Death Is a Lonely Business (Crumley Mysteries 1)

Get up! We wanted to say. You can’t breathe lying on your back! You haven’t been to bed in thirty years. You must always sit up, Fannie, always.

She did not get up. She did not speak. She did not sing.

She did not even breathe.

We sank to our knees by her, pleading in whispers, or praying inside. We kneeled there like two worshippers, two penitents, two healers, and put out our hands, as if that would do it. Just by touching we would bring her back to life.

But Fannie lay there staring at the ceiling as if to say: how curious—what is the ceiling doing there? and why don’t I speak?

It was very simple and terrible. Fannie had fallen, or been pushed, and could not get up. She had lain there in the middle of

the night until her own weight crushed and smothered her. It would not have taken much to keep her in position so she could not roll over. You didn’t have to use your hands on her, around her neck. Nothing had to be forced. You simply stood over her and made sure that she didn’t roll to get leverage to gasp herself erect. And you watched her for a minute, two minutes, until at last the sounds stopped and the eyes turned to glass.

Oh Fannie, I groaned, oh Fannie, I mourned, what have you done to yourself?

There was the faintest whisper.

My head jerked. I stared.

Fannie’s crank-up phonograph was still turning, slowly, slowly. But it was still running. Which meant that just five minutes ago, she had cranked it up, put on a record, and …

Answered the door on darkness.

The phonograph turntable spun. But there was no record under the needle. Tosca wasn’t there.

I blinked, and then …

There was a swift knocking sound.

Constance was on her feet, choking, running She headed for the door leading out to the balcony overlooking the trash-filled empty lot, with a view of Bunker Hill and the poolhall across the way where laughter came and went all night. Before I could stop her, she was on the screen door to the balcony rail.

“Constance. No!” I yelled.

But she was out there only to be sick, bending over and leaning down and letting it all come out, as I much wanted to do. I could only stand and watch and look from her to the great mountain where we foothills had stood a moment before.

At last Constance stopped.

I turned, for no reason I could imagine, and went around Fannie and across the room to open a small door. A faint cold light played out over my face.

“Sweet Christ!” cried Constance, in the door behind me. “What’re you doing?”

“Fannie told me,” I said, my mouth numb. “Anything happened—look in the icebox.”

A cold tomb wind blew out around my cheeks.

“So I’m looking.”

There was nothing in the icebox, of course.

Or rather there was too much. Jellies, jams, varieties of mayonnaise, salad dressing, pickles, hot peppers, cheesecake, rolls, white bread, butter, cold cuts—an Arctic delicatessen. The panorama of Fannie’s flesh was there and how it had been planned and steadily built.

I stared and stared again, trying to see what Fannie wanted me to see. Oh, Christ, I thought, what am I looking for? Is the answer one of these? I almost shoved in to hurl all the jams and jellies to the floor. I had to stop my fist, halfway in.

It’s not there, or if it is, I can’t see it.

I gave a terrible death groan and slammed the door.

The phonograph, with Tosca gone, gave up and quit.