William Brown - The Undertaker

Tinkerton stopped and, chose his words carefully. “I owe you an apology, Peter. Like you said, you didn't come in here stupid and it would be a mistake to treat you as if you had.” He turned his head and looked at his shrine with an embarrassed smile, his voice turning softer and friendlier. “My “shrine” as you call it may indeed be a bit “over the top,” but I'm sure you recognize the faces, the names and positions. Those are people I worked for over the years, people I respect, people who could speak to the type of work I did for the government over the past twenty years, if you were to ask.”

“I'm sure it makes for a nice resume, Ralph, but why should I care?”

“Why? Because you did indeed stumble into something, Mr. Talbott. Under the circumstances, I have no choice but to inform you that it is important and we hope you will cooperate with us because it deals with National Security.”

“I'm shocked, Ralph. Shocked.” My mouth dropped open in feigned disbelief. “National Security? Who'd ‘a thunk it?”

“I know,” he conceded with an embarrassed smile and a wave of his hand. “You're an intelligent man and you're absolutely justified in being skeptical. That tired old excuse of National Security had gray hair on it back in Iran-Contra and even earlier when Gordon Liddy botched that Watergate burglary job.”

“Got him his own slot on talk radio though, didn't it?”

“Yes, it did.”

“Ollie North, too. Got him a new backyard fence and a run for the U. S. Senate. Boy, oh boy, Ralph, you sure can't beat that old “National Security” excuse, can you?”

“Dead on, again, but I am being serious. Let us say for the sake of argument that no one sent you here, that you really are working on your own, and that you ferreted out these various tidbits all by yourself.” He leaned forward and spoke straight at me in his softest, most sincere lawyer voice. “This really is a matter of extreme National Security and the authorization comes from the highest level, which is government-speak for the White House or something damned close to it. That means Top Secret and we expect you'll help us keep it that way. I need your help, Peter. A little cooperation. Will you give it to me?”

I looked across at him. “Ralph, there's only two things that grow in the dark on a steady diet of bullshit: good mushrooms and bad government. Whatever you cooked up here, it's wrong and it's in dire need of some fresh air and sunshine.”

“Fresh air? Sunshine?” He shook his head sadly. “I take it you aren't a big city boy, are you, Peter? Never spent much time in New York, Fifth Avenue, maybe?”

“New York? No, but I spent a lot of time in L. A.”

“Well, they have street hustle they play in the Big Apple called three-card monte, the shell game. I know they play it in Chicago. Maybe they play it in L. A. too. Three cards on a cardboard box on the sidewalk. Try to guess which card is the Queen of Spades. It's all slight of hand, a fast shuffle, a little deception. Maybe you lose twenty bucks, but nobody gets hurt. That's all we're doing here. No harm, no foul.”

“No harm? No foul? I don't think so, Ralph. This thing smells.”

“Smells?” he sighed. “Well, I guess we aren't going to be friends after all, are we?” But it doesn't matter. You turned over the wrong card. You have nothing.”

“I have a lot more than that.”

“No you don't. It's like those three cards on the box. The flashing fingers and the distractions have you confused. You're seeing stuff that isn't there.”

“Fingers? Funny thing about fingers. They leave prints. When the cops go up to Oak Hill and dig up your Peter Talbott, they'll find his fingerprints don't match the ones in my Army records. The body won't match either. And when they dig up Skeppington, Pryor, Brownstein, and all the rest of them, those bodies won't match their medical or dental records, either. What they will find though, is your name, Greene's name, and Varner's name all over the legal documents that put them there. National Security or not, those are state crimes. Your big time Washington pals may not like it, but they can't keep you out of a state pen.”

Tinkerton sat silently, staring at me, his eyes turning cold and malevolent.

“ You can probably stare down a rampaging bull, Ralph, but when they get Greene, Varner, and Dannmeyer under the hot lights, they're going to crack like spring ice. See, I haven't even gotten around to Jimmy Santorini yet.”

I threw that one in blind, like tossing a hand grenade over a high wall to see what it might flush out. This time it flushed out plenty. Tinkerton came out of his chair sputtering. “Jimmy Santorini? You fool! What have you done?”

“Not much, not yet, but I will. See, for an amateur I catch on pretty fast.” I rose and held the white paper bag in front of me with two fingers, like you'd hold a mousetrap with a dead rat dangling from it, and backed toward the door. “I'm leaving now. Don't try to stop me. If you do, you'll have a bigger mess than you could ever imagine.”

That was when my curiosity got the best of me. I looked over at his little framed shrine and asked, “By the way, Ralph, “Zero Defects?” What's that supposed to mean? Some secret jarhead fraternity?

“It means we don't make mistakes. We can't afford any. And we don't tolerate people who make them.”

“Well, you just made a real big one,” I told him as I opened the door and let it swing wide. Edna and the two associate bouncers stood outside, looking very serious and very nervous. I paused in the doorway and turned back toward Tinkerton. “See ya later, Ralph. Let's do lunch again some time. Ciao.”

Holding the bag high, I walked out between the Troll and one of the bouncers. I dropped the paper Bouncing Bagel hat on her desk, tossed the white apron over the first partition I passed, and walked straight through the office to the elevators. I hit the first floor lobby in full stride. As I passed the security desk, I reached out and carefully placed the white paper bag with the bottle of Dr. Brown's on the security guard's desk.

“A delivery for Mr. Tinkerton on fourteen,” I smiled. “Can you see it gets there? Thanks.”

As I passed through the revolving doors, I wasn't sure what I had accomplished by going up there. Probably not very much, but I had rattled their cage and I felt damned good about doing it. I was alive and felt positively liberated for the first time in months.

A piece of cake, I concluded. And, I concluded one more thing, too. This snake had a head and that head was Ralph McKinley Tinkerton.

Personal preferences?

I was on a roll and decided to go for the knock out. The Varner Clinic was located in the small town of Delancy, Ohio, about five miles north of Greene's Funeral Home. How convenient, I thought. It was like one-stop-dying. In L. A., they could add a Brother Bob's New Age Feel-Good Church, a drive-thru liquor store with an ATM, and sell franchises, but things weren't nearly that progressive here in the Great Outback of Central Ohio.

Driving through town, Delancy appeared fairly prosperous. It was the County seat and featured a quaint ivy-covered college campus, a block or two of renovated Victorian shops, the courthouse, and no doubt the offices of that law enforcement giant Sheriff Virgil Dannmeyer. The town stretched out in each direction from the crossroads of Anderson Road and Main Street. Looking at the fronts of the stores, they specialized in antiques, residential real estate, books, and small restaurants that catered to the college crowd with vegetarian food, pizza, and too much coffee. I drove both streets and stopped at a BP station where I asked the attendant where I could find the Varner Clinic. He gave me a very odd look.