“Not particularly.”
“Come anyway. I’d like you to take a look at Rose.”
Frank shifted his weight and the chair squeaked in protest. The noise sounded almost human. “That’s not my line of work.”
“Once they’re dead you’re finished with them, eh? What’s the matter, Frank, you afraid of nice, harmless, old dead people?”
“I haven’t had any experience.”
“There’s always a first time.”
“Anyway, I promised Miriam I’d take her to a movie.”
“I’ll call her and tell her you’ll be late,” Greer said. “What’s the number?”
“You don’t have to bother.”
“What’s the number?”
“23664.”
Greer called Miriam while Frank went over to the window and looked out through its iron grill work at the city lights. Even from there he could hear Miriam’s clear, firm voice coming all too distinctly over the phone. It was the first she’d heard of any movie date, Miriam said, and besides she was washing her hair.
Greer hung up, looking very pleased with himself. “You could have done better than that, Frank.”
“Miriam’s only fault is a habit of pushing the truth out in front of her like a wheelbarrow.”
“It’s a nice way of taking people for a ride. Are you ready?”
“I guess I am.”
Greer laughed. “You’ll be okay. If you get to feeling queasy, Malgradi will give you a couple of slugs of embalming fluid.”
4
Malgradi’s Funeral Parlor was in the east end, a new white stucco building with rows of fluted columns like a Greek temple and a flashing neon sign like a theatre. This incongruity was carried on inside. Malgradi was a showman, but he also possessed a deeply religious feeling about death, and the biggest collection of organ records in town. All of Malgradi’s clients got a fine send-off, and always (since Malgradi was a confirmed optimist) in the right direction. He felt that when he had made each of them as pleasing to the eye as possible and bade them farewell with the finest organ music available, he had done his duty. His conscience was clear, he was devoted to his family and they to him, and he was, in spite of his rather lugubrious profession, a happy man with excellent digestion.
Malgradi had a working agreement with the police. He was not qualified to do autopsies himself, but his back room was used by the pathologist of the local hospital to perform autopsies on all people who died suddenly without apparent cause or under suspicious circumstances. Rose was no longer in the back room.
“I’ve been getting quite a few calls,” Malgradi told Greer. “Seems like a lot of people are curious; they want to know about the funeral.”
“Is that right?”
“So, as a matter of fact, do I. Think it’ll be county?”
“It’ll be county if nobody shows up who wants to foot the bill. Where’s Dalloway?”
“In my office.”
“By the way, this is Frank Clyde, a friend of mine.”
Malgradi and Frank shook hands heartily and Malgradi said, as the three men went down the corridor, that any friend of Greer’s was a friend of his.
Malgradi’s office at first glance seemed like a somber room dedicated to sorrow. A more careful study revealed a camouflaged television set, a portable bar discreetly draped in grey velvet, and a large bowl of potato chips on Malgradi’s desk.
The room smelled of cigar smoke. The man who was smoking the cigar rose and looked around nervously for an ashtray. Finding none, he transferred the cigar to his gloved left hand. He was tall and erect, a man in his sixties, with clipped white hair and wide-spaced brown eyes that looked naïve and trusting as a boy’s. He had trusted, perhaps, too often and too well. The rest of his face bore the marks of bitterness and pain.
The hand holding the cigar remained motionless and Frank realized that it was artificial.
Dalloway took a hesitating step forward. “You’re the police?”
Greer nodded.
“I’m Haley Dalloway. This is terrible, a terrible thing. Rose was always so full of life and energy. I can’t believe that she... that she—” He turned away for a moment, fighting for control.
When he recovered his composure, Greer introduced Frank and himself. There was more handshaking and murmurs of condolence, and then Malgradi pressed a button behind his desk and organ music poured into the room, soft and thick as syrup.
“For God’s sake, turn that thing off,” Greer said.
Malgradi glanced at him reproachfully. “Well, I only thought it would be appropriate, under the circumstances.”
“Under the circumstances I’d rather listen to coyotes howling.”
“Can I help it if some people are tone deaf?” But he turned the record off. He had a good deal of respect for Greer. Greer had gone to Princeton for two years and his opinion on what was appropriate was not to be taken lightly.
“Thank you,” Dalloway said. No one could tell from his expression whether he was thanking Malgradi for the snatch of music or Greer for the silence.
Greer was studying Dalloway, not subtly, the way Frank had to observe his cases, but openly and directly the way Miriam sized people up. “You live here, Mr. Dalloway?”
“No. No, I don’t. I live in Belmont, that’s a suburb of Boston. I came out here for... for a vacation.”
“Where are you staying?”
“At the Rancho del Mar. It’s a motel down near the beach, East Beach, I believe they call it. If there’s anything you want to discuss with me you can reach me there. Right now I... I’d like to see Rose.”
“Certainly,” Greer said politely. “Do you mind if Mr. Clyde here goes along?”
“Well, I... no.”
“Mr. Clyde was a friend of Rose’s. He’s been trying to help her this past year.”
“Help her?” Dalloway’s eyes focused on Frank. “In what way? Are you a doctor?”
“I work for the mental hygiene clinic,” Frank said, wishing there was some simple way of describing his functions. “Rose was brought to my attention a year or so ago.”
“You mean Rose was insane?”
“No, indeed I don’t. The clinic does preventive work, not as much as we could do if we had enough money and trained help. But we do some. I gave Rose an appointment whenever I felt that she was getting too depressed or too high.”
“Rose was always like that,” Dalloway said quite brusquely. “It’s nothing new or serious. One day she’d be so low she hated everyone and the next day she was the life of the party.” He raised his chin in a gesture of pride. “I’m glad, I’m glad she didn’t change.”
But she had changed, she’d changed so much that Dalloway, when he saw her, backed away from the satin-lined casket and covered his eyes.
Frank gazed stonily down at the dead woman. He was appalled. She didn’t look like Rose at all. In life Rose had been rather careless. No matter how often she combed her hair it always looked a little wild, her makeup was never quite straight, and her clothes gave the impression that she had just come in after a fuss with a high wind.
Now Rose lay in her borrowed casket, meticulous, not a hair out of place. Her cotton-stuffed cheeks were symmetrically rosy, her mouth rigid and straight as if she didn’t dare to move it for fear of disturbing the lipstick. There were no more high winds for Rose.
“It is,” Dalloway said finally, “it is Rose?”
“Yes,” Frank said.
“I’d never have known her, she’s aged so much.” He spoke as if the years that had aged Rose had passed him without a glance. “She’s still wearing my ring.”
“I’ve never seen her without it.”
“That’s funny, isn’t it, after all that’s happened to her. So much, so much happened to Rose. I used to read about her in the papers from time to time, after she left me.” Except for his breathing which was labored and irregular, Dalloway seemed under control. “Did she ever tell you how she left me?”