The Undertaker

Ernie cradled his bleeding hand to his chest and looked down at his pal. He was as big and more muscular than Tinkerton, but he was scared to death. Before the lawyer could turn on him with the scalpel a second time, Ernie swung his right fist around and caught Tinkerton with a looping right hook. The blow struck the lawyer flush on his temple and he went down hard. As he fell, Tinkerton's head struck the rounded corner of the embalming table with a hollow ”Clang.” He knocked the table back a good six inches, then slumped to the floor. His eyes rolled up in his head and he was out cold.

Ernie stood shaking, staring down at George and at Tinkerton lying next to each other. “Jee-zuz,” Ernie muttered as he turned white, blood still flowing down his right hand and arm. “Jee-zuz Christ!” Tinkerton wasn't moving but George wasn't moving either. He was lying very still in a widening pool of blood. “George...” Ernie called out to his partner, before he turned away and threw up on the floor.

“Ernie, get a grip, man. Help me up.” I struggled against the leather straps. “Come on, unbuckle these things for me,” I called to him, but he was in shock. He backed away, shaking and stumbling, cradling his bleeding hand as he headed back to the elevator.

“Ernie, please,” I called to him again. “You can't leave me down here.”

Finally, Ernie snapped out of it. He turned back and saw me. From his expression of shock and horror, perhaps that was the first time he realized I was there. He blinked, but he did come back to the embalming table and unbuckled the strap on my right arm. “My God,” he stammered. “He killed George. Just like that, he killed him. Why?”

I pulled my right arm free. “I don't know, but you and I are getting the hell out of here,” I said as I fumbled with the other buckles and freed my left arm and my legs. I rolled off the table onto the cold tile floor, legs unsteady, still stark naked.

Ernie stood watching me, pale and wooden. “You're bleeding to death. Come here,” I told him. He stepped gingerly over Tinkerton and the growing pool of blood around George as I reached into the equipment cabinet, grabbed a towel, and wrapped it around his bleeding hand. “That ought to hold you until we can get you to the hospital, Ernie. Now stay right here while I get my clothes on.”

I grabbed a second towel and pressed it against my abdomen, but the scalpel cut didn't look all that serious. I turned my back on Ernie long enough to grab my clothes. As I pulled on my pants, Ernie stumbled past me, moaning and mumbling, “Hospital, got to go to the hospital,” then he headed for the freight elevator.

“Ernie, no! Wait there, man,” I called to him, but he stepped inside and the doors closed behind him. I hopped after him, pulling on my shoes and shirt, zipping up my pants, and grabbing my other stuff all at the same time, but it was too late. Ernie was gone.

I ran up the stairs, taking them two at a time. He must have come in the ambulance, and I wasn't about to let him drive off and leave me behind. If Dannmeyer did get rid of my Bronco, that ambulance was the last stagecoach out of Dodge and I wasn't going to miss it. When I reached the first floor landing, Ernie was nowhere to be found, so I turned, ran for the rear service exit, and out the door to the loading dock. It was dark outside. The sky was lit with a thousand stars but there was only a thin, quarter moon to see by. The ambulance was still there though, engine running, headlights on, and the dome light burning bright inside the cab. After all those hours on that cold, stainless-steel table, the sticky early-summer night air made me feel like I'd been dipped in a vat of caramel, but I was happy to be outside, upright and alive.

I ran to the ambulance. Ernie was sitting behind the wheel with a vacant, dazed expression, trying unsuccessfully to close the driver's side door. “Ernie, stop!” I called out, but he wasn't listening. I ran around to the passenger side of the truck and jumped inside just as Ernie finally managed to slam the door shut and drop it into gear. The dashboard of the ambulance was cluttered with lights, two radios, a writing pad, and four banks of dials and switches. I looked over at Ernie and saw he was in no condition to walk and chew gum at the same time, much less drive anything as complicated as that big ambulance.