He watched the street from the front window of the DiAngelis Funeral Home, waiting. It was a little past midnight on a Tuesday morning, and the traffic was light—a black Corvette with smoke-colored windows, a white Cadillac, a gold Lincoln. At last, a black limousine rounded the corner of Atwells Avenue and stopped in front of the funeral home. He opened the door to the building and waited for his client to enter.
Giovanni Golino stepped out of the limousine and stood on the sidewalk for a moment. A cigar hung from the corner of his mouth. His black coat was cashmere, his scarf paisley silk. He was wearing a black fedora and carrying an ebony walking stick adorned with a gold lion’s head. Cradled in his left arm was a large gift box. In the dark, his pudgy face might have been that of Edward G. Robinson, a caricature of a caricature. But Al didn’t laugh. You don’t laugh at people like Mr. Golino or you might find yourself stuffed into three or four of your own caskets.
Mr. Golino strutted up the gold-carpeted pathway, his cigar smoke trailing behind him like a locomotive’s steam. His overdeveloped chauffeur followed. They strode up the stairs past Al without a word. Up close, Al thought, Golino hardly looked like Edward G. at all. His nose was hooked and bent, his eyes black ice beneath one jet-black eyebrow. Only the fleshy lips sucking his cigar were like the actor’s.
Al followed the men into the hallway.
Mr. Golino was sizing up the place, taking in the lilac-colored chandelier and gold-painted trim, the pale violet wallpaper with its golden spirals. He nodded. “Pull the car into the lot,” he said to his chauffeur. “We’ll meet you at the back door.” His voice was as smooth as a knife blade. He gestured for Al to lead the way, falling in step beside him. “Guido tells me you’re a regular Michelangelo at this stuff, um ... eh ...” He snapped his fingers.
“Al. I do my best, sir.”
Mr. Golino stopped and looked at Al, flashing him a crocodile’s smile. “I hope so, Al. She meant a lot to me. But you know...” He shrugged.
Al nodded. “She’ll look like an angel when I’m through, Mr. Golino.”
“I hope so, Al.”
The implied warning shivered Al’s spine.
When they reached the prep room, Al switched on the overhead lights, and stepped aside so that Mr. Golino could pass through the doorway. It was not a room that Al often showed to clients. Starkly illuminated by fluorescent lighting, this was the room in which cadavers were emptied, stuffed, and sewn into visions of peaceful repose. Counters lined with surgical tools and cabinets loaded with chemicals covered its walls. But the focus of the room was a large pump that hovered, vulture-like, over a stainless steel slab.
Mr. Golino nodded appreciatively and followed Al to the back door, where the chauffeur waited, a plastic-wrapped bundle dwarfed in his arms. “This is Felicia,” Mr. Golino said, his voice tender, and he shook his head sadly.
Al reflexively mirrored the look, then pointed out the slab to the chauffeur. “Just put her there,” he said, and to Mr. Golino, “She’ll be ready in a few hours, sir, if you care to wait.”
Mr. Golino shook his head. “Nah. Me and Ronnie’ll be at the Biltmore, the Presidential Suite.” He handed the gift box to Al. “Put this on her and call me when she’s ready.”
Al nodded.
Mr. Golino started for the door, stopped, and pointed a finger at Al. “You take care of my girl, now.”
Al nodded again and smiled. “I will, Mr. Golino.”
Al watched from the doorway as the limousine rolled from the parking lot onto the street; then he returned to the slab and ripped open the plastic wrap. His heart leapt at the sight. Never had he seen a woman so beautiful, even in death. But for the screaming slash of still-wet blood on her throat she was perfect, an onyx-haired, ivory-skinned vision whose large, staring eyes were the clear blue of Mediterranean seas. He felt as Prince Charming must have when he found the poisoned Snow White, and he reached out to touch her skin. It was lukewarm. That sleaze Golino must have cut her just before he phoned Al. But what could Felicia possibly have done to deserve it?
Al took a deep breath to quiet his anger. Mr. Golino was a man you didn’t question, especially if you reaped the harvest of Sicilian turf.
With a surrendering sigh, Al went to the sink and wet a cloth with warm water to clean off the blood and begin Felicia’s preparation.
He went about his business as methodically as he could. But no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t ignore her allure. By the time he had removed her shoes and reached for the zipper of her short leather skirt, his hands were trembling. He had never wanted anything so much as he wanted her.
With a concerted effort, Al forced his eyes away from Felicia’s red silk panties and lifted the bloodstained sweater over her head. He gasped. Her breasts were perfect, her chest full and white. He licked his lips, breathing hard, and held his arms rigid against the cold slab. But it was useless.
Uttering a cry, he buried his head in her breasts, inhaling the faint odor of perfume that clung to her cooling flesh. Then he reached below to touch the silk panties. “Felicia, Felicia,” he murmured.
Feverish hands finished undressing her. Kisses covered her stiffening eyelids, her breathless mouth, and her torn neck as he threw her clothes to the floor. “I love you,” he whispered, and fell on top of her.
* * *
Al opened his eyes to a sheen of black hair and rigid flesh sometime later, and jumped off the slab. Images of his deed bombarded his awakening consciousness, and he was filled with disgust. What had he done? What would Rosemary say if she knew? He was a respected member of the community, a member of St. Joseph’s Parish, a married man!
Then he looked at Felicia’s face, and it calmed him. She wouldn’t tell. And who else but he knew? He reached down and caressed her now cold cheek. “I love you,” he mouthed, and he no longer cared how insane it seemed. All his life he had waited for a love like this, the love denied him after his mother’s suicide when he was barely six, the love he once believed he had with Rosemary. No he could not let Felicia go. He must not. But what choice did he have?
Tormented, he began his work, mixing an embalming fluid he himself had invented, a compound that would preserve a body perfectly for close to a decade. When Felicia was taken from him, it might give him the time he needed to find her.
It was five-thirty when he completed the job and stepped back to view his work. He had kept his promise to Golino—Felicia looked like an angel, like the Madonna herself. The low-cut evening gown Golino had bought defined her still curves in shimmering pearl satin. Her makeup was perfect, the soft glow in her cheeks almost natural. Al bent to kiss her, pushing a strand of hair from her chilled forehead. Golino would be waiting for his call, and after that call was made, Felicia would be gone from him in a matter of minutes.
He stared at his masterpiece, his heart somersaulting. Why kid himself? Golino would never put her where she might be found, by Al or anyone else. That he had brought her here in the first place was unusually risky. He must have loved her dearly. Still, he had sliced her throat, and would have no trouble disposing of her beautiful corpse in any number of untraceable ways. If Al was to be with her, he must act now.
It was six o’clock by the time he made the only decision he could— to run away with her. He had at least an hour left before Golino became suspicious, another half hour or so before Golino called and drove to the funeral home. Al had enough cash stashed in the office safe to get him and Felicia out of the country and keep them safe for a while. He would have to forfeit the funeral home, but so what? Felicia was all that mattered. Whatever happened, he could deal with it as long as she was with him.
After clearing out the safe, Al recorded a message saying that he was busy in the prep room (the message might buy him a few extra minutes) and carried Felicia to his car. Then he sped up Atwells Avenue toward Route 95 and the airport without bothering to turn the lights off in the mortuary.
He was doing close to ninety miles an hour when his headlights illuminated the sign: Reservoir Avenue Exit 1/2 Mile—the exit he bad taken home for the last ten years. He glanced at Felicia strapped in the seat beside him, and reached for her hand. “I’ll have to say goodbye to her,” he said. “I wouldn’t feel right otherwise.”
Felicia smiled at him in her gentle way.
“Thanks, darling.” Al squeezed her icy hand.
The house was dark when he pulled into the driveway. “You wait here,” he told Felicia as he fumbled for his house keys in the lurid light of dawn. This was between Rosemary and him.
And as if she had sensed what he was about to tell her, he found Rosemary waiting for him at the kitchen table when he walked into the house. “Hello, Rose,” he said, closing the door softly behind him. “You’re up early.”
She smiled.
“Rose, I’ve got something to tell you.”
A water bug scuttled across the table in front of her. She smiled, but said nothing.
“You’ve guessed already, I suppose. It hasn’t been going well for us the past few years and, well, now I’ve met somebody else.”
The rising sun flashed in her eyes through the window above the sink.
“Don’t look at me like that! You’ll be taken care of, I swear. But I can’t leave her. I can’t!”
He moved to Rosemary’s side and touched the platinum wig he had bought when her hair started falling out. “I’ll never forget you,” he said. He kissed her waxen lips, caked with dried lipstick, and stared into her glass eyes. “You’ve been a wonderful wife, Rose.”
Al drove from his house without looking back. “It’s over,” he told Felicia as he turned onto the highway and floored the gas pedal. “And, sweetheart, when we cross the border we’re going to have a ceremony even better than the one they had for Rosemary.” He smiled, remembering. “Not that it matters, but you know she was a virgin when they brought her to me?”
