“Now what, boss?” Rotha said.
“The mercury crystals,” Dr. Abdul Forsythe said. “Then we’re in business.” They both laughed fiendishly. You could tell by the way they laughed that the business they were involved in did not have retirement benefits. There was no pension for what they were doing.
Ouickdraw Artist
Suddenly I realized where I was at and like a quickdraw artist in a cowboy movie my hand flew up and pulled the cord to stop the bus. I got it just in time. Another few seconds and I would have missed my stop. Dreaming of Babylon is a tricky business.
One miscalculation and you’re blocks beyond your stop. Fortunately, this was my last bus trip and I wouldn’t have to worry about missing my stop any more. Thank God. Once I went all the way to the end of the line dreaming of Babylon and I didn’t have enough money to get back and the driver wouldn’t let me ride for free, even after I had explained to him that I didn’t have any money and told a lie to him, that I had fallen asleep.
“I hear stories like this all the time,” he said, with a remarkable lack of concern for my plight. “You can’t ride my bus with stories for a fare. I want a nickel. If you don’t have a nickel, get off my bus. I don’t make the rules. It costs a nickel to ride. I’m just a working stiff, so get off my bus.” I didn’t like the way the son-of-a-bitch kept saying “my bus” as if he owned the God-damn thing.
“Do you own this bus?” I said.
“What do you mean?” he said.
“I mean, do you own this bus? You keep saying ‘my bus’ so I thought maybe you owned the fucking bus and you take it home with you and sleep with it. Maybe you’re even married to it. This bus is your wife.”
I didn’t get to say anything else because the bus driver knocked me unconscious with one blow right there from his seat. It was lights out. I came to about ten minutes later, sitting on the sidewalk, leaning up against the front of a drugstore.
To have the perfect ending for a bus trip was what woke me up. It was a dog peeing on me. Maybe he thought that I looked like a fire hydrant. Anyway, those days were over. I had eight hundred bucks in my pocket and this had been my last bus trip.
When I got off the bus, I turned around and yelled “Fuck you!” at the driver, He looked bewildered. It served him right. No more dogs were going to pee on me.
Ghouls
As I walked into the morgue two guys were walking out carrying a large bag between them. You couldn’t tell what was in the bag but it was heavy. They seemed to be in quite a hurry. There was a car double-parked in front of the morgue and the trunk was open. They put the bag in the trunk, closed it and drove off. They were in such a hurry that the rear tires screeched when they drove away.
I wondered briefly what was in the bag. It was kind of late to be taking things out of the morgue but obviously they had a reason because that’s what they had just done. I walked back into the morgue, looking for Peg-leg but I couldn’t find him. He wasn’t in the autopsy room or downstairs in “cold storage” with his beloved stiffs. I walked back out into the front hall and there was Peg-leg coming in the door. He had a paper bag in his hand. He pegged down the hall toward me.
“Well,” he said. “If it isn’t a sight for poor eyes. What are you doing back here? Looking for a partner who’s as bad a dancer as you are? Well, we got ’em. Dead people dance almost as badly as you do, ‘Eye.’ ”
That was a joke that Peg-leg liked to repeat as often as he could. We’d once gone dancing together on a double-date with a couple of stenographers. I’ve always been a terrible dancer. He thought it was really funny watching me try to dance with a dumb redhead.
Peg-leg of course is a great dancer. It always amazes people. Often a whole dance hall will come to a complete stop with everybody standing there watching Peg-leg dance. They can’t believe it. When I dance nobody cares.
People have even suggested seriously that Peg-leg open up a dance studio like Arthur Murray.
I’d like to see that.
“What have you got in the bag?” I said, changing the subject away from my dancing.
“A sandwich and you can’t have any. It’s my dinner.
What are you doing here, anyway, ‘Eye?’ Returning my gun and paying back the fifty you owe me? I sure hope so, but I don’t think my heart could take it.”
“No,” I said. “I’ve got a business proposition for you.”
“You’re too broke to have a business proposition,” Peg-leg said. “So what do you really want?”
“I’m not kidding,” I said. “I’ve got a bona fide proposition and some money to back it up.”
“Money?” he said. “You?”
“Yeah, my bad-luck streak is over. |’m on my way to the top. Nothing can stop me.”
“I know you’re not a drinking man, ‘Eye,’ so you’ve got to be sober. Jesus. First, Pearl Harbor and now you’ve got a business proposition. What next? Let’s go back to my office and talk about this, but you’d better not be pulling my leg because if you do you’re going to get some splinters in your hand.”
Peg-leg’s “office” was a desk in the autopsy room.
I walked behind Peg-leg who was agilely moving along on his wooden stem.
“Hey,” I said, suddenly remembering the two men and the bag they were carrying. “Did you have something picked up here a few minutes ago?”
“What do you mean?” Peg-leg said.
“Two men walked out of here with a large bag full of something.”
“No,” Peg-leg said. “Nobody was supposed to pick up anything here. It’s too late for pickups. I think the City and County of San Francisco just got robbed. I wonder what they took. What in the hell can you steal from a morgue? We’ve only got one thing here. I mean, this isn’t a grocery store.” When he said that, he stopped talking and looked very seriously at me. Then he scratched his chin and sighed. “As I said,” he said. “We’ve only got one thing here and I think we’re probably one less now.”
“Are you thinking what I’m starting to think?” I said, starting to think it.
“Yup,” he said. “Ghouls.”
Cold Heartless Cash
We walked back to Peg-leg’s “office”—the autopsy room.
When we got there Peg-leg stood for a few seconds in front of a small icebox for dead people that was built into one wall. It was a mini-refrigerator that had enough space for four corpses. The rest of the stiffs were kept downstairs in a big cold storage room. The ones they kept upstairs were special. I don’t know why. I never asked. I didn’t care.
I thought that Peg-leg was going to check the icebox to see if anybody was missing from there but instead he walked over to his desk and sat down and took his sandwich out of the paper bag. He motioned toward the coffee pot that was on a hot plate on the desk beside him. “Get yourself a cup,” he said, then motioning toward an autopsy sink that had some cups beside it. “Pour me some while you’re at it. I’m going to eat my sandwich while it’s still hot.”
“What about the missing body?” I said, going over to the autopsy sink and getting the cups.
“It’s still going to be gone by the time my sandwich cools off. I didn’t get a hot sandwich to eat it cold. Do you know what I mean?”
“Yeah,” I said. “I understand. I just wondered who would steal a body from the morgue.”
“I told you,” Peg-leg said, taking a bite out of a bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwich, the old BLT. His words became entangled with the sandwich but I could still make them out. “Ghouls,” he said. “But why in the hell couldn’t they get a body from the cemetery? Why did they want one of mine?”
“Maybe they wanted a fresh one instead of a stale one,” I said.
“That sounds logical,” Peg-leg said. “Sort of. I guess.”
I poured two cups of Peg-leg’s coffee and took a sip of mine. I grimaced as the fluid hit my taste buds. His coffee had the same effect as being whacked in the mouth with a baseball bat.
“You could raise the dea
d with this coffee,” I said.
“Don’t think I haven’t thought about it,” Peg-leg said. “Especially that little whore they brought in this morning.”
“You mean the one you were getting ready to fuck when I came by earlier?” I said.
“I wasn’t going to fuck her,” Peg-leg said. “I don’t know where you get ideas like that. Just say I’m a fan of the human body. I like its contours and lines.”
“That’s a different way of putting it,” I said. “From where I was standing you looked about five seconds away from humping her.”
“Hey, what are you doing down here again?” Peg-leg said, changing the subject.
“I told you,” I said. “I’ve got a business proposition for you. You can make some money.”
“What do you mean make some money?” Peg-leg said. “You already owe me some money. When are you going to pay up? That’s the cash I’m interested in.”
“Right now,” I said and reached into my pocket. I knew that I was going to have to repay him the money I owed him before I could get on with my business transaction.
“Here’s a hundred,” I said, liking this part a lot. “Now you owe me some money, Keeper of Dead People.”
Peg-leg couldn’t believe the hundred dollar bill in his clammy hand. He stared at it as if it were a miracle. He was suddenly a very happy Peg-leg.
“It must be real. I know it’s not a mirage because I can feel it in my hand. What’s the business proposition?” Peg-leg said. “I want more of this stuff. I know exactly where to spend it.”
“There’s two hundred dollars more where that came from,” I said.
“Hurray!” Peg-leg said. “What do I have to do?”
“You have a car, don’t you?” I said.
“Yeah, an old Plymouth,” Peg-leg said. “You know the car. Why?”
“I want to borrow it,” I said.
“Consider it yours, old pal,” Peg-leg said. “Where’s the two hundred? This is the easiest money I’ve ever made.”
“That’s not all I want,” l said. “There’s something else. I want to put it in the trunk.”
“I’ll help,” Peg-leg said. “Where are the C notes?”
“Don’t you want to know what l want you to help me put in the trunk?” I said.
“For two hundred dollars I don’t care what you’re going to put in the trunk,” Peg-leg said. “I’ll help. I’m your man. Where’s it at?” He was staring happily at the hundred dollar bill in his hand.
“Here,” I said.
“What?” Peg-leg said, looking up.
“You’ve got what I want to put in the trunk right here,” I said.
Peg-leg looked puzzled. He was mulling it over in his mind. It didn’t take him long. I could see that he was mentally approaching what I wanted. Then he was there.
“What in the hell is going on? You’re not thinking what I think you’re thinking?” Peg-leg said. “No, not two of them in the same night. Tell me I’m wrong.”
“You’re right,” I said. “It’s a strange world. I’ve been hired to steal a stiff and you’ve got the body the people want right here.”
“What do they want a dead body for?” Peg-leg said.
“Lonely, I guess. I don’t know,” I said. “It’s their business and I don’t care just as long as I see some long green looking up at me from my palm. Are you still interested in the two hundred?”
“Sure,” Peg-leg said. “I don’t care. I’m already out one corpse today and I didn’t get a cent for it or even a thank you. It’s just as easy to explain the absence of two bodies as it is one. I’m your man. Let me see the two hundred and take your pick.”
I gave him the two hundred.
He was ecstatic.
“Take your pick,” Peg-leg said, making a grandiose circle in the air with the hand that contained the money. “Take your pick. You can have anyone you want.”
“I’m sorry but I’m going to have to break up your romance,” l said. “l hope I don’t break your heart but somebody will come along to replace her. Women are dying all the time.”
“Oh, no,” Peg-leg said. “Not her. She’s my favorite.”
“I’m sorry, pal,” I said.
He shook his head.
“I’ll get her for you,” Peg-leg said.
“I’m surprised at you,” I said. “Selling your sweetie for cold heartless cash. How can you do it?”
“Easy,” Peg-leg said. “She’s heartless, too. We did an autopsy on her while you were gone.”
Time Heals
All Wounds
Peg-leg finished eating his BLT.
“Let’s get your body for you,” he said. “l hate to see her go. She’s the prettiest corpse I’ve had here in years.”
“You’ll get over it,” I said. “Time heals all wounds.”
“No,” Peg-leg said. “Two hundred bucks does.”
“Where’s she at?” I said, pretending that I didn’t already know. Don’t ask me why.
Peg-leg pointed over at the four-corpse refrigerator in the autopsy room. “Top left,” he said.
I walked over to the refrigerator, opened the top left door and started to pull the tray out.
“No, it’s the top right,” Peg-leg said. “I forgot. I moved her. She’s in the top right.”
“l know. There’s nobody in here,” I said. I was going to tell Peg-leg but he told me first.
“What?” Peg-leg said and walked over to the refrigerator. “There should be a corpse in there. I put one in there a few hours ago. What in the hell is going on?” He looked inside as if the corpse were hiding in there and he was going to find it. “God-damn it! There was a divorcée in here when I went out to get my sandwich and now she’s gone. She killed herself this afternoon. Climbed into an oven with the gas on. Where did she go? I mean, she was dead.”
“That’s your problem,” I said. “I just paid you two hundred dollars for the body of a dead whore, and I want her. She’s over here on the left, huh? Are you sure?”
“Yeah,” Peg-leg said, shaking his head over the absence of the divorcée’s corpse. “Over here.” He pulled out the tray, lifted up the sheet and there she was. “See, two hundred dollars’ worth. But where did that other body go? It was here a couple of hours ago. Now it’s gone. What in the hell is going on in this place?”
Suddenly a thought came to my mind.
Thank God it wasn’t about Babylon.
“Wait a minute,” I said. “I’ll bet you anything she was the body the two guys stole from here a little while ago.”
“I think you’re right, ‘Eye,’ ” Peg-leg said. “You are right. That’s the only thing that could have happened. They stole the divorcée. Why would anyone want her body? She was real ugly. A wino. I don’t know why anyone would want her. She was a total mess. I think she did herself and the world a favor by getting in the oven.”
Interesting, I thought. There seemed to be more to this than met the eye. I wondered if perhaps those two guys had gotten the wrong body, and the body they had intended to steal was the one I was looking at.
This was starting to get complicated.
Maybe this wasn’t going to be as easy as it had looked in the beginning. Suddenly I was very glad that I had a gun in my pocket with some bullets in it. Who knows? That gun might come in handy.
Yeah, the night had the possibility of being a long one and I’d better keep on my toes. The first thing I had to do was to get the body I was being paid to steal out of the morgue. When those guys found out that they had the wrong body they might come back looking for the right one and they might not be nice about it.
The
Jack Benny Show
“Let’s get this thing out of here,” I said.
“Listen, ‘Eye,’ ” Peg-leg said. “Don’t talk like that about her. She doesn’t like being dead any more than you would. OK?”
I’d gotten Peg-leg’s dandruff up.
“I’m sorry,” I said, though I wasn’t sorry at all.
I just wanted to get on with it.
“I’ll find something to put her into,” Peg-leg said, pacified.
“Where’s your car?” I said.
“Parked across the street,” Peg-leg said. “I always park it across the street.”
He pegged over and opened up a closet door. There was a pile of corpse-dirty laundry beside a full laundry bag.
“God-damn it! The bastards stole my laundry bag,” Peg-leg said, opening up the other laundry bag and dumping its contents on top of the other pile. “This makes two of them they stole,” he said. “Anyway, that’s what I’m going to tell the police after you give me a punch on the jaw, so I can have a good alibi for this caper. I’ll tell them that two body snatchers raided the icebox. l put up a good tight hut they knocked me out. Maybe I’ll even get a medal and the mayor will shake my cold, cold hand.”
We put the young prostitute’s body in the laundry bag. Peg-leg did a good job of folding her up.
“You’re pretty good at this kind of business,” I said.
“I should be,” Peg-leg said. “l got a gold watch last year for my ten thousandth corpse.” He gave her a little pat on the head before pulling the strings that closed the top of the laundry bag over her head.
“Good-bye, baby,” Peg-leg said. “I’ll miss you.”
“Don’t worry,” I said. “You’ll catch up with her later on.”
“Funny man,” Peg-leg said. “You should be on the Jack Benny Show.”
A Strange Cup of
Sugar from Oakland
Peg-leg helped me carry her out to his car.
I was smiling as we toted her along.
Peg-leg looked curiously at me. “Let me in on it,” he said.
“I was just thinking,” I said. “There sure are a lot of bodies going out of this place in laundry bags. If it keeps up at this rate, you’ll be out of bodies by the end of the week, and to be a respectable big-city morgue, you’ll have to borrow some from Oakland.”
Dreaming of Babylon Page 8
