The Undertaker

“Sure I can, Louis. I can do anything I want to you, because you're already dead. Remember?” he stated quietly, confidently. “Now tell me where they are. We've torn your office apart. We've torn your house apart. Where are they?” He stared down at the fat man, but he could see there was no answer coming. Finally, he shrugged. “Have it your way, Louis,” he said as he turned away. He took off his suit coat and carefully hung it on a brass hook on the wall, pulling out a white cotton smock from a drawer in one of the cabinets. It was the kind with a high neck in front and the opening in back. The fat man watched as he pulled it on and carefully tied the drawstrings around his waist. Then the man stepped over to one of the glass-front cabinets, opened a door, and reached inside. When he turned back and looked down at the fat man, he was slipping his hands into a pair of thin, latex gloves. He pulled them on and let the wrist bands snap in place with a loud, dramatic flourish.

“There. All set,” he smiled again as he reached back into the cabinet. This time his hand came out with a stainless-steel scalpel. He held it up and let the edge of the razor-sharp blade catch the light.

“What?” the fat man blustered. “You think you're going to torture it out of me?”

“No, Louis, I think I'm going to kill you,” he answered with a thin, cruel smile. “I'm going to start opening a vein here and an artery there until you slowly bleed to death.”

“You're crazy!” The fat man starred up at him, heart pounding.

“Oh, no, Louis, quite the opposite.” he said as he stepped over to the table and held the blade in front of the fat man's face. “I'm the sanest man you've ever met. More importantly, I've done this before, many times before. I assure you, when the blood starts to run out of you, you will talk. And the more it flows, all sticky, warm, and wet, the faster you're going to talk. That's when you're going to tell me where they are, Louis, because there are no secrets down here, not then, not at the end, at the very end.”

He bent over and lightly touched the fat man at the base of his neck with a fingernail. The fat man jumped. He began to breathe heavily and sweat began to pour off him again.

“That's the carotid artery and the jugular vein in there, Louis. Nick those babies and it'll be all over in a couple of minutes.”

The fat man couldn't take his eyes off the sharp edge of the scalpel as it came closer and closer to his neck, and he began to shake.

“Personally though, I prefer the iliac. That's down here near your hip and groin.” The man droned on, his voice calm, as if he was discussing the weather or a favorite golf club. He stood up and let his eyes slowly scan the white, flabby body from head to toe. “That is, if I can find it. You are a mess, Louis, an absolute mess. Look at you – all fat and so out of shape. Now where are they!” he suddenly screamed and lashed out with the scalpel. The blade flashed in a big arc and sliced lightly across the fat man's gut, cutting deep enough to draw blood.

That did it! The fat man's head shot up. He saw the blood and the cut. His face turned deep red. He felt the panic rise in his throat as a sharp, angry pain exploded in his chest. “Ahhhh…!” he groaned as the pain pounded and sucked the life out of him. Then, there was nothing. His head dropped back on the metal table with a loud “Clang!” His eyes grew round and his body went limp against the leather straps, and he was dead.

CHAPTER ONE

Boston: where California meets Jersey…

I knew I was in trouble when Gino Parini shoved that .45 automatic in my face and made me read my own obituary. I'm not talking about something vague or California-cosmic, like the San Andreas Fault will turn Nevada into beachfront property, or those McDonald's French fries will seal my arteries shut, or second-hand smoke will give me lung cancer. I'm talking about my own honest-to-God black-and-white obituary ripped from page thirty-two of that morning's Columbus, Ohio newspaper:

TALBOTT, PETER EMERSON, age 33, of Columbus, died Sunday at Varner Clinic following a tragic automobile accident. President and founder of Center Financial Advisors of Columbus. Formerly of Los Angeles, a 1999 graduate of UCLA and a lieutenant, US Army Transportation Corps...