In the Company of Killers Bryan Christy (good books to read for beginners .txt) 📖

brochure for O’Shea Funeral Home. On the brochure’s cover was an old black-and-white photograph of a little boy with his arm around a puppy, the pair sitting together on the front seat of a horse-drawn hearse. Klay Funeral Home was no longer in business but the photo was real. Beneath the photograph of Klay’s grandfather, the brochure read, “O’Shea Funeral Home. Serving the community since 1898.”

He’d designed the brochure on his laptop and printed it in the business office of Cebu’s Radisson hotel, where he was staying. Working up the brochure, seeing his grandfather as a little boy, brought back happy memories. Klay and his brother playing pirates in the chapel, riding casket carts and swinging gladiola sabers. The time he forgot to close the hearse door. His father’s humor.

“My stretch limousine, eh, champ?” his father had joked, sliding into the Cadillac’s front seat that last day, with a shoebox in one hand and a cigarette in the other. Klay started the car. When they arrived at Lewisburg prison, Jack Klay opened his shoebox. It was empty. He took off his Hamilton watch and his diamond pinkie ring and dropped them into the box. He leaned back in his seat, reached into his front pocket, and took out his Tiffany money clip. He took out his wallet and put them both in the shoebox, too. Then he closed the lid, set the box on the seat between them, and looked into his son’s eyes. “So, this is where I’m supposed to give you life advice. Okay, remember this: There’s always a who. If he’s done you a service, you thank him. If he’s done you a disservice, you never forget it. Use your head, hit before you get hit, look after Sean, and visit your mother.” He winked. “You’ll be all right. Sal has an envelope for you.”

His father got out of the car, tossed his cigarette, and walked away. Klay had walked away, too. He had not done enough for his brother. He had not visited his mother. Or his father. “Memories,” Klay said now, looking at the priest. “That’s the funeral business. What cemeteries are about. And gravestones. But Americans no longer live near their families, Father. They move all over. They don’t visit family graveyards. So, I thought, why don’t we make gravestones people can take with them? Carvings they can keep on a shelf to remind them of their loved ones, of their faith. Gravestones for their bookshelves . . .”

The priest smiled. “Bookstones!”

“Yes! Like that.” Klay crossed to a bookshelf. “May I?”

On the shelf lay a sleeping Christ child, naked and anatomically correct, with the thumb of one hand touching its lower lip. The child lay incongruously next to a plastic gumball machine filled with candy. Klay hefted the ivory, feeling the weight in his hands. It was the size of a human infant but much heavier, carved from a single tusk. The elephant had been enormous, as big as Voi. Klay ran a hand along the infant’s pale arm. It had the same cold feel as a dead man’s skin.

“Extraordinary craftsmanship, Father. Ivory is elephants, right? This must have been a big one.”

“I think so,” the priest said. Martelino signaled the altar boy to help him to his feet. The priest circled his desk and joined Klay. He wore purple Crocs, Klay noticed.

“See,” Klay continued, “we could put the name and date of birth and death on its back here, just like on a gravestone. How much would something like this go for?”

“Depends. This one is Delarosa. I designed it myself.” Martelino touched a fleshy index finger to his upper lip in the same way as the finger of the infant touched its lips. “Delarosa brought it to—”

“Here you go, Father.”

Klay handed the sculpture to the priest, but Martelino wasn’t prepared for the icon’s sudden weight. He pitched forward, and would have dropped the sculpture if not for the altar boy, who darted to the priest’s aid. The boy steadied Martelino, but in his rush he knocked the gumball machine off its shelf. The plastic toy hit the floor and shattered. Blue candies skittered across the tile floor.

“Idiot, Sixto!” the priest shouted. “You pick up every goodie!”

Klay bent down to help the boy. The candies weren’t candies. They were quaaludes. The fat fuck was drugging the altar boys.

The young boy looked terrified. “Sixto,” Klay said to him quietly, smiling. “I’m six two, too.”

Sixto looked back at Klay with uncomprehending eyes. Klay helped him scoop the quaaludes up with a piece of paper and pour them into a tissue box. Sixto retrieved a dustpan and swept up the broken dispenser and dropped the pieces into Martelino’s wastebasket. Watching the boy, Klay felt the weight of powerlessness in the face of evil. He got to his feet. “You know, I don’t think we could do ivory, Father. It would be better, certainly, but it could be a problem. There are laws about ivory, aren’t there? Let’s think about wood, okay?”

The priest dropped heavily onto a sofa. “Batikulin is the best wood,” he said without interest. “Santol is cheaper.”

“I would only want to do this for our wealthy clients. Price is no object. They only want the best.”

“Then ivory! Ivory is what we want, Tomas!”

We.

Klay looked at the ivory sculpture. “It is beautiful.”

“Of course. Ivories will be the perfect memorial for your dead ones.”

“How would I get these to the United States?”

“There are ways. For the Vatican, I wrapped a dormido in dirty underwear, covered the underwear in chicken blood and human shit, like a dirty diaper. No one opened it. When the cardinal asked about it, I told him his Niño was so real he even smelled like a baby.”

Klay laughed.

“Could we get the Vatican to bless it?”

“The Holy Father, no. The papal nuncio, no. But I have many contacts in the Holy See. They know my relics. First, we will discuss with my carvers. Get me my phone, Sixto.”

When the boy had left, Klay continued, “We would need