Page 106 of Road Queens
“Don’t you love the specificity?” Amanda spotted a roll of masking tape on one of the end tables and grabbed it. She gave it to Sidney, who promptly began strapping the ice pack to her ankle. “Not a member of the ape family—an orangutan. Not an ordinary orangutan—a blind orangutan.”
“I do love the specificity,” Cassandra replied, smiling. “I love all the weird things you guys do.” She sighed. “Let’s get to it.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
Dave’s meeting with Marcus Garner was, appropriately enough, at the cemetery ... inside his brand-new, custom-made mausoleum with a creepiness factor of eight plus.
The five of them had clustered briefly by the gates, then walked into the cemetery. Sean took Amanda’s hand, for which she was profoundly grateful.
“... yeah, so we started as soon as the ground thawed enough, and she’s just about done. Coupla weeks at most. I don’t get it, but it’s not the first time I’ve built something I couldn’t see the point of. Man’s writing the check, he can have a bathroom with a basketball court or a basement greenhouse or a mausoleum.”
“And you’ve been here during the construction, Mr.Conner?”
“Welp, I’m mostly in the office these days, but I try to get out here coupla days a week, and I’m meeting Marcus today to talk about if he’s good with the angel carvings and the trim or wants more.”
“It’s hard to imagine someone’s notes consisting of ‘Not enough angels.’” Sidney’s everyday scowl was intensified as she pressed her lips together.
“Sid?” Amanda asked. “You okay?”
“I’m counting up all the horror movies with cemeteries or mausoleums. I’m up to seven. We’re acting like every basic bitch in every horror movie in the history of the genre.”
“Want to go back?”
“Did I say I want to go back? Whoa.” Dave had led them past neatly tended graves to a short building that could only be the future Garner family mausoleum, small but gorgeously detailed. “Jeez, it’s like a toy Taj Mahal.”
It was a small white building, about eight feet by ten, with three steps leading up to the entrance and two pillars flanking the double door.
“Holy flying duck shit.” It was rare to see Sidney so dazzled. “Guys, you should do this for me when I die. But bigger. At least two stories. And maybe an extra pillar. And a gag buzzer. Something that plays the theme fromFriday the 13thwhen you press it. Or the theme fromThe Good Place.”
“We’ll get right on that,” Cass muttered.
“And don’t spare the marble!”
“Huh.”
“Problem, Mr.Conner?” Sean asked sharply.
Dave was frowning. “I don’t see any of my guys around.”
“How many horror movies feature a doomed idiot saying something along those lines?” Amanda asked Sidney.
“I dunno, all of them?”
“It’s almost lunchtime, though,” Cassandra observed.
“Yeah, okay.” Dave went up the steps to the double doors, paused, then pushed them open. “Marcus, you in here?”
They followed, and saw that Marcus Garner was, indeed, waiting for them in the cool gloom.
He was a slender man of medium height, dressed in a spotless black suit, black dress shirt, and black dress shoes; his face was a paleoval floating five and a half feet off the ground. His dark-brown hair—the same brunette as his sister’s—was cut brutally short; his dark eyes missed nothing. He was standing before a small pillar on which rested an elegant silver urn, arms behind his back at parade rest.
He inclined his head. “Hello, David. I was unaware this was a group meeting.”
Dave cleared his throat. “Yeah, well, something came up. Hope you don’t mind. You okay? You look a little weird.”
“I’m fine. Especially as you’ve brought Operation Starfish to see me.”
Well,that’snot alarming in the slightest.
