The Face[脸]
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BUNKED THREE-HIGH ALONG THE WALLS, LIKE travelers in a railroad sleeping car, the corpses lay in open berths, the journey from death to grave having been delayed by this unscheduled stop.
After switching on the light, Corky Laputa quietly closed the door behind him.
“Good evening, ladies and gentlemen,” he said to the assembled cadavers.
In any circumstances, he could reliably amuse himself.
“The next station on this line is Hell, with cozy beds of nails, hot and cold running cockroaches, and a free continental breakfast of molten sulfur.”
To his left were eight bodies and one empty berth. Seven bodies and two empty berths to his right. Five bodies and one empty berth at the end of the room. Twenty cadavers, with accommodations available to serve four more.
These dreamless sleepers lay not on mattresses but on stainless-steel pans. The bunks were actually open racks designed to facilitate air circulation.
[164] This refrigerated chamber provided a dry environment no colder than five—and no higher than eight—degrees above freezing. Corky’s exhalations issued from his nostrils in twin ribbons of pale vapor.
A sophisticated ventilation system continuously drew air out of the room through exhausts near the floor. Fresh air pumped in through wall vents just below the ceiling.
Although the smell wasn’t conducive to a romantic candlelight dinner, it wasn’t instantly repulsive, either. You could half deceive yourself that this odor was not significantly different in character from the stale-sweat, foot-fungus, shower-mold bouquet common to many high-school locker rooms.
None of the resident dead was bagged. The low temperature and the strictly controlled humidity slowed decomposition almost to a halt, but the inevitable process did continue at a much reduced rate. A vinyl bag would trap the slowly released gases, becoming a heat-filled balloon and defeating the purpose of the refrigeration.
Instead of vinyl cocoons, loose white cotton shrouds draped the reclining dead. Except for the chill and the smell, they might have been the pampered guests at an exclusive health spa, taking a group nap in a sauna.
In life, few if any of them had ever been pampered. If one had seen the inside of a health spa, he had surely at once been ejected by security guards and warned never to trespass again.
These were life’s losers. They had died alone and unknown.
Those who perished at the hand of another were required by law to undergo autopsy. So were those who died by accident, by apparent suicide, from an illness not confidently diagnosed, and from causes that were not apparent and that were, therefore, suspicious.
In any big city, especially in one as dysfunctional as current-day Los Angeles, bodies often arrived at the morgue faster than the medical examiner’s overworked staff could deal with them. Priority was given to victims of violence, to possible victims of medical [165] malpractice, and to those among the deceased who had families waiting to receive their remains for burial.
Vagrants without families, often without identification, whose bodies had been discovered in alleyways, in parks, under bridges, who might have succumbed from drug overdoses or from exposure to the elements, or from simple liver failure, were parked here for a few days, for a week, maybe even longer, until the medical examiner’s staff had time to conduct at least cursory postmortems.
In death, as in life, these castaways were served last.
A telephone hung on the wall to the right of the door, as though considerately provided to enable the deceased to order pizza.
Most lines permitted only in-facility communication, functioning as intercom links. The last of six lines allowed outgoing calls.
Corky keyed in Roman Castevet’s cell-phone number.
Roman, a pathologist on the medical examiner’s staff, had just come on duty for the evening shift. He was probably in an autopsy room elsewhere in the building, preparing to cut.
More than a year ago, they had met at an anarchists’ mixer at the university where Corky taught. The catered food had been second-rate, the drinks slightly watered down, and the flower arrangements less than inspired, but the company had been engaging.
On the third ring, Roman answered, and after Corky identified himself, he said, “Guess where I am?”
“You’ve crawled up your own ass and can’t get out,” Roman said.
He had an unconventional sense of humor.
“It’s a good thing this isn’t a pay phone,” Corky said. “I don’t have any change, and none of the cheap stiffs here will lend me a quarter.”
“Then it must be a faculty function. Nobody’s more miserly than a bunch of anticapitalist academics wallowing in the high life with fat checks from the taxpayers.”
“Some might see a wide vein of meanness in your humor,” Corky said with a severe note that wasn’t characteristic of him.
[166] “They wouldn’t be mistaken. Cruelty is my creed, remember?”
Roman was a Satanist. Hail the Prince of Darkness, that kind of stuff. Not all anarchists were also Satanists, but many Satanists were also anarchists.
Corky knew one Buddhist who was an anarchist—a conflicted young woman. Otherwise, in his experience, the vast majority of anarchists were atheists.
In his considered opinion, pure anarchists didn’t believe in the supernatural, neither in the powers of Darkness nor in the powers of Light. They put all their faith in the power of destruction and in the new and better order that might arise from ruin.
“Considering your backlog of work,” said Corky, “it seems to me academics aren’t the only ones who don’t always earn their fat checks from the taxpayers. What do you guys do here on the evening shift—just play poker, swap ghost stories?”
Roman must have been only half listening. He didn’t pick up on the word here. “Banter isn’t your strong suit. Get to the point. What do you want? You always want something.”
“And I always pay well for it, don’t I?”
“The ability to pay cash in full is the virtue I admire most.”
“I see you people have solved the rat problem.”
“What rat problem?”
Two years ago, the media had given extensive grisly coverage to the fact that sanitary and pest-control conditions in this very room and elsewhere in this facility had been deplorable.
“The place must be rat-proof now. I’m looking around,” Corky said, “and I don’t see any lowbrow cousins of Mickey Mouse noshing on anyone’s nose.”
The silence of shocked disbelief greeted this statement. When Roman Castevet could speak, he said, “You can’t be where I think you are.”
“I’m exactly where you think I am.”
[167] The smug self-satisfaction and sarcasm in Roman’s voice abruptly vaporized into a whisper fierce with self-concern. “What’re you doing to me, coming here? You’re not authorized. You don’t belong anywhere in the morgue, and especially not in there.”
“I have credentials.”
“The hell you do.”
“I could leave here and come to you. Are you in one of the autopsy rooms or still at your desk?”
Roman’s whisper grew softer but even more intense: “Are you nuts? Are you trying to get me fired?”
“I just want to place an order,” Corky said.
Recently Roman had supplied him with a jar containing tissue preservative and ten foreskins harvested from cadavers destined for cremation.
Corky had given the jar to Rolf Reynerd with instructions. In spite of his congenital stupidity, Reynerd had managed to pack the container in a black gift box and send it to Channing Manheim.
“I need another ten,” Corky said.
“You don’t come here to talk about it. You never come here, you moron. You call me at Home.”
“I thought this would be a hoot, give you a laugh.”
Shakily, Roman said, “Dear Jesus.”
“You’re a Satanist,” Corky reminded him.
“Idiot.”
“Listen, Roman, where exactly are you? How do I get to you from here? We need to do some Business.”
“Stay right where you are.”
“I don’t know. I’m getting a little claustrophobic. This place is beginning to spook me.”
“Stay right where you are! I’ll be there in two minutes.”
“I just heard something weird. I think one of these corpses might be alive.”
[168] “None of them is alive.”
“I’m sure this one guy, over toward the corner, just said something.”
“Then he said you’re an idiot.”
“Maybe you’ve got a live one in here by mistake. I’m really starting to get creeped out.”
“Two minutes,” Roman insisted. “You wait right where you are. Don’t come blundering out of there, drawing attention to yourself, or I’ll harvest your foreskin.”
Roman terminated the call.
In the vault of the unknown and penniless dead, Corky hung up the phone.
Surveying his shrouded audience, he said, “With all humility, I could teach Channing Manheim a thing or two about acting.”
He expected and needed no applause. A perfect performance was its own reward.
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