Janet is quite a standout in her tube top, poised beside a spray of gladiolus and tulips. She's chatting with a spry-looking elderly woman dressed in widow black.
"Gertie, this is Jack," Janet says. "Jack, this is Mrs. Gertie Brandt. Gene's wife."
Gene?
"Nice of you to come." Gertie shakes my hand. She is dry-eyed and composed, leading me to conclude that her husband had been ill for some time, and that his death might have been a blessing. Either that or he was a miserable jerk and she's glad to be rid of him.
Gertie asks, "How do you know my Gene?"
"Professionally," I say. "It was years ago, but he made quite an impression."
Gertie smiles fondly. "He always does." She gestures toward the coffin. "Did you see him? They did a wonderful job."
"He looks real peaceful," Janet chimes in. "And handsome, too," she adds with a wink.
Gertie beams. "Go on, Jack. Have a look."
So, like a moron, I'm standing here admiring a dead stranger. It would appear that Eugene Marvin Brandt is heading for the pearly gates in his favorite golf ensemble, including spikes. Janet appears at my side and squeezes my arm.
"You're a good sport," she whispers.
"And you are one twisted sister."
"I didn't want to be alone."
"So you crash a viewing?"
"Everyone's been so nice," she says. "What a sweet-looking man, no?"
With her chin Janet points at the eternally recumbent Mr. Brandt. "Guess what he did for a living!"
"We need to talk."
"Catheters. He sold them."
"That would have been my second guess."
"And other medical supplies," Janet adds.
This room, too, is rapidly emptying of oxygen. I take an audible gulp and clutch the rim of the coffin.
"Cancer," says Janet Thrush. "Case you were wondering."
"Can we go now?"
"Cancer of the prostrate."
"Prostate."My voice is raspy and ancient. I'm wondering if it's medically possible to choke to death on the scent of stale flowers.
Janet says, "Once I had a noodle cut out of my armpit."
"A nodule, you mean."
"Whatever. Main thing, it was benign. But still it freaked me outsomethin' growing in my armpit!"
Her words are spiraling down a long gray tunnel. Any second now, I'll be fainting. No joke, I'm going to pitch face-forward into the casket of a dead catheter salesman wearing golf spikes.
"Jack, you don't look so hot."
Firmly Janet steers me out the door, into the fresh air. We sit on the grass under a black olive tree near a small stagnant pond. Slowly I lie back and squeeze my eyelids shut. Two stiffs in one day, Sweet Jesus!
A breeze springs up and I proceed to drift off for an hour, maybe longer. The next thing I know, a cold soda can is being pressed into my right hand. I raise up and take a sip and my eyes tear up from the carbonation. Janet is next to me, sitting cross-legged. Folded in her lap is the white paper shopping bag, now empty.
"You did it," I say, pointing at the bag.
"What?"
"The Soft Parade.Somewhere Jimmy is smiling, I'm sure."
Touching two fingertips to my forehead, Janet says, "Jeez, you're in a cold sweat."
"I'm a wimp," I admit. "The sight of poor old Gene did me in. Gene, all decked out for the eternal dogleg."
"Drink the Coke. You'll feel better."
And soon I do. Taking her by the hand, I lead her back toward the funeral home. "Listen, I checked it out. As Jimmy's sister you can stop the cremation. We'll get a court order," I tell her. "You're a blood relative. You can demand a proper autopsy."
"No, Jack" Janet, pulling free as we enter the front door.
"Meanwhile we've got to put the fear of Almighty God into young Ellis. Scare him into thinking you're going to sue his ass off if he goes ahead with it today"
"No," Janet says again. She looks sad and exhausted, holding the empty shopping bag to her breasts. "Jack, it's too late."
"What are you talking about?"
"When you fell asleep, I went inside. Back to that room," she says. "He's gone. It's too late."
"Goddammit."
"I know."
I sag against a planter featuring a lovely plastic rhododendron.
"But what about the album? I thought you put it in with"
"Too late. So I threw it in the pondit was a stupid idea, anyway," Janet says. "I mean, the record's vinyl. All it's gonna do is melt all over his damn bones."
I'm thinking Jimmy wouldn't mind.
"Come on," she says, sniffling. "Let's get outta here."
"In a minute."
I see oily-fingered Ellis alone in his cubicle, intently tapping on a portable calculator. Janet hangs back while I peer in the doorway.
Ellis quickly turns his head sideways while simultaneously swiveling his chair toward the wall. "Can I help you?" he squeaks over his shoulder.
"Nice earring, dickhead. But it looked better on Mr. Stomarti."
Ellis claps one hand over his right ear in a futile effort to conceal the stolen diamond.
"I don't know what you're talking about!" he yelps. "Doesn't anybody ever knock anymore!"
6
Emma is off on Mondays, but this can't wait.
The phone rings busy for an hour so I do the unthinkable and drive to her apartment, a duplex on the west side. I know how to get there because I gave her a ride on the day her car got stolen from the newspaper's parking lot. The car was a silver two-door Acura, a gift from her father. The cretin who drove off with it later tried to rob the drive-through window of a bank. He was shot by a guard and died bleeding copiously on Emma's gray leather upholstery. The car was impounded as evidence.
So I agreed to give Emma a lift, which was risky. I feared she might be so upset that she would require consoling, which I couldn't offer. To show sympathy would have thrown slack into a relationship that had to remain as taut as a garrote. If I was to save Emma from the newspaper life, I couldn't become someone in whom she confided, or even (God forbid) a casual friend.
As it turned out, the drive proved uneventful. Emma was remarkably philosophical about the dead robber in her Acura; at no time did she appear in need of a hug or even a pat on the hand. She said she'd spoken to her father and he'd offered to buy her another car once the insurance money came through. She'd told him thanks just the same, but she was a grownup and it was time she paid for her own wheels. Good for you, I said mildly. Then, dropping her off at the duplex, I heard myself asking if she needed a ride to work the following morning. What possessed me, I cannot say. Luckily, Emma already had lined up a rental.
Her apartment is a block off the main highway, but it takes two passes to find the right side street. In the driveway sits Emma's new car, a champagne-colored Camry with the paper license tag still taped in the rear window. Parked on the swale by the road is a familiar black Jeep Cherokee. It belongs to Juan Rodriguez, a sportswriter at the paper. He also happens to be my best friend.
Juan recently began dating Emma, an unnerving development. There was a time when Juan and I could go have a couple beers and bitch self-righteously about the newspaper. Not now. Whatever I might say about the deplorable state of journalism would come off as a rap against Emma, and I don't want to offend Juan. However, his interest in Emma is vexingfor two years he listened to me rail about her, and still he asked her out.
She's different in all ways from the other three women that Juan datesone is a professional figure skater, one is an orthopedic surgeon and one is a halftime dancer for the Miami Heat basketball team. Contrary to appearances, Juan is in serious pursuit of a lifetime partner. Maybe Emma's the one, but a selfish part of me hopes not. It would suck dead toads to have my best friend romantically involved with my editor.
The question of the moment: Have Juan and Emma started a sexual relationship? If so, there's a strong possibility that I'm about to interrupt an act of copulation, which is hardly ever a good idea. In Emma's windows the blinds are open, but no movement is visible except for a bony calico cat, grooming itself on a sill. Apprehensively I check my wristwatchat four-thirty in the afternoon, it's more likely that Juan and Emma are screwing than watching Oprah.