Mafia funerals our specialty.”
“Oh my god,” Angela said. “You can talk.”
“Oh yes,” the dwarf said. “I am only mute professionally. The kids get a kick out of it,” he flourished the iPad. “Prom season is bigger than Halloween.”
“The more pressing question,” John interrupted, facing frontward abruptly. “Is can he drive?”
Out the rear windows, flashing lights appeared in the distance, seeming almost to burst from the bloody crescent of the setting sun. They were far enough away that you couldn’t hear the siren, but they were closing fast. The hearse had already shed the outskirts of town with its trailer parks and convenience stores. It was now passing through an industrial wasteland of pipeline terminals and tank farms, the only highway in four counties unrolling before it in a rough grey unbending strip to the eastern horizon. Like a prelude to infinity. Or the shortest route to perdition.
The dwarf stepped on the gas. The hearse took off like a rocket. 80 mph. 90 mph. 100.
“Woo!” Vinnie hooted, as the hearse pulled effortlessly away. “Yeah, baby!”
“Of course if they call for backup or we run a speed trap, we’re hosed,” John observed.
“You want to stop?” Leo asked, as the hearse reached 110.
“Do you think we can drive 900 miles in this car with an all-points-bulletin on our ass?” John asked, pulling his clip to check the ammo. “Just sayin’.”
“OK,” Leo said and took his foot off the accelerator.
“Uh, what is he doing?” Vinnie asked. “What - what are you doing?”
“What he said,” Leo said, braking and putting the car into a j-turn. “Turning around.”
“No, no. No turning around. Bad idea,” Vinnie protested, from somewhere near the floor.
“There is no other road for forty miles. It would be hard to lose this car in the busiest city. Our options therefore are limited.” Leo bumped off the highway and braked to a stop on a gravel patch in front of an abandoned doughnut shop standing sentinel outside the gates of an abandoned oil refinery. The Dippin’ Donuts sign was smashed, as were the plate glass windows, but on top of the roof sat a ten foot tall plaster doughnut, like the biggest cop magnet in the world. Leo had positioned the hearse directly under a security light that was idiotically blazing away in the middle of nowhere. Making them starkly visible from either direction.
Leo considered their possibilities for them. “At this point, you can get out and run. Get out and attempt an ambush. Or get out and see if I can maybe scam their pants off.”
John and Vinnie looked at each other, looked out the windows. The winter terrain offered little in the way of shelter or camouflage. Barb-wired fence and open fields in front, chainlink fence and rusting towers behind. The wail of the siren cut short their silent deliberations.
“I say, shall we get out or get out, old bean?” John asked Vinnie.
“Getting out would seem to be the done thing, under the circumstances,” Vinnie surmised. At which point there was a mad scramble to evacuate the automotive premises. Crowding out of the far side of the hearse, John and Vinnie ducked down, gauging the distance to the nearest cover and their chances of reaching it unobserved. Then Vinnie noticed something significant. Angela had not moved a muscle.
Vinnie straightened to see where the cop car was, aghast and dismayed. Then bent to address his betrothed. Urgent. Almost savage. “Angela!” It sounded like a curse.
Angela just blew him a kiss. “Did I mention I found a killer dress? Feathers from here to eternity.” Vinnie groaned and slammed the door shut. John was already bent over and sprinting for a stand of cedars just yards away. Vinnie joined him, swearing for real this time. “Goddamn motherfucking shitass cocksucking -“
“I think ‘pussy’ probably belongs in there somewhere,” John said.
“Pussy,” Vinnie said obligingly. “I have to tell you, buddy. I think I’m getting cold feet.” About that time the Crown Vic screamed into view.
John made a dismissive sound. “Pfft. Happens to everybody.”
“Never once, in all the time you and Jane have been together, did you tell me you felt like a turkey the day before Thanksgiving.”
“Must have slipped my mind,” John said. “Doesn’t happen very often. Only everyday since we said ‘I do.’”
There was only the one car. And in it just two of America’s finest. Vinnie wrinkled his brow and held up two fingers. “What’s up with that?”
“Either they’re really good,” John hazarded. “Or there are times when austerity is our friend.”
The Crown Vic screeched to a halt athwart the hearse, blocking any exit. One agent leaped out and drew a bead on Leo’s windshield with a high-powered semi-automatic rifle. The other spoke over the car’s PA system.
“This is the FBI. Step out of the car with your hands in the air.”
Leo opened the door and hopped down, obediently coming into the open with his hands on his head, looking anything but threatening in his size 7 Brooks Brothers suit. Angela followed orders in her own way, taking her own sweet time and enacting a sort of strip tease as she slowly, languorously separated herself from the hearse. When she raised her arms it was with the sinuous grace of a harem dancer. The agent with the PA mike could be heard clearing his throat.
“Zdrahstvooytyeh!” Leo called, as though greeting newcomers to the international space station. [“Greetings!”]
“Is there anyone else in the car?” PA guy asked.
“Nyet,” Leo said.
“What are we, chopped liver?” Angela asked, looking like something decidedly more delectable.
“So there’s no reason my partner here shouldn’t fill that casket carrier full of lead?” PA guy conjectured.
“I can think of at least three,” Leo answered. “First off, it used to belong to Elvis and was featured in the cult classic ‘Harold and Maude’.”
“Bet they’re Beatles fans,” Vinnie said under his breath.
“Hoover had a thing for Liberace,” John murmured.
“Second, it might cause this young lady to be late for her wedding in Chicago,” Leo said.
“Beats being early for her own funeral,” PA guy quipped.
“Speaking of other people’s funerals brings us to reason number three. I should perhaps mention that the hearse is not in fact mine. I lease it from my uncle.”
“Who gives a flying fuck about your goddamn uncle?” PA guy wondered.
“Oh dear, I was afraid of that.” Leo clicked his tongue and leaned forward ostentatiously to draw attention to the front license tag. “You didn’t do an ID check, now did you? On the other hand, my uncle knows who you are by now.” He pointed an elbow toward the hearse’s windshield. “In Russia, dash cams are de rigeur. It is a sad fact of life.”
PA guy was silent a minute. The agent with the rifle flicked his eyes toward his buddy, who was consulting an on-board computer.
“Are you shitting me?” PA guy groused.
“Would you like to see my tattoos?” Leo offered, pointing to the palm of one hand.
“OK, we’re done here,” PA guy snapped. “I’m serious,” he said to his partner. “Pack it in.” The agent with the rifle shouldered his weapon and folded himself back into the Crown Vic.
“By the way, those nice old people back there?” Leo called, straightening his tie. “They’ve been through enough, don’t you think?” PA guy flipped him the bird and was gone in a spurt of gravel. “Dosvedanya!” Leo smilingly gave them a thumb’s up in return. The equivalent of a Russian raspberry.
“So about this wedding thing,” Vinnie said, standing up behind the cedars with difficulty. The knees weren’t as young as they used to be. “There’s really no way out at this point. I’m probably going to have bite the bullet.”
“Yeah, you’re dead meat,” John put his hands in the small of his back and stretched. “Once you’ve had
the bachelor party, it’s all over.”
When they rejoined Angela and Leo, the dwarf was twirling his keys impatiently on one finger.
“Guess what?” Angela said.
“We’ll never get to Chicago in time and we have to call it off?” Vinnie hazarded, giving it one last shot.
“Silly. We can have the wedding whenever we want to. Here and now, even. Leo - is an ordained minister.” Angela turned to Vinnie as if presenting him with a mind-blowing gift. A Ferrari maybe. Vinnie, for his part, dimly understood that some expression of felicity was in order.
“Happy, happy, joy, joy,” he pretended to enthuse.
“Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster,” Leo was handing out cards. “I’m legal in all US states, territories, commonwealths, and possessions. Ditto the high seas. And the Republic of Palau.”
“A Russian mobster and a Pastafarian,” John scratched his head with the barrel of his SIG. “That’s colorful. Nice keychain, by the way.” It was a black USB drive on a silver ring. Leo held it out to show off the design. A grinning skull atop crossed swords. Pirates of the Caribbean and Jane again.
“Pirates are sacred in our faith,” Leo said instructively, as he ushered Angela back to the front seat, extracting a bottle of Stolichnaya from the glove compartment in the process. “As is vodka.”
“Can I get a ‘Ramen’?” Vinnie’s enthusiasm this time was authentic.
John on the other hand was feeling for his phone. Damn that Jolly Roger keychain. He slapped all his pockets. Realized he had left it in the coat he
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