Hauling Ash

by Tonia Brown

  “Don’t be a smartass, boy.”

  “Sorry, sir.”

  “Go to the bus station, and ask to speak to a man named Scotty Weller. Tell him you’re Eightball, and that Waldorf sent you. Scotty should give you a key to locker number six. Inside you will find a brown suitcase.”

  “Why don’t you have the key?”

  “And leave it where Betty could get her grubby mitts on it?”

  “Good point. What if this Scott doesn’t have the key? Or if he’s taken the money?”

  “Scotty is an old buddy of mine. He’ll have the key, and he thinks the suitcase is full of paperwork.”

  “Why would he think that?”

  “Because I paid him to think that.”

  “Ah.” Otto failed to ask if Scotty was such a good friend, why he wasn’t at Walter’s funeral.

  “Are you paying attention?”

  “Yes, yes. Scotty Weller, locker six, brown suitcase. I heard you.”

  “Right. Grab the suitcase and bring it back to me. Once we use the cash to get my ashes where they should be, I’ll tell you where to find the rest of the money.”

  “Why not tell me now?” Otto said. “I could save gas by going and getting it all at once.”

  “Can’t have you grabbin’ the cash and skipping town on me, can I?”

  “Don’t you trust me?”

  “Nope.”

  “Geesh, you’d think cremating a guy would bring you closer.”

  “Don’t take it personal. I don’t trust no one. That goes double for my kin, and triple when it comes to my money.”

  “I don’t see how I can possibly skip town, as you put it, when you’re haunting me. Won’t you just follow me from place to place and make my life more miserable than it already is?”

  “This kind of money makes the worst things tolerable.”

  “I don’t see how.”

  “That’s because you never had any. Now button your lip and go get my money.”

  “You mean my money.”

  “Your money?” The corpse grunted. “You see? That’s why I can’t tell you where it is until I am laid to rest. You’re already getting all uppity.” The corpse grunted again. “Your money indeed. I should smack you for that, boy.”

  “Sorry, Uncle Walter.” Otto slipped on his jacket and grabbed his keys while Walter stretched out on the couch. “Aren’t you coming with me?”

  “No. I’m gonna catch up on my soaps.” Walter turned the television on and began flipping through the channels.

  Finster jumped onto the couch, curling up at Walter’s feet. For Otto, witnessing that single act was as familiar as the smell of formaldehyde. Many were the evenings Otto came home late from a hard day’s embalming to catch Walter curled up on his couch with Finster at his feet, the pair of them watching some trashy talk show or other. Looking at the pair now… it was as if Walter never died.

  “You don’t want to come?” Otto said Finster.

  The dog cut Otto a look that said, Are you kidding?

  Otto should’ve expected that. “How much will there be?”

  “How much what?” the corpse said.

  “Money.”

  Walter ignored the question, keeping his yellow eyes glued to the TV.

  “Walter,” Otto said, “I need to know how mu—”

  “You’re awful chatty for a man that’s supposed to be gone by now,” Walter said.

  Finster yipped in agreement.

  “Oh don’t you start taking his side,” Otto said. “I want to make sure no one’s stolen any.”

  “No one’s stolen any,” Walter said.

  “How can you be sure?”

  “Because I know.”

  “How big will it be?”

  “It’s in a single suitcase. You can’t miss it.”

  “Uncle Walter, please. I just want to know what I am in for.”

  So, Walter told him, and Otto immediately wished the man hadn’t.

  There was a time, eons ago, when Otto almost didn’t ask Muriel to marry him because he was fairly sure he would pass out before he got the chance to get the words out. He assumed that was and would always remain the most nervous moment of his life. He was wrong. The trip to the bus station to pick up a suitcase filled with money was officially the most nervous moment of his life. To be fair, there wasn’t as much money involved in asking Muriel to marry him. Oh, there was a certain amount involved when she left him—he still couldn’t believe she demanded alimony when she was the one cheating on him, the conniving bitch—but not when they first got together. Not money like this.

  Not ten thousand dollars.

  Ten grand may not seem like much money to most folks, yet to Otto it was a marvelous amount. Muriel left him swimming in so much debt Otto doubted he could recognize fifty dollars’ worth of cash, much less ten thousand. Once upon a time, he and his wife shared a savings account with nearly as much in it, as well as retirement funds with matching amounts. All of that was gone now, thanks to the Unholy Terror that was Muriel Waldorf.

  What in the world would Otto do with ten thousand dollars? He supposed the first thing to do was take it to the bank. No, wait, Walter said to bring it to him. Not to mention the fact that Walter despised banks. There was a good chance Walter wouldn’t tell Otto where the rest of the cash was if Otto put the first round of money in the bank. No, it was best he followed his dead uncle’s instructions, else he may never see the rest of the money.

  It was then that Otto carefully considered his last, passing thought: Follow my dead uncle’s instruction, else I may never see the rest of the money.

  He wondered if it was just him, or did that sound like a completely crazy thing to think? In fact, the entire idea that he had spent the last hour discussing a trip to the Bahamas to spread his dead uncle’s ashes across the sea, as requested by the corpse/ghost of said dead uncle, left Otto with a bit of a bad feeling. A feeling that perhaps, perchance, possibly he may have gone off the deep end. Just a tad.

  Otto pulled his Buick off the shoulder and parked it in the tall grass that ran along the side of the road. After the car came to a stop, he drew a few deep breaths, looked up in the rear view mirror and, as he often did in times of doubt, said to himself, “Am I really going to go through with this?”

  His reflection looked doubtful.

  “Did I spend the morning talking to myself?” Otto said. “Or did my dead uncle tell me to pick up a suitcase full of money at the bus station?”

  Again, his reflection seemed unimpressed.

  “I figured as much,” Otto said, then sighed. “Who knew I would miss the old fart so bad? Bad enough to bring him back from the dead. And make him tell me what to do. An undead figment of my grief stricken imagination, and he is still bossing me around. How pathetic is that?”

  His reflection shrugged.

  “I have to prove it to myself,” Otto said. “That’s what I have to do. I have to go to that station, ask for Scotty Weller, tell him Walter sent me, and let the man laugh. That’s the only way to prove to myself I imagined the whole thing. Yes. That makes perfect sense.”

  His reflection seemed to say, You’re bat shit crazy. You know that, don’t you?

  Otto got out of the car before his reflection could talk him out of it.

  The fact that Stockton even possessed a bus station was one of life’s greatest mysteries, at least for Otto. Charleston was just under hour’s drive away, and it was full of marinas and bus stations and even an airport. The whole town of Stockton boasted a population of a little over five thousand people, on a good day, and considering most of the town was made up of folks about Walter’s age, those good days were limited. Stockton was one of those dots on the map that most folks mistook for a mote of dust on their GPS. A stopover before you reached the larger port towns all up and down the South Carolina coastline. If anything, the bus station was more of a way station; a place to refuel, stretch your legs and perhaps empty your bladder and/or bowels before you moved on to the larger c
ities.

  The bus station was as deserted as Otto expected it would be on a Friday morning. Across from the main doors sat two counters, both marked Check In and both shuttered tighter than a closed convenience store on the bad side of town. To the left of the entrance rested another counter boasting rental cars complete with a single, bored looking attendant. Next to this counter stood the line of metal lockers Otto sought. Most of the lockers still held their keys; those stubby, round affairs that released with a hard slam and yank. He supposed the lockers gave folks a place to store things while they were in town. Yet the lack of traffic made the lockers as ludicrous as the entire bus station.

  Save for locker number six.

  Otto swallowed his nervousness and made his way to the counter. The attendant, a younger man in dire need of a haircut and shave as well as a shower, clean clothes and about two gallons of deodorant, yawned as he flipped through a magazine, either unaware of Otto’s approach or unconcerned.

  Coming to a rest at the end of the counter, Otto tried his best to look as inconspicuous as possible, and failed miserably considering he was the only fool in the place that didn’t work there. He waited a full minute, hoping the clerk would speak first. No luck. The young man continued to ignore Otto, as well as everything else around him. Taking a deep breath, Otto opened his mouth to ask for he was here to see, when it dawned on him he had entirely forgotten the man’s name. Bradley? William? Dear Lord! What was it? The name was on the tip of his tongue only moments before. Now he couldn’t even remember his own name. Oh, no, wait! He did know his own name.

  “Eightball,” Otto squeaked.

  The young man flinched ever so slightly, but did little else as way of a reaction.

  Otto glanced down at the name tag. Faded letters declared the young man as Scooter. Scooter? That sounded familiar. Didn’t it?

  “Eightball,” Otto said again, this time with a little more confidence.

  Grasping the edges of his magazine, the young man gave Otto a sideways glance. “What was that?”

  “Eightball,” Otto said, pointing to himself. “Waldorf sent me.”

  The attendee’s eyes widened a bit before he looked down at his magazine again. “I’m sure I don’t know what you’re talking about.” His head gave a slight twitch. It seemed an unusual motion, the way it jerked to the young man’s right, ever so slightly.

  Otto panicked. Unless the young man responded with a key to locker number six, then Otto was officially batshit crazy. He didn’t want to be batshit crazy. Officially or otherwise. Otto cleared his throat and repeated, “Waldorf sent me?”

  The attendee’s head jerked to the right again, deeper this time. Poor young man seemed to suffer from some kind of nervous tic. No wonder he worked in a rarely visited bus station.

  “Eightball?” Otto said, hoping the repetition would spark something in the man’s broken mind.

  The young man growled and clenched his reading material between trembling fists. “I said I don’t know what you’re talking about. Asshole.” Tic, tic, went his head, jerking with a dramatic flair to the right once more.

  Otto narrowed his eyes at the man. “Are you all right?”

  Between his clenched teeth, the young man said something that sounded an awful lot like, “The office.” His head continued to jerk with epileptic frequency.

  Otto leaned to the clerk’s right and sure enough just behind the lad was a small office. “Ah, I see. We shouldn’t do this out here. The walls have ears, as it were.” Otto rounded the end of the counter and paused at the open office door. The place was no bigger than a closet, with most of the room taken up by what looked like an old fashioned school desk. There was barely room for one soul, much less two full grown adults. “Are you sure it is big enough to discuss our business?”

  “For Christ’s sake,” the man grumbled, tossing his magazine to the counter and pushing Otto into the office. He slammed the door closed behind them and pulled the shade over the window, then turned about. The young man’s nostrils flared in anger, his stinking breath hot on Otto’s face. “What in the hell was all that about?”

  “All what?” Otto said. He was confused. Walter didn’t say anything about making the bus station clerk angry.

  “Throwing the word eightball around out there where anyone could hear it. You fucking amateur. Or are you just crazy?”

  “That depends if you have a key for me or not.” Otto glanced down again to read the badge once more before he added, “Scooter?”

  “Smart ass.” The man reached forward, pressing against Otto, nearly shoving him into the desk. “You know what? I do have a key for you. And you want to know why? Because I can’t do this anymore. I quit.” Scooter shoved something at Otto’s chest—a locker key dangling from a purple rabbit’s foot. “Here. Take it. Take it and take Waldorf’s money and go.”

  “Okay. I will. Thanks.” Otto’s heart thumped in his ears as he clutched the key he wasn’t sure had even existed.

  “Don’t sound so happy about it. And be careful out there, I think the Feds are watching me.”

  “The Feds? You mean like the IRS?” Now that was concerning. Otto didn’t stop to think that perhaps the IRS would be interested in Walter Waldorf’s alleged fortune.

  Scooter grinned. “IRS? Man you’re a laugh a minute. Where in the hell did Waldorf dig you up?”

  “I’m his nephew.”

  The young man started, as if shocked by the news. “His nephew?”

  “Yes.” Otto pulled a card from his top pocket and presented it to the young man. He learned early in his career to keep a business card on him at all times. Folks may not want to think about funerary services, and it never hurt to remind them on occasion. “Octavious Waldorf. I work in funerary services.”

  Scooter didn’t take the card. He stared at it as he swallowed hard enough to hear. “F-f-funerary services?” He looked up to Otto, with something akin to respect touching his eyes. Either that or fear. “Oh, man, I didn’t mean any disrespect, sir. Please give your uncle my apologies. I would, but I can’t stick around with all this heat on my back. You know? He’ll understand, won’t he?”

  “I’d like to think he would.” Working as a mortician for so many years, Otto was never surprised by how folks spoke of the dead as if they were still around. Unless the young man didn’t know Walter was gone. No, certainly he knew, or else he wouldn’t have given Otto the key. Otto tucked the card into Scooter’s top pocket, then nodded toward the door. “Shall I be on my way?”

  “Yes.” Scooter cracked the door, letting a touch of fresh air into the stale room. “Sorry about all of that amateur stuff. I didn’t know who you were.”

  “It’s quite all right. I’ve been called much worse.” Otto gave the clerk a small push, encouraging him to move out of the way.

  “I hope it all works out, and I am real sorry I couldn’t help more.”

  “Not at all. You’ve been very helpful.” Once out in the station proper again, Otto turned his attention to the row of lockers. He glanced down at the rabbit’s foot, pondering the meaning of it. Luck, wasn’t it? Yes. A rabbit’s foot was supposed to bring luck. Was six a lucky number too? He hoped so. Otto stepped up to lucky locker number six and gently placed the lucky key into the lucky lock.

  It wouldn’t turn.

  Try as he might, Otto couldn’t get the key to move. It fit, sure, it just wouldn’t turn left or right. A soft cough rose from behind him. He looked over his shoulder to find Scooter pointing down the row of lockers.

  “Nine,” Scooter said.

  “I know,” Otto said. “The key won’t work.”

  “That’s because it’s for number nine.”

  Otto held the key up to his eyes and turned it around. Six became nine, which explained all the confusion. “Ah. I thought you were speaking German there for a moment.”

  The man grinned. “German. Right. You’re something else.”

  “Thank you. I thought it was supposed to be number six?”

&
nbsp; “Nope. It’s always been nine.” The man glanced around and added much louder, “I mean that key has always been for locker number nine, sir. And nothing else.” He returned to his magazine, whistling to himself.

  “Okay then, nine it is.” Otto shuffled down to a few lockers and bent double to poke the key into the ascribed locker. Lo and behold, it worked on the first try, opening like the gates of heaven. Otto reached inside to withdraw something that looked a lot like a black duffle bag and less like a beat up brown suitcase. “This isn’t right.” He sat the bag on the floor of the station and placed his hands on his hips, staring down at it. Otto scratched his head, then tapped his chin, then scratched his head again. He glanced to the clerk, about to ask about the mix up, when it struck him that Walter was wrong about the number of the locker, so perhaps he was wrong about the bag too. Only one way to tell, he supposed. Otto grabbed the zipper and gave it a healthy yank. A familiar shade of green flashed from the narrow opening.

  Otto zipped the bag closed again with a gasp.

  “Is there a problem?” Scooter said.

  “No,” Otto squeaked. “Not a problem. No problem here. No sir.”

  The clerk leaned over the counter to add, in a hissing whisper, “It’s all there, isn’t it?”

  “Yes.” Otto slung the strap of the duffle over his shoulder and nodded to the clerk. “Thank you. Thank you very much. Have a good day, Scooter.”

  “Yeah. You too, buddy.”

  Otto hurried from the bus station he remembered the name of the man he was supposed to see. Scott Weller. He supposed Scooter was a mix of Scott and Weller. A nickname, as it were. That made all sorts of sense.

  Didn’t it?

  Chapter Three

  You Can’t Take it With You

  Two hours and a few stops later

  Walter met Otto at the door, rubbing his pale hands together in anticipation, that familiar greed rising to his cloudy eyes. “Did you get it?”

  “Here you go,” Otto said. He pushed past his uncle and tossed the duffle bag onto the coffee table. “Hope this satisfies your restless spirit.”