The Undertaker

CHAPTER EIGHT

A short ride to forever…

If you've never been knocked cold by a sharp blow to the head, it is a little hard to describe. I remember back in sixth grade when Howie Schmidt and I were playing in his basement and I ran headlong into one of the steel posts holding up the first floor. It took three weeks to get the “Bong” out of my ears. Later, there was the JV football team in high school. At 168 pounds, I was the third-string guard on a three-string team, until we ran a sweep around left end and I met Willie Sanders coming the other way, helmet-to-helmet. I woke up five minutes later and ten yards back. That was when the coaches suggested I switch to track, or to swimming, or to debate.

The hit Dannmeyer gave me was somewhere in the middle. Most of the time I wasn't completely under. Sometimes I heard things and sometimes I understood them, but I couldn't manage to do both at the same time. There were voices, but they were far off and hollow, like the echo at the other end of a long pipe, and they didn't make any sense.

“You talk too damned much, Doc,” I heard a gruff voice say.

“I told him nothing. Nothing.”

“No? Keep it up and you'll find yourself up in Oak Hill with the rest of them.”

“Don't you threaten me, Dannmeyer.”

“No, I'll let the captain do that.”

“I should never have ...”

“You got that right. You never had the balls for it. Neither does your collection of fruits in the beds back there, but you like playing around with them anyway, don't you, “Doctor? And to keep doing that, you need the money.”

“Dannmeyer, you bastard!”

“You knew the rules. You never shoulda let this guy inside, you never shoulda talked to him, and you never shoulda opened your big yap about what we're doing.”

“Dannmeyer, I swear...”

“Stow it. The captain's gonna have your ass when he gets here. He set this place up for you. Without him and all the Federal money he got you from HEW, you and your bunch of fruits and nuts would still be running around the back alleys of Guadalajara.”

“You are a pig.”

“Yeah, I am. And don't forget, Larry Greene's always got room for one more. But don't worry. When you're gone, I'll clean up all the little “lose ends” around . Won't that be fun?”

I heard Dannmeyer's obscene laugh fade away down that long tunnel and everything went silent again.

I came out of it slowly, like a deep-sea diver coming up from the bottom, reaching out for the twinkling, silver surface high above, until my eyes finally popped open and the bright lights blinded me. I was flat on my back on the hard linoleum floor of Varner's office, squinting, blinking, and staring up at the ceiling. Everything in the room floated around in circles. As my vision cleared, I became aware of two faces high above me leaning into my field of vision. One was Dannmeyer, dressed in his brown sheriff's suit, and one was Ralph Tinkerton in his suit coat and tie. I tried to focus on each of them, but the back of my head throbbed with a dull, aching pain.

“I bet that really hurts, don't it,” Dannmeyer chuxcckled. “Nice to see I haven't lost my touch, but that wasn't nuthin', Podner. See, I got ways of hurtin' people they ain't given names to yet.”

I closed my eyes again and lay there until my head stopped throbbing. Slowly the pain faded enough for me to feel my tongue, my toes, and my fingers, and I took roll call. Hands? They were pinned beneath me and I couldn't make them move. Handcuffs? Probably Dannmeyer's, I realized. I slowly opened my eyes again, knowing there was no sense putting it off. This time, I focused on Tinkerton's face. He stared down at me, his cold-gray eyes as dull and emotionless as a cruising shark.

“Well, if it isn't our tourist friend from California, or Boston, or wherever you say you are from, and my very favorite jokester.” Tinkerton gave me a cold, thin, smile. “The paper bag with the drink you left in the lobby? Sheer genius, Peter. However, you're developing a nasty habit of intruding into places where you don't belong, dangerous places, and making a pest of yourself. Not that I didn't warn you, but now it's too late.”

I looked from Tinkerton to Dannmeyer, then back again. “Is he your muscle, Ralph?” I asked.

“My “muscle?” Tinkerton seemed amused at the thought. “Oh, come now, Peter. That term is so pathetically out of date. Today all it takes is a telephone call, maybe a fax or an e-mail to www.hitman.com, for all I know. With my contacts, a quick glance in the right quarters is all I'd need to eliminate a clown like you.”

I fixed Tinkerton with a hard stare. “I'm a Special Investigator with the State Attorney General's Office. If you come downtown with me right now, I'll forget the assaulting a police officer charge and see what I can do to help you negotiate a plea on all the rest. It's not much, but it's the last chance we're going to give you.”

Tinkerton stared down at me, speechless, and then broke out in a gut-wrenching belly laugh. “My God, but you do have nerve! I love it, I love it!”

Dannmeyer frowned. He didn't look nearly as happy or as confident. “You don't think it could be true then?”

“Not a word of it, Virgil,” Tinkerton answered.

“You're positive about that?” I asked him.

“Yes, I'm afraid I am, “Tinkerton answered. “If anything like that was going on downtown — and I mean anything – I would have known about it weeks ago.”

“So, who is he then? Just some crazy drifter?” Dannmeyer asked hopefully.

Tinkerton studied me for a moment. “No, that would be far too simple. He is no drifter and I know he is not crazy.”

“Then who the fuck is he?” Dannmeyer suddenly raged.

“Ah, that is the question, isn't it.”

“I'm Peter Talbott,” I said. “Like I told you.”

“I don't think so,” Tinkerton shook his head confidently. “The real Peter Talbott died in a car wreck in Baja a year ago, right after his wife. I have a copy of the death certificate and a photograph of the grave in L. A.”

“That was some dumb Mexican kid who stole my car. The grave is empty now and the Mexicans rescinded the death certificate. Check it out.”

Varner shifted uncomfortably. “Ralph, you don't suppose ...”

“Shut up, Doctor,” Tinkerton snapped. “You talk too much.”

“But the computers? Aren't they supposed to check all that stuff out?”

Tinkerton looked down, studying me. “The ”wizards” warned us the system isn't perfect, that something like this could happen. They said it was “statistically inevitable”, but controllable. When you need a husband and a wife, both of whom are dead, with the right timing, age, and background from as far away as we can find them, the choices are somewhat limited. There is always a minor but manageable chance that someone could notice.”

“You think it's that simple?” Dannmeyer asked.

“That, or he is lying again.” Tinkerton cocked his head and looked down at me with a sadistic smile. “That is the question, isn't it? How much does our new friend “Peter” really know and how much of it is pure crap.”

“He's wrong, Virgil. You don't really think I'd come walking in here alone, do you?” I said confidently. “You're the one who's going to end up holding the bag.”

“I don't think so,” Tinkerton sighed. “But you are right about one thing. Virgil and I can't take any chances, can we? We've got to make sure,” Tinkerton's eyes flashed, “because there is one little question that I've got to have an answer to, one you are going to give me, if it takes all night.”

“Boxers or briefs?” I asked.

“No,” he laughed along with me. “Back in my office, you dropped the magic name of Jimmy Santorini on me. Perhaps you thought you were being cute, or perhaps you threw it in blind, not really knowing about the Pandora's Box you were opening up, but that move cost you your amateur standing. You can save yourself a whole lot of pain if you tell me what you really do know about him.”