land. There’s a back way in.”
“Be more fun to reminisce if I had a cushion,” Edna observed.
A quarter-mile further on, they found Watson sitting alongside a turnoff to a paved road, under a sign for the ETERNAL FLAME CRYPT AND CREMATORIUM. Orchards of young fruit trees swayed in the breeze on both sides of the road behind barbed wire fences. Morty was freaked out by the overly informational signage that described the high tech immolation units where controlled burns of ionized magnesium brought the kilns to temperatures of 4,000 degrees.
“I don’t know about being cremated. Hate to wind up a plate of barbecued ribs.”
“You’d be a lot less than that,” Stein said. “Be a handful of talcum powder.”
“No more of this talk,” Edna scolded. “I thought Jewish people had issues with ovens.”
Stein found what he was looking for, and parked under the sign that read NO ADMITTANCE. Morty and Edna passed a look between them that said it must be fun to be white and not have to obey signs. A trail led between the fences, uphill. “This path takes us to the mortuary side,” Stein said. “Anyway, it used to.”
Edna’s hips weren’t going to make that uphill climb and Stein asked if she wouldn’t mind staying back here with Watson, which was fine with everyone. Morty’s instinct was to stay with her, but she frowned on him. “Pay your debts on time or they gather interest.” Morty followed Stein into the underbrush. The pathway made a tight double ‘S’ between two rows of tall bougainvillea, and emerged at the top of the hill into a broad, quite beautiful, sequestered dell.
The service for Nicholette was being conducted in a small amphitheater on the level below them. The arched portal and floor of the entryway were made of marble. The walls appeared smooth until you looked more closely and saw the hundreds of little sliding vault drawers that were built in. Morty shook his head profoundly when he realized what they were. Several hundred mourners were gathered on the grassy lawn looking up at a portly, white-whiskered Reverend Parsegian. Stein recognized him from late night cable TV. His voice was raspy with the ravages of non-filter cigarettes and Aquavit. He opened a small parcel wrapped in a lovely Indian cloth.
“Death,” he intoned, “whatever we think it is, it’s bound to be something else.” He took a handful of what were presumably Nicholette’s remains and scattered the ashes to the winds. “Let her beauty fill the world,” he prayed.
“Any time you want to tell me what we’re doing,” Morty hinted.
Stein scanned the crowd below him intently. “I hope I’m wrong but I don’t think I am.”
“That clears it all up.”
Stein sensed peripheral movement along the ridgeline. Fifty yards away, the diminutive figures of two mourners who had separated from the main body were absconding in rapid lockstep. Paul Vane was wearing a dark suit and designer sunglasses. Michael Es-posito was in Hunter Thompson gonzo white.
“That’s them,” Stein whispered.
Michael was doing most of the talking. Vane listened like a child being told a harsh truth by a younger, wiser, crueler boy. Stein tried to penetrate through the pantomime. “I think they may have my daughter and my friend in their car.”
After a brief huddle below, Vane and Michael Esposito departed in opposite directions.
“You take the little one,” Stein ordered.
Morty bolted out of their little culvert in the direction of Paul Vane.
“No, the other little one,” Stein yelled, but Morty covered the ground across the open field with amazing speed and was nearly upon him.
Michael Esposito had undulated along the back side of the marble wall and was out of sight. Stein gauged where he would emerge, and lumbered down the grassy side of the hill, still favoring his injured ankle. The grade was steeper than it appeared and the grass concealed uneven contours of the hillside. He couldn’t break his hurtling momentum and had to throw himself to the ground and roll. The impact knocked the wind out of him and he felt like he had run into a stone wall. For a moment he feared he was paralyzed. He took mental inventory, discovered nothing was broken and pulled himself up by the handles of the sliding crypts.
Moments later Michael Esposito came around the wall and Stein stepped into his path.
“Hello, Michael,” Stein said.
If the little shit were frightened he didn’t show it. Stein grabbed him by the scruff of his shoulders and swore to him “If any harm comes to my daughter, I mean any harm, I will tear every inch of you apart, starting with your eyes. Where are they?”
Stein’s threat was met with a smile, a killer’s courtesy. “Lovely girl,” he said.
Morty Greene pushed a miserable Paul Vane into the picture. Vane’s eyes were red and he extended his hands to be cuffed. “I am the man you’re looking for. Michael had nothing to do with it.”
Vane’s eyes were on Michael Esposito, imploring him to look upon him with favor, which he did not.
“Are they in the car?” Stein directed the question to the one place he thought he might get a straight answer. He thought he saw a sympathetic response from Paul Vane telling him “no.”
Morty Greene’s investigation went along less subtle ground, He bent down and grabbed the elegant cuffs of Esposito’s pant legs and lifted up and inverted the man several feet off the ground. He shook loose his car keys and quite a bit of pocket change, a nail clipper and silver flask of brandy.
“Easy on the rough stuff,” Stein said. “He likes it too much.”
The electronic key set the welcoming lights flashing on Paul Vane’s Mercedes. They had parked it at the end of a row for easy egress. Stein ran to the car and threw open the doors to liberate his daughter and friend girl.
But the car was empty. He knuckled the hood of the trunk. He pressed the button enough times so it finally opened. He pulled up the platform that hid only the miniature spare tire, no prisoners
Morty was right behind him with the culprits in tow when out of the shadows of the “Walls of Eternity,” David Hart emerged.
“Oh Good Christ,” Morty gaped. “Another one.”
“I thought I might find you here,” Stein said.
“You should be more careful with the women you love,” Hart advised him cooly. “That’s three of them you’ve lost.”
Vane beseeched Stein to believe him as he grasped for Michael Esposito’s hand. “I never meant for them to put them in danger.”
“Ironic, isn’t it, how things work out?” said David Hart. And Stein watched as the picture was shifted one more time by the deft hands of the 3-card Monte dealer: Michael Esposito spurned the hand of Paul Vane and stepped into the embrace of David Hart.
“Did you think I was blind to your little game?” Hart flaunted his disdain at the flabbergasted and now twice- jilted Paul Vane. “You have such compassion, Paul. You didn’t want to witness my humiliation. Compassion must be a quality that comes with age. And God knows you have oodles of that. So much age that it makes me wretch every time you touch me. Your old alligator fingers. Your old smell. And I’ve found someone who will take care of me in perpetuity.”
David Hart kissed Michael Esposito on the face and neck, never taking his eyes off Paul Vane as he did. “You thought you were leaving me?”
“Oh my,” Paul Vane breathed.
Morty pulled the smoochers apart. “That is really disgusting.”
“You don’t like to see two gay men kissing?” Esposito taunted him.
“I don’t even like to see straight men kissing.”
The picture manifested itself to Stein for the eleventh different time, but this time he knew it had come to rest. Stein realized that once again he had allowed all his conclusions to rest on the outdated karmic principle that good prevailed and that people got what they deserved. Hence his unchallenged acceptance of the notion that Paul Vane had been the one to leave David Hart. It was obvious now that the reverse had been true, that David had left him. David and Michael Esposito were the molecule; Vane was the odd man out, a stray electron spinning in lonely orbit around them.
Stein stepped into the narrow space between Hart and Esposito. “The very next thing that’s going to happen is you are telling me where my daughter is or my homophobic friend will start bashing heads.”
“Yes, that’s very butch,” said Michael, “but Let’s talk about what’s actually going to happen. Your daughter’s safety is time sensitive. So the sooner we all agree, the happier we all are.” He saw Stein’s abhorrence and reveled
