The notion of clothes being "applied" was truly creepy.
"Now," Sam asked, sounding like a used car salesman. "May I show you a few models of our excellent casket line?"
The showroom reminded Temple of the Liberace museum not far distant.
Bulky caskets on pedestals stood around the showroom like a pod of marooned whales, or open grand pianos whose interior harps had been replaced by pleated satin fabric.
The satin-lined maws waited to received the dear departed on upholstered waves--of coral or pink, or palest blue or ecru-- that reminded Temple of said whale's yawning soft palate.
Then the casket's open upper Dutch door would snap shut out of sight and sink all those lost Jonahs deep in the belly of the earth.
Matt must have been more familiar with funeral rituals than she, but he sleepwalked through this macabre duty. Temple sup-posed that as a put-upon child he had wished Cliff Effinger dead. To be an adult in charge of postmortem arrangements for this man would try the integrity of a saint. Did he secretly rejoice? Or despair, to see the bane of his life consigned to the rituals of burial?
Temple had never had to participate in a burying before. She saw how bereaved relatives could escalate costs in the name of respect. The low-cost caskets, wooden or metal, were so obviously cheesy that only a merciless person would consign anyone they knew to such ignominy.
"Remember," she whispered to Matt as they solemnly snaked single file through the marooned caskets. "Max has lots of money."
"I'm not going to spend the money of one man I dislike to bury another man I despised."
"You don't like Max?" Temple was genuinely surprised that her charmer had failed, even with a rival. "You don't know him."
"We've talked."
"This isn't a simple burial; it's a trap. You have to bait it properly. I say, get a middle-of-the-road casket."
Sam, keeping a decent distance that precluded eavesdropping, paused to smooth his silk-blend suit jacket, a pleasant smile sending his eyebrows heavenward.
They ended up consulting like a couple buying a first car. Wood was obvious. Effinger would be cremated. "Isn't that against your religion?" Temple hissed fretfully when Sam had withdrawn to let them make their decision.
"Not any more. Besides, I don't think Effinger was any religion. I vote for the oak."
"Then can I have the tacky sea-green lining? It should make him look sallow."
"I think death has taken care of that for you."
When it came to clothes, it was one dark neutral suit or another. Temple voted for the plain black over the navy pinstriped. With a yellow shirt.
"Why?" Matt asked as they left the showroom following the funeral director, who was no doubt used to intense, hushed consultations.
"He'll look like an after-dinner mint. You know, those dark chocolate lozenges with pastel fillings, green and yellow. Terrible taste in every respect. Serve him right for making us miserable while he was alive."
"Dressing a corpse wrong is the best revenge?"
"Matt, it's the only revenge you can have on a corpse. Unless you want to go in for grave-robbing or desecration or some-such."
"No. No thanks. Dead and buried is all I ask, and unable to harm anyone else. I'm even getting used to the idea of him getting a decent send-off ceremony."
Temple threaded her arm through his as they returned to the director's office. Her voice assumed a melancholy Eastern European accent.
"The road you valk is thorny, my son, but as the sun rises in the east, you vill find a kinder path."
"I'm not even going to ask where that's from."
"One of those dreadfully wonderful Wolfman movies from the forties."
"It almost goes with my new sofa, then."
"Right. Just get yourself an old TV with a round screen in a blond cabinet and settle back to enjoy yourself."
"Isn't there one of those in the Ghost Suite at the Crystal Phoenix?" His voice lowered as he bent to her ear. "Maybe we could reserve it someday."
No. No, they couldn't.
By the time they had resumed their overstuffed chairs in front of Sam's huge mahogany desk, Matt was mellow and Temple was cast down.
"Now I understand that the expenses are being assumed by an anonymous donor." Sam smiled like a JP at a pair of newlyweds whose parents had paid for the ceremony. "Fine with me.
Just okay the items you've approved, folks, and I'll take payment later. Any friends of Electra Lark's are friends of mine."
Nodding, smiling and stunned by how much even their modest choices added up to, Matt signed on the dotted lines. Then he and Temple escaped the whited sepulcher world of funeral homes and pastel plush carpet.
"I'm not sure about the piped-in music," Matt said.
"Irish dirges are always appropriate, believe me."
"Effinger isn't Irish."
"But our 'sponsor' is."
"I see, the piper pays, he gets to name the tune."
"What would you have chosen?"
"Perhaps the medieval chants."
"Toney, but a bit much for Effinger."
Matt nodded. "I'm not looking forward to the visitation Monday morning. At least there'll be no religious service. I couldn't have stood that."
"I just hope something happens Monday."
"Like what?"
"I don't know. Something odd and revealing. Something sinister. Something that points an inescapable clue toward Effinger's murderer, or murderers."
"Plural?"
"Now that Molina has 'fessed up that Effinger was bound to the barge and sunk with it, it's obvious it took more than one person to do it. And something else is also obvious."
"What? I guess I'm too close to him, his odious history. All I see is that someone stamped out the life of a vile bug."
"Nicely put. No holy moly stuff excusing the poor sod. But. . . you've got the wrong species."
"Bug?"
Temple nodded seriously. "The way Effinger died was a broad hint about why he died."
"Temple, don't hint. I'm tired, I'm hurt, I'm having to treat this creep like a human being now that he's dead, which is probably good for my soul but does nothing for my instincts. Just tell me what you mean."
She took a deep breath. "He died by water, knowing he would die for at least twenty minutes before it happened. It was a mean, sadistic killing. It was sending a message, to Effinger, and to every-one who ever knew him. It said: this is the end of a dirty rat. A drowned rat. A man who spilled his guts. Who talked to the police."
"Jesus, Temple."
When Matt swore, it always struck Temple as a prayer.
"You're telling me I killed him. I found him, I took him to Molina. I made him a marked man."
"You couldn't have done him more dirt than that, if you had wanted to."
"Oh, I wanted to. I just thought, at the time, I wanted justice more."
"Maybe you got it. Maybe this was the only way you were going to get it."
"Through killers, instead of the law?"
"The law kills legally. What's the difference?"
Matt couldn't answer her.
****************
The visitation Monday afternoon was the height of what passes for civilization among the funeral-home set.
Keening Celtic pipes set the tone as visitors to "the Effinger observance" were funneled into the tastefully accoutered viewing room. A gilt-lettered volume, open like an angel's book, recorded visitors' names. Discreet white envelopes and cards the size of cocktail napkins accepted cash, check or spare chips in the name of good works in the name of the deceased.
In return, donors acquired gilt-edged cards embossed with the nondenominational image of a dove.
Matt and Temple were the first to arrive, both a symphony in black. Matt was probably the only man in Las Vegas who wasn't dead and who possessed a black suit.
"I just realized that look is ultrachic," Temple commented as they left the car.
"Please. I can't take being chic at the moment."