The Undertaker

“No you don't. It's like those three cards on the box. The flashing fingers and the distractions have you confused. You're seeing stuff that isn't there.”

“Fingers? Funny thing about fingers. They leave prints. When the cops go up to Oak Hill and dig up your Peter Talbott, they'll find his fingerprints don't match the ones in my Army records. The body won't match either. And when they dig up Skeppington, Pryor, Brownstein, and all the rest of them, those bodies won't match their medical or dental records, either. What they will find though, is your name, Greene's name, and Varner's name all over the legal documents that put them there. National Security or not, those are state crimes. Your big time Washington pals may not like it, but they can't keep you out of a state pen.”

Tinkerton sat silently, staring at me, his eyes turning cold and malevolent.

“You can probably stare down a rampaging bull, Ralph, but when they get Greene, Varner, and Dannmeyer under the hot lights, they're going to crack like spring ice. See, I haven't even gotten around to Jimmy Santorini yet.”

I threw that one in blind, like tossing a hand grenade over a high wall to see what it might flush out. This time it flushed out plenty. Tinkerton came out of his chair sputtering. “Jimmy Santorini? You fool! What have you done?”

“Not much, not yet, but I will. See, for an amateur I catch on pretty fast.” I rose and held the white paper bag in front of me with two fingers, like you'd hold a mousetrap with a dead rat dangling from it, and backed toward the door. “I'm leaving now. Don't try to stop me. If you do, you'll have a bigger mess than you could ever imagine.”

That was when my curiosity got the best of me. I looked over at his little framed shrine and asked, “By the way, Ralph, “Zero Defects?” What's that supposed to mean? Some secret jarhead fraternity?

“It means we don't make mistakes. We can't afford any. And we don't tolerate people who make them.”

“Well, you just made a real big one,” I told him as I opened the door and let it swing wide. Edna and the two associate bouncers stood outside, looking very serious and very nervous. I paused in the doorway and turned back toward Tinkerton. “See ya later, Ralph. Let's do lunch again some time. Ciao.”

Holding the bag high, I walked out between the Troll and one of the bouncers. I dropped the paper Bouncing Bagel hat on her desk, tossed the white apron over the first partition I passed, and walked straight through the office to the elevators. I hit the first floor lobby in full stride. As I passed the security desk, I reached out and carefully placed the white paper bag with the bottle of Dr. Brown's on the security guard's desk.

“A delivery for Mr. Tinkerton on fourteen,” I smiled. “Can you see it gets there? Thanks.”

As I passed through the revolving doors, I wasn't sure what I had accomplished by going up there. Probably not very much, but I had rattled their cage and I felt damned good about doing it. I was alive and felt positively liberated for the first time in months.

A piece of cake, I concluded. And, I concluded one more thing, too. This snake had a head and that head was Ralph McKinley Tinkerton.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Personal preferences?

I was on a roll and decided to go for the knock out. The Varner Clinic was located in the small town of Delancy, Ohio, about five miles north of Greene's Funeral Home. How convenient, I thought. It was like one-stop-dying. In L. A., they could add a Brother Bob's New Age Feel-Good Church, a drive-thru liquor store with an ATM, and sell franchises, but things weren't nearly that progressive here in the Great Outback of Central Ohio.

Driving through town, Delancy appeared fairly prosperous. It was the County seat and featured a quaint ivy-covered college campus, a block or two of renovated Victorian shops, the courthouse, and no doubt the offices of that law enforcement giant Sheriff Virgil Dannmeyer. The town stretched out in each direction from the crossroads of Anderson Road and Main Street. Looking at the fronts of the stores, they specialized in antiques, residential real estate, books, and small restaurants that catered to the college crowd with vegetarian food, pizza, and too much coffee. I drove both streets and stopped at a BP station where I asked the attendant where I could find the Varner Clinic. He gave me a very odd look.

“East on Anderson Road about a mile. You can't miss it,” he chuckled. “If that's where you really want to go.”