Magpie 88
“They’re coming, right?” Ricky Beckenbauer stood next to the crumpled fender of his dad’s Buick and tried not to catch the eye of the other drivers as they edged past the accident on the wrong side of the road.
“I said, didn’t I?” the man in the black suit and crisp white shirt leaned against the hood of his car, his arms folded across his chest and took no particular notice of anything. His car was a hearse.
“I mean they said that they’re actually coming?” Ricky went on impatiently. “They’ll tell you all this stuff then stop for donuts on the way if they don’t think it’s urgent.” He paused and glanced along the line of waiting cars that stretched into the distance. “I mean this is actually getting a little urgent here.”
The other man said nothing but sighed heavily through his nose. There was another man – a small bald headed man, sitting in the passenger side of the long black limousine but he made no move to get out.
Ricky stole uncomfortable looks at the black box with its brass handles, half hidden behind red velvet curtains in the back of the other car. “You supposed to be somewhere with that?” he nodded towards the rear of the hearse.
“Nope,” the other man said dryly, “he ain’t in no hurry to go nowhere.”
A car some way back in the line sounded its horn for no particular reason.
“You pulled out way too fast, you know?” Ricky said.
The other man glanced at him for a moment then went back to staring away off down the road. “Yeah,” he said, “speeding. These funeral cars get that all the time.”
“I mean it’s not that you were speeding, it’s just you cut out real quick. I didn’t see you signal.”
“U-huh…”
A car went by at walking pace with the driver’s side window all the way down. A broad shouldered man crammed into a shirt that dug into his neck leaned out. “Get out of the road, you shmuck!” he yelled, glaring at Ricky as he rolled past.
“Sorry…” Ricky mouthed the word and waved a weak apology.
The next car had its windows tightly closed. A couple in the front argued soundlessly and a small girl with red hair stared from the rear window.
“Cops” the man in the suit said.
Ricky jumped and spun around, darting glances this way and that. A few moments later a black and white appeared from around the bend a half mile down the road and edged slowly up along the shoulder.
It had a gold star emblem on the door, five points with letters around the middle that read ‘County Sheriff’s Department’.
A scrawny looking man in a light grey uniform that hung from him like a scarecrow’s coat stepped out onto the asphalt.
“Jeb,” the man in the black suit spoke.
“Al,” the policeman replied.
“Great…” Ricky said under his breath, realising the two men knew each other.
The man from the sheriff’s department stuck his thumbs into his belt and strode around to the front of the cars where they were jammed together. He shook his head then walked around the passenger side of the hearse. The window opened and the short bald man exchanged words with the police officer for a minute of two before a burst of rough laughter ended the conversation and the window rolled closed.
The man in the suit remained propped against the hood of his car.
“I’m going to need to see your license and registration,” the police officer spoke in Ricky’s direction with a half smile that twisted his face into a series of ugly creases.
“Don’t you want to know what happened here?” Ricky asked, pushing his hands into the pockets of his jeans.
The police officer looked from one car to the other than back at Ricky. “Son,” he said after a moment, “it looks to me as though you crashed your car into this other here funeral car.” He shrugged, “and I ain’t even been to detective school.” He looked at the man in the black suit but got no reaction to his joke. “Show me your license and registration if you please now son,” he said after a few more moments.
“You picking up or dropping off, Al?” the policeman asked the man in the black suit while Ricky dug for his wallet.
The man in the suit looked at the ground with a strange sort of smile on his face. “It’s a pick up, Jeb, a good one too.”
Ricky held his driver’s license out in the direction of the police officer.
“Yeah?” the policeman said, glancing at the black box in the back of the black car. “Who the hell you got in there, boy?”
Ricky waved his driver’s license in the air.
The man in the black suit stepped away from the hood of his car and rocked back and forth on the balls of his feet. “Picked up from the State Pen about an hour ago,” he said proudly.
The man in uniform twisted his face into a confused expression, “the Pen?” he said, “so…” Then the penny dropped and his face lit up. “You didn’t?” he stared at the box in the back of the car. “Joey Stigleone?”
“Fresh out of the chair.”
“You are shitting me!”
“Got the papers inside.” The man in the suit tapped on the window and the small bald man dug in the glove compartment for a moment then waved a crumpled wad of papers in the air. “Joey ‘The Knife’ Stigleone,” he spoke as if reading from the documents, “convicted of seven counts of first degree murder and sentenced to death by electrocution on this the twelfth day of September in the year of our Lord Two Thousand and – “
“You are shitting me?” the police officer said again, his face and hands pressed against the rear windows of the big car.
“I gotta tell you, Jeb,” the man in the suit was saying, “this is the best we’ve had since that Kennedy kid who drove off the freeway – “
“Was that you?” the police officer asked, “I thought that was old Victor Kronkheidt from Woodford –“
The suit guy was shaking his head. “Nope, he did that rock and roll kid who blew his head off in the hot tub.”
“Excuse me,” Ricky was growing even more impatient as cars continued to crawl by the accident on the wrong side of the road.
“Sir, I will have to ask you to remain inside your vehicle with your hands on the steering wheel where I can see them at all time. Al, you gotta let me take a look at this guy.”
“Oh Jesus Christ…” Ricky threw his hands up and walked around to the driver’s side of his car.
“Jeb, you know damned well that I am licensed by the State Attorney’s office to transport the remains of the deceased between registered facilities and I am not permitted to allow people to go looking inside the God-damned caskets for whatever reason they might have.”
The policeman was looking at the mangled front wing of the funeral car. “How fast did you say you were going, Al?” he asked.
Ricky stepped forward, “too damned fast – he pulled right out in – “
“Didn’t I tell you to sit in your car with your hands on the wheel, son?” Those tyres look a little bald there Al, don’t you think?”
The man in the suit had already started walking around to the back of the car. “Jeb, you are some mean ass’d son of a…”
The policeman was rubbing his hands together, “open her up, boy, and slide that sucker on out.”
The small bald man was craning his neck from the passenger seat to see what was happening. People in the cars that crawled by watched too.
The big black door at the back of the hearse swung open wide and the man in the suit grabbed the stainless steel handle that protruded underneath the casket. It slid out smoothly on its casters, one set of folding legs popping out to support the weight of the casket as it emerged.
“Un-fucking believable!” the cop was saying. “Joey the Knife in the back of your wagon, Al. That’s gotta beat the hell out of some Kennedy kid any day?”
“It’s a stiff, Jeb,” the suit guy replied, “they’re all the same when they get in the back of my can.
The police guy laughed, “aw, come on, Al. This is a celebrity. You could sell this guy’s teeth on eBay.” He was dancing from one foot to the other in anticipation. “Come on, come on. Open it, Al.”
“Jeb,” the suit man pleaded,” there are people here.” He gestured to the passing road traffic.
“And your bald tyres are still here too, Al, and maybe my report that says maybe they should take away that license of yours – that’s probably not too far away either.”
“Jeb, you’re an ass-hole.” Al popped open the catches and pushed up the lid of the casket.
“Woo!” the police officer stepped away and wafted the air with his hands. “Shit! That stinks like your old-lady’s meatloaf!” He laughed, a raucous, crow-like sound that seemed to hang in the air for an age.
“He fried, Jeb” the man in the suit said quietly. “He fried until he died.” The smell didn’t seem to bother him as much.
At last the police officer stepped forward and looked nervously over the lip of the casket. “Shit…” he whispered, “look at that son of a bitch.” He stared at the body in silence for some time, then without warning he drew his revolver and shot the corpse once through the head.
“Jesus! What the fuck?” the suit man yelled, clasping both palms to his forehead.
The line of traffic had stopped altogether. Some people were getting out of their cars to look. Ricky sat in the driver’s seat of his car, his knuckles white from gripping the wheel.
“Nothing to see here, folks,” the policeman was saying, stepping out from behind the casket and waving at the line of cars. “Move right along please – sir – please return to your vehicle.”
“Jeb, what did you do?” The suit guy’s eyes were wide as saucers. He was staring into the casket.
“The fucking gun that shot Joey Stigleone, Al. You know how much I could get for this?”
“But he was already dead, Jeb.”
“Yeah, but you think anyone will care?”
“Well I think maybe people would ask whether you were fucking serious when everyone knows the guy went to the chair.”
The police officer looked at the revolver in his hand for a few moments. “You’re right,” he said, “have you got a camera?”
“Jesus Christ…”
“For a picture of the bullet hole.”
The suit guy slammed the lid of the casket and snapped the clasps shut. “Jeb, you are one crazy son of a bitch and I ain’t sticking round here to watch you get no crazier.”
The cop looked confused. “He’s fucking dead already, Al. What’s your problem?”
The big rear door closed with a deep thud, and the guy in the suit yanked open the driver’s side door. “Hey kid,” he yelled at Ricky, “Unwin Catchpin Funeral Directors – look us up. I’ll pay for your damned fender, alright?”
Ricky remained behind the wheel.
“You better get those tyres seen to, Al” the cop shouted down the road after the hearse as it slowly pulled away. He still held the revolver in his hand.
With one car removed the traffic began to flow a little more freely, although they still needed to cross over the line to pass Ricky’s Buick.
“Sir?” Ricky had wound down the window and was calling to the police officer. “Sir, my license and registration?” He reached out with the documents clasped tightly between his fingers.
The police officer looked at him for a few moments.
“Sheriff’s department, son,” he said, holstering his weapon and walking back to his black and white. “I ain’t no fucking highway patrol.”
