Glitz

8

THE OLD MAN, MR. BERTOIA, said to Vincent, no, it didn’t have to be closed. He breathed and sighed through his nose. He said, the poor girl. Fifty years on Oriental Avenue, it broke his heart every time, see a young girl like this taken from us. He said, yes, of course it should be open, glancing at his middle-aged son. Friends, love ones, they want to see the departed, they don’t want to look at the coffin.

The younger Mr. Bertoia said it wasn’t a coffin, it was a casket. Saying this to his father in front of Vincent. The terrain of the old man’s face was weathered and creased; Vincent thought of him as a stonemason or a mountain guide, a man who spent his life outdoors. The son was balding, sallow; he stood with his hands behind him in the pose of a minor official, always right, the assistant principal whose literal mind lies in wait. He made his statement now, saying, “Let me remind you, the pelvis, the spine, the hips, you could say they were pulverized. You could say she literally broke every bone in her body.”

The old man said, “Yes, but her face is good.”

“Her face is, well, it’s okay.” The younger Mr. Bertoia shrugged. “You could show it. The rest of her though, I wouldn’t show to her worst enemy.”

The old man’s eyes flared and he whipped his son with a burst of words in Italian.

The younger Mr. Bertoia straightened. “I’m only trying to explain the condition of the deceased. You want me to fill her out? Fine. I’ll pad her, make up her face for viewing. But it’s going to take some work, and it isn’t specified in the contract.”

“This gentleman,” the old man said, “is requesting this. You don’t understand it?”

“Fine. I’m only saying we have a contract,” the younger Mr. Bertoia said, “and the girl that brought her in is paying the bill.” He thought for a moment and said, “Linda Moon. If that’s her real name. She still owes us money.”

Vincent said, “You think you can get it open today?”

The old man said, “Sure, of course. Right now.”

But the younger Mr. Bertoia didn’t move. “The appearance of the deceased is only one consideration. There’s also the cost. This person Linda Moon signed a contract for our minimum plan, including cremation. She has not yet selected an urn.” He looked at the bare casket made of wood-grained, high-gloss plastic shining in fluorescent light. “What she’s getting is exactly what she hasn’t paid for yet.”

Vincent listened, aware of the casket, the worn linoleum floor, the empty rows of metal folding chairs, the closed venetian blinds. It was cold in the room. He motioned to the younger Mr. Bertoia to follow him as he turned to the door. The younger Mr. Bertoia said, “Yeah? What is it you want?” and Vincent motioned to him again, finally bringing him out to the hall to stand between gold-framed paintings of the Good Shepherd on one side and the Sacred Heart of Jesus on the other. Over the younger Mr. Bertoia’s shoulder Vincent could see the old man watching from the doorway to the parlor, where Iris waited in that plastic box.

Vincent said to the younger Mr. Bertoia, “Nothing’s free, is it? Anything you have to do I expect to pay for. Anything that’s owed you I’ll take care of that too. I’ll give you a check before I leave. But right now, what I’d like you to do if you would please, is go in there and open the fucking coffin. You think you could do that for me?”

Vincent looked at the Inlet neighborhood through venetian blinds, at old frame houses and empty lots, telephone poles standing alone on streets named after states and oceans. He saw homes that looked like barns with bay windows and dormers stuck on, built in a time when tourists came here in the summer and the Inlet offered rooms only a few blocks from the ocean. Step up on the Boardwalk right here and stroll down-beach for miles-the old man told Vincent, standing behind him. To Vincent the area looked as though it had been fought over in a war, house to house, and half the people had packed up and left. See? Way over there, look down the telephone poles. Those are the casinos, the old man said. Hotels with a thousand rooms and a casino you could play football inside if it didn’t have a ceiling. Glass ceiling where they watch you you don’t cheat. Towering shapes against the gray sky. Six P.M. near the end of March, overcast today, a high of 47 predicted. The casinos would be here soon, Mr. Bertoia said. They would force him to sell. They don’t want a funeral home next to a casino. His son was going to Linwood, live in a colonial house. Mr. Bertoia didn’t know where he would go. Nine, ten, eleven, twelve now, they were coming this way.

The invasion of the casino monsters, Vincent thought.

The younger Mr. Bertoia, his French cuffs turned up, said he was finished and walked out of the room. Then the old man left and Vincent was alone with Iris.

A girl they said was Iris. The face in the casket bore a resemblance to a face he remembered, but this one was a coloring book face. The younger Mr. Bertoia had colored in reds and pinks, purple around the closed eyes, not going out of the lines but bearing down to color an Iris cartoon. For a moment it was in Vincent’s mind to color the younger Mr. Bertoia. Paint him chalk white, draw black eyelashes on him, round red circles on his cheeks and a clown mouth, make the little son of a bitch smile. This couldn’t be Iris. The Iris he knew was alive…

Except that the police Summary Report form stated in black ballpoint she was found at 1:10 A.M. in a condition that indicated no apparent signs of life. The Atlantic County Major Crime Squad’s summary said dead on arrival at Shores Memorial, Somers Point, and the medical examiner’s report confirmed it. She was dead, all right.

You can’t go off the top floor of a high-rise condominium, hit the pavement from 18 stories up and be anything but dead.

Vincent still had his suitcase with him. A raincoat over Florida clothes. San Juan to Tampa-St. Pete to the Atlantic City airport and a taxi to Northfield, New Jersey-“offshore” they called it, inland from Atlantic City on Absecon Island-to the county facilities in Northfield where the Major Crime Squad was expecting him. Waiting to look him over, ask him questions. Vincent could feel it when he walked in. They were patient, the way cops can be patient. Courteous, too. Vincent knew what they were doing, but didn’t know why.

Until a captain named Dixie Davies said, “A girl dies with a man’s name and address written on an envelope that’s stuck in her panties, we want to have a talk with him.”

Lorendo Paz hadn’t said anything about a note.

“No, we asked Puerto Rico not to mention it,” Dixie said. “They told us about you and we checked you out. Still, if you hadn’t come we would’ve invited you.”

They showed it to him, his name and San Juan address, the Carmen Apartments, on a plain white number ten envelope that was creased and bloodstained.

“Folded twice in her panties. Which is all she was wearing at the time.”

“Iris wrote it,” Vincent said. “I’m pretty sure.”

“That was our guess,” Dixie said. “But why would she keep it in her panties?”

“I don’t know,” Vincent said.

“She trying to tell us something? Get a cop?”

“I doubt it.”

“She have any friends here, from Puerto Rico?”

“Not that I know of.”

“Shit, I was hoping you’d open the door for us,” Dixie said.

What happened in Northfield-Vincent had the feeling it was Dixie Davies who opened a door. A few minutes with the guy, just the two of them cop to cop in a pale-green interrogation room away from phones, Vincent was back on familiar ground. He could relax with this guy, the Major Crime Squad’s homicide star, and feel his confidence return. Because they were alike. Dixie was twenty pounds heavier with a weathered sandy look, big full mustache, more presentable in his brown suit than the bearded, sunta