Just for a second. And then it slipped through a tear in the carpet and was gone.
I walked down the hall, my boots crunching over stained glass shards as I returned to the Explorer.
In the doorway-now somewhat bigger than it had been a few minutes before-stood the man who had opened the hearse for the pallbearers. Black suit, white hair and neatly trimmed whiskers, and a professionally stern expression that rivaled Diabolos Whistler’s. He was obviously the undertaker.
He said, “Those men outside are dead.”
I glanced past the prone bodies, happy to see their crippled shades stumbling into the woods beyond the parking lot. At the same time the undertaker peered over my shoulder, investigating his own concerns-namely the battered doorway, the shattered stained glass doors, and the wrecked coffins in the chapel beyond.
“I suppose a discussion of payment for damages is out of the question,” he said.
“You might say that.”
He stepped past me and entered the chapel. Seeing his back, I was surprised to see that the old codger had a crisp white ponytail.
The fashion statement amused me, but it didn’t do much for Spider Ripley. He was too busy to notice-wiping his slashed face with a length of funeral bunting from one of the floral displays. The undertaker stepped over him like he wasn’t there and knelt before the woman’s corpse.
She wasn’t exactly looking her best. Her wig had slipped to one side, and gray patches of dead flesh were visible beneath her smeared makeup. Her mouth had been jarred open by the collision, and her dentures lay in a bed of pale pink roses.
The undertaker wiped them with a handkerchief. “Poor Mrs. Cavendish,” he sighed. “We’ve already gone through so much, and it seems more trials lay ahead.”
“She can get in line,” I said.
The undertaker’s brows wrinkled. “Meaning?”
I reached into the Explorer and grabbed the iron box that held Whistler’s head. I inserted the notched bar of Spider’s crucifix into the lock. A twist and the lock popped open. The barred door opened next, and then I had Whistler’s head by his long white hair.
Whistler’s goatee was peppered with ants. I brushed them off as best I could and raised the dead man’s head for the undertaker’s inspection. “This,” I said, motioning toward Whistler’s coffin, “goes with that.”
“Very well.” The undertaker smiled knowingly. “Very well, indeed.”
The undertaker’s name was Albert Parsons. I didn’t like the smell of Parsons’s work room any better than I liked his company. I didn’t like show tunes either, but that was what blared from Parsons’s stereo. Specifically, Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Phantom of the Opera.
The music of the night.
There was no use complaining. I wasn’t setting the soundtrack for this scene, no matter what I thought. The man in the black suit was.
Parsons bent over Whistler’s coffin, tsking and tasking over the dead man’s remains. I ignored the undertaker’s running commentary. I didn’t want to know what he was doing or how he was doing it, as long as Whistler’s head ended up attached to his body.
I turned my attention elsewhere. Spider Ripley lay on a stainless steel worktable, his hands and legs bound with black funeral bunting. The satin pillow from Mrs. Cavendish’s casket was jammed under his head. Fear shone in his eyes, black pupils pulsing as he watched the undertaker going about his work.
I imagined that Diabolos Whistler’s tortured gospel was racing through the bodyguard’s head. Ripley struggled as the undertaker fussed and fidgeted. I glanced at Parsons out of the corner of my eye, but I didn’t look long-the stainless steel instruments that filled his hands made my gut churn.
But disgust was quite different from fear. I was convinced that there would be no twisted miracle in Whistler’s coffin. As far as I was concerned, I’d tested the tenets of Whistler’s faith at the bottle house. The result amounted to nothing. It would be the same with his corpse once head and body were reunited.
I was sure of that. Soon enough Ripley would feel the hard slap of reality, and I knew I had to get to him before that happened. I had to find out what he knew about Circe Whistler while he was still afraid.
Parsons came toward me, gore on his rubber gloves. “Excuse me,” he said. “I need an instrument from the cabinet behind you. Can I get it myself, or would you like to do the honors?”
“Get it yourself,” I said, and as he stepped behind me I asked, “How much longer to finish the job?”
“You say it doesn’t have to be perfect?”
“Or pretty.”
“Then I’d say about five minutes should do the trick.”
“Hear that?” I took Spider’s crucifix from my pocket and dangled it before his eyes. “Like they used to say at the Roman Coliseum-you’ve got five minutes, Christian.”
Ripley didn’t reply. He didn’t have to. He bucked and writhed on the table and nearly fell off. I hit him once, hard, in the mouth. All of a sudden he stopped moving-everything but his eyeballs, which rocked and rolled as if they were trying to escape his head.
I dangled the crucifix above his nose, and Ripley managed to focus on it. “Tell me about Circe,” I said, “and maybe I’ll let you get out of here before Daddy wakes up.”
Spider took a deep breath and closed his eyes.
Behind me, Parsons closed the cabinet door.
Spider’s eyes flashed open, and I recognized the cold cast of those black pupils.
I didn’t like what I saw.
Spider said, “You’re a stupid fuck, Saunders.”
“Yes, you are,” the undertaker agreed.
A pistol filled his gore-stained grasp. He told me to get my hands in the air and I did. Then he came toward me. I glanced at Spider, and he was smiling.
“What do you think, Albert,” Spider said. “Should we do this fucker the same way we did Lethe?”
“I’m not so sure,” Parsons said as he reached under my belt and took my weapons. “I’ve got a brand new trocar I’d like to try out.”
“Whatever,” Spider said. “Just as long as I get dibs on Saunders’s knife…and his face.”
A dry laugh parted the undertaker’s lips. I felt his breath on my cheek. He was that close.
“I guess I was misinformed,” I said. “I heard they had to twist your arm to get you to handle Whistler’s corpse. But it looks to me like you’re a true believer, after all.”
“Oh, yes. I’m a religious man, baptized in darkness by Father Whistler himself. In fact, I used to be one of Diabolos’s doubles in the days before he moved south of the border.”
I wanted to kick myself. I’d recognized the resemblance-the long white hair, the goatee, even the stern expression-but it hadn’t given me pause.
Parsons knew he’d put one over on me. He flipped his ponytail over his shoulder and smiled, a living mockery of Whistler’s deathgrin. “Of course, I didn’t really see the light until I met Circe. She provided me with a retirement job, financing my funeral home with funds from one of her less controversial corporations. I’ve always had a certain aptitude for mortuary science, but I find it best to keep my religious affiliations to myself. That’s the prudent policy for a man in my business. I’ve always found that it pays to be prudent.”
“Prudent doesn’t always cut it,” I said.
Parsons arched an eyebrow.
A fraction of a second, a fraction of an inch.
The same amount of time it took to bury Spider Ripley’s crucifix in the undertaker’s eye.
Parsons got off one shot before I could finish him, of course. The prudent ones always do. I was lucky. The bullet missed me.
It didn’t miss Spider Ripley, though. The slug splattered his face like a ripe melon.
I dropped the bloodstained crucifix on Spider’s chest.
On the stereo, Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Phantom sang of loneliness and desire. I stood on one side of the table, staring down at Spider’s corpse. Ripley’s ghost stood on the other. I asked him a few questions, hoping he really did know something about Circe, but he didn’t seem to hear me at all.