The Undertaker's Daughter (Ilka #1)(17)
They pulled out of the parking space. Ilka’s phone rang. “No one can do your jobs,” her mother said. She sounded tired and irritable. “I’ve tried everyone, but now I would really like to go to bed.”
“Shit! Would you please try again tomorrow? I’m sitting in a hearse; we’ve just picked up a homeless person in a morgue. I’m tired and I’m hungry and really, I don’t know what to do—”
“Don’t worry,” her mother said, her own warm voice on the edge of breaking from anxiety. “We’ll find a solution.”
“Thanks, Mom,” Ilka said, quickly adding, “Say hi to Hanne.”
Ilka hung up before her mother could say anything more. She sank in her seat and sighed deeply.
Artie glanced over at her. “Problems?”
Ilka shrugged and stared out the window, letting him know she didn’t want to involve him in something he wouldn’t understand anyway.
*
“Is it okay with you if we stop to get something to eat?” Artie asked when they reached the town square. He parked the hearse across from Oh Dennis!, the saloon where Artie had met her father, Ilka remembered.
“Yes, it’s very okay.” As she stepped out of the car, she glimpsed the body behind the curtains in back, packed under a blanket and strapped in place. Before shutting her door, she said, “Shouldn’t we deliver him first?”
“It’ll only take a minute,” he said. “They have the best chicken wings in town, and the ribs are good too. What would you like?”
“Chicken wings and ribs; that’s fine. Anything.”
Loud music was playing when they walked in, and sports channels blazed out from two televisions on both sides of the bar, just under the ceiling. Artie obviously knew the young woman behind the counter, who was juggling several enormous glasses. The diner smelled greasy and a bit sour, the floor felt sticky, but Ilka couldn’t care less. All she wanted was something to eat. Two older men sat across from each other in a corner, their eyes glued to the two televisions. One of them had hair combed forward from the back of his head.
She heard Artie order at the counter, and she shook her head when he turned to her and asked if she wanted a beer. She went to look for the bathrooms. On her way to the door at the back of the diner, she stopped and put a few coins in one of the slot machines hanging on the wall. One-armed bandits, her father had called them. Nothing happened, and she put a few more quarters in. Ten quarters tumbled out. The machine’s reels clicked every time they came to a stop. Artie and the woman were talking and laughing together. A couple came in and sat down by the window.
Ilka won five more quarters and fed them back into the machine; then she went into the bathroom. Their food was ready when she came out. Artie had drunk his beer and packed the food into two large paper sacks. Ilka nodded at the waitress and followed him to the car. The odor from the paper sacks seemed out of place in the hearse.
“There’s also curly fries and sliders,” he said. He handed her the bags, which felt heavy enough to feed an army. “I’ll probably be working late this evening.”
He explained he was repairing a face that had been caved in on one side. “He lived in senior housing, and he fell against the edge of a table and hit his temple. It keeps collapsing. The family is coming tomorrow, before I drive him over to the church, so I’ve got to get going on the makeup and then dress him. They just sent me the clothes. His grown-up daughter wanted to choose them, and she just got in from Minneapolis this afternoon.”
Artie backed the hearse under the carport next to the house; then he punched the code to the door. Ilka grabbed the sacks of food, and after getting out she remembered the bucket of fish in back. She didn’t want to look in there.
Artie pulled the stretcher out of the hearse. He’d obviously had much practice locking the wheels down and pushing it into the passageway. Ilka followed. The pungent odor of formaldehyde rammed into her. The first time she’d held her breath and rushed through so fast that she had barely registered it; now it seemed to cling to her skin, the inside of her nose, her eyes. She eyed the sacks and retreated a few steps to keep them away from the odor while she waited for Artie.
A cat meowed, then sauntered over and rubbed against her leg. It had white markings on its chest and down over its stomach; otherwise it was coal black. A second later it was on its way into one of the sacks. Ilka lifted it up and set it down off to the side. She was ready to eat straight from the sacks herself if Artie didn’t hurry up. She heard him open the refrigerator in the garage and glimpsed him setting the fish bucket in the bottom. After locking the garage behind him, he walked into the preparation room and turned on the powerful fan; a glaring light streamed down from the ceiling.
“This’ll only take a sec,” he said.
Ilka noticed a long steel table over by the wall, where in place of the countertop was a grating over a drain in the floor. In the middle of the room, another table stood under a large, broad operating room lamp.
He walked back and stood in the hallway, as if he didn’t notice the stink. “What do you want to drink? Beer, water, iced tea?”
“Water is fine.” She followed him into the office and started emptying the sacks. Two small mountains of meat soon lay on the table. Ilka suppressed any thoughts of death and formaldehyde and dove into the food.