serious attention to what I'm saying, okay?"

Jack nodded but that didn't seem to satisfy them. The smaller man rabbit-punched Jack again. The stabbing pain in his kidney was almost unbearable; the heat ran up and down his body and he had a flashback to the hospital bed in Virginia, when the pain had taken over and he hadn't wanted to live. He started to sweat and began to keel over again but this time it was the taller man's turn to hold him up and prevent him from falling.

"I asked you a question," the taller man said, "but I didn't hear an answer."

"Okay," Jack breathed and he thought he would explode from the pain that came with just speaking. But then he thought: No. I won't give in to it. I can't give in. And he remembered Kid saying, when the pain was bad in one of their early sessions: It's not injury. It's just surprise. So that's what Jack concentrated on. He wasn't hurt. He was just surprised as hell. It was pain, but it was pain that wouldn't last. "Paying serious attention," he said as the tall man waited. "Paying attention."

"Okay, good. So here's the deal. You stop fuckin' around with anything that has to do with your friend from the apartment. You stop fuckin' around with anything that has to do with the person you're bothering here. I don't think we even have to say her name, do we?"

Jack shook his head but when he saw the man's fist draw back, he gasped, "No. Don't have to say her name."

"So it's pretty simple. The bottom line is you go home and you stop fuckin' around."

As punctuation, he threw a quick right to Jack's stomach. It could have been worse – Jack thought the guy's heart was no longer in it – but it still did some damage. Jack doubled over and he felt a tiny dribble of vomit escape from his mouth and stream down his chin.

"Do we understand each other?" the tall guy asked.

"Yes," Jack said and when he spoke, he felt the little guy behind him let go of his arms. Slowly, very slowly and gingerly, Jack straightened up. He was standing on his own now, bent over slightly, one hand on his stomach, one hand using the nearest stainless-steel slab, the one holding the old woman, to prop himself up. And again Jack thought: It's not injury. It's just surprise.

It's just surprise…

"Can I ask one question?" Jack managed to say.

"Okay. One question," the taller guy agreed. "You seem like a nice guy, so why the hell not?"

"Isn't embalming fluid extremely flammable?" Jack gasped.

"What?" the tall guy said. "What the fuck does that have to do with anything?"

Jack struggled to get his breath back. "I'll show you," he breathed out. And whirling to his left – they couldn't stop him, they didn't have a chance – he grabbed a glass bottle of embalming fluid that was sitting on the steel table. In the same motion, never slowing down, Jack finished his turn and smashed the bottle across the neck of the smaller man. Jack felt glass cut into his palm but he didn't even feel the sting. He saw blood spurt from the man's neck, but that didn't hold his attention either. The fluid flowed from the shattered container, drenching the man's jacket and shirt, and Jack, still moving, never stopping, had his left hand in his pants pocket. The little man staggered back one step and Jack used the extra room to raise his right elbow and jab it as hard as he could into the man's chin, which sent him back another foot. Then both of Jack's hands came together and as he finished his turn, he had a lit match in his hand.

"You motherfucker," the tall one said and took a step toward Jack. His eyes were incredulous but cold and Jack had no doubt that the man was absolutely capable of killing him without ever changing that expression.

"Don't move," Jack told him. He held the match out an inch closer to the little one. "Take one more step and I'll have no problem turning your friend into the biggest goddamn toasted marshmallow you ever saw."

The big man hesitated and Jack saw the liquid soaking into the smaller man's shirt now. He was drenched in the stuff.

"Ronnie, don't fuckin' move!" the little guy screamed. "I'm fuckin' covered in this shit!"

The match was almost out and Jack quickly lit another one before they could do a thing.

"Now," Jack said. "I want you to pay serious attention to what I'm saying, okay?" He moved the flame a fraction of an inch closer to the little man. "I didn't hear an answer to my question."

"You motherfucker," the tall guy said.

"Okay, close enough. You," he said to the big guy, "you're going to get Eva Migliarini and bring her to this room. If she's not here in five minutes, call the fuckin' fire department 'cause you're gonna need 'em to put out your friend's head."

The tall guy didn't say anything. He just narrowed his eyes, then nodded, turned, and left the room.

Jack turned to give his full attention to the smaller man, whose eyes were popping in terror.

"I think you cut my fuckin' artery," the smaller thug said. "Look at the fuckin' blood."

"Turn around," Jack told him.

"What?"

"Turn around."

The shorter man turned so his back was to Jack. Jack threw as hard a punch as he could into the man's kidney. The thug grunted and immediately dropped to his knees. Before he could make any kind of a movement, Jack had another lit match in his hand.

They stayed just like that for several more minutes. Jack heard the footsteps in the hallway before he saw anyone. Then the door to the morgue opened and a dark-haired woman wearing a short black dress and high heels strode in. She wore no jewelry except for a magnificent diamond wedding ring and an antique pink-gold woman's pocket watch, which she wore around her neck on a black silk string. Jack was startled by how attractive she was. When she walked into the room he could see the muscles in her legs ripple, just slightly, from the middle of her thighs all the way down to her calves. Her arms were tightly muscled, thin and elegant, her skin was deeply tanned but smooth and absolutely unlined. Her breasts were small but perfectly formed under the tight dress. Her eyes were almost coal black and they shimmered; there was a deep and compelling mystery to her eyes, as if they were their own separate universe. She looked to be in her late thirties but Jack knew from his reading she was almost a decade older than that. As he looked at her, he could hear Kid's words echoing in his head: They're almost perfect physical specimens. It's not only their looks. They're hungry. They want things. I don't know how else to describe it… their want is just overpowering.

He finally understood. She was overpowering. Five-foot-six, five-seven, tops. Her chest moving up and down just a little too rapidly, the only sign that she was anything but in absolute control. Her lips thin and a deep, mysterious red, her dark hair thick and tumbling down to her shoulders. Jack forced himself to look away, just for a moment, just to break the spell.

"Turn around again," he said to the hood who was still on his knees.

The guy swiveled around to face Jack, who lit one more match, touched it to the corner of the matchbook, and set the entire small packet on fire.

"Tell me something I'd like to hear," he said to Eva Migliarini, aka the Mortician. "And quickly."

She waited, just long enough so Jack thought, She wouldn't mind if I burned him. She might even like it. Then she smiled thinly and said, "May I buy you lunch, Mr. Keller?"

Jack nodded, looked at the cowering man on the floor, and blew out the small burst of flame that had just begun to warm the tips of his fingers.

"My pleasure," he said to the woman in the black dress.

– "-"-"THEY WENT TO Jo Jo's, a French bistro not too far away, but she had her driver take them. In the backseat of the limo, Eva Migliarini made no attempt at conversation. She sat – lounged, really – and looked out the window. Occasionally she would cross her legs, her dress shifting up past perfectly tanned midthigh. Once she leaned down to languorously scratch her ankle. As she did, the car hit a small bump and, off balance, she leaned against his shoulder for support. She did not look at him as their bodies touched and Jack felt suddenly claustrophobic. As if he were in too-close confines with a black widow spider, exquisitely beautiful but equally poisonous.

At the restaurant, the maitre d' was extremely solicitous. He knew Jack – the restaurant community is a small one and everyone in it knew Jack – but he also knew Eva and he treated her with great deference. Jack thought he treated her as if he knew who her husband was.

She waited until they were seated – she asked for upstairs, in a corner – and the waiter had come to take their order before she looked directly into Jack's eyes and said, "Before we discuss what it is you know, Mr. Keller, or what it is you think you know, may I ask you something on a more intimate level?" He nodded and she said, "May I call you Jack?"

He nodded again, thinking her voice was just as enticing as her appearance. And how she could indeed make such an innocent question uncomfortably intimate. "And do I call you Eva?"

"Eve. That's what my husband calls me. It's what Kid called me. He liked the sound of it. He thought it made me sound… tempting."

Sitting at the table with her, so close he could smell her – not just the faint trace of her not-too-sweet perfume but the odor of sexuality she exuded – Jack was even more aware of the extraordinary ferocity of this woman. There was something almost feral about her. Even sitting still she was like a wildcat, not quite caged but not quite free in the jungle either, and certainly always aware that people were watching her – and thinking about trying to capture her.

"So," she said. "Are you asking or telling?"

"Both, I think."

"Which comes first?"

"Telling."

She shifted slightly in her seat and her leg brushed up against Jack's. He did not think it was accidental. And he found the touch thrilling. It sent an electrical charge up and down his spine. This is insane, he thought. I've been around beautiful women before. Women who were more beautiful than this woman. Caroline was more beautiful than this woman…

But there's something about her. Something I've not ever seen before.

Eve is a fitting name. She seems more than capable of bringing the Garden of Eden down around her in ruins.

"You're Joe Migliarini's wife," he began. He wanted to talk so he could stop thinking about the way she was making him feel.

"'Joe,' is it?" Her lips had a slight smirk, although her voice was even. "Do you know him?"

"You can't run a restaurant in New York without knowing him," he said. "I wouldn't say we're close social acquaintances, but we've met."

"I'll send him your regards at dinner tonight."

"I didn't realize you were so involved in his businesses."

"Am I?" she said.

"Apparently. Not in the trucking or cement contracting, at least not that I could find. But you've got a hand in the linen supplies and you seem to run the mortuaries all by yourself. He turned them over to you about five years ago."

"Yes. They're quite profitable." Her lips moved just slightly now. The white of her teeth gleamed against the textured red. "I enjoy business. I'm good at it."

"I'd say very good. You're probably the most powerful woman in the history of organized crime."

"Oh, please," she said, but the protest, even the tone of annoyance, was by rote, there was no conviction behind it. "We're one hundred percent legitimate. I guarantee you my workday is a lot more boring than almost anyone's you know."

"Excuse me, I didn't mean to insult you. Those co-workers of yours I met today, what area are they in? Personnel? PR?"

Her legs moved again under the table. Again, they brushed against his and he had to catch his breath. "That was an aberration and I apologize for it. They tend to be a bit overprotective. But here's what I'll grant you, Jack, since you did get an unfortunate peek behind the scenes: I make a lot of money for my husband, and in areas that were previously overlooked. My business has an extraordinary cash flow, which is important for us. And with that kind of cash, I'm a bit more trustworthy than a lot of people my husband could have hired."

"Congratulations. You're the Martha Stewart of the burial biz."

"I do have to admit, there was also something about that particular business that appealed to me."

"Nice name. Grave Enterprises."

"Thank you. Most of the people in my husband's business don't have much of a sense of humor. I thought it was appropriate for the holding company."

"When Kid talked about you-"

"Kid told me he didn't talk about me."

"Not by name, exactly. He had a kind of code name. He referred to you as the Mortician."

"How charming." No surprise in those eyes. No emotion at all. "Are you here to tell me my own background, Jack, or is there something else?"

"There are a few other things. That I don't think your husband or anyone else would particularly appreciate hearing."

She said nothing, and the waiter returned then, put their food down in front of them. She had the good grace to take a bite and nod her approval before Jack continued.

"I know that you took Kid away on weekends. Palm Beach, Bermuda, a couple of times to St. Bart's. I'll bet if I look a little closer, I'll find out you have houses there. Or you own a hotel."

"We have a house in Palm Beach," she said. "It's hardly a secret. And we own a share of a golf club in Bermuda. Both Joe and I play. Are you a golfer?"

"No," Jack said.

"It's an excellent game. Unlike anything else because to be good you have to remove all tension. You can't allow any outside interference while you're on the course. It's best if you don't even let yourself think. It's wonderful discipline for off the course. Joe says it's very Zen-like. You should try it." She looked down at her plate as if she were going to take another bite, then changed her mind. "St. Bart's was just fun," she said. "A lark. He'd never been there. Joe was away. We went for two days and drank a lot of rum and got away from the miserable cold. I could sunbathe nude because the cottage I rented had a little private beach. You know what I remember most about those two days? The way Kid rubbed suntan lotion over my entire body. He was very gentle and methodical. It was incredibly sensual. What else do you have?"

Jack took a sip of mineral water and cleared his throat. "You bought the apartment on Duane three months ago," he continued, "and you gave it to Kid. Maybe not legally, but you had him move in. I don't know how many nights a week you stayed there; my guess is you mostly used it in the afternoons. I don't know if Joe knows about the apartment, maybe he does, but I'll bet he doesn't know what it was used for. Or at least he didn't until recently."

"Which means what?"

"Did he kill Kid when he found out?"

"That's a question. Are you through telling?"

"No. You moved Kid into the apartment – if I think about it, I'm sure I can even tell you the exact day. Then you started demanding more and more of his time. Why not, you were paying for it. But Kid didn't like it, so he told you he was ending the relationship. He told me he was going to. I think he told you the night he died."

"And then what? I lured him out to the balcony and, with my vanity crushed, I pushed him off?"

"Maybe."

"Which is it, Jack? Did I kill him or did my jealous husband?"

"I don't know. But I think one of you did."

She pulled a cigarette out of her purse, put it between her lips, and leaned over for Jack to light it. He could see her breasts rustle under her dress.

"Sorry," he said. "I used up all my matches."

She shrugged, reached into her purse, pulled out a lighter, and lit it herself. "Kid was my trainer," she said, after a deep inhale. "And in a lot of ways I was his. I know a lot about you. He told me what you did for him when he was younger. Well, I helped him when he was older. I cleaned him up, I dressed him, I showed him which fork to use. He was a very, very beautiful boy with extraordinary potential and he knew that what I could teach him was going to come in very handy. And I knew that what we had couldn't last forever. He was young and" – she made only the briefest hesitation – "I'm not as young."

"That's not quite the way he told the story."

"Men are vain. They always make themselves out to be the hero."

Jack wanted her to talk more now. He tried to remember what else Kid had told him about her. What he could use that might nettle and get under her skin. "I think you wanted to control him," he said. "And he wasn't someone you could control."

"Wasn't he?"

"No."

"There are very few things – or people – I can't control, Jack. It's one of my talents. In addition to being a good businesswoman."

"I saw another one of your talents," Jack said. "One I'm sure the police will be interested in."

"And what was that?"

"You're good with a knife. I saw the proof on Kid's arm."

Her eyes flashed angrily but the expression on her face didn't change. "I suspect you might not be so easy to control," she said.

"I think there are a lot of things you're not going to be able to control so easily now," he told her.

She put her cigarette down on her bread plate. Her lipstick ringed the end of it, soaking into the paper like traces of blood.

"Jack," she said. "I don't know what it is you're doing exactly. And I don't really care. But the police believe that Kid simply fell. Whether he jumped or it was an accident, it's a sad and tragic thing but it's what I believe, too. You'd be very smart to come around to the same belief."

"Or?"

"That wasn't a threat, Jack. Despite what you think you know, I'm not really all that threatening. All I meant was, or you'll be spending a lot of sleepless nights. You'll be trying to find something that has no answer. Don't forget," she said. "I'm in the death-and-dying business. I know a lot about it. I know that there's nothing quite so final or quite so still. And I know that death is a thing completely unto itself. It exists; that's its only importance and its only value. It comes, it comes for everybody, and it's not very concerned with why or how." She raised her hand, the subtlest of gestures, and the waiter scurried over with the check. Jack reached to take it but she waved him off. "On Grave Enterprises," she told him. As they reached the street, she took his hand, shook it, and let her hand linger in his. Again he was both unnerved and aroused by her highly charged touch. "Maybe we can have dinner some night," she said. "And talk about less depressing things."

"I believe Kid was killed," he told her.

"So I understand. But I still don't understand why."

"Because of the plans he was making for his future. Because drugs were found in his system and I don't believe he'd take them willingly. Because I knew him and I know how important life was to him."

"And if you're right? Then what?"

"Then I'm going to find out what happened."

Her hand was still in his. He felt her fingers move against his palm. "Let me steer you away from two very serious mistakes you could make," Eva Migliarini said. "One would be to involve my husband in any of this. That would be a very big mistake. But the other one would be even bigger. That would be if you make me angry." She leaned over and kissed him on the cheek. Her lips lingered just a second longer than necessary. They were warm and they sent a jolt of electricity through his entire body. "That's a threat, Jack."

He watched her step up into her car, saw her leg snake inside and disappear. He watched as the driver pulled away and the car turned at the next corner, moving out of view. He reached up and touched the spot on his cheek where her lips had touched him. He felt as if his skin had been seared. As if he'd been branded.

He rubbed the spot with two fingers of his right hand, then brought his hand down in front of his face. He looked at the small red smudge that had been transferred to his fingertips, and Jack understood that he had taken his first and mystifying step into Kid's unknown world.

What he didn't understand was the way he felt.

It was much the same sensation as during his initial workouts with Kid. It was painful. It was often unbearable.

But he liked it.