Burial of the Dead

PLOTS - 5

******

The church is packed, lit up, high church, extra holy with the smells and bells. Officer Talmadge sits in the back and waits. He doesn’t know who died, whose remains are lying cold, pumped and waxed in the bronze coffin between the candles and the honor guard with two bishops on the altar, two Governors in the first pew, but the send-off argues for somebody important, rich or both.

Talmadge listens to the Episcopal priest drone on, an affected accent with clips and curlicues, and he listens to the mourners’ sad little whimpers, choked-back tears. He figures Brits are more reserved than wealthy Irish and remembers that when he was an altar boy at Assumption Elementary he served funerals every week and could tell the old-world nationality of the deceased just by listening to the way the mourners mourned. Wealthy Irish were reserved, trying to pass as Brits, worker Irish were sad with a belligerent edge and the ubiquitous out-lyer, ever-intoxicated, capable of a shout or two. Brit-Catholics were rare and silent. Italians were effusive, big on flowers, sometimes wild, but never belligerent. Puerto Ricans let loose, as did the Lebanese. The Blacks were the best at keeping it real, mourning as an art form, and Asians could surprise you, go either way and all the way from silence to jumping on the coffin. The rest of the northern Europeans, Germans, Scandinavians, some French, were either in the wrong church or hardly there at all, as if funerals were an inefficiency, an homage to outdated and bourgeois thoughts about death and dying, as if they had better things to do.

The funeral ends with a little kid in a white surplus and red cassock swinging the thurible with the incense rising and the bells ringing and some woman overhead singing with the organ.

Bobby Sullivan’s crew flanks the casket and moves it down the aisle. Sullivan follows and sees Talmadge standing in the pew. Sullivan nods. Talmadge says “outside,” and follows Sullivan to the door and down the steps as the mourners follow. Talmadge sees a Governor, a Senator, two Reps, several execs from insurance companies and a gaggle of those old doddering guys who smell of pedigree, Yale, secrecy and power.

Sullivan moves to the side and greets Talmadge with a nod.

“Who the fuck died?” Talmadge asks.

“This guy’s wife. Mrs. Johnson.”

“Then who’s Mr. Johnson?”

“Coop Johnson, the insurance exec. Back room sort of guy. Pulls a lot of strings everywhere.”

“So that’s why all the pols are here.”

“That’s it.”

“Those guys look like professionals,” Talmadge says, and he points to a phalanx of six foot tall guys dressed in identical black suits, with identical buzz cuts and little phone wires in their ears.

“Secret Service,” Sullivan says.

“Get outta’ here.”

“See that woman over there?” Sullivan asks.

“What about her?” Talmadge asks, as he looks at a fairly attractive, fairly petite, but otherwise nondescript middle aged woman in a nice suit.

“She look familiar to you?”

“She looks like a high priced real estate broker.”

“She’s the Speaker of the House.”

“What house?”

“The House.”

“Of Representatives? In D.C.?”

“You got it,” Sully says.

“Holy shit,” Talmadge says, “So why the Secret Service?”

“She’s third in line for the Presidency.”