Then we got the death entered on our books and the city’s books. It don’t look good. Thanks, don’t care if I do.”
“And you got to keep ’em entered in all these books? That would drive me nuts.” The blond man put his feet on the desk and looked up at the shelf full of ledgers.
“Naa. Only in the current book-here, on the desk. Them books go all the way back to when the hospital started. I don’t know why they keep ’em out here. Only once in a while the Medical Examiner’s office comes nosing around, wanting to look up something away back, and I dust ’em off. This ain’t a bad job at all. Plenty of time on your hands. Say-I better not have any more right now. We got an old battle-ax, the night supervisor. She might come down and give me hell. Claim I was showing up drunk. I never showed up drunk on the job yet. And she never comes down after three o’clock. It ain’t bad.”
Cool blue eyes had picked out a volume marked
Jerry rattled on. “Say, y’know that actress, Doree Evarts-the one that did the Dutch night before last in the hotel across the way? They couldn’t save her. This evening, ’bout eight o’clock, I got a call to collect one from West Five-that’s private. It was her. I got her in the icebox now. Wanna see her?”
The stranger set down his glass. His face was white but he said, “Sure thing. I ain’t never seen a dead stripper. Boy, oh, boy, but I seen her when she was alive. She used to flash ’em.”
The morgue man said, “Come on. I’ll introduce you.”
In the corridor were icebox doors in three tiers. Jerry went down the line, unlatched one and pulled out a tray. On it lay a form covered by a cheap cotton sheet which he drew back with a flourish.
Doree Evarts had cut her wrists. What lay on the galvanized tray was like a dummy, eyes half open, golden hair damp and matted. The nostrils and mouth were plugged with cotton.
There were the breasts Doree had snapped by their nipples under the amber spotlight, the belly which rotated for the crowd of smoke-packed old men and pimply kids, the long legs which spread in the final bump as she made her exit. Her nail polish was chipped and broken off; a tag with her name on it was tied to one thumb; her wrists were bandaged.
“Good-looking tomato-once.” Jerry pulled up the sheet, slid in the drawer and slammed the door. They went back to the office and the visitor knocked off two quick brandies.
Doree had found the end of the alley. What had she been running from that made her slice at her veins? Nightmare coming closer. What force inside her head, under the taffy-colored hair, pushed her into this?
The dank office swam in the heat of the brandy as Jerry’s voice clattered on. “You get lotsa laughs some nights. One time -last winter it was-we had a real heavy night. I mean a real night. They was conking out like flies, I’m telling you. Lotsa old folks. Every five, ten minutes the phone’d ring: ‘Jerry, come on up, we got another one.’ I’m telling you, I didn’t get a minute’s peace all night. Finally I got the bottom row of boxes filled and then the second row. Now, I didn’t want to go sticking ’em up in that top row-I’d have to get two ladders and two other guys to help me lift ’em. Well, what would you do? Sure. I doubled ’em up. Well, along about four o’clock the old battle-ax phones down and asks me where such-and-such a stiff is and I tell her-it was a dame. Then she asks about a guy and I look up the book and I tell her. Well, I’d shoved ’em into the same box. What the hell-they was dead people! She blows up and you shoulda heard her.”
Good Christ, was this guy never going to shut up and get out for a minute? Just one minute would be enough. On the shelf over Jerry’s head.
“She was raising hell. She says, ‘Jerry’-you shoulda heard her; you wouldn’t believe it-‘Jerry, I think you might have the decency’-those was her very words-‘I think you might have the decency not to put men and women together in the same refrigerator compartment!’ Can you beat that? I says to her, I says, ‘Miss Leary, do you mean to insinuate that I should go encouraging homo-sex-uality amongst these corpses?’ ” Jerry leaned back in his swivel chair, slapping his thigh, and his companion laughed until tears came, getting the tightness worked out of his nerves.
“Oh, you shoulda heard her rave then! Wait a minute-there’s the phone.” He listened, then said, “Right away, keed,” and pushed back his chair. “Got a customer. Be right back. Gimme a shot before I go.”
His hard heels rang off down the corridor. The elevator stopped, opened, closed, and hummed as it went up.
Jerry stood in the doorway, swaying slightly, his face glistening. “Wanna give me a hand? A fat one! Jesus!”
“No. She ain’t lived here in my time. ’Course, I only took over the house eight years ago. Mis’ Meriwether had the house before me. She’s been in the Home for the Blind ever since. Cataracts, you know.”
A soft, cultured voice said: “Mrs. Meriwether, I hate to bother you with what is, after all, only a hobby of mine. I am a genealogist, you see. I am looking up the branches of my mother’s family-the Cadles. And in an old city directory I noted that someone by that name lived at the house which you ran as a rooming house about thirty-five years ago. Of course, I don’t expect you to remember.”
“Young man, I certainly do remember. A fine girl she was, Doris Cadle. Remember it like it was yesterday. Some kind of blood poisoning. Took her to the hospital. Too late. Died. Buried in Potter’s Field. I didn’t know where her folks was. I would have put up the money to get her a plot only I didn’t have it. I tried to get up a purse but none of my roomers could make it up.”
“She was one of the Cadles of New Jersey?”
“Might a been. Only, as I recall, she come from Tewkesbury, Pennsylvania.”
“Tell me, Mrs. Meriwether, are you related to the Meriwethers of Massachusetts?”
“Well, now, young man, that’s right interesting. I had a grandmother come from Massachusetts. On my father’s side she was. Now, if you’re interested in the Meriwethers-”
“Mrs. Cadle, I thought I had all the data I needed but there are a couple of other questions I’d like to ask for the government records.” The dark suit, the brief case, the horn-rimmed glasses over a polka-dot bow tie, all spoke of the servant of government.
“Come in. I been tryin’ to find Dorrie’s pitcher. Ain’t seen it sence I showed it to you a while ago.”
“Doris Mae. That was your second child, I believe. But you put the picture back in the Bible, Mrs. Cadle.”
His voice sounded dry and bored. He must get awful tired, pestering folks this way all day and every day.
“Let’s look again. Here-here it is. You just didn’t look far enough. Did I ask you the date of your daughter’s graduation from high school?”
“Never graddiated. She took a business course and run off to New York City and we never seen her no more.”
“Thank you. You said your husband worked in the mines from the age of thirteen. How many accidents did he have in that time? That is, accidents that caused him to lose one or more days from work?”
“Oh, Lord, I can sure tell you about them! I mind one time just after we was married…”
The collector of vital statistics walked slowly toward the town’s single trolley line. In his brief case was a roll of film recording both sides of a postcard. One was a cheap photograph of a young girl, taken at Coney Island. She was sitting in a prop rowboat named
Dear Mom and all,
I am sending this from Coney Island. It’s like the biggest fair you ever saw. A boy named Spunk took me. Isn’t that a silly nickname? I had my picture taken as you can see. Tell Pop and all I wish I was with you and hug little Jennie for me. Will write soon.
Fondly,
DORRIE
Conversation flattened out to an eager rustle as the Rev. Carlisle entered the room and walked to the lectern in the glass alcove, where ferns and palms caught the summer sun in a tumult of green. The rest of the room was cool and dark, with drawn hangings before the street windows.
He opened the Bible with the gold-plated clasps, ran his hands once over his hair, then gazed straight out above the heads of the congregation which had assembled in the Church of the Heavenly Message.
