Fear Nothing

the right, I saw the threshold of the cold-holding chamber only eight feet beyond the Cadillac. I had an even closer view of Sandy 's highly polished black shoes and the cuffs of his navy-blue suit pants as he stood looking after the bald man with the gurney.
        Behind Sandy, against the wall, was my father's small suitcase. There had been nowhere nearby to conceal It, and if I had kept it with me, I wouldn't have been able to move quickly enough or slip noiselessly under the hearse.
        Apparently no one had noticed the suitcase yet. Maybe they would continue to overlook it.
        The two orderlies - whom I could identify by their white shoes and white pants - rolled a second gurney out of the holding room. The wheels on this one did not squeak.
        The first gurney, pushed by the bald man, reached the back of the white van. I heard him open the rear cargo doors on that vehicle.
        One of the orderlies said to the other, “I better get upstairs before someone starts wondering what's taking me so long.” He walked away, toward the far end of the garage.
        The collapsible legs on the first gurney folded up with a hard clatter as the bald man shoved it into the back of his van.
        Sandy opened the rear door on the hearse as the remaining orderly arrived with the second gurney. On this one, evidently, was another opaque vinyl bag containing the body of the nameless vagrant.
        A sense of unreality overcame me - that I should find myself in these strange circumstances. I could almost believe that I had somehow fallen into a dream without first falling into sleep.
        The cargo-hold doors on the van slammed shut. Turning my head to the left, I watched the bald man's shoes as he approached the driver's door.
        The orderly would wait here to close the big roll-up after the two vehicles departed. If I stayed under the hearse, I would be discovered when Sandy drove away.
        I didn't know which of the two orderlies had remained behind, but it didn't matter. I was relatively confident that I could get the better of either of the young men who had wheeled my father away from his deathbed.
        If Sandy Kirk glanced at his rear-view mirror as he drove out of the garage, however, he might see me. Then I would have to contend with both him and the orderly.
        The engine of the van turned over.
        As Sandy and the orderly shoved the gurney into the back of the hearse, I slid out from under that vehicle. My cap was knocked off. I snatched it up and, without daring to glance toward the rear of the hearse, crabbed eight feet to the open door of the cold-holding chamber.
        Inside this bleak room, I scrambled to my feet and hid behind the door, pressing my back to the concrete wall.
        No one in the garage cried out in alarm. Evidently I had not been seen.
        I realized that I was holding my breath. I let it out with a long hiss between clenched teeth.
        My light-stung eyes were watering. I blotted them on the backs of my hands.
        Two walls were occupied by over-and-under rows of stainless steel morgue drawers in which the air was even colder than in the holding chamber itself, where the temperature was low enough to make me shiver. Two cushionless wooden chairs stood to one side. The flooring was white porcelain tile with tight grout joints for easy cleaning if a body bag sprang a leak.
        Again, there were overhead fluorescent tubes, too many of them, and I tugged my Mystery Train cap far down on my brow. Surprisingly, the sunglasses in my shirt pocket had not been broken. I shielded my eyes.
        A percentage of ultraviolet radiation penetrates even a highly rated sunscreen. I had sustained more exposure to hard light in the past hour than during the entire previous year. Like the hoofbeats of a fearsome black horse, the perils of cumulative exposure thundered through my mind.
        From beyond the open door, the van's engine roared. The roar swiftly receded, fading to a grumble, and the grumble became a dying murmur.
        The Cadillac hearse followed the van into the night. The big motorized garage door rolled down and met the sill with a solid blow that echoed through the hospital's subterranean realms, and in its wake, the echo shook a trembling silence out of the concrete walls.
        I tensed, balling my hands into fists.
        Although he was surely still in the garage, the orderly made no sound.