Georgia on My Mind and Other Places by Charles Sheffield Page B

Ruth turned to me. “Can’t he, Mr. Carver? You can spare him, can’t you?”
    It was time to come to the aid of my old friend and colleague. But I could not forget that I was supposed to attend a funeral tomorrow, where more than likely people would be trying to kill me. Compared with that, a tennis tournament was nothing. And Waldo had been more than happy to throw me to the wolves who had murdered Carlo Moolman, so long as he didn’t have to face them himself.
    I nodded. “I can spare him.”
    “I don’t have a tennis outfit.” Waldo was grasping at straws.
    “As it happens, I have one in the next room.” Pharaoh stood up. “I bought it for my old partner, but for some reason he refused to wear it. He’s just about your size, too.”
    He was back in half a minute. In his hand he held a tennis outfit. Waldo gave it one appalled glance.
    “You can’t expect me to wear that! Look at the color.”
    “What’s wrong with it? A nice, warm brown.”
    I realized at this point that Pharaoh Potter must be color-blind. What he was holding was the most hideous shade of hot pink I had ever seen. If Waldo wore that, he ought to be arrested for multiple offenses against society.
    Waldo thought so, too. “It’s hideous,” he said. “Isn’t it, Henry?”
    “It is. But you can have it dyed.”
    “Mmph?” Mortimer jerked into life at my side. “Who died?”
    He was awake at last. I had found the magic word. Leaving Waldo to fight on alone, I seized my chance, and threw at Mort a snappy series of questions on the theory and practice of embalming.
    In five minutes, as Waldo’s weakening howls of protest rose from the other end of the table, I knew I had Mortimer C. Wilberforce eating out of my hand. Certainly he knew the right funeral home directors. Surely I would be welcomed at the final rites for my friend Carlo Moolman. He would arrange it. What a pleasure it was to meet a man with a proper interest in funerals. All he asked was that I not embarrass him by wearing inappropriate dress.
    I was able to reassure him. On that sort of detail, Imre Munsen was infinitely reliable. I promised that I would actually arrange for the outfit to be delivered to Waldo’s home tomorrow, so that Mortimer could review it personally if he so chose. He didn’t seem to think that would be necessary. When I described the promised clothing to him, he nodded approval of every last stitch.
    For his part, Mortimer assured me, if he was not present himself when I arrived to change into my funeral garb, he would make sure that directions to get to the funeral home—one of Luna City’s biggest and most prestigious—would be written on a little yellow card and left on the hall table.
    Dinner was over, the evening’s work was done. I made an earlier than usual departure. Waldo was still fighting a rear-guard action, but I knew already that he had lost his argument. He would be Pharaoh Potter’s tennis partner tomorrow. It served him right for abandoning me to Imre Munsen. Still, I had to leave. It gave me no pleasure to see a grown man’s misery.
    * * *
    I thought that I had allowed plenty of time to get dressed after I arrived at Waldo’s home the next day. But there must be a special technique for getting into funeral clothes, one that I didn’t have, and Uncle Mort was not around to help. I struggled with the shirt, with the tight collar of the shirt, with the studs of the shirt, with the tie, with the shoes, with the laces on the shoes. When I finally had the shoes on and tied, I had to take them off and start again, because I couldn’t get into the trousers unless I was barefoot.
    I was already late when I ran downstairs, grabbed Uncle Mort’s little yellow card from the hall table, and hurried out. Then it was bad luck again. It was ten more minutes before I could flag a groundcar cab to take me through the complex multiple domes of Luna City toward my destination. I had never heard of the address of the funeral home, but that