Donald Westlake: The Busy Body

Nick Rovito, at the front right slot, nodded his head in the signal, and Engel and the other pallbearers bent and fumbled under the black drape for the coffin handles, and then straightened and lifted the coffin up onto their shoulders. One of the ushers quick wheeled the coffin rack out of the way so it wouldn’t show in the news pictures, and then the pallbearers started down the aisle with flashbulbs popping all over the place. Engel was the tallest pallbearer, so he was the one carrying most of the weight; with the coffin grinding down onto his shoulder, he was forgetting all about his knees.

They marched on down the aisle, in slow time, with the faces on both sides looking solemn and serious, thinking about life and death and eternity and would some damn fool of a photographer take their picture by mistake even after the warning Nick Rovito had given the newspapers, and then they marched out into the sunlight and down the long shallow steps toward the hearse.

It was really quite a sight. The sidewalk was roped off on both sides, and just inside the ropes there were cops standing around with white helmets reflecting the sun, and back of the ropes there was a sea of people in Hawaiian shirts and Bermuda shorts. It all made Engel think of fruit juice, and that reminded him he was thirsty, and that reminded him he was dying for a smoke. Well. Later.

He knew his mother was down in the mob somewhere, and he knew she was probably jumping up and down and waving the Daily News to try to attract his attention, so after the first quick glance at the mob he kept his eyes straight ahead, staring at the hearse. He was feeling a little stage fright anyway, out there in front of all those people, and if he should happen to see his mother jumping up and down and waving a newspaper at him besides, it would be too much. He knew his mother was proud of him for making it so much bigger than his father, who until the day of his death was never more than a store-front bookie and game operator in Washington Heights, but later on would be time enough to look at her and listen to her praises.

He and the others marched across the sidewalk now to where the undertaker was standing beside the hearse. The undertaker was so tanned he looked like he’d been covered with bronze paint. When Engel got closer, he saw it was paint, that stuff you can get in the drugstore to give yourself a fake tan. The way he could tell, the undertaker hadn’t gotten it on even; up close, his face looked blotched and patchy, like he was a map of Europe done in shades of brown.

The undertaker was smiling so hard Engel was afraid he’d rip his cheeks. He kept motioning at the hearse like he wanted the pallbearers and everybody to just climb right on in and they’d take a spin through Chinatown, but they didn’t. There was a hydraulic slab covered with purple felt that swung out from the interior of the hearse, and this is what they set the coffin on. Then the driver of the hearse pushed a button on the dashboard and the hydraulic slab swung back in again, and the undertaker and one of his assistants shut the doors. The undertaker said to Nick Rovito, “It’s going beautifully, wouldn’t you say?”

But Nick Rovito wouldn’t say anything during a send-off; a send-off was too solemn an occasion. Engel saw him give the undertaker the fish-eye, and then he saw the undertaker decide to keep his trap shut from now on.

Nick Rovito motioned, and he and the other pallbearers stood to one side for a minute. The hearse drove forward, down the cleared space along the curb, and one of the flower cars drove up behind it. There were three flower cars. Ushers began carrying flowers out of the church, and in just a few minutes all three flower cars were full up, and then the procession cars came along.

The procession cars were Nick Rovito’s idea. They were all black Cadillac convertibles, with the tops down. “This is going to be a modren send-off,” Nick had said. “Not just a great send-off, a modren send-off.” One of the other guys at the table had said, “To symbolize the new era, huh, Nick?” and Nick Rovito had said, “Yeah.”

Now the people started coming down out of the church, in twos, with Charlie Brody’s widow and Archie Freihofer in the lead. Archie Freihofer ran the girl part of the operation. Since Charlie Brody hadn’t left any insurance, and since his dying outside the line of duty meant his widow wouldn’t be getting any pension from the organization, and since she was a fine-looking blonde even in basic black like today, she was going to go back to working for Archie again now, like she was before she married Charlie, so it was only right that Archie should escort her at the send-off.

The undertaker had a little notebook where he’d written down who was going to go in what car, and now he read off, “Car number one, Mrs. Brody, Mr. Freihofer, Mr. Rovito, Mr. Engel.”

Nick Rovito got into the back seat first, and then Charlie’s widow, and then Archie Freihofer. Engel got in front next to the driver, and the convertible slid forward to close the gap with the flower car in front, and the other four pallbearers got into the second car.

For the next fifteen minutes it was stop and go, stop and go, while back there in front of the church the convertibles got filled, one after the other. There were thirty-four of them, which was Nick Rovito’s idea. “One for every year of Charlie’s life,” he’d said. Somebody else at the table had said, “That’s real poetic, Nick,” and Nick Rovito had said, “Yeah.”

Everybody was silent now for a while. It was hot out here in the sun with the top down. Engel smoked a cigarette, not looking to see if Nick Rovito wanted to give him the fish-eye or not, and he watched the people on the sidewalk point out Nick Rovito to their kids. “That’s Nick Rovito, the big gangster,” they told their kids. “He’s got millions of dollars, and beautiful women, and imported booze, and influence in high places. He’s a very evil man and I don’t want you to grow up like that. See him in the fancy car there?”

Nick Rovito just kept looking straight ahead. Most times he’d wave to kids, and smile, and wink, but this was too solemn an occasion for that.

After a while Charlie’s widow began to cry. “Charlie was a right guy,” she said, crying. “We had seventeen beautiful months together.”

“That’s right, honey,” said Archie Freihofer, and he patted her knee.

“I wish there could of been a viewing,” she said. She dabbed at her eyes with a little handkerchief. “I wish I could of seen him one last time. I give them his good shoes and his French undies and his Brooks Brothers shirt and his Italian tie and his good blue suit, and they decked him all out, and nobody couldn’t even see him to say a good-bye.”

She was getting more and more broken up about it. Nick Rovito patted her other knee and said, “That’s okay, Bobbi, it’s better to remember him like he used to be.”

“I guess you’re right,” she said.

“Sure I am. You got him all decked out, huh? Blue suit and everything. Which blue suit was that?”

“He only had one blue suit,” she said.

“The one he traveled in.”

“Every time he come home, that’s what he was wearing.” The thought broke her up all over again, and she went back to crying.

“There, there,” said Archie Freihofer. He squeezed her knee this time.

Finally all the cars back there were full, and the procession got on the road. They drove over to the Belt Parkway and headed south. The speed limit was fifty miles an hour, but the church ceremony had run a little over, so they took Charlie to the cemetery at seventy miles an hour.

The cemetery was out by Paerdegat Basin, out back of a new housing development glistening in the sunlight over there like a lot of shiny new toys from Japan. Everybody got out of the cars, and the pallbearers got the coffin and carried it over to where the grave workers had the straps laid out. They put the coffin down on the straps, and then the priest made a speech in English, and the grave workers pressed a button that made the machinery around the straps buzz and lower the coffin into the hole, and then it was all over. Engel, now that he was out standing on grass, was thinking what a nice day it was for golf, and wondering if the municipal golf course would be too crowded by now. Probably would be. (His mother had made him get interested in golf, because she said it was the game executives played.)