The Undertaker

by William F. Brown

  I made a quick U-turn and went back out through the revolving doors. Across the busy six-lane street, I saw the round, blue-and-white-striped sign for the Bouncing Bagel Kosher Deli. Using my best Heisman Trophy moves, I bobbed and weaved my way through the passing cars and buses to the deli on the other side. The menu looked pretty good, but I didn’t go there to eat. I ordered two large corned beef sandwiches and a pastrami with extra mustard, a couple of pickles, and two bottles of Doctor Brown’s Crème Soda. Sometimes life forces us to make accommodations and sacrifices. Even though I was only having lunch with a lawyer, it wasn’t civilized to eat corned beef without a Doctor Brown’s.

  For an extra thirty dollars I got them to throw in one of their designer “wear-it-at-home-and-make-your-own-sandwich-like-we-do” aprons with a big, bright blue Bouncing Bagel logo stenciled across the front and one of their silly white paper hats with a smaller version of the same logo. With that hat and apron on, the last place anyone would be looking was my face. Hefting two large white delivery bags with the sandwiches and drinks, I put on my sunglasses and re-crossed High Street. This time I hit the lobby moving fast, swimming up-stream through the exiting early lunch crowd like a spring salmon in heat. Ahead I saw the elevator bank for Floors 1-8 and then the ones for Floors 9-17, so I went for it and completely ignored the guard. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him looking me over as I passed by. He raised his arm and motioned me to stop, but I was past him and in an elevator before he could get his butt up out of the chair and cut me off. Gotcha, I chuckled. Child’s play.

  As the elevator doors closed behind me, I could see my reflection and the big grin on my face in the brightly polished brass on the inside of the doors. Crack security? That guy was a hick rent-a-cop, but God it felt good to have the juices flowing again, to be alive, and moving.

  I looked at the control panel and saw that the light for the 14th Floor was already lit, so I leaned back against the wall and let the elevator carry me upward. My traveling companions were three giggling, gossiping secretaries and a young man standing in the opposite corner dressed in a badly ironed white shirt and cheap clip-on tie, no jacket, carrying a tall stack of manila file folders in his arms. Probably a summer intern. One of the secretaries got off on nine, the other two on twelve, and the elevator was slowing for the fourteenth floor before I had time to make much of a plan.

  The stops on the lower floors gave me a good idea of what to expect. The lobby on fourteen was small like the others. To the right stood the formal cherry-wood and glass entrance to the offices of Hamilton, Keogh, and Hollister. Their partnership name was spelled out in heavy brass letters on the wall beside the doors and I could see through the glass into the spacious, expensively furnished lobby beyond. There were over-stuffed chairs, a couch, coffee tables, and expensive art on the walls. There were soft indirect lighting and track spots highlighting the art. In the center of the lobby, controlling it all, was a huge wooden credenza that blocked the entrance to the legal offices beyond. Behind the credenza sat another dull-eyed security guard, an almost perfect clone of the guy down on the first floor. Flashing past one guard was easy. Doing it a second time? That was pushing my luck.

  As I stood there for a moment debating, the fellow with the file folders got off behind me. He didn't turn right toward the glass doors. Instead, he turned left and headed toward a plain metal fire door set in the wall at the opposite end of the lobby. It had an electronic key pad fastened to the wall and a large magnetic lock set above the header. We had one of these on our rear service entrance in LA and an elephant couldn't pull the door open once the magnet had engaged. I watched the intern balancing the file folders on a raised thigh with one hand, while he reached for the key pad with the other, so I made the snap decision to follow him.

  “Dude, you’re going to drop those things. Here, let me help you,” I volunteered.

  “Thanks, man. I should’ve gone back for a cart, but I ducked out for a smoke and ran out of time.”

  “Been there,” I told him as I reached to help him with the files.

  “I got these,” he said. “Just pull the door open,” he nodded at the handle.

  “Isn't it locked?”

  “Shit, these damned things never work.”

  He was right. The door swung open as if there were no lock at all. “Some security system,” I smiled.

  “Yeah, but I’m not complaining,” he answered as I followed him inside. “I fight 'em all day long on this floor and most of the others, but it beats going all the way around through the big lobby and getting hassled by the gargoyles and gatekeepers.”

  “Tell me about it, man. Try to deliver a sandwich before it gets cold.”

  “Yeah, half the time the keypads got the codes wrong and the other half some secretary’s stuck her gum in the lock so she can take a short cut to the john.”

  “Speaking of sandwiches, is Mr. Tinkerton's office still in the back corner?” I asked, figuring the headman’s office is always back in the far corner.

  “Last time I looked. ‘First star to the right and straight on ‘til morning.’ You can't miss it.”

  “Thanks, man, I'll have three deliveries done and be gone before they even know I was here.”

  “Well, if they catch you, don't tell them how you got in.”

  “No sweat. And thanks,” I said as I turned the corner and strode off down the perimeter corridor, head-up, whistling as if I belonged there. The office decor was a very classy light gray with dark gray accents, thick carpet, large partitioned workstations, can lights in the ceiling, colorful framed prints on the walls, big leafy plants, and computers everywhere. Around the perimeter, glass-fronted offices ran around the window walls, each one with a small, engraved brass nameplate on the door, probably arranged in some pecking order by size and view according to rank and seniority. The secretaries, clerks, and younger associates were stuck with the cubicles in the middle. Glass or cube, everybody was out in plain view. When you’re billing by the hour, you don’t want half the staff spending their time on fantasy football. I wondered which cubes belonged to the two associates who watched the moving van up on Sedgwick a couple of days ago.

  Both the offices and cubicles were nicely furnished, with cherry-wood desks, credenzas, and armchairs, but the desks got progressively larger as one went from the small cubicles to the larger ones, to the perimeter and on to the corner offices. In each corner sat a larger office: more like a suite, with its own reception area and a side conference room. Probably for the general partners, I thought.

  In the far corner, I saw an even larger suite that must be the cave of the Managing Partner. Guarding the approach was a huge, fortress-like desk complete with its own resident Troll to ward off the uninvited. Her graying hair was cut short and straight. She wore only the faintest hint of makeup and a conservative dark-blue business suit, just like the lawyers. She had thick, half-round glasses that made it easy for her to tip her head forward and survey her domain over the top lens. As I approached, she was talking on the phone and writing a note on a steno pad, with one eye on her computer screen and the other eye on me. I had to hand it to her; this was a woman who could multi-task with the best of them. The eye focused on me narrowed as I got closer, but her expression never changed, as if she were waiting for me to come in range.

  Behind her, I saw the tall, mahogany door to Ralph Tinkerton's inner sanctum. It was closed. Like any good Rottweiler, 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 f
eet 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 sideways 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 a 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 “US 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 scads 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 US 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 he 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 one else 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, a
nd 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 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.”