The Undertaker

Well, as the guest of honor, I didn't think it was polite to hold things up, so I stepped inside. The chapel had perhaps fifteen long, wooden pews on each side and could easily hold a couple of hundred people if it had to. Today it didn't. The crowd consisted of me and two cheap wooden coffins sitting on draped biers at the front of the room. They lay in a “V” with the far ends angled in so they almost touched. The coffins were matching, of course, and closed, with a large floral blanket lying across the center of each. Coffins. Funny how these two didn't bother me very much, probably because I knew I wasn't in the one and I knew Terri wasn't in the other. I strode down the center of the aisle for a closer look, but there was nothing to see. The coffins were shut tight, their covers screwed down, so I turned around, intending to take a seat in a pew halfway back and wait.

That was when I discovered there was another man in the room. It was the grease-ball with the chrome-plated .45 who shared the front seat of my Bronco with me last night. He stood in the right rear corner of the chapel watching me through a pair of dark, wrap-around sunglasses with an expression of faint amusement. Today he was dressed in a nicely tailored summer-weight beige suit and a dark blue silk shirt, open at the collar, with a matching floppy handkerchief in the coat pocket. He had the same set of gaudy gold chains hanging around his neck and his black hair combed straight back into a ponytail. With the clothes, the chains, and the ponytail, he didn't fit here in Buckeye land any more than I did. He took the sunglasses off and began to slowly clean the lenses with his handkerchief, staring at me the entire time. And there was no evasion in those eyes. They were cold and analytical, like a butcher sizing up a fresh slab of beef in a frosty meat locker.

I finally looked away and took a seat in a middle row, left. At precisely 2:00 PM, the organ music faded to silence and a tall, silver-haired man in a superbly tailored black suit materialized through a side curtain in one of the front alcoves. He wore an expensive blue silk tie with a matching handkerchief and his suit jacket remained buttoned. Very formal. Very proper. His crisp, white shirt had large, gold cuff links and he wore a sapphire ring on his pinkie finger. Tanned and fit, his mane of silver hair looked so stiff and lacquered, you could drop him on his head from a third floor window and he'd bounce. This couldn't be some junior assistant. This had to be Greene himself. With his head slightly bowed, he glided silently to the center of the room in front of the caskets. Ah, he seemed to be saying, life was indeed good, but if you play it right, death could be even better. The man paused there for a moment between the two coffins, his hands clasped in front of him, looking down, serious, contemplative, and very well practiced. When he finally looked up and saw me and the big gumba in the rear corner, I saw the slightest flicker of surprise in those soft-brown cow eyes, but Greene's expression never changed. Clearly, he didn't expect to see either one of us. Probably didn't expect to see anybody. Surprise? Annoyance? Yes, but oddly detached. And curious.

With a soft cough, he began to speak in a thick, baritone voice. “My friends, it was the wish of Peter and Theresa, as conveyed to me through their executor, that no memorial service be held at this time.” Great ad-libbing, I had to concede. “They knew how sad their untimely passing would be to their many friends,” Greene continued on autopilot without a hint of doubt or shame. “And Peter and Theresa very much wanted to spare them any further grief. Naturally, we will respect their wishes today. So, let us now bow our heads for a moment of silent prayer in their memory.”

After a brief pause, I heard another soft cough and had to stifle a laugh. If a straight line is the shortest distance between two points, I guess a mortician in Ohio measures a silent prayer as the shortest time between two coughs.

“On behalf of the family of Peter and Theresa, we truly appreciate your coming,” he continued as he looked up and studied me for a moment. “A private internment will follow, but at the request of the deceased, it is limited to the immediate family. Thank you and have a safe drive home.” Appropriate, I thought, as I stared at him and he stared back at me. No, not at me, more through me than anything else. Then the eyes swung away. They looked past me toward the back of the room where the guy in the blue shirt and gold chains was sitting. Greene's eyes paused again, as if he saw something there that bothered him a whole lot more than I did. Finally, he turned away and glided back into his alcove as silently as he had come.