“I guess so.”
“But I did mention it an awful lot, and so I began to be afraid you’d think I was being a nag, even though I knew I wasn’t a nag. Do you see what I mean?”
“Yes.”
“What I don’t understand is why you didn’t tell me you’d decided. But of course I really do understand. You wanted to surprise me. That was it, wasn’t it?”
“Oh, sure.” Penny was still bewildered.
“Well you did. Even after all those months of my explaining to you why it was so important. I thought you were going to just go right on being stubborn and resisting. I really didn’t think you understood. But you did. You did!” Mrs. Potter was beaming.
“Did I?” »
“Yes. But Penny, there’s one little thing you forgot. I hope you won’t get upset at my mentioning it. It’s only a little thing, I mean, considering what you’ve done already, we might as well make sure all the details are right. Don’t you agree?”
“Oh, sure.”
“Then I’ll need another thousand dollars,” Mrs. Potter said pleasantly, but firmly.
“You’ll need what?!”
“Another thousand dollars. Now, Penny, I do hope you’re not going to make me keep harping on this and feeling like a shrike the way you did before. After all, what’s a thousand dollars considering how much you’ve already--”
“What do you need a thousand dollars for?”
“Genuine antique Greek bronze torches.”
“What?”
“Genuine antique Gree-—”
“I heard you! I heard you! But what the hell do you need torches for?”
“You forgot them.”
“I what?”
“You forgot them. Penny, I do wish you’d pay more attention when I talk to you. If you’d listened in the first place, you wouldn’t have forgotten them.” Mrs. Potter softened her tone. “But then I am grateful that you remembered everything else. The carved ivory angels, the inscription, the wrought-iron fence . . .” Mrs. Potter rambled on with a happy, faraway look in her eyes.
“What is the purpose”-— Penny phrased the words very carefully to be sure the question would be understood. -—“of genuine antique Greek bronze torches?”
“Why, to flank both sides of the entrance to my mausoleum, of course.”
“Your what?”
“My mausoleum.”
“Oh.” Penny thought about it. Thinking didn’t seem to make it any clearer.
“It’s the only thing you forgot. See?” Mrs. Potter was holding out a sheet of paper.
Penny took it. The paper was an itemized bill. The heading at the top said “PERMA-SLEEP FUNERAL DIRECTORS.” Directly under it was a motto proclaiming “Everything For The Happy Passing From The Compleat Funeral Ceremony To The Dedicated Care of Eternal Entombment.” Underneath that was an itemized bill. It added up to sixteen-thousand thirty-seven dollars and fifty- one cents. At the bottom it was stamped “PAID IN FULL.”
“See?” Mrs. Potter repeated. “Everything else is on there. The embalming. The choir with the heavenly white gowns. The hearse and the twelve limousine funeral cortege. The sod to be renewed every year for a hundred years. The air conditioning for the mausoleum. It’s all there. Everything except the genuine antique Greek bronze torches. It’s only another thousand dollars, Penny. Surely you wouldn’t begrudge your own mother —”
Penny wasn’t listening. The date under the “PAID IN FULL” stamp had rung a bell. It was the same day as the one on which Pennington P. Potter had killed himself. On that date Pennington P. Potter had paid sixteen-thousand thirty-seven dollars and fifty-one cents to the funeral home!
It seemed obvious to Penny that ten thousand of that amount must have been the money stolen from the Fuller Lawn Manure Co. But Where had the other six grand come from? Struck by a sudden hunch, Penny said “Excuse me a minute” to Mrs. Potter and headed for the bedroom.
A few moments of rummaging in Pennington P. Potter’s bureau and Penny found it. It was a bankbook for a savings account in Potter’s name. The record showed a long line of small deposits over a period of years. Only the last entry was in the withdrawal column. It was for the amount of six thousand dollars. The date entered beside it was for the day before the date on the funeral home receipt!
So here it was! Now all the pieces fell into place for Penny. The woman responsible for the theft and the suicide was Mrs. Potter.
Potter must have gone out of his mind with her nagging. The old Bitch! Penny thought bitterly. And the stolen money had gone to the funeral home. That idea started Penny moving again.
“Where are you going, dear?” Mrs. Potter asked as Penny came down from the bedroom and headed for the door leading out of the apartment.
“To the funeral home,” Penny replied without stopping.
“Oh, aren’t you sweet?” Mrs. Potter was happy. “You’re going to see about the torches.”
“No,” Penny told her with some satisfaction, a malicious satisfaction owed to Potter. “No, I’m not. I’m going there to cancel the order and get the money back.”
“Cancel the order! What do you mean? You can’t do that!” Mrs. Potter sputtered. “What will happen to me if you cancel the order? What will happen when I die?”
“Why worry?” Penny told her. “They’ve got a place especially for you.”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s even named after you, Mrs. Potter.” Penny paused in the doorway to deliver the coup de grace. “It’s called Potter’s Field!”
“Mrs. Potter?” Mrs. Potter wondered, dazed, the final words not having sunk in yet. “Why would he be so formal with his mother?”
Penny wasn’t there to hear the question. Penny was already heading down the block and crosstown to the Perma-Sleep Funeral Home. Less than a half-hour later Penny passed through the portals of the establishment and into a world of black wreaths held together by more red tape than you’d be likely to find in a civil service first-aid kit.
It was up the ladder of funereal responsibility for Penny in the quest for a refund. And there was so much oily unction on the rungs of the ladder that Penny kept slipping. The first step was taken with the salesman who had sold the Potter funeral in the first place. He was typical.
“I only make the arrangements for the arrangements,” he told Penny somberly. “I’m not authorized to make arrangements for refunds.”
“Well, who is?” Penny wanted to know.
“I don’t really know. It’s never come up in my experience before. Very few of our clientele are in a position to complain about our services, if you’ll allow me my little joke.”
“I won’t,” Penny decided. “Now, I want to talk to somebody in authority about getting my money back.”
The second interview was no more successful than the first. “Death is final!” is the way the funeral director summed it up.
“My mother isn’t dead yet,” Penny reminded him.
“We all have our cross to bear. My mother isn’t dead yet either,” the funeral director told him with an effort at rapport. “But I console myself with the thought that it’s only a matter of time. She’s mortal, after all. We’re all mortal. She has to be. Doesn’t she? She has to be mortal!”
“Take it easy,” Penny told him. “A heart attack, a cancer—it could carry her off at any moment.”
“Except those goddam research foundations with their goddam helpfulness, the odds are dropping all the time!” The funeral director was bitter.
Penny left him to his bitterness and passed on to the Vice-President in Charge of Special Arrangements. “Death is final!” this worthy echoed for openers.