Colin Harrison: The Havana Room

"That him?"

I nodded. "Yes."

"You're sure."

"Positive."

"You'll sign the form?"

"Yes."

"No doubt?"

"None."

"You happen to know if he had a dentist?"

"I think he did, yes. But I'm positive this is Jay."

"Occasionally people make mistakes."

Yes, of course that was true. "Pull him all the way out," I said.

"Why?"

"Look at his calves."

"Why? He have a tattoo?"

"No."

"What?"

"Immensely muscled. Enormous calves."

The attendant pulled the drawer all the way out. It rolled smoothly, though I could see that the weight of Jay Rainey made the long drawer tilt ever so slightly. He was naked. Laid out, he looked larger, his true size. His chest hair was thick and tapered into an arrow toward his groin. His penis fell to one side. Jay Rainey's thick calves bulged inward toward each other from the pressure of the drawer bottom. The attendant nodded. Then he pulled out a tape measure. "Hmm."

"Yes, right?"

"Twenty-one inches. You usually maybe see that on someone who is grotesquely obese, but not someone with low body fat."

"Can I have a minute more?" I asked. "He was a friend of mine."

"That's fine. Just a minute."

Then I moved up to Jay Rainey's head and touched his ear, the left one, the one that matched Sally Cowles's. The distinct horn of cartilage was there, as before, except cold this time. Somehow it made me think of my son, how much I missed him, how I was still bound to him.

I let the palm of my hand rest on Jay's forehead for a moment, but of course that was for me, not for him.

"Okay," came the attendant's voice.

I stepped away from the drawer. The attendant handed me a clipboard. It was a declaration of identification. Under penalty of perjury, I swore that the human remains shown to me by the… yes. I signed.

"That's it," the attendant said. "You're free to go, thanks."

"No, he's not," came the detective's voice.

"No?"

"Don't you want somebody to claim the remains?" the detective asked the attendant.

"Sooner the better."

"You," McComber said. "You're going to claim the remains here. I got no family. But I got a lawyer."

"Wait, wait-"

"Nothing to it." McComber handed me a business card of a funeral home. "These guys are three blocks away, they'll take the body and keep it or embalm it or whatever. We need to clear the space. This is Brooklyn. People keep dying around here."

"All right," I said. "Fine."

"You'll call today?"

"Sure."

"Good. Then I can release the effects now."

He nodded at the attendant, who went to a separate drawer. He pulled out a cardboard box. "Here."

I looked inside. Clothes.

"Plus this," said the detective, and handed me a clear Ziploc bag. "Wallet and watch, book of soggy matches."

I looked at the clear bag. The matchbook was from the steakhouse, the watch ruined by seawater. Then the clothes. "These things kind of smell," I said.

"Yes, they do. That's why we like to get rid of them."

I remembered the last piece of sushi on the plate in front of Jay Rainey. "By the way, what did he actually die of?"

The detective handed me his clipboard, flipped over two pages, and stuck a finger at a long paragraph:

Decedent's lungs and stomach were filled with seawater but autopsy and further sectioning revealed severe and progressed disease of the lungs and airways. Diffuse, symmetrical alveolar disease noted. Indications of pulmonary collapse and consolidation. Probable bronchiectasis, although these tissue slides were not prepared. Obliterative or constrictive bronchiolitis noted, with characteristic plugs of organizing fibrous tissue accompanying similar changes in the alveoli. No indication of bronchial carcinoma. Reduced lung distensibility noted by digital examination. Airway was scarred, indicating multiple instances of mechanical ventilation. Indications of chronic arterial hypoxemia. Secondary breathing muscles in chest showed unusual compensatory development. Pedal discoloration was also noted, as is typical. Cause of death: asphyxiation secondary to chronic, degenerative airway disorder with diffuse pulmonary alveolitis or fibrosis of unknown etiology.

I handed back the clipboard.

"That means he couldn't breathe," said the detective.

I nodded.

"You'll call the funeral home?" he asked.

"Yes."

"Free to go then."

Free to go, perhaps, but not free. Not at all. I carried the box to the pocket park a block away and found a bench. I put the bag with the wallet and watch and matchbook in my coat, then examined the clothes in the sunlight. They looked familiar, and included the same tie Jay had been wearing the night I'd last seen him in the Havana Room. They had been thrown in a dryer and were stiff yet unwashed. Three homeless men watched me from across the park. First the shoes, size 12, larger than mine. These I set on the bench. Then the socks. I shot my hand into each one. Empty. I rolled them up as my mother had taught me when I was a boy and put them into one of the shoes. Next came the pants. They'd been scissored off of him and were useless. I slipped my fingers into every pocket. Nothing. These I set on the other side of me. Then the underwear. These had also been cut off. I noted the waist size, 38. Un-stained, almost new. Then the shirt, also cut off. I checked the size. A 48 long, Brooks Brothers. Nothing in the breast pocket. I stood up and dropped the slit underwear, pants, and shirt into the municipal garbage can and returned to my bench.

The tie I kept. It was silk and quite nice and could be cleaned. I tucked it into my coat. Next came the jacket. It was discolored by salt and other liquids but intact. I slipped two fingers into the front breast pocket. The HAVANA ROOM napkin that Allison had handed him was still there, still folded into a tight square. I slipped it into my pocket. Next I checked the inside breast pocket and the side pockets. Nothing. I folded the jacket and set it by the shoes. Last was the heavy overcoat, a beauty. The label read Brentridge of London. I checked the side pockets. Nothing. I checked the inside breast pocket. Nothing.

"Hey," I called to the homeless guys. Then I pointed at the pile of clothes. "You want these?"

One of the men stood up, shambled over, poked disinterestedly at the pile, then picked up the whole bundle and shuffled away.

Now I drew the HAVANA ROOM napkin from my pocket, daring myself to unfold it. The marks on it, made in red lipstick, had nearly been bleached by the cold Atlantic. Nonetheless, unlike before, I could examine what had been drawn there. It was a small map, with the three X's and the box marked KROWLA.

Yes, a simple map. Of a small section of Jay Rainey's family farm, now owned by Marceno and his Chilean wine company. The scale was a little off, but the three X's probably corresponded to the three ancient trees next to the driveway with the rectangle indicating that something might be found directly off from the third tree: KROWLA, in Allison's block letters.

I called Marceno that afternoon.

"This is William Wy-eth?"

"It's me. I have something for you," I said. "What you wanted."

"You are perhaps hoping to resolve the lawsuit, Mr. Wy-eth?"

"Why didn't you come to the restaurant that day?" I asked. "After I called you?"

"Simple."

"Simple?"

"I called Martha Hallock to see if you were telling the truth, that Poppy was her nephew."

"And?"

"She said he'd told her he was driving to Florida."

"But what about the nephew part?"

"She said in these old farm communities everybody's related to everybody else somehow. She also said he was an unreliable character, drank too much."

"Ah." This sounded like a fat lie. But I didn't have enough leverage on him to force out the truth, whatever it was.