As soon as the two disappeared into Mr. Cooper's office, Blue slipped down thehall to the room where Mr. Thomas Christian Cavanaugh was. A naked bodystretched out on a long, metal table, a flabby, grayish-white and a raggedpatch job just above the ribs where the bullets had gone in. Behind the bodythere was a white marble-topped counter and a scattering of chrome silverinstruments, some for prodding, for cutting, slicing, shaping, a few unlabeledbottles filled with red or purple or green liquid, a couple of syringes, andthen Blue Henry surveying the entire room, a row of glass-windowed cabinetsalong the near wall, some more bottles, a few pans for drainage, some linens, acouple of wooden stools along the far wall and a couple of windows open abovethe stools and a hot breeze blowing in and the smell of dead azaleas and thedust-streaming sunlight. It was almost surreal the way death was all around andhim looking at the corpse of Mr. Cavanaugh and this was his first corpse andthen Blue Henry blinking with the realization that death was not so remote,which unhinged him a bit, so much so that right there he abandoned his claim tohaving shot the dead man, or perhaps it abandoned him, and he was just about toleave the funeral parlor altogether and go off in search of a fine serge suitto wear to the funeral when all of a sudden it seemed that he wasn't looking ata corpse, that the men had been right about Mr. Thomas Christian Cavanaugh notbeing dead, for there was the man himself, sitting on the end of thepreparation table, giving Blue the once-over and sort of half-smiling, his legsdangling.

"So you were thinking I was dead, is that it son?" Blue Henry said nothing.What could he say? Of course we thought you were dead, least that's what themdown at Laughlin's were saying, aint you dead Mr. Cavanaugh, why there was thatshot from up in one of them live oaks and what a shot it was why not one man ina million could of made that shot of course I didn't see it I wasn't even thereI hope you didn't get the wrong impression I mean I wouldn't do something likethat but did it hurt much I mean dying like that or maybe it happened so quickyou didn't feel a thing is that what happened Mr. Cavanaugh, but Blue Henrydidn't say a word, no, what could he say, why folks would think him crazy, evenif they wouldn't say it, him standing there motionless, bewildered, could notcould not could, could only continue his unblinking, throbbing, almost painfulobeisance.

"I was the only one here when they laid me out, but that was a couple of daysago," the strangely undead Mr. Cavanaugh looking around the room, uncautiously,not so much to see what was there but to see what wasn't, and all the whiletalking on and on and on, "and don't you go thinking it was such a great shotneither, I know what they're saying and damn the lot of them for it, why nobodyknows who killed me and nobody knows from where, not exactly, not even me," andthen him noticing his burial clothes, a three-piece suit, gray, pin-striped, ared silk handkerchief stuffed into the front pocket of the jacket, the suitstretched out upon the counter top, and also a starched white shirt, stiff forthe stiff, and a black, leather belt and a red silk tie, to match thehandkerchief, but no shoes, and no socks, but hell, he wasn't going anywhere,and besides, who would look to see, and then Mr. Cavanaugh hopped down from thepreparation table and headed for the suit and the rest and began to getdressed, "why the truth is probably nobody killed me, I probably killed myself,probably I just flipped that goddamn I-talian headache of mine and landed in aditch, that's what it probably was, son, then maybe some son-of-a-bitch camealong and saw me lying there dead and he pulled out a gun and plugged me with acouple just for good measure, that's what he probably did, most sons-of-bitchescan't resist that kind of temptation, but what the hell, I can't say itbothered me any, I mean I was probably already dead," him buttoning the whiteshirt, adjusting the cuffs, pulling on the pants, the last of his flabby,grayish-white flesh being covered up and the place in his chest where thebullets went in, and still talking, talking, not so much to Blue Henry anymore, or anyone, not even himself, he was just talking, and pretty soon BlueHenry was lost in the memory of those words, no longer the gunman, a spectatornow, and whether it was truly his memory or not did not seem to matter, the carin the ditch and the wheels spinning and Mr. Dobbs marching out to see whathappened, a Winchester in his hand in case it was trouble and a kerosenelantern because he couldn't see in the fading light, just a little bit of redalong the horizon, what's going on out here what's that racket was anybody hurtor you boys just fooling around don't you all know this is private propertycan't you boys stay on the road, Mr. Dobbs not recognizing just yet, holding upa lantern so he could see, and then he saw, the light from the lantern glintingoff the back fender, is that you Mr. Thomas C. Cavanaugh, what in the hell youdoing boy, you better have this goddamn infernal I-talian car of yours removedcome morning you goddamn bastard, you hear me boy, I'm talking to you, and thenMr. Dobbs not talking, noticing the dead Mr. Cavanaugh now for the first timeand chewing some on his bottom lip and then setting the lantern on a smashed-upfender and poking at the body with his gun butt and the yellowish lantern lightnow splattering across his own face, which was void of any emotion, like theface of one dead man looking at that of another, and then in a single,sweeping, instinctive, motion he raised his Winchester and sent a couple ofslugs into Mr. Cavanaugh's chest, the slugs coming out the other side andthudding into the ground. That's how it had happened, Blue Henry was sure ofthis now, it was Mr. Dobbs, it had to be, but before he could fully contemplatethe whys and therefores of this murder of a dead man, he was startled from histhinking by someone shouting. "Hey! You there! Is that you Blue Henry? Say whatthe hell are you doing in there?"

Blue Henry turned towards the sound of the voice, but slowly, awkwardly, a lookof bewildered innocence pasted across his face. Two red-faced men were standingin the doorway of the preparation room, one in a white smock, the other a stepbehind with a still bespectacled head peering up and barely over the shoulderof the first. Blue Henry was standing near one of the open windows, his back tothe sun-dusty sunlight streaming in and past him, and the strangely undead Mr.Thomas Christian Cavanaugh was back on the metal preparation table, dead asthey come, of course, Blue Henry realized that now, the wax used to bring lifeto his face once more beginning to melt. Then the voice of the one again, heyBlue, you hear, you hear what I said, what the hell, the two in the doorwaystumpumping into the room, their blood thickening, quickening, one on eitherside of the metal preparation table, do you think you're doing in them clothes,them aint yours, and it was then that Blue looked down and saw that he was theone dressed in the three-piece suit, the white shirt, the red tie, the blackbelt, though how this had come about he could not exactly say, then thered-faced men rounding the table, the young man rolling up pants legs buttoningthe vest, his own clothes in a pile on the floor, what in the world do youthink you're doing Blue, him then scooping up his discards, stuffing them intothe quite possibly jug-weary arms of the one or the other, then running pastthe now stationary and bewildered two but turning slightly as he ran, nodding,turning again, smiling, no sirs no sirs my mistake all mine, then turning athird time but bumping into the metal preparation table, catching hisreflection in the metal and then moving past, and the corpse of Mr. ThomasChristian Cavanaugh sliding slowly up and over the edge then tumbling to thefloor, never you mind sirs it was my mistake my mistake, the two now silent andwatching helplessly from the corner of the room, the corpse coming to rest facedown chin out on the cold cold tile, a small whitish pool of melting waxbeginning to form beneath the lobe of one of the ears. But the young man namedBlue Henry did not bother about the wax or the corpse or the two men watching,for he had his funeral suit now, and so he ran instead from the deepeningsilence of the preparation room into the late afternoon orange of the hall, andthen out through the nearly unhinged screen door.