"Art Montegue - Caleb's Undertaking" - читать интересную книгу автора (Montague Arthur)

CALEB'S UNDERTAKING
By
Art Montague

When you've worked Metro Toronto Homicide as long as I have, a dead body is as mundane as a bulging Glad Bag of garbage on a city curb. You don't take much notice; you just make sure you don't step on it. Probably undertakers become inured to corpses too. Having this in common may partly explain why Caleb Hooton, an undertaker by profession, was my best and oldest friend.

Of course, as you'll see, I had to arrest him. He was cooperative; he provided a detailed statement. The scene he described wasn't pretty, not coming from a friend. But it held up with what I knew of the man and of our friendship; and it held up with what I knew of his profession gleaned over the years from Caleb and various coroners over the time I'd had to personally witness autopsies, excavations, lake draggings and other corpse-related activities.

So, Caleb killed a guy, big deal, happens every day. But Caleb and I went back a long way, and that cuts deep. Caleb wasn't just anybody. As far as I knew he was connected, so to speak, plus he used to have the city contracts. Probably he needed one to get the other. The latter was retirement in itself; the former meant he was sacrosanct relative to any nonsense in the dead and dying field. Just goes to show what I knew.

As said, Caleb and I went way back. Same neighborhood, same school, same church on Sundays until we discovered together that there were better things to do with quarters than put them in a collection plate. My dad was a cop, Caleb's an undertaker. The dads played cribbage every Thursday night, leaving Caleb and me to horse around in the living room or, if it was nice weather, out in the yard. In the winter they'd sometimes take us to hockey games at the Gardens, and in the summer we'd go fishing at Jackson's Point. To us, this meant they were friends and that, together with the other things, made us friends, too.

For all I know Caleb might have been born in a coffin. The Hootons lived over top of their funeral parlor on Berwick Avenue. The main floor was where people came to make arrangements, pick out coffins, then sit around and look at dead bodies. Caleb and I would sometimes sneak down to the main floor viewing rooms, just like at the Ex the year we snuck in to see Reptile Man and Queen Fatima. By 'born in a coffin,' I mean Caleb was always going to be an undertaker. His dad used to say they were cut from the same shroud.

Eventually I went to law school, Osgoode. Caleb also went for training. He went to wherever undertaker wannabees go, probably the Marvel Beauty School. No matter, we kept in touch. I became a cop, just like my father, getting on the force in the nick of time to take over his pad before he retired. Caleb took over his dad's business, too.

We stayed close over the years. For a while we even dated twin sisters, but they eventually dumped us; said we were too much alike. Poker was our Thursday night game, Caleb and me, plus Ralph Wilson who did mysterious things on Bay Street. Also, Chuck Waddell, an accountant who gambled, using betting systems of his own design; and Brother Luke, who did well with TV prayer meetings.

Caleb and I took up fishing just like our fathers, adding duck hunting when our marriages started to flatline. I'd bought a summer place two and half hours north of the city where I could berth my ChrisCraft far from the snoops in Internal Affairs. Chuck helped me put together the numbered corporation for that. It pays to have friends.

Caleb and I were getting up in years when things started to go sour for him. His appearance gave me no clue to this. On his best days he looked sad as a basset hound staring at an empty Dr. Ballards can, part of his undertaker persona. His speaking voice was a slow, unctuous monotone that could cover you like sod in a cemetery. He'd practiced it so often when he was a kid it had become normal for him. For the rest, he was so average looking he was almost invisible, just a gentle hand guiding the bereaved's shaky pen to the signature line on the funeral contract.

Ralph's funeral, I guess, is when I noticed Caleb was seriously out of sorts. At first I thought he was angry because Ralph's family had contracted the funeral service to L.L. Bradley's, Caleb's main competitor. But even choking on sour grapes, while your friend, namely me, is risking a hernia carrying a casket out of a church, is hardly the time to bitch about the quality of the funeral arrangements. Ralph was no lightweight, and being one of his pallbearers was heavy slugging.

"I'm embarrassed for my profession," Caleb muttered, as if talking to himself. "Did you see the feature setting on Ralph? Ralph always hated his buck teeth and this was his last chance to face the world without them coming first, to say nothing of tradition. You always seal the mouth."

"Caleb," I said, "spare me the chit chat and concentrate on holding up your end. Ralph's starting to tip."

"A lousy moment is all it would have taken to stretch the lips over the teeth and glue them together. Ralph's frown lines would have been softened, too. Forty-four cents worth of tissue filler and Bradley could have molded a respectable chin. Ralph hated his weak chin almost as much as his buck teeth."

"Shut up, Caleb. Ralph's wife'll hear you."

"Did you see how pale he was? Bradley used the wrong face powder; hell, he probably used cornstarch. Ralph looked dead, for Chrissake!" Then Caleb shut up; we were busy loading the casket onto the church truck, a folding bier with wheels, then sliding it into the hearse or, to use Caleb's term, the casket coach.

At the cemetery, Bradley came over to explain positioning the casket over the hole. That really got to Caleb. Young L.L., all flashy teeth, moussed hair, Armani suit, and tasseled shoes, telling him, thirty-five years in the business, how to place a casket.

"Bradley," said Caleb -- you could almost hear his teeth grinding "I've had more calls some years than you've had in your whole misbegotten career, so I guess I know what I'm doing."

Caleb's rudeness slicked right off Bradley, about as you'd expect. Bradley smiled tolerantly. "Mr. Hooton, we're using a newly designed computerized lowering winch. If the case isn't placed exactly, the winch won't synchronize with the music."

"You've got music at graveside now? What's that all about?" asked Caleb.

"An innovation of mine. A hymn playing softly in time with the lowering of the casket helps create a more comforting memory picture for the client."

I jumped in before Caleb could respond. "Caleb, let's get this done. You two can talk shop later."

"We've got nothing to talk about," said Caleb.

"One final instruction," said Bradley, fool that he was. "We're using a detachable round rail on the casket. When you've got the casket positioned on the straps, push in on the rail and lift. It pops off."