The Undertaker (11 page)

Behind her, I saw the tall, mahogany door to Ralph Tinkerton's inner sanctum. It was closed. Like any good rottweiller, I knew she would instantly attack if I threatened her turf in the slightest way, sinking her teeth into my leg and hanging on as I dragged her across the floor dying, rather than let me pass. That being the case, she gave me no choice but to employ my most devastating weapon. I smiled. She smiled back, and then she thought better of it when she realized she didn't have a clue who I was. She turned my way and started to say something, but I was already three moves ahead of her and that was too little and too late.

I faked right. She twisted in her chair, intending to head me off, but before she could get to her feet I gave her my best double-juke, turn-around, in-the-lane, blow-by tomahawk windmill jam move, while I slid to the left around her desk. She tried to counter with a now desperate right-to-left, side-ways stretch to block, but I was already past her. My hand was on the doorknob and I gave it a quick twist. I looked back in triumph as she toppled out of her chair and fell on the floor. Slam-dunk. Two points. She lost. I won.

I closed the door behind me and locked it as I gave Tinkerton's office a quick scan. Nice. Very nice. They designed it to impress the hell out of people as they entered the room, and I had to admit it did. He had two walls of floor-to-ceiling windows that looked out over half of the State of Ohio. Like any good Texan, I guessed Ralph must crave those wide-open spaces. The room itself was large enough to hold two leather couches, a coffee table, a couple of high-backed armchairs, a big wooden desk you could land a 747 on, and a shrine. It was sitting in the far corner under the glow of three track-mounted spotlights. On each side stood a flagpole with a shiny brass floor plate and large American eagle, wings spread, standing on top. One was an American flag and one was a blue and gold flag with a wreathed eagle and the letters “U. S. Justice Department.” Between the two hung a rogue's gallery of photographs. There was row after row of Ralph Tinkerton shaking hands with both George Bushes, Bill Clinton, Janet Reno, John Ashcroft, Don Rumsfeld, William Webster, a host of Attorneys General, FBI Directors, and a scad of other big-name Washington politicians, judges, police chiefs, and dogcatchers. Each photograph bore some kind of hand-written inscription and in the very center of the shrine hung a big, carved wooden U. S. Marine Corps emblem. Below it, in black, gothic lettering was the framed inscription, “Zero Defects.” Impressive. All he needed was running water, a stain on the wall, and a young girl on her knees to make it Our Lady of Law Enforcement.

Behind the desk, leaning back in an oversized black leather chair, sat Ralph McKinley Tinkerton himself, talking into a telephone he held cradled in the crook of his shoulder while his tapped a gold Cross pen on a pad of legal paper. I had no idea what Tinkerton looked like, but it had to be him. That was what the nameplate on the desk said and no else one in that law office would have had the balls to sit in the managing partner's chair and put their stocking feet up on his desk, not with his pet Troll lurking outside the door. He was a big man: tall with long legs, broad shoulders, and the neck of an offensive tackle. He looked to be in his late 40s, trim and fit, but with the first signs of crow's-feet digging in around his eyes and mouth. His hair was thick and dark, which made me wonder if he had a little bottle of Grecian Formula 16 hidden somewhere inside that big desk. A big-time lawyer with a big-time ego trying to cheat the clock? Who would have guessed? Not that he didn't look comfortable, hiding away here in his inner sanctum. He'd rolled up the sleeves of his white shirt to his elbows. He'd pulled his tie down and his vest was unbuttoned. However, from his expression, the managing partner did not look as if he was managing to have a good day, and that was before I barged in.

I set the two white bags on the coffee table and plopped down on Tinkerton's expensive brown-leather couch. His eyes followed me across the room as he listened, talked, and wrote on the legal pad. Good job, I thought, wondering whether he got it from the Troll or she got it from him. With some luck though, he could triple-bill and in a place like this, that was all that mattered. I'm not sure how much of his brain had focused on me yet. Probably not much. I stuck my nose inside the bag and pulled out two sandwiches and one of the bottles of Doctor Brown's. That was when Tinkerton finally noticed me. His eyes were battleship gray and as cold as a rainy November day as they looked me up and down. He frowned. Why would a mere sandwich delivery boy barge into
my
office, uninvited, and plop his ass down on
my
expensive Spanish leather couch, he was probably asking? Sufficiently aroused, he dropped his feet to the floor, looked at his solid-gold Rolex watch, and put his hand over the mouthpiece of the phone.

“Can I help you?” he snapped in an exasperated West Texas twang that sounded like it blew straight in from a hot, dusty oil field.

“That's a real nice watch you've got there, Ralph,” I pointed. “They gave my grandfather a silver one when he retired from the Santa Fe, but it was nothing like that big goober you got. Guess he should have tried the Justice Department, 'cause it's amazing the loot you can score these days in public service. Now, which do you want? The corned beef or pastrami?”

“Pastrami? What? Who in the Holy Hell are you?” he demanded to know as the office door rattled back and forth, as someone on the outside tried frantically to open it.

I heard a key rattling in the lock. The door suddenly flew open and his angry and somewhat disheveled Troll stumbled into the office. I looked at her and smiled pleasantly. After all, I was nothing if not a good sport and a gracious winner, but the Troll had not come alone. Behind her, she had brought reinforcements: two young associates who rear-ended her and almost knocked her down. They peered cautiously over her shoulder, still not certain that “bouncer” was part of their job descriptions.

“Mr. Tinkerton, I don't know what to say,” the flustered Troll stammered. “I called Security…”

“Hi, Ralph. My name's Talbott, Peter Emerson Talbott,” I told him. “Does that name ring a bell?”

Tinkerton started to speak and then he paused. He stared across the desk at me and I swore I could see the wheels going round and round behind those cold, November-gray eyes of his. “That won't be necessary, Edna,” he finally told the Troll with a forced smile. “I have it covered.”

“But Mr. Tinkerton,” she sputtered. “He… he ...”

“It's all right, Edna. But thank you for your concern.”

Despite his reassurances, her eyes never left me.

“Edna,” I said to her. “You look like the wild-and-crazy pastrami type. Here, fresh from the Bouncing Bagel across the street, so you enjoy, girl.” I reached out and placed a thick, wax-paper wrapped sandwich in her hands. Her mouth dropped open as she looked over at Tinkerton for help, then at me, then back at Tinkerton as she slowly backed out of the room, not knowing what to do with the sandwich.

The door closed behind her and Tinkerton and I were alone again. I opened one of the corned beef sandwiches and held the other one out to him, but he didn't move. He just stared at me. “You sure?” I offered again as I took a big bite out of mine. “There's a little place on Colorado Boulevard in Pasadena that does it better, but this ain't half bad.”

He hung up the phone, ignoring whoever it was on the other end. “You're pretty damned sure of yourself, aren't you?” he glowered.

“About the corned beef? You'd better believe it. Or do you mean about the scam you guys are pulling?”

“The scam?” he erupted indignantly. “Who the hell are you?”

“Ralph, I haven't got it all figured out yet, not all of it anyway, but I will.” He still had not accepted the other sandwich, so I shrugged and took another big bite out of mine.

“Now I remember,” his cold gray eyes narrowed suspiciously. “You're the individual Larry Greene told me about yesterday.”

“That individual? Yeah, I bet he did.” I laughed, my mouth full of corned beef. Clearly, the managing partner was not accustomed to treatment in this manner, not in his own office, but I was just getting rolling.

“He said someone stopped by his funeral home yesterday afternoon alleging to be the late Peter Talbott.”

“Alleging? God, I love you lawyers. Alleging.”

“Now see here ...”

“It's real simple, Ralph. You screwed up. Me? I got no dog in this fight, as they used to say on those old hardscrabble farms in West Texas. So why should I care about this little con ya'll are running anyway? Me? I'd much rather be minding my own business back in Boston right now, but you Bozos had to piss me off by dragging my wife into this thing of yours, didn't you?”

“Your wife?”

I leaned forward, my eyes boring in as I pointed an angry finger at him. “Yeah, and that was your big mistake, Ralph. I'm not going to let you get away with it.”

He sat and studied me for a moment, as if he had missed something, as if he wasn't quite sure anymore. When he did speak, he was the composed, self-assured lawyer carefully choosing his words. “Look, Mr. Talbott, if that really is your name...”

“That's exactly how my conversation with your pal Larry Greene started. I thought you guys talked?”

“Mr. Talbott, you have this all wrong. One of my clients did indeed die in a tragic automobile accident — him and his wife. From what you say, apparently you and he shared the same name and some background. With three-hundred million people in this country, it's a wonder it doesn't happen more often.”

“A wonder, an absolute wonder.”

“I'm sorry for any inconvenience and emotional distress that may have caused you or your wife, but I don't see how this was any fault of mine.”

“My wife's dead, as you well know.”

“As I know? See here, Mr. Talbott…”

“So you knew old Pete?”

“Our Mr. Talbott? Of course, I knew him. Not well, I must admit. He ran a small accounting business here in town.”

“The one over on Sickles? Don't make me laugh. I doubt an honest 1040 ever came out of a dump like that. He couldn't afford one hour of your billing time, much less the retainer a firm like this would require and I'd have proven it too, except you guys cleaned the place out.”

“You guys?” He looked at me in disbelief. “Exactly what are you are alleging I've done, Mister Talbott?”

“Ah, that wonderful word again, “alleging.” You cleaned out his office. Hell, you even cleaned out his dumpster. It was sanitized, like the house on Sedgwick. Packed up, picked clean, and gone down the street before the last shovelful of dirt landed on those caskets up at Oak Hill Cemetery. Yep, you are thorough, Ralph, I'll hand you that much. But who the hell parks two associate partners in a residential street all morning watching some movers pack a truck? Someone with an unlimited budget, or no budget at all.”

I was watching his eyes. When I mentioned shoveling dirt up at Oak Hill and the moving truck, he did a double take. He paused and looked across at me with a new, wary appreciation. “I'm an attorney,” he finally said. “I don't clean offices, I don't empty dumpsters, and I don't shovel dirt, Peter. If I may I call you that?”

“That would be fine, Ralph. I haven't figured out all the “why's” yet, but I've got most of the “how's.” Eventually I will, and when I do, lawyer or not, you're going to the slammer. You, Greene, Varner, Dannmeyer, all of you.”

With a heavy sigh, tired and exasperated, Tinkerton leaned forward with his elbows on the desk. “All right, who sent you? Who are you working for?”

“My wife sent me, Ralph,” I glared at him, feeling the anger building up inside. “Remember the Blues Brothers? Elwood and his brother Joliet Jake? Well, I'm not on a “mission from God,” I'm on a mission from Terri, and my wife doesn't think much of you stealing her name for one of your two-bit scams. Neither do I. Those memories are all I have left of her. They have to last me a long, long time and I'm not going to let you put your greasy paws all over them. You got that?”

My anger was white hot now, rolling across the room at him in waves. I could see he felt them, as he shifted uncomfortably in his chair. “For the longest time this morning, I couldn't figure it out. Why? I kept asking myself “why?” A retired carpenter, an auto mechanic, an auto-worker, a warehouse supervisor, and now a bean counter?”

“What in
the
hell are you talking about, boy?”

“I'm talking about the Skeppingtons and the Brownsteins, the Pryors from Phoenix, Edward J. Kasmarek from Chicago, and whoever the hell it was you buried under my name up in Oak Hill yesterday.”

I didn't have to say anymore. His mouth dropped open and I could tell those names were the knockout punch. To finish the big lawyer off, I pulled the copies of the obituaries from my shirt pocket and held them up for him to see.

“See, it's all right here, Ralph, if you know what you're looking for, and I happen to be the World Champion on obituaries.”

Tinkerton's eyes went wide and his face turned beet red. Big-time lawyers are supposed to stand up and shout things like, “Objection!” whenever something happened they didn't like or didn't understand. However, there was no Judge Ito or even Judge Judy in this courtroom. No juries hanging on his every word. No reporters. Not even a TV camera. Only the eminent Ralph McKinley Tinkerton, Esq. and me.

“At first, I figured this was the normal fun and games — you know, greed, theft, lust, maybe drugs and embezzlement, maybe a little kiddie porn. That was the kind of stuff any good California boy can understand. The bodies? Was it kidnapping, murder for hire, or selling used body parts? I don't know and I really don't care.”