Manor of Disposition: A Novel

By Jeff Wedding

In this explorative account of a young undertaker, twenty-six-year-old Lucas Benson finds himself stuck in a world that delves much deeper into death than his daily duties as a mortician usually take him. Not only is he struggling with severe loneliness, but he also dwindles into the harrowing world of medical examining, leading him on the trail of criminals and the scandalous lengths the government is willing to go to cover their tracks of conspiracy. It is along this journey where Luke discovers his true self, as well as the sincere meaning of love when he meets Tabitha, a reluctant night club dancer. In a perfect blend of hard-boiled crime fi ction and literary workings, Wedding manages to combine two styles into a relentless page-turner.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Sep 21, 2007
• ISBN: 9781469100937

Jeff Wedding

Jeff Wedding was born in Evansville, Indiana in 1978. He is a filmmaker, writer, fledgling photographer and failed architect. Raised Catholic, the theme of religion is apparent in most all his pieces to date. Jeff currently works and resides in Nashville. Manor of Disposition is his first novel.

Book preview

Prologue

FASCINATION-AGE TEN

Step right up. Allow me to guess your age or weight. That’s what the clown at the carnival said before he collapsed in front of my father and I. He shook violently, straw beneath him, courtesy of the nearest country town, roughly an hour’s drive away. The next thing I registered was my father falling down on top of the clown, whose mouth was now swelling and foaming some kind of odd white substance. Dad pressed his mouth to the clown’s, ignorant of the protruding fluid. A couple of the old 1-2-3’s and a few push-pushes from my old man and the clown was already well on his way to wherever people go when they die. Heaven, I guessed, awaited the poor, lifeless corpse. At least as a Catholic that’s what I’d been taught since conception—so many branches, so many beliefs. Who knows? Jesus is our Savior. Those are my two cents. The rest has been written and rewritten over and over so many times by so many men the Bible of today has become mere fiction.

The clown’s right hand clenched and tangled the trampled grass several times before finally giving one last pitch toward the bearded-lady, who, among others, was attracted by the commotion. Dead eyes stared up into the dead, starless night. I had gotten my first glimpse of death. I was ten. A small puddle of saliva and washed away face paint formed on the ground next to the clown’s face. My father bent in a slight and delicate way to shut the clown’s eyes. Then, he announced, I’m a doctor. He’s dead. I was so fascinated by that. Dead. Death. So exact. So final. My fascination was broken when I took another glance at the showman beneath me and saw that his eyes were no longer glazed over with sightlessness, but shut, riddled in a deep sleep. When eyelids are closed one presumes sleep, not death. I was saddened by that. The eyes, big and bulging, that’s what death looks like. Fascination. Age ten years old.

* * *

Sixteen summers and four years out of university later I lay naked on my bed, watching my soon-to-be ex-girlfriend slip into her white cotton panties. She craned her neck and told me I was dead to her, that she’d had enough of me and my work and I never paid her any attention—fucking dead to her. She focused on her image in the oval mirror above my dresser as she held a band between her teeth, pulling a large clump of hair into a fist-size bun. She tried speaking, but the only sounds emitted were nothing but an airy racket I was nine months sick of—sick of her and sick of her mouth, especially.

The medical side of my father remained intact the entire drive home that evening in the 1972 Chevy pickup he liked to call Carla. God only knows about the latter. Over the course of my life I had made it a point to hoard every ounce of information that slipped from the lips of my parents. But nothing of those bits seemed as vivid as when I enlightened my father with raptures concerning my newfound fascination I had discovered that night after watching the clown die. Needless to say, my father loathed my statements and assured me that death was nothing of a joke, and that I didn’t fully understand a man had just experienced a severe heart attack, rendering him lifeless. He went on to say I was young and had no idea what I was saying. Here you have a medical practitioner, a man who dedicates his life to curing ailments, postponing death, (which, by the way, I have a very big problem with). And most of all, you have a man who would do anything in his power and own good to see to it these things were achieved correctly and morally.

Of course, understood, Dad.

But everyone must die, mustn’t they? I didn’t grow out of my so-called unholy fascination—in fact; I became more and more interested in biology and dissection that sometimes I, too, began to wonder whether or not my obsession was a healthy one.

Growing up I would often find dead animals of all sorts in a road or a field close to the house that had recently been slaughtered by either a car or any number of predators that lurked about. Nature makes all creatures both predator and prey—all creatures. I had no problem whatsoever putting the small broken body of a dead possum or an occasional spent squirrel into my book bag. I would sneak it into my bedroom and cut open its chest, fill it with sawdust and shreds of whatever old magazines my mother might be disposing of that week—Redbook, mostly. I made my own stitches out of old thread spools (they were labeled by color) I would swipe from the laundry cove in the back of the house. Mom never noticed except for once when the last of the blue disappeared (I had found a Blue Jay and was very particular about the color matching aesthetic of my work).

"Luke, Bethany said curtly, now in her teal turtleneck that I hated so much. You’re not even listening to me. Did you not just hear me say that I was leaving and didn’t want to ever see or hear from you again?"

I heard you, I replied, hardly any conviction or care in my voice.

You heard me. That’s it, that’s all you have to say?

I shrugged, turned my head to her, making eye contact for the first time that morning. Not even during the sex I endured seventeen minutes before did I once converge my view with hers. Eye contact during sex had ceased about three months back, she bitched and complained at first, but then I suppose she realized it didn’t matter. I wasn’t going to do it—make eye contact. I had become bored with her. She continued wanting the sex, eye contact or not, borderline nymphomaniac. Digging into her brown Prada bag, a gift from me last Christmas, she withdrew a pack of Marlboro menthols, flipped open the mouth of the box and poked a filter between her glossy pink lips. She stared at me in disgust. Her shaking head revealed my failed attempt at subtlety. Goodbye, Luke, she said. And without returning a single word, I watched the door shut behind her floppy blonde mop she called a hairstyle.

I looked up at the swirling blades of the ceiling fan attached to a long narrow pole that projected from the crease in my A-frame studio above the funeral parlor. I tried to think about Bethany and about how much I might miss her, but the only words that came to my mind were problem solved, time to move on. She was some heavy luggage—really, she was. I’m not at all a selfish or insensitive person, rather the opposite, but she was a vain and selfish liability I had to drop. That’s why it was so easy for me to detach from her. It always is when a woman is like that, only they don’t see it that way. She’d be back and I’d say no. Just like the last three women in my life.

Sayonara.

* * *

Two hours and fifteen minutes into a seminar about the latest technology in embalming tools and there I sat, eyes lead heavy with three cups worth of stale coffee on my breath. I shifted the hand pressed against my chin to view the face of my Seiko.

Jesus, I said in a slightly audible whisper, realizing only three minutes had passed since the last time I interrupted my daydreaming to check the time. Bored beyond belief, my eyes began to wander out the window of the twelfth floor conference room, absorbing downtown Milwaukee for the hundredth time that morning, watching as cars merged and exited on Interstate 94. Commuters on their way to Chicago drifting slowly on to the first of three tolls they would meet during the ninety-five mile drive to Chi town; which reminded me that my plane back to Nashville wouldn’t be leaving until somewhere around eight o’clock the next night—the thought injecting a gram of excitement into my otherwise lackluster day. Every minute away from that town was an enjoyed one.

It wasn’t until I noticed the attractive young woman sitting next to me at the round glass table of ten that I realized I hadn’t engaged in sex for approximately three weeks. The same day Bethany had left. And the strange thing about it was I hadn’t really grown hungry for it until now as I watched this blonde’s left breast peeking out from underneath her black blazer, a thin white line of laced bra bordering the brown of her tanned skin. My eyes fixed on her chest, viewing each movement of her hand as it scribbled notes, causing the fabric of her jacket to flatten and bunch back up, leaving her exposed for about a half second at a time. Then it would flatten again, keeping her hidden. After sixty seconds locked on this, I made the decision I would have to pair with this girl once we broke for lunch.

* * *

Five hours, one medium stuffed sausage pizza and three Old Milwaukee’s later, (I don’t drink beer regularly, but the spirit of the town suggests one does so) the blonde from the seminar seemed a little younger now that I was seeing her naked and about to mount me in room 132 of the Holiday Inn right outside downtown Milwaukee—my room, not hers. The rest of the seminar participants were booked on floor two, directly above us. The girl’s hair in dim light had a subtle red tint to it, gone completely unnoticed until now, which creepily reminded me of Bethany. Bizarrely this was more of a turn-on than a turn-off.

The girl let out a small moan as I entered her. ‘God I’ve missed this,’ I thought to myself, enjoying the warmth of her interior. Judging by the level of constriction, it was quite obvious this young woman hadn’t had a large supply of partners, not recently. Rocking back and forth on my pelvis, she brushed her hair away from her eyes and cheeks, tucking the loose strands behind her ears, making her eyes open and vulnerable to me, now noticing them for the first time since we had eaten pizza at Giordano’s on Wisconsin Avenue. She was young, really young—maybe twenty-two, twenty-three tops. I never bothered asking her age. Guided by her rigorous note taking I had made the assumption she was an intern. I never asked that, either.

After looking into her hazel contacts for a long ten seconds, she finally spoke in a coy, out of breath sentence: I . . . don’t . . . just . . . do this, Luke. Not with just anyone.

Okay, I said without pause, sounding like I didn’t care, which I’m pretty sure I didn’t at that point. The pill was a bit large to swallow. I had just met this girl and was already inside her. Whore?

No way.

So very tight, though. Perhaps she was telling the truth. Perhaps this girl was interested enough she’d already fallen in love with me. Our conversation at Giordano’s was typical at best.

I don’t . . . want you . . . to think . . . I’m . . . she rocked harder without finishing her statement.

Some kind of slut or something, she completed, beginning to buck hard, sliding back and forth from my waistline to mid-thigh at a quick pace; seemingly approaching climax. Wanting to play along like I was enjoying the sex as much as she was, I opened my mouth to please her verbally by calling out her name, but it had escaped me. Her French-manicured acrylic nails pressed hard into my chest, almost opening skin, her back arching . . .

As I lay there in bed after sex with a strange woman I realized it amounts to an unparalleled discomfort. Obviously not to Kelly, whose name had just resurfaced. Not having anything else to say to her, I blurted out the only thing I’d been thinking about since leaving Giordano’s.

How’d you like the pizza?

Kelly rolled over to look at me and I read the confusion written on her face in bold letters.

I liked it fine, she said. What made you think of that?

I’m not sure. Maybe I don’t eat enough pizza.

This got a smile out of Kelly. She reached her hand out and moved her fingers across my chest, leaned in to kiss my right nipple, then sat up in bed, unsheathing her perfectly formed twenty-something breasts. Like every other woman with a modest length of hair, she pulled out some sort of device to tie it back with. She tugged and pulled at individual tufts as I watched while she primped in front of me—Bethany reproduced with miniscule differences. Most women I’d been involved with had an apparent favor to each other. I liked it that way. Keep it simple. Stick with what I was used to—what I knew I liked, appearance-wise anyway.

Kelly noticed me propped up on my hand watching her as she flicked and knotted her hair.

What’s the matter? she asked.

I told her nothing.

Why are you looking at me like that?

How old are you? I asked, answering her question with one of my own.

How old do you think I am? she questioned right back, pulling the off-white sheet up over her C-cups. I paused, kept silent for a second or two, studying my answer when she told me she was twenty-five. One year my junior.

I know; younger, right? You thought I was younger, didn’t you?

Yeah, I admitted. Just a little, though.

By how much?

I moved my arms around, adjusting myself on the pillow that was now clumped and bent behind my neck and shoulders.

"A little younger, I answered. Twenty-two, maybe."

"Twenty-two?" she asked with a giggle.

Tell me, Luke, do you often fuck twenty-two year old interns at the out-of-town seminars you attend?

Taken aback, primarily due to her frankness, I defensively asked a question right back—taking the natural cop-out, moving at the same speed she had.

"Do you often fuck complete strangers while interning at out-of-town seminars?"

My question came first, she said. A fraction more immature than myself, but I was digging it so I went along.

No. The answer to your question is no, I said. I was just left by my girlfriend of a year plus and you attracted me.

So why?

So why what?

Why’d she leave you?

Oh. She said I work too much.

Do you?

Probably.

So unattractive.

I know.

So you saw me and you thought you’d use me to get laid.

I said nothing.

It’s okay, she said. I needed a good fuck just as much as you did. Thank you.

That shut me up. Had I met a carbon copy of myself, only female? I didn’t say anything for a couple seconds while trying to decide whether this would be a good thing or not. Kelly twisted her gold Anne Klein bracelet watch around from the reverse of her wrist to the proper and looked at its face. Shit, she said. I’ve gotta go, she continued as she climbed out of bed. I watched her naked body as it moved around gathering her clothes. I said nothing in the way of convincing her to stay, although it opposed what I actually wanted. We chatted for a few more minutes while she dressed. Half an hour later I was drifting in and out of sleep, alone on my king-size hotel bed, when somewhere in between the conscious and the unconscious, I reached down and found the spent condom still hanging from me, the ghost of my most recent acquaintance—both entered and removed from my life in just one day. I slid the rubber off and tossed it into the wastebasket under the bedside table. They come and go, I thought, sighing. My eyelids closed one final time for what would be my night’s sleep.

Chapter 1

JEWELS

Nashville. The telephone in room thirty-eight at The Comfort Inn was on its ninth ring by the time Lenny Mattox got to it. His eyes were rolled into the back of his head, showing their whites. Saliva ran from the corners of his mouth, drool moving down his jawbone before taking on a mysterious path down his neck.

Lenny picked up the handset, not saying anything, just listening for someone on the other end to speak. His body went limp, almost collapsing to the floor from his high. He gasped, stretched his mouth open into a yawn as rivers of spit spilled out. His eyes widened as if something had gotten his interest on the opposite end of the line. With the phone to his ear, Lenny muttered a few words, saying he had already delivered the jewels, that he thought that was the deal and he didn’t know what they were talking about when they told him some of the merch was missing. He reached down and unfastened the belt from his left bicep, pulling the leather slowly through the buckle, his arm aching, a syringe dangling from his vein. He knocked the needle from his skin as if he were swatting a fly, his eyes broadening when he saw the color of the bend in his arm morphing to black.

Using his existing strength, he sauntered around the hotel room for a moment, trying to think and trying to savor his high at the same time. The television set blared at a thousand decibels, rattling Lenny’s brain, some Nike commercial with techno music pumping and resonating. He scurried around, looked under the bed, pulling shit out from under it. Newspapers, clothes, food; you name it. Everything flew from under the mattress Lenny had slept on for half a month since being called in from St. Louis to head a jewel heist. A rich drug lord there in Nashville, Jesse Terranova, had somehow gotten tipped off about some things that went on at a local jewelry store, a prominent one out in Brentwood, so decided he would try his hand at the stolen goods industry. The shipment of jewels was expected to come in early the morning before. The instructions were to do precisely what was needed in order to intercept the jewels and leave no witnesses. Lenny knew that meant people were gonna die. He knew he would have to kill in order to make this a guarantee, which he had no problem with—especially if it meant saving his own ass.

Lenny hadn’t fathomed the extremity of the job until he saw how large the shipment was, and from the first sight of it he was immediately irate about what he was getting paid for such a massive stunt. From experience he knew how an operation like this would work and that’s exactly why Justin Lamont had called on him, telling him to listen to him; leave the drugs out of this one. Justin Lamont was a known crook, a powerful man with connections all over, and when he was phoned by Terranova he knew just who to put on the job. When Lamont asked Lenny to do some work Lenny did it, and did anything else Lamont wanted done. Lamont had taken Lenny in years back and loved him like a brother, always watching his back, supplying him with jobs, money and some of the time drugs, which now he regretted.

Lenny had had problems in the past, allowing his heroin addiction to get in the way of his work, inhibiting his ability and style, but he was good at what he did and everyone knew it, especially Justin. He was put with two other guys on the job to pull the jewels, strangers, which was what he preferred. Lenny knew if a guy got put with a pal or an acquaintance the circumstances changed. If he got caught he was gonna rat out the other two, make a deal to shorten his time. Call it dirty but that’s how he worked. If he went into an operation with a friend and was put to a bust he’d still fink, but not without guilt. And guilt was something he didn’t like to deal with.

The heist went like clockwork. They rented a van, the commercial kind—a big white one. When they pulled up the sun was just about to break the morning sky, so they pulled the van in slowly. Then they waited. The freight truck pulled in and began backing up to make the delivery, the taillights flashing, making a beeping sound. The driver hopped out, yanked the tail doors open and started pulling crates out of the back, putting them onto a wooden pallet that sat on a lift. Lenny told the driver, Danny, to pull in, to kill the lights and while they approached to throw on the brights suddenly, blind ’em, that’s when they’d all jump out.

Danny did exactly as he was told. He pulled up to where the driver was unloading the crates. The van’s beams hit the man in the face, freezing him like a frog ready to be gigged. Lenny popped out from the sliding door of the van and jumped to his feet, his Ruger already out and pointing at the trucker. The old man threw his hands into the air, not saying a word when the motor of the dock door began to roll the metal up into the wall. Lenny put his index finger to his lips, an indication for the old man to keep his fucking mouth shut. He did, and when the door was fully agape a dock worker stood in the opening next to a forklift, waiting to receive the goods when he saw the three burglars. Marcus, the passenger of the van, had moved around, almost standing next to the old man. There was a quiet moment, just the three of them, the crooks; then there were the two men who were only doing their jobs. Lenny, his gun now partially to his side, sprung it back up, pulling the trigger in the old man’s face, breaking the seconds of passing silence, hearing the man squeak out a quick No! before a loud bang that echoed through the mountains, spraying Marcus’ face with red. The dock worker yelled something out in terror then turned to run back into the thick darkness of the warehouse. Marcus shot at him twice. The first bullet clipped the man’s arm; the second centered his back, pummeling him with the force of a sledgehammer, knocking him straight to the ground. Seeing the man was still moving, Lenny ran up the steps and tried the knob. When he found it locked he shot it. He went through the door and briskly walked to the hemmed dockworker on the ground, now writhing and gasping, saying Please . . . please don’t kill me . . . I have a child, a little girl . . . Lenny shot the man in the head three times without a blink of hesitation. He then leaped through the hole of the open loading door, falling to the platform beneath.

Marcus, grab these and that one, Lenny ordered, referring to the crates.

I’ve got these two, Lenny said. Danny, get back in the van. We’re gone.

It was over. It took less than six minutes total from the time they pulled up. And now they had five crates of jewels in their cargo, most of it probably hay and other packing, but there was enough to make up seven million dollars worth of ice, and the sun was just coming up.

Lenny had to yell at Danny several times on the way back to the hotel and even smack him once, telling him to shut the fuck up. Danny had never done anything like what they had just pulled before that morning. It was his first job and he was freaked. He kept whining, saying "Jesus, oh, Holy Jesus, I didn’t know we were actually gonna kill ’em. Oh, God . . . we didn’t have to, we didn’t have to kill them . . . did we?"

Yes, yes we did, Lenny said. Now don’t you say another fucking word or I’ll kill you, too; I swear to Christ I’ll do it in a heartbeat.

Marcus looked on. He may have spoken a total of five words since the job had begun. Marcus was solid and Lenny could tell. Not an amateur like Danny Boy.

They arrived back at the hotel just before six. Lenny paid the other two guys, telling them to take a hike. Marcus nodded and got into his black Camaro and shot off onto I-24. Danny was still shaking some, looking a little better, not crying anymore, but still pale. Lenny gave Danny his money, told him he’d be all right and gave him a light slap on the cheek. Danny took the money and didn’t say anything, just walked away into the rising sun.

Before the job Lenny had spray painted the windows in the back of the van black, knowing the jewels would be there all night. He was to make the delivery in the morning; then he’d get his cut. He didn’t express his anger about the little money he was getting for the job during the robbery—barely a couple grand more than the other two, chicken feed to a self-proclaimed pro.

Lenny hung outside the hotel for a few minutes as he stood next to the van. He pushed a cigarette into his mouth, struck a match and cupped his hand, taking the flame up. He inhaled a couple times then turned to the van. He unlocked the cabin, opened the door and tore the lid from one of the crates with a crowbar. It took him ten minutes of fishing around through the straw packing before he hit jackpot. He slid three large diamonds into the front pocket of his jeans; a small bonus for what he thought fair considering a job well done. He hammered the crate shut more professionally than had been done initially.

No way could they have known how many jewels were in that box. No way.

But they did. And now a pair of goons were on their way to the hotel to take back what was theirs, two of Jesse Terranova’s men. The only thing on Lenny’s mind was to get the jewels out of the vent where he had hidden them so he could get the fuck out of dodge.

He found the flat head screwdriver, which had been hiding out in the bathtub for some odd reason. Fully feeling the effects of the heroin Lenny just wanted to relax; enjoy his fix, but he was a dead man if he took such a careless misstep. He unscrewed the nine screws on the vent in record speed. He let the metal panel drop to the floor, slicing the corner of his toe, taking off some flesh. He made an ugly face from the pain as he pulled a Crown Royal bag from the hole. He darted to the table to find his car keys—not worrying about his shoes, not worrying about a shirt or checking out—right now all’s he needed were his fucking car keys. He could hear the heavy footsteps coming down the hall, so he leaped to lock the door—the standard lock, the deadbolt, the chain, giving him barely enough time to throw a chair under the knob. His first thought was to jump, but from eight flights he had a better chance trying to explain to the goons he didn’t know what they were talking about, that they were free to search the place for the gems if they liked. But he could have hocked them by now, and they knew that. Either way they were there to kill him.

Lenny dropped to the small card table he had set up for poker with Danny and Marcus before the gig. From the Crown bag he poured out the three diamonds and realized they seemed bigger than before now that he was about to swallow them. He threw one into his mouth, twisted the Crown cap and took a swig, swallowing it like a horse pill. One down. The door was banging and shaking violently, being kicked hard and punched on the other side, muffled obscenities coming through it. Lenny panicked, no longer enjoying the blissful, melancholy high he had scheduled. He pulled the Ruger out of his pants which he had placed near the small of his back only seconds ago. He cocked it and put it next to the Crown bottle. The banging stopped, followed by a silence. Lenny looked up, puzzled, knowing the goons weren’t giving up that easily. Then, suddenly, the head of an axe was coming through the door. His time was limited, so Lenny tossed the remaining diamonds into his mouth, both at once. He moved them around a bit with his tongue before quickly shooting the liquor in there with them, swallowing hard in one massive gulp. The feeling in his throat was comparable to swallowing a serrated golf ball—that’s when they stuck. He lunged forward, wheezing, the door splintering before his bugged eyes, seeing one of the goons’ eyes and how pissed off they were.

Kick it, kick it! he heard the other one yell. And he did it.