The point of the matter was that when Pascal Waterford and Gibby Ross walked into the morgue at Good Parish Hospital, the corpse of one formerly William Douglas McCall was in debt up to its putrefying eyeballs.
“This is it,” Pascal said unnecessarily. The door said Morgue in two inch tall, black letters. It smelled bad, worse than Gibby’s feet had ever smelled, and noticeably two people sat outside the door in a long row of mostly empty chairs crying their guts out while alternately calling out, “Why, Lord? Why did You have to take him now?” and “Oh, Lord, be merciful with his soul! Lord, watch over him!”
“Uh, sorry for your loss,” Gibby muttered as she tripped over one of the ardent and shrill mourners’ feet.
Pascal opened the door quickly and ushered Gibby inside, wishing to get through with what he thought was probably the most illegal part of the entire venture. “Keep your mouth shut,” he whispered to her, “and follow my lead.”
“What lead, Your Honor?” she whispered back.
“That’s a judge,” he hissed. “I’m only honorable if someone is writing me a letter and nine times out of ten they forget that and call me something like slime-bucket or pus-wipe.”
Gibby blinked and shrugged.
Inside the hospital’s meager morgue was a tiny dirty office with an equally tiny dirty counter top and a somewhat tiny and somewhat dirty dwarf talking on the phone. Less than four feet tall, she was heavily made up with flame red fingernails that matched her flame red lipstick. The little person gave the pair a dubious glance and motioned with her index finger that she would be just a minute.
Pascal nodded and looked around, sizing up the establishment and the employee. Overworked, underpaid, busy, tired, and apathetic. All were adjectives that pleased his mind. It would make this ten times easier. “I’m Bill’s great-grandson and we’re here to pick up his body,” he told Gibby quietly while the clerk was distracted.
“You’re going to lie?” she said back, indignant but softly.
The little person’s beehive hairdo bobbed in time with her nodding but she didn’t pay attention to either of them.
“Who else is here for Bill?” Pascal asked her. “The poor old bastard was living on food stamps and welfare. His grandchildren abandoned him. He even made a deal with the city in exchange for Sawdust City having the right to bury him in Resurrection Cemetery. He didn’t pay electric, trash, or water bills. Hell, he didn’t even pay his taxes as far as I know. The old sonuvabitch came and pled his case to the last mayor. Jim said Bill begged. It was pitiful. When I took the reins Jim made me promise to one) keep you on, whether I liked it not, and 2) to keep that promise to Bayou Billy.”
“Jim was a good man and a fine mayor.” Gibby chewed on her lower lip. “Poor old Bill,” she murmured. “All alone. No money. What’s the point in living so long if you estrange your entire family and have no friends to mourn your passing?”
“We’re mourning,” Pascal said quickly. “Hell, yes, we’re mourning. We’re mourning all the way to the bank. And there’ll be thousands of other mourners coming to pay their respects at the mausoleum that we’ll put him in. He’ll be mourned until he’s damned sick of being mourned. Then he can haunt us. Be a fine thing if Bayou Billy came to haunt the fine town of Sawdust City. More of a draw.”
Gibby apparently found a mote of scruples from deep inside of her. She had been all in for the deal when there had been impediments. But one little fly materializing in the ointment and that distrustful expression appeared on her face as if the Amazing Kreskin had come to town. Her nose became longer and her lips went absolutely white as they flattened into a grim line.
Pascal put an arm around her shoulders and gave her a diminutive-but-completely-platonic-employer-to-employee-like hug. It was the patented hug that he gave to little old ladies, war veterans, and distraught, bereaved but unattractive widows. “We’re doing the right thing. The state will simply put his body in a pauper’s grave with only a number to mark it. No one will remember Bayou Billy’s legacy. He was one of the twentieth century’s last outlaws, a friend to the people, a man who defied the government, and made jackasses out of lawmen. He was a hero to Americans and we’re damn good Americans for taking over the task of doing this charitable deed.”
That particular expression on Gibby’s face wavered uncertainly with Pascal’s patriotic, guilt inducing blitz. “Well,” she said timidly. “It isn’t like anyone else is clamoring to bury poor Bill.”
Pascal squeezed her shoulder with his hand. He happened to notice that Gibby smelled a little like wildflowers. No, wildflowers on a bright summer’s morning and the kind of vanilla that goes into chocolate chip cookies. His nostrils twitched alarmingly. What happened to her smelly feet? Quickly, Pascal attempted to recover, thinking of what she had just said. “Uh, no. No, we’re it. Sawdust City was Bill’s last real home.” Unless one counted the other house he had in Albie with his mistress installed in it. “Bill needs a fine, upstanding place to lie in peace.” A place that Sawdust City could be, if it doesn’t go bankrupt. “And it needs to be a place where he will truly be appreciated.” Hell, yes, I appreciate Bill. I appreciate him all the more on account that he’s died and conveniently left his corpse as a tool to save Sawdust City’s fine, upstanding ass. His concluding words were dogged and sincere. “Sawdust City is that place. We are those people.”
Someone cleared her throat. Pascal looked momentarily disconcerted and then realized that the little auburn haired dwarf was staring expectantly at them from across the counter. Somehow she had attained a height that was about equal to Mini Me in high heels. Pascal leaned forward and saw that on the other side of the counter the little woman was perched on a bright red, folding ladder, something someone would see in a lady’s kitchen. “Can I help you?” she said with exaggerated politeness.
The plaque on the counter said that her name was Chloe Legay. Pascal took a deep breath and wondered how much of the previous conversation she had heard, and furthermore, how susceptible she was to bribery, cajoling, flirting, and/or death threats. “Ms. Legay,” he said graciously. “It has recently come to our attention that one William Douglas McCall has passed away in your facility and we have come to claim his body for a decent, Christian burial.”
Red fingernails tapped the countertop and brown eyes stared first at Pascal and then at Gibby as if they could peer into the inner workings of their brains. He could see the wheels whirling busily in her oversized head. Any second now and he was quite positive that she was going to reach for the phone to call security.
Based on their prior conversation Pascal knew he couldn’t tell the woman that he was Bill’s great grandson. He had to put a spin on the story that was plausible, believable, and above all else reasonable. He started to say, “We represent…” and Miss Chloe Legay cut him right off.
“I don’t care who you are. I don’t care what you represent. I don’t care. I don’t care. I don’t care.” The brown eyes were cold, unfeeling, and unsympathetic. Pascal sized her up immediately. Chloe was an office worker. She had worked in the morgue too long. Too many people came in crying and left bawling. Too many others expected handouts because of their obvious grief. More still demanded freebies because they were pretending to be anguished and inconsolable, but failed miserably. She went on ruthlessly, “You want William Douglas McCall’s body? Let me look at his file.”
Chloe climbed down her ladder, went to a large file cabinet and climbed up another folding ladder. She laboriously pulled out the top drawer and began to thumb through the files. “Here we go,” she said, at last, and pulled an inch wide file from the drawer. Painstakingly, she descended the ladder, and then ascended the other one to carefully place the file on the counter. With a moistened index finger, she opened the file and flipped to the end.
Pascal saw records of tests, ekg’s, medicines prescribed, doctor’s notations, nurse’s notations, and probably candy striper’s notations. It was all well and good. But then Chloe reached the final page and a
rduously read a laser printed readout that appeared remarkably like a bill. Then she pulled at it and it unfolded like an accordion, falling onto the floor with an awful noise.
Gibby made another awful sounding noise. It was the sound of the other shoe dropping.
Chloe skimmed the attached pages, pulling them back up from the floor as her eyes zoomed over each one. She came to the last one and her unrepentant gaze met Pascal’s. “We take MasterCard, Visa, and Discovery. We also take checks but we have to call the bank first.”
Pascal’s fingers twitched toward his wallet. Having just spent over $5000 on a coffin, he was fully aware that his credit limit was approaching insurmountable. But maybe if the bill was low enough they could grab the body, and vamoose before the Bank of America people instructed the hospital to obtain his card by any means possible and burn it in the furnace as it had been sorely abused in the last year. Poor damned credit card. May it rest in peace. Pascal wondered if he could buy a coffin sized for the card to bury it alongside Bayou Billy.
Gibby was the first to find her voice. “For what?”
“The bill, of course,” Chloe said irritably. “Insurance didn’t cover everything. Good God,” she added, flipping through the file again. “He was here for a month. Came over from the home when his kidneys really started to go belly up. He was lucky, you know. Not too many people last so many years on dialysis.”
“Urgle og,” Pascal said. What he tried to say was, ‘How much?’ but his traumatized state had truly failed his voice.
“How much?” Gibby asked, sounding like a mouse or someone who had recently breathed in a great deal of hydrogen.
Chloe’s eyes rolled and she flipped back to the last page again. “Well, it’s not that bad.”
Hope, Pascal thought. If he were to look in a mirror that smartassed reflection would say, “That’s hope all right, you peckerheaded, gibbon-fondling, armpit-slurping, shit-guzzling, toe-jam sucking wankstain.” Well, it has been hours since I talked to that limpdicked reflection. He would have to come up with a really first-class insult.
“Only twenty-five,” Chloe said, almost regretfully.
“Oh, thank God,” Gibby said loudly.
Pascal said, “That’s a relief.”
“Thousand,” Chloe added unfeelingly.
Pascal and Gibby looked blank.
Chloe said, “Twenty-five thousand, two hundred, seventy-five dollars, and thirteen cents. However, there’s a twenty dollar a day charge for storage and maintenance.” She smiled brutally at the pair. “You come up with that, you get the body.”
“You’re holding Bill’s corpse as…collateral?” Pascal said, disbelievingly.
Chloe shook her head. “Oh, no. We can’t do that. That would illegal. Also immoral. We simply can’t release him until the bill is paid in full. The hospital has bills, you know. We don’t do things for free. If his body is unclaimed for more than thirty days, then the state steps in, and pays their premium, and the deceased will be buried in the pauper’s cemetery. You know, you can visit there. I understand the graveyard is very well kept.”
Gibby opened up her purse and pulled out her wallet. “Can you split it between several credit cards?”
Smiling sincerely, Chloe nodded. “Oh, sure. How many?”
“I’ve got five. He’s got one,” Gibby said. “And I can write a check for the rest. Maybe.”
Chloe took the credit cards with cheerful fingers. “We’ll just get started, then.”
Chapter Seven
From a letter dated February 12, 1950. The author is William Douglas McCall and the letter is the private property of Fannie Amalia Cobbler, a step-grandchild of the same. The letter is addressed to Hortense (Hortens in the letter) Fortin McCall Cobbler, who was Mr. McCall’s fourth wife, and who, in 1954, turned him in to the Louisiana authorities for a cash reward of $5000, approximately worth $50,000 in present day value. A year later, while on the run, Mr. McCall divorced Ms. Fortin McCall Cobbler on the grounds of cruelty, which was granted by a Louisiana judge who seemed content not to turn the outlaw in himself:
My darlin Hortens (sic),
At last we kin (sic) be toogether (sic) as the divors (sic) is final from that hatful rotin skeemin (sic) dirty bich (sic), Glenda. She is a fowl (sic) woman who wishs (sic) harm on both to (sic) us. Trulie (sic) she is Satin’s (sic) flesh and blood. I wish a gator would craw (sic) up her ass. I hope a mockosin (sic) wood bit (sic) her on her throot (sic) and rip it owt (sic). May be she wil (sic) fall down a well. Or maybe a swarm of bugs wil craw (sic) in her ears. May she get a terbell deeseese (sic) like the clap or something that wil mak (sic) her sik (sic) something offul (sic). She is Satin’s bich (sic). She suckels (sic) at Satin’s breest (sic). I never relly (sic) loved her lik (sic) I love you. She traped (sic) me. She triked (sic) me. She put a mickie (sic) in my beer so that I wood (sic) marry her up. But she was wiked (sic) and evle (sic) and no-good and something was rong (sic) with her stomack (sic) as she farted like a dog what et beens (sic) and brocolly (sic). Also I think she wanted to see me deed (sic) in a shallo grav becaws onse (sic) I wok (sic) up to find her standin (sic) over my bed with a (sic) ax from the woodpile. She said it were nothing but I knoed beter (sic). I think she wanted to kil (sic) me and look for the last of the riverboat mony (sic) but I hid that yeers (sic) afor (sic) and she has not a idear (sic).
But you ar diferen (sic). You wil (sic) love me forever and mak (sic) a (sic) honest man out to (sic) me. You wil (sic) never beatray (sic) me and you wil (sic) be my final wife.
Met (sic) me at the old watr hol (sic) on the 20th and we shal (sic) go to a preacher post hast (sic). We wil hav (sic) a dozin litle babis (sic) who wil (sic) be part of ar lovin familee (sic). Forever and forever mor (sic).
At last. At last. At last.
Yors (sic) in love,
Bayou Billy or as I am nown (sic) to you, William
The Present
Friday, July 14th
Albie, Louisiana
The historian’s name was Philbert P. Jones and once contacted, he had hastily driven from Stonewall, Louisiana where he lived. Upon hearing the news about Bayou Billy’s death he was exaggeratedly enthusiastic about participating in the planning of the infamous outlaw’s burial plans. Ophelia Rector was less than enthusiastic once she had actually shaken hands with the five foot five inch, bald as a cue ball, sweat-stained shirted individual. His skin was paler than a vampire in winter at the North Pole and had had buck teeth so broad nickels could be stacked upon them. With tweed pants and vest, white shirt with obvious ring around the collar, and black string tie, he looked like a sacked community college professor who had been caught with his hands in the cookie jar.
Also his hands were clammy and Ophelia found herself surreptitiously wiping her palm on the back of her Ralph Lauren linen pants. She thought that particular act was very likely a crime in any state where the fashion industry was an industry leader. But she was probably okay in Louisiana, criminally speaking.
“So the old turd is finally dead,” Philbert said bluntly. He had strutted into Tom Carew’s office, firmly shaken Tom’s hand and then had enough moisture left to make Ophelia’s palm drip after he’d resolutely shaken her hand. “God, it took him long enough. Let’s see, on Billy’s last birthday he was one hundred and ten years old. I thought he was going to give the Guinness Book of World Records a run for their money, but I suppose he didn’t come close.”
Philbert turned his pale bald head toward Ophelia and grinned widely. He had three gold teeth on the bottom front, one with a tiny diamond chip that glittered more brightly than her two karat ring. It made Ophelia cringe inwardly and her level of tacit rage began to inch skyward at an alarming rate.
Tom correctly gauged Ophelia’s lack of patience. She had waited for Philbert Jones for nearly an hour before he showed up. At the first hearing of the news, Philbert insisted on driving over to Albie, instead of merely sharing the information with them over the telephone. So Tom rapidly said something bef
ore Ophelia’s cork popped. “Philbert, what we really need is Bill’s next of kin. You know, who is the closest living relative?”
Philbert threw himself down in a chair next to Tom’s desk and plopped his briefcase on top, displacing Tom’s name plate, a gold pen, and several files. He opened it up and withdrew a file. Leaving wet prints on the sides, he flipped it open and studied it. “As of January of this year, Bill’s children are all deceased. The one born in 1964 died in a car accident in 1985. Billy didn’t even go to that funeral. He didn’t go to the funeral of his last wife, either. Really mean toadstool, him.”
Tom sighed loudly.
Philbert went on, oblivious to the unspoken hint. “All of his grandchildren are dead except Tamara. He had six grandchildren, you know. All of his kin were apt to die young, excepting him, of course. I think he made a deal with the devil and the devil got tired of waiting.” He chuckled robustly at his joke.
Ophelia glared.
“So I reckon Tamara would be the next of kin or however that works. Not that it’s going to be worth a damned cent. The last I knew Billy had both houses double mortgaged. If he had relatives that he knew about he had asked them for money. He even had a deal going with both Albie and Sawdust City on-”
Ophelia cut him off with an outraged, “What?”
“You know for free stuff from both towns. Tom,” Philbert said to the mayor. “You’ve got to know about that, right? Billy used to brag about how he had played both towns for fools.” He laughed again, oblivious to the way Ophelia’s spine flattened into an iron ramrod and her eyes narrowed to a volcanic glare. Then he finished up with, “I don’t have an earthly clue what he was doing with the money. Gambling, booze and hookers, even at his age.” His rough laughter came again. “Randy old goat.”
Life and Death of Bayou Billy Page 7
