Стивен Кинг - If It Bleeds

“Yes, but I want to be at the end of the line. I want to be last.”

My dad, God bless him, didn’t ask me why. He just squeezed my shoulder and got into line. I went back to the vestibule, a bit uncomfortable in a sport jacket that was getting tight around the shoulders because I’d finally started to grow. When the end of the line was halfway down the main aisle and I was sure no one else was going to join it, I got behind a couple of suited guys who were talking in low tones about—wouldn’t you know it—Amazon stock.

By the time I got to the coffin, the music had stopped. The pulpit was empty. Virginia Hatlen had probably sneaked out back to have a cigarette, and the Rev would be in the vestry, taking off his robe and combing what remained of his hair. There were a few people in the vestibule, murmuring in low voices, but here in the church it was just me and Mr. Harrigan, as it had been on so many afternoons at his big house on the hill, with its views that were good but not touristy .

He was wearing a charcoal gray suit I’d never seen before. The funeral guy had rouged him a little so he’d look healthy, except healthy people don’t lie in coffins with their eyes shut and the last few minutes of daylight shining on their dead faces before they go into the earth forever. His hands were folded, making me think of the way they’d been folded when I came into his living room only days before. He looked like a life-sized doll, and I hated seeing him that way. I didn’t want to stay. I wanted fresh air. I wanted to be with my father. I wanted to go home. But I had something to do first, and I had to do it right away, because Reverend Mooney could come back from the vestry at any time.

I reached into the inside pocket of my sport coat and brought out Mr. Harrigan’s phone. The last time I’d been with him—alive, I mean, not slumped in his chair or looking like a doll in an expensive box—he’d said he was glad I’d convinced him to keep the phone. He’d said it was a good companion when he couldn’t sleep at night. The phone was password-protected—as I’ve said, he was a fast learner once something really grabbed his interest—but I knew what the password was: pirate1. I had opened it in my bedroom the night before the funeral, and had gone to the notes function. I wanted to leave him a message.

I thought about saying I love you , but that would have been wrong. I had liked him, certainly, but I’d also been a bit leery of him. I didn’t think he loved me, either. I don’t think Mr. Harrigan ever loved anyone, unless it was the mother who had raised him after his dad left (I had done my research). In the end, the note I typed was this: Working for you was a privilege. Thank you for the cards, and for the scratch-off tickets. I will miss you.

I lifted the lapel of his suit coat, trying not to touch the unbreathing surface of his chest beneath his crisp white shirt… but my knuckles brushed it for just a moment, and I can feel that to this day. It was hard, like wood. I tucked the phone into his inside pocket, then stepped away. Just in time, too. Reverend Mooney came out of the side door, adjusting his tie.

“Saying goodbye, Craig?”

“Yes.”

“Good. The right thing to do.” He slipped an arm around my shoulders and guided me away from the coffin. “You had a relationship with him that I’m sure a great many people would envy. Why don’t you go outside now and join your father? And if you want to do me a favor, tell Mr. Rafferty and the other pallbearers that we’ll be ready for them in just a few minutes.”

Another man had appeared in the door to the vestry, hands clasped before him. You only had to look at his black suit and white carnation to know he was a funeral parlor guy. I supposed it was his job to close the lid of the coffin and make sure it was latched down tight. A terror of death came over me at the sight of him, and I was glad to leave that place and go out into the sunshine. I didn’t tell Dad I needed a hug, but he must have seen it, because he wrapped his arms around me.

Don’t die , I thought. Please, Dad, don’t die.

The service at Elm Cemetery was better, because it was shorter and because it was outside. Mr. Harrigan’s business manager, Charles “Chick” Rafferty, spoke briefly about his client’s various philanthropies, then got a little laugh when he talked about how he, Rafferty, had had to put up with Mr. Harrigan’s “questionable taste in music.” That was really the only human touch Mr. Rafferty managed. He said he’d worked “for and with” Mr. Harrigan for thirty years, and I had no reason to doubt him, but he didn’t seem to know much about Mr. Harrigan’s human side, other than his “questionable taste” for singers like Jim Reeves, Patty Loveless, and Henson Cargill.

I thought about stepping forward and telling the people gathered around the open grave that Mr. Harrigan thought the Internet was like a broken watermain, spewing information instead of water. I thought of telling them that he had over a hundred photos of mushrooms on his phone. I thought of telling them he liked Mrs. Grogan’s oatmeal cookies, because they always got his bowels in gear, and that when you were in your eighties you no longer needed to take vitamins or see the doctor. When you were in your eighties, you could eat all the corned beef hash you wanted.

But I kept my mouth shut.

This time Reverend Mooney read the scripture, the one about how we were all going to rise from the dead like Lazarus on that great gettin-up morning. He gave another benediction and then it was over. After we were gone, back to our ordinary lives, Mr. Harrigan would be lowered into the ground (with his iPhone in his pocket, thanks to me) and the dirt would cover him, and the world would see him no more.

As Dad and I were leaving, Mr. Rafferty approached us. He said he wasn’t flying back to New York until the following morning, and asked if he could drop by our house that evening. He said there was something he wanted to talk about with us.

My first thought was that it must be about the pilfered iPhone, but I had no idea how Mr. Rafferty could know I’d taken it, and besides, it had been returned to its rightful owner. If he asks me , I thought, I’ll tell him I was the one who gave it to him in the first place . And how could a phone that had cost six hundred bucks possibly be a big deal when Mr. Harrigan’s estate must be worth so much?

“Sure,” Dad said. “Come to supper. I make a pretty mean spaghetti Bolognese. We usually eat around six.”

“I’ll take you up on that,” Mr. Rafferty said. He produced a white envelope with my name on it in handwriting I recognized. “This may explain what I want to talk to you about. I received it two months ago and was instructed to hold it until… mmm… such an occasion as this.”

Once we were in our car, Dad burst out laughing, full-throated roars that brought tears to his eyes. He laughed and pounded the steering wheel and laughed and pounded his thigh and wiped his cheeks and then laughed some more.

“What?” I asked, when he’d begun to taper off. “What’s so darn funny?”

“I can’t think of anything else it would be,” he said. He was no longer laughing, but still chuckling.

“What the heck are you talking about?”

“I think you must be in his will, Craig. Open that thing. See what it says.”

There was a single sheet of paper in the envelope, and it was a classic Harrigan communique: no hearts and flowers, not even a Dear in the salutation, just straight to business. I read it out loud to my father.

Craig: If you’re reading this, I’ve died. I have left you $800,000 in trust. The trustees are your father and Charles Rafferty, who is my business manager and who will now serve as my executor. I calculate this sum should be sufficient to see you through four years of college and any postgraduate work you may choose to do. Enough should remain to give you a start in your chosen career.