Donald Westlake - The Busy Body

Nick Rovito said, “Don’t talk like that, Engel. These little problems, they come along, that’s all. Most of the time it’s a good life, am I right?”

“Yeah, I guess so. You’re right, Nick, I shouldn’t complain.”

“That’s okay, kid. It’s a shock, that’s only natural.”

Engel thought of something else then, and said, “I just thought of something else.”

But Nick Rovito said, “In a second. About Willy. You know him?”

Engel nodded. “I seen him around. Trucker. Drives stuff to Canada for us sometimes.”

“That’s the one. So you tip him to the job yourself, okay?”

Engel nodded.

“Now, what was the other thing?”

“About the suit. You want the whole suit, or just the coat? I mean, where’s the stuff sewed?”

Nick Rovito looked at Fred, and Fred said, “Just in the coat, that’s all. In the lining of the coat.”

“That’s good,” said Engel. “The way I feel about it, I wouldn’t like the idea taking his pants off him.”

Nick Rovito patted his shoulder. “Of course not! Whadaya think, kid? It was going to be something in bad taste, I wouldn’t even ask, am I right?”

As if he didn’t have troubles enough, Kenny gave him a car with standard shift. “What the hell, Kenny,” he said, “what the hell do you call this?”

“A Chevy,” said Kenny. “Just what you asked for. A Chevy, couple years old, black, mud smeared on the license plates, kind of dirty and inconspicuous to go with a Brooklyn locale, speed and acceleration not a factor, two shovels and a crowbar and a blanket in the trunk.”

“But it keeps stalling” Engel told him. “I start it, and it jumps forward, and it stalls.”

“Yeah?” Kenny came over and looked in the window and said, “Well, you don’t have your foot on the clutch, that’s what the problem is.”

“My what? The what?”

“That dingus there, by your left foot.”

“You mean this here is a standard shift?”

“It’s the only car we got suits the requirements,” Kenny told him. “You want a white convertible, a powder-blue limousine, a red Mercedes 190SL—”

“I want a quiet car!”

“You’re sittin in it.”

“You know how long it’s been since I drove a standard shift?”

“You want a pearl-gray Rolls Royce, a pink and blue and turquoise Lincoln Continental, a gold and sea-green Alfa Romeo—”

“All right, never mind. Never mind, that’s all.”

“Anything you want, Engel, any car I got.” Kenny made a large gesture to include the whole garage.

“I’ll take this one. Never mind, I’ll just take this one.”

So all the way over to Brooklyn he kept stalling at red lights. It had been years since his left foot had done anything in a car but tap in time to the music from the radio.

It just fit in with the rest of the day, that’s all. Like he was barely home to Carmine Street from the meeting when the phone rang, and not thinking it out first he made the mistake of answering. He’d had some sort of idea in his head it might be Nick Rovito calling to tell him the whole deal was off, but of course it wasn’t, and as soon as he said hello, even before he heard a word from the telephone against his ear, he knew who it had to be.

And it was. “You were beautiful, Aloysius,” his mother said. “I looked at you coming down them church steps with all those important men, and I said to myself, ‘Would you believe it, Frances? Would you believe that was your son up there, so tall, so handsome, with such important men?’ I was actually crying, Aloysius, the people around me actually thought I must be a relative I was crying so. And when I told them, ‘No, I’m crying for happiness, that’s my son out there with the coffin,’ I got these very funny looks, how did I know how they’d take it?”

“Uh,” said Engel.

“Did you see me? I waved a scarf, that one from the World’s Fair? Did you see me?”

“Well, uh, I was kind of preoccupied up there. I didn’t notice very much of anything.”

“Oh. Well, that’s all right.” She sounded as though she meant she wasn’t bleeding too badly. “Anyways,” she said, brightening, “I got home in time to make you the most wonderful dinner you ever had in your life. Don’t thank me, you deserve it, the least a mother can do...”

“Uh,” said Engel.

“What? Don’t say you’re not coming, it’s too late, everything’s started. It’s all in the oven already. Even a mince pie, special.”

“I got a job to do,” Engel said. He would have said so anyway, and it was only a pity it happened to be true. “There’s something I’m supposed to do tonight for Nick Rovito.”

“Oh,” she said, this time sounding as though she meant she was bleeding very badly. “Your work is your work,” she said doubtfully.

“Nothing I can do,” he said.

And wasn’t that the truth! Now, shortly after midnight, driving toward Brooklyn, he reflected on it and was bitter. What a job for an executive! Digging up graves in the middle of the night. Conking people on the head with shovels. Driving standard-shift cars. He drove grimly, forgetting most of the time to shift out of first, and got lost twice over in Brooklyn.

He’d contacted Willy Menchik after the conversation with his mother, and arranged to meet him outside Ralph’s Pub on Utica Avenue in Brooklyn at one A.M., but with the standard shift and getting lost and everything, it was twenty minutes past one before he got there.

He pulled to the curb in front of Ralph’s, and a shadow disengaged itself from the wall and reeled over, tilting heavily to the left. It stuck Willy Menchik’s narrow face through the open window on the passenger side, exhaled whiskey fumes all over the car, and announced, “You’re late. You’re twenny minutes late.”

“I had a little trouble.” Engel had remembered this time to put the gear lever in neutral. His left foot was pressed down on the clutch anyway, just to be on the safe side. “Get in,” he said. “Let’s get this over with.”

“Righto.” Willy straightened up, without getting his head out of the window first. There was a crump, and a sigh, and Willy sank out of sight.

Engel said, “Willy!” There wasn’t any answer. “He’s drunk,” said Engel, and nodded his head. That was all he’d needed.

He got out of the car, and walked around to the passenger side, and opened the door, and picked Willy up and dumped him onto the seat, and closed the door, and walked back around to the driver’s side, and got behind the wheel, and tried to drive away in neutral. The motor roared, but they weren’t going anywhere. He cursed, and tried to shift into first gear without puting his foot on the clutch. He made it, but then the car made a terrible noise, and leaped forward, and stalled. Willy rolled off the seat, hit his head on several things, and finished all crumpled on the floor under the dashboard.

Engel looked at him in exasperation. “Wait a while, will you?” he asked. “First you help me dig, okay? We’ll conk your head to your heart’s content later on, but first you help me dig, you got it?”

Willy was out, so didn’t answer him. The car was out, too. Engel got it started again, and remembered about his left foot, and drove away from there.

He finally did get to the cemetery, around some cockamamie back way with the road under repair, and parked in pitch-blackness under a tree near the cemetery gate. He’d left Willy on the floor, figuring he couldn’t fall anywhere from there, and now he turned on the inside light and started jabbing Willy in the kidneys to wake him up. “Willy! Hey! We’re at the cemetery!”

Willy made a face, and groaned, and shifted around, and said, “Whadaya do?”