He dropped the news in the partners’ laps like a bombshell at a meeting of the Businessmen’s Club.
“Got a new hearse yesterday,” he announced casually. “Combination ambulance-hearse, like yours.”
Only eighteen years in a business where public relations demanded an ability to control facial expression prevented the partners from gaping at him in consternation. Instead they both managed to look delighted.
“Shannon will have better ambulance service than most cities,” Sam Potter remarked with a wide grin.
But when they got back to the funeral home, neither partner felt it necessary to conceal his gloom from the other.
“We’re licked,” Sam said. “Jimmy Straight, the Hose One pump truck driver, is Averill’s brother-in-law. Every call that comes into the fire department will be relayed on to him instead of to us.”
“Yeah,” Dave said dispiritedly. Then he brightened. “On the other hand, Tommy Johnson on the night desk at the police station is my cousin. I think I can fix it to have us called first by the police.”
This information cheered Sam a little. “Then at least we’ll have an even break,” he said thoughtfully. “It’ll just be a question of which ambulance can get to the scene first.”
That was the way it worked out. Since the police station and the fire department had a joint switchboard, both learned about automobile accidents simultaneously. And as a result the two funeral homes learned of them simultaneously. During the next few weeks both ambulances roared to every accident scene.
But since in no case were there more than three victims requiring hospitalization as a result of any one accident, and each ambulance was equipped to handle up to three stretcher cases, one ambulance always returned home empty. Neither managed to gain an edge, each garnering roughly half the available business.
At the end of six weeks Harry Averill made a visit to the Potter and Clemson Mortuary. He caught the partners in the act of laying out an elderly woman who had tried to pass a semi-trailer on a hill.
“Competent looking job so far,” Averill commented judiciously. “Though Harry Jr. would be a better judge of that than me. He handles all this end of the business, you know, while I work out front.”
Neither partner felt as constrained to be polite to their competitor in private as they did in public. Sam Potter said with a trace of condescension, “We know you’re not an embalmer,” and Dave Clemson asked bluntly, “What do you want?”
“Thought it time we had a little business discussion,” Averill said. “Did you know the whole village is beginning to talk about our races to accident scenes?”
Both partners looked at him. They not only knew it, they had worriedly discussed the possible effect such bad publicity might have on both funeral homes.
But all Sam Potter said was, “So?”
“So up to now people just think it’s funny. They just think we’re competing for ambulance fees. It hasn’t occurred to anyone that we’re also trying to line up...” He paused, discarded the phrase he had started to use and changed it to, “Trying to create good will.”
When Sam and Dave merely continued to look at him, Averill coughed delicately. “It occurred to me that if the general public ever suspects our... ah... good will reason for rushing to accident scenes, people might consider it a trifle ghoulish.”
The partners looked at each other, then went back to work. Sam carefully injected a little paraffin into the withered left cheek of the corpse, rounding it out prettily. As he moved to the other cheek, Dave lightly touched the left one with rouge.
“In a town this small, that sort of talk could ruin both of us,” Averill said.
Sam asked bluntly, “What you driving at?”
“I suggest we split the business. You fellows take all calls one week, we’ll take them the next. That way we won’t be going out on unnecessary calls, there won’t be any danger of talk and, best of all, we’ll each only be on twenty-four-hour call half the time. I don’t imagine you fellows like having to stick near a phone all the time any more than I do.”
Sam and Dave silently continued working on the corpse for some minutes. Finally Dave said, “I think he’s got a point, Sam.”
“I guess so,” Sam said reluctantly. “Maybe we ought to try it at least for awhile.”
Neither partner mentioned to Harry Averill that they had discussed going to him with the identical proposition.
For the next six months the cooperative agreement between Averill’s Funeral Home and the Potter and Clemson Mortuary worked without friction. On alternate weeks the combination ambulance-hearses of each rushed to accident scenes alone. And while some weeks the traffic toll was heavier than others, over a period of time each made approximately the same number of trips.
However, when Dave Clemson made one of the statistical studies he was so fond of at the end of the six months, his findings upset him.
“We’ve had twenty-four calls in six months,” he told Sam. “Averill’s had twenty-seven. We brought in forty-nine people and he only brought in forty. In every case where a victim from out of town died, the next of kin called the funeral home whose ambulance brought the deceased to the hospital.”
“Sounds fair enough to me,” Sam said.
“But out of his forty people, twelve of Averill’s died. Only seven of our forty-nine did. He got five more embalmings than we did.”
“It’ll work out even over the years,” Sam assured him. “Next six months we’ll probably get more embalmings than Averill.”
“We better,” Dave said darkly. “Even with this extra tourist business, we’re barely keeping up payments on that eighty-five hundred loan. If things get worse instead of better, we’re sunk.”
But things didn’t get worse. Fortunately for the shaky financial status of the mortuary, Sam Potter’s prophecy came true. During the next six months, despite ambulance calls being fairly evenly split, only five of those accident victims brought in by Averill died, while eighteen delivered to the hospital by Sam and Dave expired.
“See?” Sam said, when Dave had reported to him the results of his semi-annual statistical study. “Now we’re eight embalmings ahead of Averill.” Then his face turned gloomy. “Which means the percentages are we’ll drop way down during the next six months.”
But this time Sam’s prophecy was not correct, for the partners’ luck held for the whole of the next six-month period. The accident victims they rushed to the hospital continued to die with much more gratifying frequency than those brought in by Averill.
By now the partners’ procedure on emergency calls had settled into a routine. On the way to accident scenes Dave Clemson invariably drove. Coming back Sam Potter always drove while his thin partner sat in back with the patients. After delivering their cargoes to the hospital, they switched again and Dave drove home.
This might have gone on indefinitely without change had it not been for Sam Potter mistaking a car seat cushion for a body one dark night.
The call came in about eleven P.M., reporting a bad accident on the main highway about two miles beyond town. Within three minutes they were roaring to the scene with the siren wide open.
When they approached the accident scene, the first thing the partners saw was a ditched semitrailer with a cluster of people gathered about it, then an overturned sedan fifty yards beyond. As usual Dave was driving, and since from previous experience he knew that in arguments between semis and passengers cars it was normally the occupants of the passenger car who were most in need of attention, he slid by the semi and brought the ambulance to a stop near the sedan.