The scent of carnations hit him in the face like a moist blanket, it permeated the interior of the decaying brick building on North Clark Street. It’d never go away, Lockington figured—over the decades, the pores of the place had become clogged with the odor. He made his way up a long, narrow hallway, hat in hand, feeling the hush. The walls were dark-paneled, the floors dark-carpeted, the lamps on little black tables were amber-shaded and dim. Somewhere an organ and chimes recording was playing. Lockington was acquainted with the number—“Abide With Me.” An old woman with a fractured voice had sung it at his grandmother’s funeral. Lockington’s grandmother had been run over by a Budweiser truck just ten days after she’d quit drinking. There’d been a moral there, Lockington was certain, but he’d never been able to locate the damned thing.
Olenick’s Funeral Home was silent—death reigned there, death was the force, death was the reason for living. Some reason. Lockington detested all fucking undertakers.
Like the stem of a flower, the hallway terminated at its blossom, an oblong room that featured an enormous reproduction of an oil painting of Jesus Christ. To its black wooden frame a wag had taped a crudely lettered white filing card—WOULD YOU BUY A USED CAR FROM THIS MAN? If management had noticed it, it hadn’t done anything about it. What the hell, this was North Clark Street in Chicago.
There were registration books on tall tables, and to left and right there were small smoking lounges with uncomfortable-looking straight-backed chairs. Dead ahead were two rooms where caskets rested on low, blue velvet-draped biers. Hanging over the entrances to these rooms were chrome-framed white-on-black signs—above the door on the right, LIPSCOMB, JOHN; above the door on the left, DEVEREAUX, RUFUS. The white letters of the signs were interchangeable, lightly secured in the slender grooves of their black backgrounds. Lockington had seen similar displays in greasy-spoon eateries—HAMBURGER & FRIES $1.95. Chicago prices, of course. In New York they said HAMBURGER & FRIES $5.95 ONIONS EXTRA. Lockington had been to New York once, a mistake he had no intention of repeating.
There were half a dozen people in the Lipscomb room, another eight or ten in the Lipscomb smoking lounge. A woman was sobbing softly in the smoking lounge. So was a man. Men will weep now and then—not so readily as women and not so often, but it’ll happen. Lockington had cried when he’d lost his mother, he’d cried when he’d lost Julie Masters, and he might cry if he lost Edna Garson, but that would depend on how he lost her. He wasn’t sure that he’d ever lose Edna Garson, nor that he’d ever want to. Edna was a pillar, propping up his life.
There was no one in the Devereaux room, no one but Rufe. Lockington stood beside the battleship gray casket, gnawing on his lower lip, the gravity of the moment closing in on him like a great vise. The casket lid was down. They didn’t bother attempting to reconstruct a man’s head unless the man was a helluva lot more important than Rufe Devereaux.
In a corner of the room there was a single magnificent array of flowers contained by a white wicker basket the size of a laundry tub. Lockington appraised it at two hundred dollars—a thousand in New York. He saw no card. Possibly the boys at the Agency—but the Agency had set up the ground rules. No hoopla, no flowers, no ceremony.
A pudgy, cherub-faced little man in a black suit came into the room—probably one of the Olenick family, Lockington thought. The man nodded, smiled, and picked up the flower basket, shifting it to a position at the foot of the casket. He said, “Looks better there, don’t you think?”
Lockington said, “That’s one helluva bunch of posies.”
The little guy said, “Isn’t it, though? Reindorff’s arrangement—instantly identifiable. Reindorff’s does beautiful work—another gentleman commented on it earlier.”
Lockington said, “Reindorff’s—Reindorff’s is on Wabash Avenue.”
“No, Reindorff’s is in Logan Square.”
“Yeah, that’s right—I was thinking of Rheingold Jewelry. Rheingold is on Wabash.”
The little guy said, “No, Rheingold is on West Monroe.” He went out.
Lockington hadn’t considered sending flowers.
Flowers don’t help.