A Graveyard for Lunatics (Crumley Mysteries 2)

Silence. Everyone had gone to lunch.

Roy snuffed the air and laughed quietly.

“God, yes! Smell that smell! Sawdust! That’s what got me into high school woodshop with you. And the sounds of the bandsaw lathes. Sounded like people were doing things. Made my hands jerk. Looky here.” Roy stopped by a long glass case and looked down at beauty.

The Bounty was there, in miniature, twenty inches long and fully rigged, and sailing through imaginary seas, two long centuries ago.

“Go on,” Roy said, quietly. “Touch gently.”

I touched and marveled and forgot why we were there and wanted to stay on forever. But Roy, at last, drew me away.

“Hot dog,” he whispered. “Take your pick.”

We were looking at a huge display of coffins about fifty feet back in the warm darkness.

“How come so many?” I asked, as we moved up.

“To bury all the turkeys the studio will make between now and Thanksgiving.”

We reached the funeral assembly line.

“It’s all yours,” said Roy. “Choose.”

“Can’t be at the top. Too high. And people are lazy. So—this one.”

I nudged the nearest coffin with my shoe.

“Go on,” urged Roy, laughing at my hesitance. “Open it.”

“You.”

Roy bent and tried the lid.

“Damn!”

The coffin was nailed shut.

A horn sounded somewhere. We glanced out.

Out in the Tombstone street a car was pulling up.

“Quick!” Roy ran to a table, scrabbled around frantically, and found a hammer and crowbar to jimmy the nails.

“Ohmigod,” I gasped.

Manny Leiber’s Rolls-Royce was dusting into the horse yard, out there in the noon glare.

“Let’s go!”

“Not until we see if—there!”

The last nail flew out.

Roy grasped the lid, took a deep breath, and opened the coffin.

Voices sounded in the Western yard, out there in the hot sun.

“Christ, open your eyes,” cried Roy. “Look!”