Body Movers (14 page)

Coop smiled. “Thanks, Sarah. I figured we’d have an

audience.”

“That you do.” She handed him a folder. “Gentry Dunbar,

third floor, room eighteen. The spectators are lined up in

the hallway.”

“Any family?”

“A sister, Ilse Dunbar—she has a room here, too.”

“Thanks.”

Wesley fol owed Coop down a long hall of gleaming green

linoleum tile and white walls, past a dining room ful of old

people, some in their pajamas, some dressed up for

breakfast as if they were going to church. The scent of

scorched coffee and prunes nauseated him further. They

passed a few residents in the hall, shuffling toward their

destinations, bent from bone disease and sheer weariness,

he assumed. God, he hoped he never grew old.

He frowned. Of course, that meant dying young…

Coop walked past the elevator, pushed open the door

leading to the stairwel and began the climb to the third

floor.

“That nurse digs you,” Wesley said.

“You think?” Coop asked, looking amused.

“She called you doctor.”

“Yeah,” Coop said. “Sarah’s a good girl. It takes special

people to work with old folks and kids. But I don’t mix

business and pleasure, if you know what I mean.”

All Wesley knew was that if he had a busty girl throwing

herself at him, he’d go for it, screw business.

When they reached the third floor, Coop opened the door

onto a hall where the green linoleum floor was dul and

gray, the scarred walls a grubby off-white. Dozens of old

people lined the hallway, some sitting in chairs that they

had pul ed out of their rooms, some leaning against the

wal s, some sitting in wheelchairs.

“Here’s the body man,” a woman announced loudly,

probably in deference to those who were hard of hearing

or had dozed off. Everyone perked up, calling greetings to

Coop and making sorrowful noises about “poor Mr.

Dunbar.”

“He’s in there,” several people said, pointing to the only

door on the floor that was closed.

“Thank you kindly,” Coop said, stopping to pat arms and

shake hands.

“Ilse is in there with him,” a woman said sadly. “Poor thing

has been sittin’ by his bed, holding his cold, dead hand all

mornin’.”

Wesley suppressed a shudder as he waded through the

spectators and fol owed Coop to the door. Coop knocked,

then waited a few seconds before going in.

Wesley steeled himself for the sight of a cold corpse, then

blinked at the empty bed. His gaze went to the man

reclined in a ratty yel ow La-Z-Boy chair, ful y dressed in

suit, tie and hat, as if he were going on a trip, his hands

crossed over his lap, his eyes permanently closed. If the

man in the recliner was ninety, the woman sitting next to

him, her veined hand over his, had to be one hundred.

She looked up and smiled sadly at Coop. “How are you,

Doc?”

“Fine, Miss Dunbar,” Coop said, walking closer. “I see that

Gentry here is in a better place.”

She nodded, her eyes tearing up. “He told me he was

going to die soon, but I didn’t believe him. This is his

burying suit, so he must have known before he went to

sleep last night that he wouldn’t make it ’til morning.”

Wesley hung back, feeling weird and tingly. The dead guy

didn’t look real, more like a wax figure. Uneasily, Wesley

looked to the ceiling and the corners of the room—he’d

read something once about the spirit lingering for a while

after leaving the body. Was the old man hanging around,

watching them from the light fixture? He began to shake.

“You all right, Wesley?” Coop asked.

Wesley nodded curtly, put his hand over his mouth and

inhaled deeply. He had to stop thinking about the dead

guy. He was freaking himself out.

“God, how he loved that old chair,” the old woman said,

smiling, giving the ancient yel ow tweed chair a thump that

dislodged dust motes into the air. “I can’t believe he’s

gone. I used to take care of him when he was a little tyke.

Our parents died when he was young, so we’ve always

been close. Neither of us married, and the rest of the

family has died off.” She gave them a watery smile. “We

always looked out for each other. Now it’s just me.”

Coop touched her rounded shoulder. “You’re in a nice

place, Miss Dunbar. There are a lot of people here who

care about you.”

Wesley listened as Coop comforted the old woman, but he

realized with the impact of hitting pavement that he could

be looking at a future picture of himself and Carlotta—

growing old alone, winding up in the same nursing home,

for Christ’s sake. Until this moment, he’d never considered

the possibility that their parents wouldn’t come back. The

thought made him feel sick…and even more appreciative

of Carlotta. Although, if he continued to get in trouble,

how much longer would his sister stick by him? All the

more reason to fix things, the sooner, the better.

“Has Mr. Gentry seen a physician recently?” Coop asked

the woman.

“This morning, when Dr. Tessler came and pronounced

him dead.”

“Before that.”

“About six weeks ago.”

“If the person hasn’t seen a physician within thirty days, an

autopsy is automatic.”

Her mouth twitched. “Can we stil have an open-casket

viewing?”

“Of course—the medical examiner wil be respectful, I

promise.”

She nodded.

“Have you selected a funeral home, Miss Dunbar?”

The woman smiled. “Everyone here speaks highly of your

family funeral home, Dr. Craft. I thought we’d have

Gentry’s service there.”

Coop smiled. “Thank you. My uncle wil take good care of

him. We’re going to give you time to say goodbye. We’ll be

back in a few minutes.”

She nodded, smiling. “Okay.”

They left the room and closed the door behind them.

Wesley gulped non-dead air as their audience leaned in for

details.

“Is he sure enough dead, Doc?” one of the old men asked.

“Sure enough,” Coop said. “But it looks as if he was ready

to go.”

Agreement chorused through the hallway, and a few

amens.

They threaded back through the crowd to the stairs.

“This is going to be harder than I thought,” Coop

murmured.

Wesley frowned. “What do you mean? The guy even

dressed up in the suit he wants to be laid out in. I wouldn’t

think it could get any easier than that.”

“Ever tried to move a body in ful rigor mortis?”

Wesley swallowed. “No.”

“Let’s just say that nothing bends.”

“But the guy is sitting up.”

“Exactly.”

Wesley grimaced, feeling like he could lose his eggs on the

spot.

They passed Sarah, who angled a sly smile at Coop, and

then they walked outside to the hearse. The fresh air

revived Wesley a bit as Coop unlocked the rear door and

pul ed out the gurney.

Staring at the flat surface, Wesley asked, “So how are we

going to get a guy frozen in a seated position to lie flat on

the gurney?”

Coop sighed. “Good question. It wouldn’t be so bad if we

didn’t have an audience, but a sheet’s not going to hide

anything.” He scratched his head, then worked his mouth

from side to side. “In the back seat, there’s a hand truck.

Get it.”

Wesley did as he was told, and soon they were back in

Gentry Dunbar’s room. His sister, sensing the end, was

crying softly. Wesley’s heart went out to her and he

wondered if the old man in the chair had put his older

sister through as much hel as he had put Carlotta through.

Coop helped the woman to her feet and led her toward

the door. “We need to move Gentry now, Miss Dunbar,

but I was wondering—since he loved this chair so much,

how about if we give him one last ride in it?”

Her eyes rounded. “You mean take him out in the

recliner?”

“Yeah,” Coop said, as if it were perfectly normal. “We’l

make sure you get the chair back, of course.”

The old woman smiled wide. “He’d like that. And just give

the recliner to Goodwil .”

“Fine,” Coop said. “We’l be right out.” When she left,

Coop handed Wesley a pair of rubber gloves and donned a

pair himself. Then he turned to assess Gentry.

“He’s starting to smell,” Wesley said, covering his nose

with his sleeve.

“The cells begin to break down the second the heart stops

beating,” Coop offered calmly. He bent over and pried

open the man’s mouth with two gloved fingers.

Wesley winced but couldn’t look away.

Coop made a noise in his throat. “Just as I suspected.”

“What’s wrong?” Wesley asked.

“The reason that Gentry here had prior knowledge of his

death is because the old boy did himself in.”

Wesley’s eyes bugged. “Suicide?”

“Yeah.”

“How do you know?”

“Look—his tongue is dry and flushed, probably an

overdose of antidepressants.” He closed the man’s mouth,

then walked over to a side table, opened a drawer and

pul ed out several prescription bottles. “Doxepin and

trazodone—probably took a little of each, just enough to

do the job.”

Wesley bit his lip. “His sister wil be crushed.”

“She won’t hear it from me,” Coop said lightly.

“But won’t it be on the death certificate?”

“Only if the medical examiner notices.”

“You’re saying he won’t?”

“He, she, whoever is doing the autopsy. Gentry’s an old

man who died in a nursing home and probably was being

medicated for a number of ailments. His autopsy isn’t

going to be a high priority in an office where hundreds of

autopsies are performed every day.”

“But you spotted it right away,” Wesley said.

Coop was silent for a few seconds, then said, “I’ve been

doing this for a while.” He covered the man with the sheet,

tucking it in around the sides of the chair. “Okay, when I

tilt the chair, slide the hand truck underneath.”

Wesley did and between the two of them, they managed

to balance the chair on the hand truck. When they

wheeled it out into the hal , there were guffaws of

laughter, applause and an impromptu rendition of “I’l be

Seeing You.” Wesley couldn’t help but smile as they

wheeled the old man out to the hearse.

Getting the recliner into the back of the hearse was

another matter, but they managed. In the process,

Wesley’s hand slid under the sheet and he accidentally

touched the man’s stiff fingers. He flinched, then realized

the skin felt more like a cold bar of soap than anything

sinister. A few minutes later when he swung into the front

seat and banged the door closed, he was feeling pretty

good about himself. “That wasn’t so bad,” he said to Coop.

Coop gave him a lopsided smile. “Don’t get too cocky on

me.”

“Do you get a lot of funeral home business this way?”

“Yeah,” Coop admitted. “There’s decent money in

contracting body retrieval with the morgue, but to be

honest, it also helps my uncle’s business. People get to

know us. If they haven’t already selected a funeral home,

nine times out of ten, they’l go with us.”

A shrewd businessman, Wesley decided, and wondered

how much Coop was worth. Death was probably a pretty

lucrative business, since it never let up.

“So when do I get paid?”

Coop’s eyebrows rose and he laughed. “Jumping the gun a

little, aren’t you? We haven’t even official y delivered the

body to the morgue.”

Wesley gave an embarrassed little laugh. “I have a fine to

pay off, man.” Not entirely the reason he needed the cash

so soon, but it would do.

Coop nodded. “I hear you. I’l pay you every Friday,

twenty-five bucks for every body you help me move.”

Wesley nodded. “Sounds fair.” His internal calculator

kicked in. Even if they moved only four bodies a day, that

was a hundred bucks, seven hundred per week, and with

the crime rate and traffic fatalities in Atlanta, he was

probably being conservative. Business would probably be

even better on weekends and holidays.

Wesley’s pulse began to drum with excitement. For the

first time in his life, he was earning real money.

“You have to get that fine taken care of so you can clear

your record and move on,” Coop said.

“Right,” Wesley said, half listening. With the kind of money

Coop would pay him, he could eventually afford to buy

into a high-stakes poker game. One big win would put him

in the clear with everyone, and help him build a local

reputation at the tables.

His promise to Carlotta that he would stop gambling rang

in his head. Something akin to guilt stabbed him, but he

shrugged it off as the familiar excitement of an impending

card game began to build. He hated to go back on his

word, but all he needed was one big win.

Just one.

12

“Wel , at least Wesley’s working,” Hannah said.

Carlotta sighed into her cel phone. “But he’s moving dead

people.”

“Somebody’s gotta do it. I mean, when you think about it,

it’s real y kind of cool.”