Hauling Ash

by Tonia Brown

“Are you here to finally kill me?” Otto asked.

  Banjo narrowed his eyes and shook his head. “Why would I want to do that?”

  “Because of my testimony. Frank said they couldn’t have sent Maloney to prison without it.”

  “Trust me, if anything you said sent that man to prison, then allow me to shake your hand for it.”

  “That’s not why we are here,” someone else said.

  Banjo stepped aside, making room for a voluptuous redhead.

  “Penny?” Otto said, lowering the hook at the calming sight of her presence. Even with the change of hair color, she looked more beautiful than ever.

  “Otto,” she said. She rushed into the room and threw her arms around him, hugging him tight.

  Otto breathed deep, happy to find she still smelled of strawberries. “It is good to see you.” He smiled at Banjo. “Both of you, really.”

  “It’s good to see you too,” Banjo said.

  Penny released him and stepped back, looking over his shoulder to the body of Frank Williams. “So he’s really gone.”

  In the excitement of the reunion, Otto had forgotten what he was doing here in the first place. He jumped up from his chair and pulled the sheet over the corpse. “Oh my! You can’t see this. It’s wrong, not to mention illegal.” He stopped a moment to let out a soft chuckle. “Not that doing illegal things matters much I suppose.”

  “Mr. Waldorf,” Banjo started, “we aren’t here to get you into trouble. I promise. We just want to pay our last respects.”

  “Well, that’s comforting I suppose. Still, I am going to have to ask you leave and come back for the funeral. This isn’t proper. Agent Wallace wouldn’t have wanted you to see him like this.”

  “That’s too bad, because we can’t make that kind of public appearance, and we aren’t leaving here until we do what we came to do.”

  Banjo opened his overcoat and pulled out a gun.

  “What on earth do you think you’re doing?” Otto said. “Put that thing away. You shouldn’t bring that in here. It’s disrespectful.”

  “It shouldn’t be because it’s his,” Banjo said. He approached the table, heedless of Otto’s protests, and sat the gun down atop Frank’s chest. “Sorry we held onto it so long, sir.”

  All at once, Otto understood. “Is that his Colt?”

  “Yes.”

  “Wow. I feel like I’m meeting a celebrity. He talked about that gun a lot. Apparently his wife gave it to him after he graduated the police academy.”

  “Aw,” Penny said as she joined them around the table. “Now I feel really bad for hanging onto it.”

  “Don’t,” Otto said. “He missed it but he didn’t regret you taking it. It was all part of the grand story of that night. He said he felt like losing it was the price for putting Maloney behind bars. A price he was glad to pay.”

  “You kept in touch with him then?” Banjo asked.

  “Well I sort of had to. We saw a lot of each other during the trial, and after, he kept in touch with me to make sure I was safe.” Otto sighed softly. “Until now.”

  “What took him?” Penny said.

  “Heart attack. Went peacefully in his sleep.”

  “At least he didn’t suffer.”

  “Yeah,” Banjo said. “I have to admit, though, I’m kind of surprised to see you here, Waldorf.”

  “You aren’t the only one,” Otto said. “His wife called me on Monday to let me know Frank passed away, and she asked if I would come in and work on him. Apparently, it’s what he wanted.”

  “You’re a good man for filling his last request.”

  “How could I refuse?”

  The three fell into an uncomfortable silence, each staring down at the remains of Frank. Otto stepped away and pulled off his gloves to wash his hands, leaving the other two to pay their quiet respects. He knew it was pointless to ask them to leave again. They were going to do what they wanted, either way. He supposed, in some small way, it was nice of them to show up at all. How they found out so quickly about Frank’s death, Otto couldn’t imagine.

  After a bit, Otto cleared his throat and said, “I like your hair. It’s very red.”

  “Thanks, hon,” Penny said. “It helps to keep folks from recognizing me.”

  “She wants me to grow my hair back,” Banjo said, running his broad hand over his bald head. “I don’t think it would help much.”

  “True,” Otto said. “You are sort of hard not to spot.”

  “Which is why we can’t come back tomorrow. Sorry about this.”

  “Not to worry. Special circumstances call for special viewings. I’ve never been anything if not adaptable.”

  “You got that right.”

  “You’re lookin’ good too,” Penny said. “I see you’ve been taking care of yourself.”

  “Money makes it easy I suppose,” Otto said. “Walter left me quite a nest egg. And no, it wasn’t scattered around bus stations like he said.”

  “Enough to retire on?” Banjo said.

  “I suppose, though I like to work. I tried to go back to my old job but Mr. Gerald let me go. So since I had the money, I decided to open up my own mortuary.”

  “That’s wonderful,” Penny said. “You deserve it.”

  “Thanks. I don’t really have to work at all. I just love what I do. It made sense to work for myself. Plus, you’d be surprised how hard it is to decide what to do with a quarter million of the mob’s money.”

  Ben cut his eyes. “Not Maloney’s money?”

  Otto grinned. “The same.”

  “I thought the old man dumped it into the water?” Penny said.

  “He did,” Otto said. “He just happened to store it in a canvas bag and tied it to a mooring winch before he did. I only needed to retrieve it as casually as possible, which was easier than it seemed. Folks gave me a wide berth once they heard I took on Maloney and lived. I grabbed it and mixed it in with the rest of Walter’s money, since no one knew how much of it he really had.”

  Banjo laughed aloud and clapped. “Bravo, oh bravo you beautiful son of a bitch.”

  Otto grinned wider, pleased to have impressed the big man.

  All at once, a sullen look overcame Penny. “Otto, hon, did you ever find love?”

  “Ah, no,” Otto confessed. “To tell the truth, I haven’t really been looking. Between the trial and setting up the mortuary, I haven’t had a lot of time.” His cheeks went a soft pink as he looked away and added, “I mean, I’ve had … I’ve had some … you know …”

  Penny giggled. “Good for you!”

  “How is that mutt of yours?” Ben said over her laughter.

  At the mention of Finster, Otto lost his easy embarrassment and returned to his sorrow. “He passed away a few weeks ago.”

  “Geesh, man, I’m sorry.”

  “Oh, Otto,” Penny said, and moved to his side to hug him again. “I’m really sorry.”

  Once again Otto relished her contact. “Thanks, but I’m fine. He had a good life. And at least he had some excitement before he passed.”

  The three fell into another bout of uncomfortable silence. Otto could tell the pair were itching to get out of here. Most folks didn’t like spending more than a few minutes in a mortuary, whereas Otto could spend the rest of his life right where he was.

  “Well then,” Banjo said, “Did I hear you say you were almost done here?”

  “Yes,” Otto said. “I only have a bit left.”

  “What are you doing for dinner?”

  “It’s kind of late for dinner,” Otto said.

  “You’re eating with us,” Penny said.

  Otto’s immediate response was to turn them down. To finish his work and go back to the hotel, clean up and go to bed. He opened his mouth to say just that, and instead he found himself saying, “I’d love nothing more.”

  Or had he just said that? He couldn’t remember saying it, yet it didn’t matter now because the words were out there, whether they were his or not.

  “
Great!” Banjo said. “We’ll wait for you outside.”

  Penny stopped at the table and ran her hand along the cloth covered arm of the corpse beneath. “Take care, Frank.”

  “Yeah,” Banjo said. “See you around.”

  Banjo and Penny made their way out, leaving Otto to finish his work. He got back to it with a renewed enthusiasm, excited by the prospect of spending more time with the dangerous couple. Not as dangerous as sharing a table with a mob boss while wearing a recording device, sure. But dangerous nonetheless.

  ****

  “You shouldn’t have said that,” Frank said.

  “Why not?” Walter said. “He needs to get out more.”

  “Because it isn’t your place to mess with him like that. Let alone answer invitations for him.”

  The schnauzer yipped from Walter’s arms.

  “See, Finster agrees with me,” Walter said. “That poor kid would spend every waking hour with the dead if he could get away with it.”

  Frank stood with the other dead man and watched with a strange detachment as Waldorf finished up the work. “You know, I’ve seen plenty of corpses in my day—”

  “Corpses are kind of like kids,” Walter said. “You tolerate another man’s, but you act different when it’s your own.”

  “You didn’t just tolerate that kid.”

  Walter started, taken by surprise at Frank calling his bullshit. “Yeah, well, he was a good boy. And I owed it to his daddy.”

  “Is he?”

  “Is who what?”

  “Is Otto your boy?”

  The dead man laughed with an echoing wheeze. “No. No way. I loved his momma because she loved my brother. I didn’t love her, love her, if you know what I mean. No one knows who his real dad is. The lousy son of a bitch.”

  Finster yipped in agreement.

  “You got your gun back,” Walter said, obviously trying to change an uncomfortable subject.

  “I see that,” Frank said. “I am kind of surprised the bull and his moll risked coming out of hiding just for me. Surprised but pleased.”

  “At least someone came to see you.”

  Frank looked down at his watch, which surprisingly still kept time, regardless of the fact that it was a ghost watch on the arm of a ghost special agent. “Well, it’s getting on. I guess I should check in with Martha before I get out of here.”

  “You not gonna stay for the funeral?” Walter said. “I’ll bet it will be a humdinger. You were so well liked and all, I’ll bet it will be packed.”

  “Did you watch yours?”

  “Yeah, and there wasn’t much to watch.” Walter frowned and shrugged. “I would be disappointed if I hadn’t done it to myself.”

  Frank wanted to feel sorry for the man, yet he was right; Walter had done it to himself. “I think I’ll pass. I don’t want my last memory of my family to be them weeping over my dead body. I just want to check on my wife one more time.”

  “You’ve got a point.” Walter held his hand out to Frank. “Take care of yourself on the other side.”

  Frank shook the man’s hand. He felt nothing in that handshake; no contact of skin, no pressure of the squeeze, no motion of the shake. As a spirit, he suffered a perpetual numbness. Frank was going to ask Walter about it, but the fellow spirit was engrossed in watching Otto work.

  “Are you ever going to let him be?” Frank said.

  “Sure,” Walter said. “In time. I mean, look at him.” Walter motioned to Otto with Finster’s paw. “He won’t make it on his own. Some folks just weren’t meant to be alone.”

  Frank nodded in agreement, because he understood who Walter Waldorf was really talking about. “You’re right, some folks aren’t meant to be alone. Take care, Mr. Waldorf. And good luck.”

  “Yeah, yeah, same to you.”

  As Frank retreated from the room he heard the dog yip again.

  “I know,” Walter said. “He’s gonna be late for dinner if he don’t hurry it up. Let’s see if we can’t move this along a bit faster.”

  Frank chuckled to himself and went to see his wife one last time.

  ****

  The End

  About the Author

  Tonia Brown is a Southern author with a penchant for Victorian dead things. She has penned a number of undead comedies, including the hilarious Badass Zombie Road Trip.

  Tonia lives in the backwoods of North Carolina with her genius husband and an ever fluctuating number of cats. She likes fudgesicles and coffee, though not always together. When not writing she raises unicorns and fights crime with her husband under the code names Dr. Weird and his sexy sidekick Butternut.

  You can learn more about her at: www.thebackseatwriter.com