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priest supplying him with some of the essentials needed for a burglary,
Culhane's own gloves were still sodden. As he finished pulling on the gloves,
he reached under his coat with his left hand, drawing the pistol from his
trouser band.
Chamber loaded, full magazine, seven rounds altogether. Culhane passed through
the doorway. The mortuary was lit here, but this was no reception area, rather
a concrete slab back hall, grey painted, dreary the perfect thing for such a
place, he thought.
His thoughts were drawn back to the last time he had been in a mortuary, to
plan his identical twin's funeral. Culhane shook his head to clear away the
memory, like seeing himself lying in his own coffin.
Josh Culhane moved ahead, along the wall of the rear hall, toward what looked
to be swinging doors.
Culhane took the right side, Candler the left, Culhane looked hard at the
antique dealer.
The man was comporting himself in what seemed a reasonable professional
manner.
The gun was held high in both hands, muzzle up, a firm two hand hold ready for
a downward snap of the elbows into a firing position, the pistol's hammer
cocked.
"Hmm," Culhane murmured.
Candler looked at him.
Culhane stepped slightly away from the wall, the SIG 245 shifted to his left
hand, the palm of his right hand pressing against the swinging door, pushing
it inward, Culhane ducked through the opening, going left, flattening himself
against the left side wall beyond the doors.
He could smell formaldehyde, carnations, death.
It was the mortuary lab, the ceiling rising some ten feet above the floor,
banks of florescent lights fully lit, not a tube out of service. Three
gleaming stainless steel tables occupied the center of the workspace.
The door beside Culhane opened and Culhane drew back, the pistol still in his
left hand, at his side, ready.
But it was only Candler, Candler's combat grip still intact, his jaw tensed,
the tendons in his neck rigid.
"This place smells like a "
Culhane supplied, "Funeral parlor?"
Candler smiled, but his eyes didn't.
Culhane shifted the SIG 245 to his right fist. Moving ahead, he said to
Candler in a hush, "Check the far end; make sure we don't have any unexpected
company."
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"Right," Candler nodded grimly, running toward the far end of the room, double
swinging doors there as well.
Coffins were stacked on Culhane's right a few pine boxes, some of the even
cheaper fiber body ones, most of the rest the expensive kind.
The table at the far end of the room caught Culhane's eye, riveted his
attention; on it lay the body of a black man, a utility sheet covering the
lower half of the body. As Culhane drew nearer, he could see blue lines etched
lividly in the face.
Culhane had never seen it before in a black man; he had seen it first on the
face of his father.
Culhane slowed, but still approached. He would never use a line such as the
one which passed through his mind now it was too trite for a book, 'Death was
not pretty.' But, it wasn't.
His left hand moved to his outside pocket, finding the first of the
hypodermics.
A plastic covered index card was beside the dead man on the table, Culhane
read it. "John Doe #3." Culhane set the SIG pistol on the table, beside the
body. He could see the femoral artery easily as he pulled the sheet away from
the deadman's groin. The artery along the interior of the thigh was badly
distended. He didn't know why.
Culhane's stomach was churning. He always looked the other way when he got a
shot or even a tuberculin skin test. He admired diabetics for the courage they
showed with self-injection. He could not fathom drug addicts who willingly
inserted needles into their flesh. Culhane slipped the hypodermic into the
femoral letting up on the plunger watching the clear plastic fill, turning
dark red, darker than normal. The syringe filled slowly. At last, he capped
the needle and penned "John Doe #3" on the label.
It would be necessary to find other bodies on the chance that this one had
been one of Fidelito's gunmen and not one of the Zombies.
On the wall in front of him, opposite the coffin storage area, were stainless
steel doors arranged in a bank eight of these, Culhane started toward them,
looking to his right where whitlock Candler was poised flanking one of the
double exit doors.
Their eyes didn't meet and Culhane assumed nothing wrong. He stopped beside
the nearest of the freezer doors, putting away the first syringe; he had three
of them only.
Culhane opened the nearest door and nearly cried out, Two bodies, one stacked
atop the other, and both of them dressed, bullet wounds evident on the upper
body's chest. Regaining his composure at least slightly Culhane pulled out
the slab drawer.
This was obviously one of the Zombies; the clothes alone spoke volumes. They
were torn, dirty, little more than rags. The face was unshaven, apparently for
several weeks.
Steeling himself, Culhane began to undo the zipper on the deadman's pants; the
zipper was partially torn apart.
The man wore no underpants, and Culhane found the femoral artery, plunging in
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the syringe. Again, there was a darker tinge to the blood than Culhane thought
there should have been.
He set the syringe on the table, his pistol in his trouser band. With the Bic
pen from his pocket he wrote on label, "Apparent Zombie occupying freezer
drawer with second body." He checked the toe-tag. "John Doe #5." Culhane
appended.
Culhane placed the second syringe in his already bulging pocket, as gently as
he could moving the head of the first man in order to study the face of the
body beneath. Another Zombie, Culhane rolled the top body it was stiff
slightly aside, getting to the second body. This one wore underpants, but from
their condition Culhane was glad for the borrowed gloves. Had they been his
own, he could have thrown them away. He took the femoral blood sample, then
rezipped the dead man, shifting the top body back into position. He had used [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]