William Brown - The Undertaker

“The scam?” he erupted indignantly. “Who the hell are you?”

“Ralph, I haven't got it all figured out yet, not all of it anyway, but I will.” He still had not accepted the other sandwich, so I shrugged and took another big bite out of mine.

“Now I remember,” his cold gray eyes narrowed suspiciously. “You're the individual Larry Greene told me about yesterday.”

“That individual? Yeah, I bet he did.” I laughed, my mouth full of corned beef. Clearly, the managing partner was not accustomed to treatment in this manner, not in his own office, but I was just getting rolling.

“He said someone stopped by his funeral home yesterday afternoon alleging to be the late Peter Talbott.”

“Alleging? God, I love you lawyers. Alleging.”

“Now see here…”

“It's real simple, Ralph. You screwed up. Me? I got no dog in this fight, as they used to say on those old hardscrabble farms in West Texas. So why should I care about this little con ya'll are running anyway? Me? I'd much rather be minding my own business back in Boston right now, but you Bozos had to piss me off by dragging my wife into this thing of yours, didn't you?”

“Your wife?”

I leaned forward, my eyes boring in as I pointed an angry finger at him. “Yeah, and that was your big mistake, Ralph. I'm not going to let you get away with it.”

He sat and studied me for a moment, as if he had missed something, as if he wasn't quite sure anymore. When he did speak, he was the composed, self-assured lawyer carefully choosing his words. “Look, Mr. Talbott, if that really is your name…”

“That's exactly how my conversation with your pal Larry Greene started. I thought you guys talked?”

“Mr. Talbott, you have this all wrong. One of my clients did indeed die in a tragic automobile accident — him and his wife. From what you say, apparently you and he shared the same name and some background. With three-hundred million people in this country, it's a wonder it doesn't happen more often.”

“A wonder, an absolute wonder.”

“I'm sorry for any inconvenience and emotional distress that may have caused you or your wife, but I don't see how this was any fault of mine.”

“My wife's dead, as you well know.”

“As I know? See here, Mr. Talbott…”

“So you knew old Pete?”

“Our Mr. Talbott? Of course, I knew him. Not well, I must admit. He ran a small accounting business here in town.”

“The one over on Sickles? Don't make me laugh. I doubt an honest 1040 ever came out of a dump like that. He couldn't afford one hour of your billing time, much less the retainer a firm like this would require and I'd have proven it too, except you guys cleaned the place out.”

“You guys?” He looked at me in disbelief. “Exactly what are you are alleging I've done, Mister Talbott?”

“Ah, that wonderful word again, “alleging.” You cleaned out his office. Hell, you even cleaned out his dumpster. It was sanitized, like the house on Sedgwick. Packed up, picked clean, and gone down the street before the last shovelful of dirt landed on those caskets up at Oak Hill Cemetery. Yep, you are thorough, Ralph, I'll hand you that much. But who the hell parks two associate partners in a residential street all morning watching some movers pack a truck? Someone with an unlimited budget, or no budget at all.”

I was watching his eyes. When I mentioned shoveling dirt up at Oak Hill and the moving truck, he did a double take. He paused and looked across at me with a new, wary appreciation. “I'm an attorney,” he finally said. “I don't clean offices, I don't empty dumpsters, and I don't shovel dirt, Peter. If I may I call you that?”

“That would be fine, Ralph. I haven't figured out all the “why's” yet, but I've got most of the “how's.” Eventually I will, and when I do, lawyer or not, you're going to the slammer. You, Greene, Varner, Dannmeyer, all of you.”

With a heavy sigh, tired and exasperated, Tinkerton leaned forward with his elbows on the desk. “All right, who sent you? Who are you working for?”

“My wife sent me, Ralph,” I glared at him, feeling the anger building up inside. “Remember the Blues Brothers? Elwood and his brother Joliet Jake? Well, I'm not on a “mission from God,” I'm on a mission from Terri, and my wife doesn't think much of you stealing her name for one of your two-bit scams. Neither do I. Those memories are all I have left of her. They have to last me a long, long time and I'm not going to let you put your greasy paws all over them. You got that?”

My anger was white hot now, rolling across the room at him in waves. I could see he felt them, as he shifted uncomfortably in his chair. “For the longest time this morning, I couldn't figure it out. Why? I kept asking myself “why?” A retired carpenter, an auto mechanic, an auto-worker, a warehouse supervisor, and now a bean counter?”

“What in the hell are you talking about, boy?”

“I'm talking about the Skeppingtons and the Brownsteins, the Pryors from Phoenix, Edward J. Kasmarek from Chicago, and whoever the hell it was you buried under my name up in Oak Hill yesterday.”

I didn't have to say anymore. His mouth dropped open and I could tell those names were the knockout punch. To finish the big lawyer off, I pulled the copies of the obituaries from my shirt pocket and held them up for him to see.

“See, it's all right here, Ralph, if you know what you're looking for, and I happen to be the World Champion on obituaries.”

Tinkerton's eyes went wide and his face turned beet red. Big-time lawyers are supposed to stand up and shout things like, “Objection!” whenever something happened they didn't like or didn't understand. However, there was no Judge Ito or even Judge Judy in this courtroom. No juries hanging on his every word. No reporters. Not even a TV camera. Only the eminent Ralph McKinley Tinkerton, Esq. and me.

“At first, I figured this was the normal fun and games — you know, greed, theft, lust, maybe drugs and embezzlement, maybe a little kiddie porn. That was the kind of stuff any good California boy can understand. The bodies? Was it kidnapping, murder for hire, or selling used body parts? I don't know and I really don't care.”

“You should care, Peter.”

“Nah, I figure you're just a bunch of crooks burying people under somebody else's name, people you want to permanently disappear. But the cops can sort all that out later.”

“The cops? You need to get a grip, my young friend.”

“Yeah, well, that was my first reaction too, until I got a good look at you, at the building, the office, and that little shrine you've got over there in the corner. Now, I see I had it all wrong.”

“How's that?” he asked as he slowly rose to his feet and walked out from behind the desk, his hard eyes never leaving me. “Exactly what is it you think you've got all wrong?”

“Sit down, Ralph,” I said as I held up the other white bag, the one with the bottle of Doctor Brown's Creme Soda. “I didn't walk in here stupid and I have nothing to lose anymore. Touch me and I'll make a really big mess out of you and this end of the fourteenth floor, and Edna won't like that very much.”

He looked at me and at the second white paper bag and stopped dead in his tracks. Ever so slowly, he turned and went back around the desk and sat in his chair.

I motioned to the photos on the wall. “I read your resume in Martindale-Hubbell, very impressive.”

“Martindale-Hubbell? My, my, you have been busy.”

“Not as busy as you. The FBI? The U. S. Attorney's Office? Special Counsel? Even Marine Corps Special Ops? Where did it all go wrong, Ralph?”

“Go wrong?” he flared. “How dare you?”

“That's real easy. But this isn't some petty little scam, is it? Oh, no. This isn't about money, or drugs, or even politics, is it? It's a lot bigger than that kind of stuff, because you, Ralph McKinley Tinkerton, have the smell of a True Believer.”