2.

I got a call to pick up the body of Anson Gornton, the Anson Gornton, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Gornton Pharmaceuticals, and reputedly one of the richest men in the country.  His empire had gone multinational after capturing the market with his formula for diet tooth gel.
Legend had it that he'd got his start by auctioning the production rights for wash-n-wear condoms.  Fearful of being driven out of business by Gornton Reusables, the major companies had eagerly bought up and suppressed the patent, and young Anson had used the capital to become a major competitor in the field.  Of course our little community was very proud.
And now that it was all over, no one was more moved than the management down at the f.h.  Gornton's passing would mean the full-package funeral with extra limos and, at the very least, the forty-two-ounce-bronze-and-gold-fleck casket.  Anything else would be just fooling around.
Not that there's anything wrong with fooling around.
The boss had been pacing and rubbing his hands waiting for this one.  Our location pretty well gave us dibs on the wealthy families in the city--let's not risk losing any business by naming it--but the prestige of burying the chief Gornton would do a lot to consolidate our position.
Besides, it was spring, halfway between the flu epidemics and the heat waves, and two months to go till suicide season.  We'd mostly been standing around with our hands in our pockets, jingling our change, and the boss was wild with impatience.
The house was in the uptown ghetto for the rich that we regarded as our turf.  But it was so big, this house, and so nearly out of sight on its rolling grounds that it reduced the surrounding neighborhood to peasant cottages.  What the hell, when you've got it paint flames on it and screw on a bulb horn, I always say.
We pulled up at the back door and Dog got out the stretcher.  I checked to make sure he hadn't gone wee-wee on his shoes or anything.  You have to watch him.
In the doorway stood a squat woman in a nurse's uniform, arms folded.  She fixed us with a sneer as we approached and turned away without speaking to lead us inside.
We went along a hall and up stairs.  I addressed her haunches.  "Did the doctor sign the certificate?"
Doctors never want to sign death certificates.  They mean piles of paperwork.
"He'll have it for you."
This was vague.  "I can't move him without the ticket," I warned her.
She stopped and turned on me, hung her face down into mine like an apparition from the long forgotten racial past.  "Don't start with me," she said.
Open-mouthed I exchanged glances with Dog.
We climbed again.  "The old fart was always on my case.  Don't you start."
Chastened, we followed silently along the upper hall until we came to a man with a black bag.  The doctor.
"Here they are," she said.
He nodded at a tall oak door, said, "The body's in there," and turned to go.
My forefinger came up.  I wasn't going in their whispering polite explanations about why we couldn't take it away.  Puts a strain on things.
He handed me a freshly filled-out form, and I examined it, verifying the legibility of the signature and the cause of death.  You don't want to expose yourself to anything too iffy, disease-wise.
Smiling my approval, I folded the paper and filed it in my pocket.  The hard part was over.
"WHAT?  WHAT?!  WHAT IS THIS?!"
These words hammered the door as if rock-concert speakers had been set up on the other side.
"WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON HERE?!"
The medicos trembled.  Their expressions withered.  It came to me with horror that what we were hearing was the voice of the dead man!  That is to say, he wasn't dead!
Now, this kind of thing happens once in a while.  Joker wakes up on the table with the pump in him and you've already got his crowns out.  It's embarrassing.
But in the middle of a call!  I mean I've been a party to some pretty tactless faux pas, but they don't come any fauxer than showing up too early to collect a corpse!
The floor creaked as I turned to tiptoe away, and the voice vibrated the door.  "WHO’S THAT?  HAS HE COME FOR ME ALREADY?  IS THAT YOU, MR. D?  OPEN THAT DOOR!"
I might have made it off stage in time if the croaker hadn't grabbed me and torn at my pockets until he had the paper back.  Of course one sees his point.  We were in lawsuit territory!  Headlines!
The door swung open on a crowd of people around a canopied bed, making way so the occupant could see me.  He was beak-nosed and bony, and his eyes and mouth were round with rage.  He looked like he should have been dead, I could see that.  I figured him for an extra-long.
"Well, Mr. D.," he greeted me, trembling, his voice creaking like a coffin lid, "you seem to be a trifle early!"
There I stood, all right, black-suited and empty-handed. The medical team had vanished. Dog lingered beside me out of some canine instinct of loyalty, peering and open-mouthed.
It was a situation to test the f.d.'s social skills!  Not something you carry off with the lift of an eyebrow!
"Come right in, Mr. D.!  Bring your familiar with you!" He turned to a priest sitting beside the bed. "Get up, Father," he snapped.  "I'll make my confession to Death himself.  Sit here, Mr. D."
The priest made way and I sat down.  Dog stood at my shoulder.
"Fag, anyway," the old man confided.  "Wants to wear skirts and hang around with men."  He curled his lip at the priest.
The nurse came in behind me and bustled around the bed, thermometer poised, gang-waying among the onlookers. She came up on the other side.
He leveled a long finger at her. "Do not touch me!" he commanded.  "Back away!"
She withdrew a little, weapon raised.
"Where's the quack?" he spat. "Unavailable, I suppose!"  She scurried away and he thrust out his nose and tracked her around the bed until his eyes met mine.  "Doctor!  You doze off for a nap and you wake up with a sheet over your face!"
Across from me a woman leaned forward and straightened his pillows. "Grandfather," she whispered, "you have to rest." She touched his shoulder.
Without looking away from me he let her hand guide him back.  "I don't need any attendants but Merrilie," he told me.  "Don’t look at her, Mr. D.!  She's not for you!  The only vital thing my miserable line has produced is this girl.  She's the only one who's glad to see me back!  Take one of these others!"
I glanced around at the carefully neutral faces. The room was full of people!  There had to be more here than the immediate blood.
"They're waiting for the money."  He grinned with malice and his voice went low and sneaky.  "They're waiting for my final curse.  They don't know yet who it's going to be, you see.
"Chetwode there, he's my only surviving son.  The others killed themselves behaving like spoiled children, one way or another.  Not Chetwode.  How are you, Chetwode?"
A tall, fat, fiftyish man frowned back at us from the foot of the bed.
"Those are his lawyers over there.  That's his former wife, there.  Those are some of his dependents.
"Yes, Chetwode is the heir apparent, and I do mean apparent.  I'm at liberty to snip him out of the proceedings without fear of veto.  His lawyers against mine.
"There, over there, that's Hornton Gornton.  My grandson by my first wife.  Done very well on his own. Course he wants more.  That's the main body of his entourage gathered with him there.
"And this—there—where is he—there, that's Lamont Gornton, another grandson.  Or is he a nephew?  I don't know.  He's a fag, too.
"Of course I could leave it all to Petey down there.  See him?  Little fellow down there with the pimples, picking his nose.  Don't eat that, Petey!
"But then, the significance of the thing would be lost on him.  Has to go to a special school to teach him to keep to the right of the hall.  Don't you, Petey?
"These sharks would eat him.  He's too young anyway for a responsibility like that, though he probably deserves it.
"But he's Merrilie's little brother, you see, and that would bring the money too close to her.  "Don't look at Merrilie, Mr. D.
"Have you ever seen such an ugly family?  Eighty-six years old and I've got eight kinds of cancer, and this pack of dogs is all I've got to show for it all.  They'll stop jumping to be fed long enough to sit up and beg for you when you're dying, if you don't tell 'em who gets the money."
He lay back and sighed.
"Truth is, I don't know myself who I'm going to give it to.  Only one thing's for sure: it won't be Merrilie. At least I can spare her that.  That horror.
"Do you know what it's like, Mr. D.?  Never to have anyone speak to you, be with you, love you unless it's for your money?  Unless it's for some advantage you can give 'em?  Do you know what it's like?
"Of course you do, Mr. D.  You're the only other one who does.  No one speaks to you except to beg favors, do they.  Don't really want you around, do they.
"Well, maybe Chetwode understands.  He already gets it second-hand, being my prime heir, so he thinks.  Wants it first-hand.  Course his blood pressure's bad.  Eats too much cheese.  May go before I do!"
He laughed at Chetwode,
"And Hornton.  Hornton knows.  Hornton has penetrated to the poetry of money.  Knows how it moves, don't you, Hornton.  A highly cultivated man, you know.  Ready to go to the peak of refinement, just as soon as he has enough money.  Yes.
"No, it's a curse.  Maybe the worst one.  I can protect my granddaughter from that."
He sat up and turned towards her.  "And don't give me any of that nonsense about comfortable, young lady!  You're not here to be comfortable!"
I got my first glance at her, but she stepped back among the others, veiled by her downcast look.
"And when I make my decision," he said, threatening me with a forefinger and then chopping with his hand, "there'll be no countermanding it.  My own minions are present to ensure that every detail of my final will is observed.  Brokers, accountants, trustees—"  He gestured broadly at the room.
"These," he said, indicating a row of expressionless men seated at the foot of the vast bed, "are the senior partners of Ferngert, Ormstead, Upjohn and Urmquart, my law firm.  They will verify that I am of sound mind when my last words on the subject are uttered.  Gentlemen, am I of sound mind?"
Four heads nodded once.
He grinned at me.  "Fun, eh?  It wouldn't surprise me if the entire professional class were represented in this room, now that you're here, Mr. D."
His grin dissolved.  He took my lapels and pulled himself close to me, shaking with the effort.
"Mr. D.," he breathed, "are you going to stuff me with newspapers?"
The silence was room-wide.  Interest in this sort of thing is pretty general.
"We don't do that any more," I assured him.
"But you have to—embalm, don't you?  Won't you have to—
remove the viscera?  Won't they rot?"
"Grandfather—"
"Well I want to know!" he shrieked.  He puffed indignantly for a moment and edged towards me again.  "Mr. D.," he whispered, breathing urgently, "Mr. D., what comes next?"  His lips quivered.  His watery eyes searched mine.   "What's after?"
My eyes welcomed him, but did not unbar the door.  "I'm not supposed to say," I said.
"Please!"  He jerked me close.  "Tell me:"
I shook my head.  "It's a secret."
His forehead fell to my chest.  "Mr. D.," he whispered, his voice sinking to a sob, "I'm afraid."
He cringed in my shadow.
Now, the f.d. is often called upon to take the role of psychiatrist, but not to the actual corpse!  I had to improvise.
"Serves you right," I said.
The crowd stirred.  There were shocked murmurs.
"You've been having too good a time."
"Mr. D.!" he implored.
The atmosphere was strained.  Outcries erupted in the room.
"God's getting you back," I said.
"I don't want to go!"  He hung from my coat.
People were exchanging remarks, forming strategies.
"You've been living on Haagen-Dazs Hill, here," I said.  "All this luxury, all those women.  Did you think I'd never catch up with you?  You've had your chocolate mousse.  Now it's time for the other thing "
He peeked up playfully.  "There have been a few women," he creaked.
I nodded knowingly.
"Just to beguile the time.  Will it go hard on me?"
I surveyed him from the height of doom.
"I've been bad," he said.  "I know I've been bad.  Listen: Mr. D.: listen: come here: listen: you know, the truth is, my attendants were not altogether to blame for their mistake back there.  I did have a, what you might call a, an out-of-body experience.  Yes I think so!  It was vivid!  I was floating up, you know, and the whole thing was turning below me until it didn't matter any more, and there I was at the threshold of some enormous bliss!  But my way was blocked by this—immigration officer.  He was a real presence!  I said, Look, I want you to know I've always more or less believed in this!
"And it was true!  Many's the time I've thanked God that I didn't wet myself when I went to the toilet, and I meant it!  I felt real gratitude!
"Suddenly I was plunged into a profound darkness.  Flames blistered me!  My flesh shriveled on the bone!  A giant fiend grinned at me and lashed me!  I screamed and made no sound!  Mr. D.!"—he pulled me to him and whispered wetly—"I had an erection! Yes!  My black old banana—stood up!"
He swallowed with difficulty. "Was it only a dream?"
There was no sound but his desperate breathing.
"We must cling to hope," I said.
He sagged against me, a spent force. "There is no hope.  I'm going to die."
This is the one that generally gets them.  The grief therapist is on safer ground, here.
"That's Okay!" I said.
He didn't brighten.  I gave him a moment with his thoughts.
"Don't try to understand everything," I said.  "You'll only tire yourself."
Across the bed the nurse stepped up for another shot at regaining authority.  "Time to take these," she barked.  She rattled a paper thimble of pills and gestured defensively with a glass of water.
He leered around slowly at her.  "Feeling a little constrained after our error, are we?"
"You were comatose," she stated.  "All the vital signs were gone "
"Vital signs," he sneered.  "You wouldn't know a vital sign if it came up and asked you to dance!"  He turned to me.  "Can you imagine anything so nihilistic?"
Her eyes dared me to smile.
Suddenly he was eager.  "Look," he said, "look: why don't you take Nurse?  I mean, not in the biblical sense, of course.  Hah!  How would you propose an approach?  How would you--apply yourself?  I mean, all right, if you want to get excited in that direction, but surely there are less challenging ways of banging the gong?  No no no, the idea is grotesque.
"Couldn't you just, you know, cover her with your cloak and cancel her ticket?  As long as you're here?"
I gave her my grim-reaper look.  "I'd like to get her on the table, all right."
Dog grunted.
"Or Chetwode!" cried the old man.  He was red-faced with excitement.  "Chetwode's all ready to go!  One little strain and he pops! He can't even do it!"  He screamed and laughed at Chetwode.
I laughed too, what the hell.
Hands behind his back, Chetwode pursed his lips, rose up on his toes, dropped.
"He's such a tit.  But no, no, don't take Nurse away yet.  Not a twin spirit, perhaps, but someone to bend over me with tender concern.  The steady rattle of her chatter gives me something to fix on when I'm slipping away.  The thing is"--he drew me closer and whispered--"we've had a little falling out.  I made a grundy in bed and Nurse hasn't forgiven me!"
My ears tugged back as I suppressed a smile.
"It was a big one, too!"
The nurse harrumphed.
"Well I couldn't help it!" he shrieked.  He turned back to me with sparkling eyes.  "Of course it was construed as a gross inelegance.  Things have been awkward ever since."
Giggles escaped through our noses.
"And mind you," he said, steadying himself, "Nurse is a considerable enemy to have!  Her mere presence is enough to induce permanent gynophobia!  Which in my condition is just as well."
He peered back at her.  "If that isn't death, what is?"
Our shoulders shook.
He fell back and laughed at the ceiling.  "Oh," he groaned, "I'm so tired."
I rose to go.  He came forward and seized my hand.  "Mr. D?" he said.  "So I have a little time?"
"You have a little time."
"Thank you, Mr. D.  Bowles will show you down.  It's time for my cigarette."
A butler presented himself and led us through the throng.  Petey peeked from a doorway and withdrew into darkness as we passed along the hall.  Something wrong there, all right.
Bowles was holding the door and smiling us out of the house when she caught up with us.
"It's all right, Mr. Bowles," she said, a little breathless from hurrying.  "I want to say something to Mr.--"
"Yes, Miss Gornton."  He disappeared.
I sent Dog to stow the stretcher and held the door for her while she came outside.
"Danruther," I said.
"I just wanted to thank you," she said, "for managing all that."
This was my first real look at her, and I couldn't quite reign it in.  I mean, ouch!  She was the kind of woman it is unbearable not to have!  You were translated onto another plane!  One look and you had to reorganize totally!
She had the preppy poise and fresh shiningness you'd expect in a rich girl of any talent, but these were as dust in the sunbeam.  I had forgotten how extravagant life could be, how little anything else matters!
Wow!
Of course I had no chance.  She was absolutely guaranteed to have anyone she ever wanted.  I put my hands in my pockets and gazed at the grounds.
"Well," I said, "I'm glad it was a false alarm."
"Grandfather's been so down.  You were good for him.  I mean, I know he's going to die and everything, but sometimes that makes people feel peaceful, you know?  It kind of sets them free."
She shook her head.  Her eyes were moist with sadness.  I knew I had to protect myself or be destroyed.
"Not Grandfather.  He's playing this awful game with everybody.  And they're all just waiting for him to die!  It's so bitter!"
There had to be a million guys lined up for a chance with her, and here she was talking to me!
And I was so grateful!
I mean, I'm the kind of guy women dismiss as too good-looking.  Clearly up to no good.  I had always been, how shall I put it, blasé.
Well there must have been a committee meeting in heaven over my attitude or something because I was beginning to rethink my whole policy, right there!  I hadn't been stung like that since high school!
"I'm the only one he can talk to," she was saying, "but he doesn't even really talk to me any more!  But, hokie, he opened right up for you!"
Most people do, I almost said.  You know, just as a joke.  Just as well I didn't.
"That's the way I work," I admitted.  "I'm afraid I might have offended Chetwode, though.  I hope it's all right."
Our eyes met. My pupils just lay there and dilated, so I glanced at her hair (blonde), shifted my weight and checked the car, the grounds; looked away from her legs.  I'd been smoother than this at fourteen.
She folded her arms and hugged herself in the evening cool.
"Anyway," she said, "I guess this was sort of a wasted trip for you."
"I get paid anyway," I assured her.  "I don't own the company."  So that was okay.
Conversation failed me.  It was all I could do to keep my personality from disintegrating.
"You know, I guess everybody asks you this but, it must take a really special kind of person to do this.  I mean, all those dead people!"
I shrugged.  "I'm just a guy."
"Yah but, doesn't it get to you after a while?"
That's what people want to know.  They figure consorting with the dead on a daily basis must make you either deeply religious or a nothingist.
"Oh," I said, "I just keep whistling along."
"Hiya Maya! " she gasped.
"Sorry?"
"I mean, fudge!"
"Yes," I said, but I was watching her warily now.  Hiya Maya? And it seemed to me I'd heard a hokie back there.  A line of conjecture opened up that this intimidating beauty might be something of a jellybean.
She shivered.  "Doesn't it give you the creeps?"
"It's not always very nice," I conceded.
"Well, I'm certainly very glad to meet you."
"Me too," I said.
We shook hands and I almost had an out-of-body experience myself.
 
 

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Theme Song