Night Train Read Online Free PDF Page A

better point out that the process itself, for me, means close to nothing. When I worked homicides, the autopsy room was part of my daily routine. And I still get down there on business at least once a week. Asset Forfeiture, which is a subdivision of Organized Crime, is a lot more hands-on than it sounds. Basically what we do is: We rip off the Mob. One whisper of conspiracy, out there by the pool, and we confiscate the entire marina. So we deal with bodies. Bodies found, almost always, in the trunks of airport rental cars. Impeccably executed and full of bullets. You're down in the ME's office half the morning sometimes, on account of all the bullets they have to track... The process itself doesn't mean much to me. But Jennifer does. I am confidently assuming that Colonel Tom didn't watch this, and would have relied on Silvera's summary. Why am I watching it? Take away the bodies, and the autopsy room is like the kitchen of a restaurant that has yet to open. I am watching. I am sitting on the couch, smoking, taking notes, and using the Pause. I am bearing witness.
           Silvera is there: I can hear him briefing the pathologist. Jennifer is there, wearing her toe-tag. That body. The scene photographs in the case folder, with the moist eyes and mouth, could almost be considered pornographic (arty and 'tasteful'—kind of 'ecce femina')— but there's nothing erotic about her now, stiff like out of the deepfreeze, and flat on a slab between striplights and tiles. And all the wrong colors. The chemistry of death is busy with her, changing her from alkaline to acid. 'This is the body..'. Wait. That sounds like Paul No. Yes, the cutter is Paulie No. I guess you can't blame a guy for loving his job, or for being Indonesian, but I have to say that that little slope gives me the creeps. This is the body, he is saying, echoing the sacrament: 'Hoc est corpus'.
           'This is the body of a well-developed, well-nourished white female, measuring five feet ten inches in height and weighing approximately one hundred and forty pounds. She is wearing nothing.'
           First the external examination. Directed by Silvera, No takes a preliminary look at the wound. He shines a light into the mouth, which is rigored half open, and rolls her on to her side to see the exit. Then he scans the entire epidermis for abnormalities, marks, signs of struggle. Particularly the hands, the fingertips. No takes nail clippings, and performs the chemical tests for barium, antimony and lead deposits—to establish that she fired the.22. I recall that it was Colonel Tom who bought her that gun, years back, and taught her how to use it.
           Brisk as ever, Paulie No takes oral, vaginal and anal swabs. Too, he inspects the perineal area for tearing or trauma. And again I'm thinking of Colonel Tom. Because this is the only way that his read works. I mean, for Trader to be involved, it has to be a sex deal, right? Has to be. And it feels all wrong. Some funny things can happen on the cutter's table. A double suicide can come back a homicide-suicide. A rape-murder can come back a suicide. But can a suicide come back a rape-murder?
           Autopsy is rape too, and here it comes. In the moment that the first incision is made, Jennifer becomes all body, or body only. Paul No is going in now. Goodbye. The elevation makes him look like a school child, glossy head dipped, and the scalpel poised like a pen as he makes the three cuts in the shape of a Y, one from each shoulder to the pit of the stomach, and then on down through the pelvis. Up come the flaps—it makes me think of a carpet being lifted after damage by flood or fire—and No goes through the ribs with the electric saw. The breastplate comes out like a manhole lid and then the organ tree is removed entire (the organ tree, with its strange fruit) and placed in the steel sink to the side. No vivisects heart, lungs, kidneys, liver, and takes tissue samples for analysis. Now he's