He is still freezing. The skinny kid who met them at the airport with the hearse had the goddamn air conditioner as low as he could get it. “Stuck,” he said when Donnie complained. But Donnie knew he was lying, pissed because the casket wasn’t what he’d expected and he hadn’t brought the right kind of rig to get it off the plane. “Thought this was a cremation,” the kid had said, eyeing the gray metal that took up the center aisle of the plane. “This is a burial casket.” “What’s the difference?” Donnie never should have asked. “Cremation casket’s made out of wood usually and the bottom drops out.” “What?” Patty James stepped up and took Donnie’s arm. “Come on, Mr. Sullivan. Sit in the cockpit. Jimmy and I’ll take care of this. “Asshole,” she mouthed to the mortuary guy. He shrugged. Donnie hadn’t seen that, nor did he know how the casket was finally put into the hearse. He sat in the cockpit, studied the instrument panel, and tried not to think until Patty came, patted his shoulder, and told him everything was ready.
