When Pete Talbott found himself at the wrong end of Gino Parini's .45 reading his own obituary, it was a mystery he couldn't leave well enough alone. Someone with a penchant for sharp scalpels and embalming tables is planting bodies under other people's names. From the cornfields of Ohio to the slums of Chicago, a bloody kitchen in a Back Bay townhouse, New York's Washington Square, and the nation's Capitol itself, the hunt is on. Talbott is a lowly computer wonk who spends his days solving software glitches, not running from County sheriffs, mafia hit men, the FBI, and an army of Chicago cops. But if he doesn't stop them, he and his quirky new girlfriend, Sandy Kasmarek, will be next on the Undertaker's list.
Copyright 2011 by William F. Brown
All rights reserved.
THE UNDERTAKER
a novel by
William F. Brown
THE UNDERTAKER
PROLOGUE
We decided to put it all down on paper
in case they came after us again.
I know exactly what Louie must have gone through that night. Exactly. He would have woken slowly, blinking, looking up into a bank of harsh, white lights set in the ceiling high above him. White. Everything in the room was white: the ceiling, the walls, even the floor tile. So waking up, the bright lights would have hurt his eyes, the back of his head would have throbbed in pain, and he was cold — a teeth-chattering, shivering cold.
As his eyes slowly cleared and the fog inside his brain cleared, he realized he was lying on his back, staring up into a bank of bright, white fluorescent lights set in an acoustical tile ceiling. Slowly, painfully, he raised his head and looked around the room. There were no windows, nothing but those gleaming, white tile walls, a set of tall glass-front cabinets set against the wall behind him, and an odd-looking aluminum table to his right and one to his left, leaving him even more confused. He looked down at himself, at the fat, pale-white mound of his own chest and stomach, and realized he was stark naked. No wonder he was so damned cold. He was laying buck-ass naked on some kind of strange, cold, aluminum table. He tried to get up and roll onto his side, but he couldn't move. Something was holding him down. That was when he would have felt the thick, leather straps – one across his upper chest, one across his lower abdomen, and one across his knees – and the smaller straps with heavy buckles that held his wrists and legs down. He could kick and strain and yank on his arms until he wore himself out, but there was no give in those thick leather straps and heavy buckles.
His eyes darted around the room. Everything looked immaculately clean. The tall, glass-front cabinets and cases behind him held a curious array of sharp knives, rubber tubes, and clamps, all neatly arranged on clean white towels. And there was that strange, sticky sweet odor. He sniffed the cool air of the room and swore there was a soapy, antiseptic smell to the place with the faintest hint of something else lurking just beneath? What was it? Flowers?
“Ah, Louis, you are finally awake,” a friendly voice called to him from the far end of the room. “How nice of you to join us. Virgil gave you a pretty good rap on the back of the head and I was beginning to wonder.” That was when he would have recognized the voice and realized where he must be. And that was when the real panic would have set in. He would have bucked and kicked and struggled even harder against those damned leather straps, to no avail.
The other man finally walked into his field of vision and stared down at him. He was tall, well built, and very distinguished in an expensive, dark-blue suit with a blue and gold silk tie and white shirt. He held his arms across his chest and looked down, studying him like a doctor making his rounds. However, this was no doctor. He looked down and smiled as he watched the fat man strain, pulling and pushing against the thick leather straps until he finally fell back on the table, exhausted and shivering in a pool of his own sweat.
“You've been a very bad boy, Louis. You've been talking to Jimmy's people in New Jersey again, haven't you?”
“Ralph, what do you think you're…? You can't do this.”