The next day I went down to the Silver Haven Mortuary to check things out there. Damn good business to get into—no slack periods. I parked outside and went in. Nice place. Hushed hall. Thick, dirty rugs. I walked around and into another large room. It was full of caskets. Big ones, little ones, fat ones, thin ones. Some people purchased their caskets ahead of time. Not me. To hell with it.
There didn’t seem to be anybody about. I could boost a casket. I could rope it to my car. Drive away. Where was Grovers? Where was anybody?
Then I got a little itch and the itch got worse. And then I did it. I lifted a casket lid and looked inside. I SCREAMED. And slammed the lid.
There had been a naked woman in there. Young, a looker, but dead. Wow!
Hal Grovers came running in.
“BELANE! WHAT ARE YOU DOING?”
“DOING? DOING? WHAT DO YOU MEAN? WHERE THE HELL YOU BEEN, GROVERS?”
“THE MEN’S ROOM. WHAT WERE YOU SCREAMING ABOUT?”
I pointed.
“YOU GOT A STIFF IN THAT CASKET! A BABE! BIG JUGS!”
Grovers walked over and opened the lid.
“There isn’t a body in here, Mr. Belane.”
“What?”
I walked over and looked. The coffin was empty.
I whirled and grabbed Grovers by the lapels.
“Don’t play games with me, baby! I saw it! I saw her box! A young dead bimbo! You playing games with me? You and…Billy French…the blood-sucker! I’m not a man to play with, Grovers!”
“Nobody is playing with you, Belane. You’re hallucinating.”
I let go of his lapels.
“Sorry,” I said, “I should have known.”
“Known what?”
“It’s Jeannie Nitro. She’s playing with my mind. She knows I’m on your case.”
“I haven’t seen her lately. Maybe she’s gone.”
“She’s not gone. She’s waiting, Grovers.”
“Waiting for what?”
“I don’t know right now.”
I spun on my heel and looked all around.
“Grovers, quick! How many dead do you have here now?”
“We’ve prepared two. They are in the Slumber Room.”
“I’ve got to see them!”
“What?”
“You want me to crack this case or not?”
“I want you to…crack it.”
“Then I’ll have to look at the two stiffs.”
“Why?”
“If I told you, you’d never guess.”
“What does that mean?”
“Never mind. Now let me have a look.”
“This is highly irregular.”
“Come on! Come on!”
“Very well. Follow me…”
We went into the Slumber Room. Classy place. Dark. Candles burning. There were three caskets.
“O.k., lemme see,” I told Grovers.
“Could you please tell me why?”
“Jeannie Nitro wants to house her space aliens in these dead bodies. Give them a shell, a hiding place. A shell, you know, like a turtle. Nitro is hanging around you to get at these bodies.”
“But these are dead bodies, they are in a state of decay. Besides, we are going to bury them. How can they use them?”
“The space aliens hide in the dead bodies until they are buried, then they find other dead bodies.”
“But if they want to hide, why would they use dead bodies? Why wouldn’t they hide in storage tanks or caves or something like that? Why wouldn’t they use live bodies?”
“You fool, the live bodies would react to their presence. Open these caskets, Grovers! I think they are in there now!”
“Belane, I think you’re mad!”
“Go on, open them!”
Grovers opened the first one. Nice oak casket. There was a fellow in there about 38, bushy red hair, dressed in a cheap suit.
I turned and looked at Grovers.
“One of them is in him now.”
“How do you know?”
“I just saw him move!”
“What?”
“I saw him move!”
I reached over and grabbed the man by the neck.
“Come on, come on! Get out of there! I know that you’re in there!”
As I shook the head, the mouth opened a bit and spit out some white cotton.
I jumped back.
“SHIT! WHAT WAS THAT?”
Grovers let out a low moan.
“Belane, I worked for a good hour, padding his cheeks, making him look fulsome and healthy! Now he’s all sagged in again! Now I’ve got to do it all over.”
“Sorry, I didn’t realize. But I think we’re closing in. Open another casket! Please!”
“You open it. This is truly disgusting. I don’t know why I’m allowing this. I must be crazy.”
I walked over and opened a pine casket. I looked. And I kept looking. I couldn’t believe it.
“Is this some kind of joke, Grovers? One doesn’t joke in this fashion. It’s not funny at all.”
The figure stretched out in the casket was me. The casket was lined in velvet and I was smiling a waxy smile. I was wearing a dark brown wrinkled suit and my hands were crossed over my chest and holding a white carnation.
I turned around and faced Grovers.
“What the hell’s going on here, baby? Where’d you get this one?”
“Oh, that’s Mr. Andrew Douglas, died suddenly of a heart attack. Been a community leader here for some decades.”
“That’s crap, Grovers. That stiff in there is me! Me!”
“Nonsense,” said Grovers. He walked over and looked into the coffin.
“It’s Mr. Douglas.”
I walked over and looked in. It was some old white-haired guy, 70 or 80 years old. He looked pretty good, they had rouged his cheeks and put on just a touch of lipstick. His skin glowed as if they had waxed it. But it wasn’t me.
“It’s Jeannie Nitro,” I said, “she’s fucking with us.”
“I think you are a very confused man, Mr. Belane.”
“Shut up,” I said.
I had to think. Somewhere it all fit. It had to fit.
Just then another man entered and stood in the doorway.
“The body has been prepared, Hal.”
“Thank you, Billy. You can leave.”
Billy French turned and walked out.
“Jesus, Grovers, doesn’t he wash his hands?”
“What do you mean?”
“I saw red on his hands.”
“Nonsense.”
“I saw red.”
“Mr. Belane, would you care to look into the third coffin? Although it’s empty. A gentleman has selected it in advance.”
I turned around and stared at it.
“Is he in there, Grovers?”
“No, the gentleman is still alive. It’s a pre-select. We give ten percent off on pre-selects. Would you care for one? We have a lovely selection.”
“Thanks, Grovers, but I have an appointment somewhere…I’ll contact you.”
I spun on my heel and walked out the doorway, down the hall and out into the good, clean air. Any son-of-a-bitch who picks out his own casket is the same son-of-a-bitch who diddles with himself 6 times a week.
I got into my Bug, kicked it over and sliced out into traffic. Some guy in a van thought I had cut him off. He gave me the finger. I gave him the finger back.
It was beginning to rain. I rolled up the good window on the right hand side and snapped on the radio.