A Graveyard for Lunatics

“For God’s sake, quick!”

“Why looky here,” said Roy.

He took hold of the body and lifted.

“Gah!” I said, and stopped.

For the body rose up as easily as a bag of cornflakes.

“No!”

“Yeah, sure.” Roy shook the body. It rattled like a scarecrow.

“I’ll be damned! And look, at the bottom of the coffin, lead sinkers to give it weight once they got it up the ladder! And when it fell, like you said, it would really hit. Look out! Here come the barracudas!”

Roy squinted out into the noon glare and the distant figures stepping out of cars, gathering around Manny.

“Okay. Let’s go.”

Roy dropped the body, slammed the lid and ran.

I followed in and out of a maze of furniture, pillars, and false fronts.

Off at a distance, through three dozen doors and half up a flight of Renaissance stairs, Roy and I stopped, looked back, craned to ache and listen. Way off, about ninety to a hundred feet, Manny Leiber arrived at the place where we had been only a minute ago. Manny’s voice cut through all the rest. He told everyone, I imagine, to shut up. There was silence. They were opening the coffin with the facsimile body in it.

Roy looked at me, eyebrows up. I looked back, unable to breathe.

There was a stir, some sort of outcry, curses. Manny swore above the rest. Then there was a babble, more talk, Manny yelling again, and a final slam of the coffin lid.

That was the gunshot that plummeted me and Roy the hell out of the place. We made it down the stairs as quietly as possible, ran through another dozen doors, and out the back side of the carpenters’ shop.

“You hear anything?” gasped Roy, glancing back.

“No. You?”

“Not a damn thing. But they sure exploded. Not once but three times. Manny, the worst! My God, what’s going on? Why all the fuss over a damned wax dummy I could have run up with two bucks’ worth of latex, wax, and plaster in half an hour!?”

“Slow down, Roy,” I said. “We don’t want anyone to see us running.”

Roy slowed, but still took great whooping-crane strides.

“God, Roy!” I said. “If they knew we were in there!”

“They don’t. Hey, this is fun.”

Why, I thought, did I ever introduce my best friend to a dead man?

A minute later we reached Roy’s Laurel and Hardy flivver behind the shop.

Roy sat in the front seat, smiling a most unholy smile, appreciating the sky and every cloud.

“Climb in,” he said.

Inside the shed, voices rose in a late-afternoon uproar. Someone was cursing somewhere. Someone else was criticizing. Someone said yes. A lot of others said no as the small mob boiled out into the hot noon light, like a hive of angry bees.

A moment later, Manny Leiber’s Rolls-Royce streamed by like a voiceless storm.

Inside, I saw three oyster-pale yes-men’s faces.

And Manny Leiber’s face, blood-red with rage.

He saw us as his Rolls stormed past.

Roy waved and cried a jolly hello. “Roy!” I yelled.

Roy guffawed, said, “What came over me!?” and drove away.

I looked over at Roy and almost exploded myself. Inhaling the wind, he blew it out his mouth with gusto.

“You’re nuts!” I said. “Don’t you have a nerve in your body?”

“Why should I,” Roy reasoned amiably, “be scared of a papier-mâché mockup? Hell, Manny’s heebie-jeebies make me feel good. I’ve taken a lot of guff from him this month. Now someone’s stuck a bomb in his pants? Great!”

“Was it you?” I blurted, suddenly.

Roy was startled. “You off on that track again? Why would I sew and glue a dimwit scarecrow and climb ladders at midnight?”

“For the reasons you just said. Cure your boredom. Shove bombs in other people’s pants.”

“Nope. Wish I could claim the credit. Right now, I can hardly wait for lunch. When Manny shows up, his face should be a riot.”

“Do you think anyone saw us in there?”

“Christ, no. That’s why I waved! To show how dumb and innocent we are! Something is going on. We got to act natural.”

“When was the last time we did that?”

Roy laughed.

We motored around behind the worksheds, through Madrid, Rome, and Calcutta, and now pulled up at a brownstone somewhere in the Bronx.

Roy glanced at his watch.

“You got an appointment. Fritz Wong. Go. We should both be seen everywhere in the next hour except there.” He nodded at Tombstone, two hundred yards away.

“When,” I asked, “are you going to start getting scared?”

Roy felt his leg bones with one hand.