The Undertaker (3 page)

“Look, Ace, this ain't no carjack, and if it were, I'd pick something better than an old piece of shit like this,” he said as he raised the .45 a few inches higher and I stopped moving. “Now, you Talbott, or not?”

“Yes, yes, I'm Talbott.”

“Peter Emerson Talbott? 33 years old?” I nodded, ready to agree to anything. “From California? Went to freakin’ UCLA? UCLA?” His eyes narrowed as he repeated the name of the school. “You know, I lost two large on those dumb bastards in the NCAA tournament last year. I oughta ...”

“Yeah,” I kept nodding. “They're real dumb bastards, really dumb.”

“But you weren't there then, were you? Says you graduated back in ‘98.” More nods, wondering where this was heading. “I guess I can't blame you then, can I?”

“Uh, no, I wouldn't.”

“Shut up! You were in the Army and then you went to work for something called Netdyne out in LA. Right?”

“Yeah, software and aeronautical engineering computer stuff,” I kept nodding as the feeling of stark terror was beginning to wear off. After all, he hadn't shot me yet.

“You moved here to Boston two months ago and you're living in that little suck-ass apartment over in Lexington? So where's your wife?”

“Where's my wife?” Now it was my turn to get pissed. I sat up and glared. “She's dead. She died a year ago back in LA.”

“Yeah? You freakin’ sure about that?”

“Yeah, I'm freakin’ sure about it!” The .45 or not, I'd had enough.

“Okay, Ace, then how do you explain this?”

He reached into his shirt pocket, pulled out a bad Xerox copy of an old newspaper story, and dropped it in my lap. One glance and I knew exactly what it was:

TALBOTT, PETER EMERSON, age 33, died last Tuesday in a tragic automobile accident in Baja California. A 1998 graduate of UCLA and former lieutenant in the US Army Transportation Corps, he was a software engineer with Netdyne Systems in Long Beach and the husband of Theresa June Talbott who preceded him in death here last month following a lengthy illness. A memorial service will be held at the Montane chapel in Long Beach at 2:00 PM on Thursday.

“Oh, not this again,” I laughed and shook my head, recognizing the old obituary from the LA Times.

“You see something funny, smart guy?”

“That obituary, it was all a big mistake.”

“A mistake?” He raised the .45. “I'm all freakin’ ears.”

I tried to explain to him about the trip to Tijuana, the 350-Z, the semi, the dead Mexican kid, and the memorial service in Long Beach.

The guy sat and listened, as he said, he was all ears. When I finally finished, he sat there for a minute as if he was studying me. “Okay, then how do you explain Columbus?”

“Columbus?”

“Yeah, Columbus. In Ohio. You never heard of it?”

“Sure, I've heard of it.”

“So what were you doing there? Having more funerals for the hell of it?”

“I don't know what you're talking about. I‘ve never been there.”

“Never?” he glared, looking deep into my eyes. “What about that dip-shit accounting office of yours down on Sickles?”

“Accounting office? I'm a software engineer, a computer programmer; I don't know anything about accounting. Look, whoever you're looking for, I'm not him.”

“Okay, if that's the way you want to play it, how do you explain these?” he said as he dropped two other slips of torn newsprint in my lap.

They were two more obituaries. I picked the first one up and read:

TALBOTT, PETER EMERSON, age 33, of Columbus, died Sunday at Varner Clinic following a tragic automobile accident. President of Center Financial Advisors. Formerly of Los Angeles. A 1998 graduate of UCLA and a lieutenant, US Army Transportation Corps. By authority of Ralph Tinkerton, Executor. (See also TALBOTT, THERESA JUNE, wife, accompanying). Funeral services for both at 2:00 PM tomorrow, Greene Funeral Home, 255 E. Larkin, Peterborough, Ohio. Internment, Oak Hill Cemetery, following.

“You making a fuckin’ hobby out of these?” he asked, but all I could do was stare at it. Coincidence? How many 1998 graduates of UCLA were there? How many were thirty-three years old and from Los Angeles? How many of those were alumni of the “Fighting” Transportation Corps, “an officer and a gentleman by Act of Congress” named Peter Emerson Talbott? Only one that I could think of. I had never heard of a company named Center Financial Advisors, much less owned one, and I had never heard of the Varner Clinic or a man named Ralph Tinkerton, either.

Worse still, I looked at the other one. It was the companion piece for Terri:

TALBOTT, THERESA JUNE, age 33, of Columbus, died Sunday at Varner Clinic following a tragic automobile accident. Loving wife of Peter. (See also TALBOTT, PETER EMERSON, Husband, accompanying). Formerly of Los Angeles and a 1999 graduate of Berkeley. By authority, Ralph Tinkerton, Executor. Funeral services for both at 2:00 PM tomorrow, Greene Funeral Home, 255 E. Larkin, Peterborough, Ohio. Internment, Oak Hill Cemetery, following.

This was no mistake. That couple in the newspaper was supposed to be Terri and me, no doubt about it. It was a lie and in that instant I got very angry. They could do what they wanted to me. My name and my reputation meant nothing, certainly not after Baja, but when they dragged Terri into it, something inside me snapped. This was worse than identity theft. It was memory corruption. They were stealing her, stealing my memories of her, wrapping their greasy fingers around them and warping them. Something snapped inside me and I knew that was something I couldn't let happen. I didn't care about this Bozo with the Soprano suit and the .45, and I didn't care about the odds. I was going to stop them. It's funny how when you have nothing to lose, as I did back then, it's easy to think really stupid thoughts like that.

He stared at me. “You look like you saw a ghost.”

“More than you'll ever know. Where did you get these?”

“This morning's Columbus
Daily Press
.”

“Today? I don't get it.”

“Yeah, neither do we. You ever heard of Jimmy Santorini?”

I shook my head.

“How about Rico Patillo? Bayonne? East Orange?”

“In New Jersey? You're kidding, right?”

His eyes grew hard. “Do I look like I'm freakin’ kidding? I don't suppose you ever heard of Ralph Tinkerton either?” He stared at me, trying to read my eyes as I shook my head again. “Ah, shit,” he finally said in disgust, then opened the passenger side door and started to get out. He turned and looked back at me, pointing the .45 at my old blue jeans and the Rolling Stones Voodoo Lounge World Tour T-shirt. “Freakin’ California. Ain't you a little old for that shit?”

I looked at his gaudy chain and the sharkskin “lounge-lizard” jacket and replied, “Freakin New Jersey. Ain't you a little young?”

“A smart ass, huh?” he answered with a glint of humor in his eye as he got the rest of the way out. “I like that, but you be real careful, Ace. Keep both hands on the steering wheel, drive straight out of the parking lot, and don't look back until you reach that “suck-ass” dump you're renting in Lexington. You got that?”

“But what about...”

“Forget about it. Tinkerton may have made one mistake, but he won't make a second one, and neither will I. So get out of here. Forget all about everything I told you and forget all about me. You got that? ‘Cause if I see so much as a brake light come on, you'll get a slug through the rear window.”

I did what he said. I drove away and I didn't stop, not that I thought he really was following me or that he'd shoot that big cannon at me, but there was nothing to be gained by finding out. I drove to Lexington, pulled into a parking space next to my little “suck-ass” dump and turned off the motor. Too bad I couldn't turn mine off. It was just getting going. Screw him, I thought, as I leaned over and opened the glove compartment. I pulled out my dog-eared Road Atlas. That was when I noticed the three newspaper clippings lying on the floor. The grease-ball had dropped them there. He wanted me to have them. I had to give him credit; he was pushing all the right buttons and there was nothing I could do to stop myself. Not that I really cared what kind of scam they were pulling or what they were using my name for, but they had crossed the line when they began messing with Terri. She was out of bounds.

Columbus, Ohio. I opened the Road Atlas to the mileage table on the back page. My finger ran down the left hand column until I found Boston column, then ran it across to the Cs until I found Columbus. It was 783 miles from Boston, about a twelve-hour drive in the Bronco. I looked at the clock on the dashboard. It was 10:17 PM. Plenty of time to run inside, make a fresh thermos of coffee, throw some stuff in an overnight bag, and make it there my funeral at 2:00 PM tomorrow. After all, I missed the one in LA and I would feel really bad if I missed this one too.

Looking back on it all, if I knew then what I know now, the smartest thing I could have done was exactly what the grease-ball told me to do — forget about it. But if I had listened to him and went home and went to sleep, I would never have made it to Columbus or Chicago, I would have never met Sandy, and my life today would be infinitely poorer.

Columbus, Ohio: a funeral in the cornfields…

T
he
drive from Boston to Columbus wasn't all that hard, not if you are used to long, boring drives by yourself and you have a large thermos and enough rock stations to keep you company. It was Interstate all the way and I reached the eastern suburbs of Columbus around noon. I stopped in a friendly Marathon station in Pataskala for a refill, a $2.00 Central Ohio road map, and a visit to the restroom to change clothes. This was the second day for the Rolling Stones T-shirt and I thought something more formal might be in order. Unfortunately, being from California, the most formal attire I owned was an old, blue blazer with gold buttons. All in all, it added just the requisite touch of restraint and class to my faded jeans, a green and yellow Polo shirt, and docksiders. I didn't bother with socks, since it was my own funeral and there wouldn't be anyone there I cared about offending anyway.

Like most Midwestern cities, there was a circular beltway around Columbus. Looking at the map, scenic Pataskala was on the rural, far-eastern fringe of the city at about 3:00 on the clock dial. The town of Peterborough, where the funeral home was located, was up at 12:00, followed by a right turn up into the next county. The funeral was at 2:00 and I didn't think it would take very long to drive up there. As I rolled out of the gas station, I pulled out my cell phone and figured I'd better give Doug a call and let him know I was taking the day off.

“Sharon? Hey, it's Pete Talbott. Is the boss in?”

“No, he's having another “out of body experience” with the venture capital guys in the conference room.”

“Again? Jeez.”

“Money. Ain't it the pits?”

“Yeah, the root of all evil. Say, did he get the subroutines I e-mailed him?

“Oh, yeah, I think you saved the corporate ass with that one.”

“Good, tell him I'm taking today and tomorrow off.”

“What's up, Petey? You finally get lucky?” she asked in a husky voice. “It's about time.”

“No, Sharon, I didn't get lucky.”

“Too bad, ‘cause God knows you could use some. Me? Unfortunately I'm married, but you blow in my ear sometime and…”

“Sharon, I had to go to Ohio, for a funeral.”

“A funeral? Oh, sorry. Me and my mouth. Whose is it?”

“Mine.”

“Okay, be that way. But when you get back, I want you to meet my friend, Doris.”

“Your friend, Doris?”

“I'm serious. With Doris, you don't even have to get real lucky, Petey, all you got to do is show up. And you really do need some R&R.”

“Sharon, I gotta go,” I said as I hung up. R&R with her friend Doris? As if that was what I really needed. But it was the same way back in LA. No matter how far or how fast I ran, it couldn't be far enough or fast enough to get away from all the misguided, unwanted help from my friends’ wives and my wife's friends, all of whom thought that if I just had sex with another woman, I would get over the loss of Terri. What one had to do with the other I'd never understand. What I needed was Terri back. I didn't need to get laid.

These days, one urban beltway looks about like another. The traffic might not be as thick as it had been back in LA, but if you've driven past one suburban office building and big interchange shopping center, you've driven by them all. I steered the Bronco around the long, looping beltway until I found the Cedarville Road exit and got off. This was a broad commercial street with strip malls and a gazillion fast-food restaurants, banks, and gas stations that took me north through the suburbs, ex-urbs, and no-urbs until the development turned into cornfields. That was where I found the small town of Peterborough, Ohio. Town? It was more like a wide spot between the cornfields, where a couple of two-lane country roads crossed up in Campbell County about eight miles north of the beltway. Still, this was a beautiful, early-summer afternoon, all hot and humid, and the cornfields were a radiant, green, the farmhouses looked refrigerator white, and you could almost imagine that kinder and gentler America the politicians get all teary-eyed about, when they aren't railing about “values” or the moral quagmire of California pop culture. Me? I was never into the County Fair scene with all those hot sweaty animals, hot sweaty people, ferris wheels, cotton candy, and corn dogs. I kinda liked the moral quagmire. Besides, driving around the beltway had shown me that “kinder and gentler” rural Ohio appeared to be having its problems too; they were paving over the corn with strip malls, big-lot subdivisions, and mini-marts just like the rest of the country.