in February, renal failure in February. It’s a bad month. People get tired in February. We’re used to it, in the business. But then, for no reason, the same thing will happen in June or in October. Never in August. August’s a slow month. Unless a gas main explodes or a city bus goes off a bridge, you never fill up a cemetery crypt in August. But there have been Februarys when we’ve had caskets stacked up three deep, hoping like hell for a thaw so we can plant some of them before we have to rent a figging apartment.”
Uncle Carl had laughed. And Louis, feeling a party to something not even his instructors in med school knew, had laughed too.
The crypt’s double doors were set into a grassy rise of hill, a shape as natural and attractive as the swell of a woman’s breast. This hill (which Louis suspected was landscaped rather than natural) crested only a foot or two below the decorative arrow tips of the wrought-iron fence, which remained even at the top rather than rising with the contour.
Louis glanced around, then scrambled up the slope. On the other side was an empty square of ground, perhaps two acres in all. No. .
. not quite empty. There was a single outbuilding, like a disconnected shed. Probably belongs to ‘the cemetery, Louis thought. That would be where they kept their grounds equipment.
The streetlights shone through the moving leaves of a belt of trees—old elms and maples—that screened this area from Mason Street. Louis saw no other movement.
He slid back down on his butt, afraid of falling and reinjuring his knee, and returned to his son’s grave. He almost stumbled over the roll of the tarpaulin. He saw he would have to make two trips, one with the body and another for the tools. He bent, grimacing at his back’s protest, and got the stiff canvas roll in his arms. He could feel the shift of Gage’s body within and steadfastly ignored that part of his mind which whispered constantly that he had gone mad.
He carried the body over to the hill which housed Pleasant-view’s crypt with its two steel sliding doors (the doors made it look queerly like a two-car garage). He saw what would have to be done if he were going to get his forty-pound bundle up that steep slope now that his rope was gone and prepared to do it. He backed up and then ran at the slope, leaning forward, letting his forward motion carry him as far as it would. He got almost to the top before his feet skidded out from under him on the short, slick grass, and he tossed the canvas roll as far as he could as he came down. It landed almost at the crest of the hill. He scrambled the rest of the way up, looked around again, saw no one, and laid the rolled-up tarp against the fence. Then he went back for the rest of his things.
He gained the top of the hill again, put the gloves on, and piled the flashlight, pick, and shovel next to the tarp. Then he rested, back against the staves of the fence, hands propped on his knees. The new digital watch Rachel had given him for Christmas informed him that it was now 2:01.
He gave himself five minutes to regroup and then tossed the shovel over the fence. He heard it thud in the grass. He tried to stuff the flashlight into his pants, but it just wouldn’t go. He slipped it through two of the iron staves and listened to it roll down the hill, hoping it would not hit a stone and break. He wished he had worn a packsack.
He removed his dispenser of strapping tape from the pocket of his jacket and bound the business-end of the pick to the canvas roll, going around and around, drawing the tape tight over the pick’s metal arms and tight under the canvas. He did this until the tape was gone and then tucked the empty dispenser back in his pocket.
He lifted the bundle and hoisted it over the fence (his back screamed in protest; he would pay for this night all the following week, he suspected) and then let it drop, wincing at the soft thud.
Now he swung one leg over the fence, grasped two of the decorative arrow points, and swung his other leg over. He skidded down, digging in at the earth between the staves of the fence with the toes of his shoes, and dropped to the ground.
He made his way down the far side of the hill and felt through the grass. He found the shovel right away—muted as the glow from the streetlights was through the trees, it reflected a faint gleam from the blade. He had a couple of bad moments when he was unable to find the flashlight—how far could it have rolled in this grass? He got down on his hands and knees and felt through the thick plush, his breath and heartbeat loud in his own ears.
At last he spotted it, a thin black shadow some five feet from where he had guessed it would be—like the hill masking the cemetery crypt, the regularity of its shape gave it away. He grabbed it, cupped a hand over its felted lens, and pushed the little rubber nipple that hid the switch. His palm lit up briefly, and he switched the flashlight off. It was okay.
He used his pocketknife to cut the pick free from the canvas roll and took the tools through the grass to the trees. He stood behind the biggest, looking both ways along Mason Street. It was utterly deserted now. He saw only one light on the entire street— a square of yellow-gold in an upstairs room. An insomniac, perhaps, or an invalid.
Moving quickly but not running, Louis stepped out onto the sidewalk. After the dimness of the cemetery, he felt horribly exposed under the streetlights; here he stood, only yards away from Bangor’s second-largest boneyard, a pick, shovel, and flashlight cradled in his arms. If someone saw him now, the inference would be too clear to miss.
He crossed the street rapidly, heels clicking. There was his Civic, only fifty yards down the street. To Louis, it looked like five miles.
Sweating, he walked toward it, alert for the sound of an
approaching car engine, footfalls other ‘than his own, perhaps the rasp of a window going up.
He got to his Honda, leaned the pick and shovel against the side, and fumbled for his keys. They weren’t there, not in either pocket.
Fresh sweat began to break on his face. His heart began to run again, and his teeth were clenched together against the panic that wanted to leap free.
He had lost them, most likely when he had dropped from the tree limb, hit the grave marker with his knee, and rolled over. His keys were lying somewhere in the grass, and if he had had trouble finding his flashlight, how could he hope to recover his keys? It was over. One piece of bad luck and it was over.
Now wait, wait just a goddam minute. Go through your pockets again. Your change is there—and if your change didn’t fall out, your keys didn’t fall out either.
This time he went through his pockets more slowly, removing the change, even turning the pockets themselves inside out.
No keys.
Louis leaned against the car, wondering what to do next. He would have to climb back in, he supposed. Leave his son where he was, take the flashlight, climb back in, and spend the rest of the night in a fruitless hunt for— Light suddenly broke in his tired mind.
He bent down and stared into the Civic. There were his keys dangling from the ignition switch.
A soft grunt escaped him, and then he ran around to the driver’s side, snatched the door open, and took the keys out. In his mind he suddenly heard the authoritative voice of that grim father figure Karl Malden, he of the potato nose and the archaic snap-brim hat: Lock your car. Take your keys. Don’t help a good boy go bad.
He went around to the rear of the Civic and opened the hatchback.
He put in the pick, shovel, and flashlight, then slammed it. He had gotten twenty or thirty feet down the sidewalk when he remembered his keys. This time he had left them dangling from the hatchback lock.
Stupid! he railed at himself. If you’re going to be so goddam stupid, you better forget the whole thing!
He went back and got his keys.
He had gotten Gage in his arms and was most of the way back to Mason Street when a dog began to bark somewhere. No—it didn’t just begin to bark. It began to howl, its gruff voice filling the street.