Eight Million Ways To Die

"I thought of that. There are plenty of Ricos in the phone book. Or maybe he's from Puerto Rico."

"Why not? Everybody else is. Maybe he's a Cagney fan."

"Cagney?"

"In the death scene. 'Mother of mercy, is this the end of Rico?'

Remember?"

"I thought that was Edward G. Robinson."

"Maybe it was. I was always drunk when I watched the 'Late Show' and all those Warner Brothers gangsters tend to merge in my mind. It was one of those ballsy guys. 'Mother of mercy, is this the— ' "

"Some pair of balls," I said.

"Huh?"

"Jesus Christ."

"What's the matter?"

"He's a comedian. A fucking comedian."

"What are you talking about?"

"The killer. C. O. Jones and M. A. Ricone. I thought they were names."

"They're not?"

"Cojones. Maricón."

"That's Spanish."

"Right."

"Cojones means 'balls,' doesn't it?"

"And maricón means 'faggot.' I don't think there's an E on the end of it, though."

"Maybe it's especially nasty with an E on the end."

"Or maybe he's just a lousy speller."

"Well, hell," she said. "Nobody's perfect."

Chapter 30

Around mid-morning I went home to shower and shave and put on my best suit. I caught a noon meeting, ate a Sabrett hot dog on the street, and met Jan as arranged at the papaya stand at Seventy-second and Broadway. She was wearing a knit dress, dove gray with touches of black. I'd never seen her in anything that dressy.

We went around the corner to Cooke's, where a professionally sympathetic young man in black determined which set of bereaved we belonged to and ushered us through a hallway to Suite Three, where a card in a slot on the open door said hendryx. Inside, there were perhaps six rows of four chairs each on either side of a center aisle. In the front, to the left of the lectern on a raised platform, an open casket stood amid a glut of floral sprays. I'd sent flowers that morning but I needn't have bothered. Sunny had enough of them to see a Prohibition-era mobster on his way to the Promised Land.

Chance had the aisle seat in the front row on the right. Donna Campion was seated beside him, with Fran Schecter and Mary Lou Barcker filling out the row. Chance was wearing a black suit, a white shirt, and a narrow black silk tie. The women were all wearing black, and I wondered if he'd taken them shopping the previous afternoon.

He turned at our entrance, got to his feet. Jan and I walked over there and I managed the introductions.

We stood awkwardly for a moment, and then Chance said, "You'll want to view the body," and gave a nod toward the casket.

Did anyone ever want to view a body? I walked over there and Jan walked beside me. Sunny was laid out in a brightly colored dress on a casket lining of cream-colored satin. Her hands, clasped upon her breast, held a single red rose. Her face might have been carved from a block of wax, and yet she certainly looked no worse than when I'd seen her last.

Chance was standing beside me. He said, "Talk to you a moment?"

"Sure."

Jan gave my hand a quick squeeze and slipped away. Chance and I stood side by side, looking down at Sunny.

I said, "I thought the body was still at the morgue."

"They called yesterday, said they were ready to release it. The people here worked late getting her ready. Did a pretty good job."

"Uh-huh."

"Doesn't look much like her. Didn't look like her when we found her, either, did it?"

"No."

"They'll cremate the body after. Simpler that way. The girls look right, don't they? The way they're dressed and all?"

"They look fine."

"Dignified," he said. After a pause he said, "Ruby didn't come."

"I noticed."

"She doesn't believe in funerals. Different cultures, different customs, you know? And she always kept to herself, hardly knew Sunny."

I didn't say anything.

"After this is over," he said, "I be taking the girls to their homes, you know. Then we ought to talk."

"All right."

"You know Parke Bernet? The auction gallery, the main place on Madison Avenue. There's a sale tomorrow and I wanted to look at a couple of lots I might bid on. You want to meet me there?"

"What time?"

"I don't know. This here won't be long. Be out of here by three.

Say four-fifteen, four-thirty?"

"Fine."

"Say, Matt?" I turned. " 'Preciate your coming."

There were perhaps ten more mourners in attendance by the time the service got underway. A party of four blacks sat in the middle on the left-hand side, and among them I thought I recognized Kid Bascomb, the fighter I'd watched the one time I met Sunny. Two elderly women sat together in the rear, and another elderly man sat by himself near the front. There are lonely people who drop in on the funerals of strangers as a way of passing the time, and I suspected these three were of their number.

Just as the service started, Joe Durkin and another plain-clothes detective slipped into a pair of seats in the last row.