He tore his gaze away from the highway long enough to frown at me.
“Remember what I told you about being buried alive? Things live underneath longer than you’d think. That includes people. There’s a condition called locked-in syndrome—the Germans call it Eingeschlossensein—where the nerves, they shut down; to someone who doesn’t know better it looks like brain death. You still hear, you still see, only you can’t communicate. They take you to the slab and you’re aware of every minute of it.”
I felt a flare of irritation. We’d been over this before, and once he got going on the subject he would not stop. Sometimes his voice even rose to unsafe levels. I could see his excitement as he patted the corpse’s pockets, searching for a golden watch he was certain was there.
“An EEG would tell you if someone was really dead.” I sighed. I loathed hauling out a Gottschalk fact, even in an attempt to end this tiresome conversation.
“Maybe so.” He had the body on its side and I could see where the man’s suit had been scissored up the back by the mortician for easy maneuvering. “I’ll tell you what they used to do, to make sure you were dead. They had lots of ways.”
“You’ve already told me.”
“They’d slice your feet with razors. Or use nipple pinchers.”
“They put needles under your fingernails, I know, I know.”
“Boiling wax on the forehead,” he said. “Tobacco enemas, urine in the mouth.”
“They stuck pencils up your nose and pokers up your butt. What’s your deal with this stuff?”
He squatted next to the dead man. The golden watch was already rolling around his palm—he had it, yet still he sat there absorbing the odor. Finally he looked up.
“I have my reasons,” he said. “Let’s go through it once more.”
Not far away, a heavy transport vehicle—maybe a garbage or cement truck—thundered past the cemetery. Small avalanches of dirt streamed from the side of the hole, pattering against Harnett’s shoulders. My pulse accelerated. I wasn’t used to digging in the presence of headlights.
“Let’s not go through it,” I said. “Come on, get out of there.”
“Tell me the three things.” He shifted so that his knee blocked the corpse’s face from the falling dirt. Again I was struck by the strange courtesy he showed the dead.
“The three things,” I repeated, thinking. “Calm? You should try to stay calm?”
“C-A-S,” he recited impatiently. “C. Calm, remain calm.”
“Right, right,” I said. “That’s what I said, stay calm.”
“A,” he said.
“Air. Conserve air.”
“Which means.”
“Which means,” I said, pressing shut my eyes. “Don’t hyperventilate. Don’t scream.”
“And whatever you do.”
“Whatever you do, don’t light a match because it’ll suck away all the air.”
“S,” he said.
“Shallow. A shallow grave. Remember that if you’re buried alive most likely you’re in a shallow grave. The reason is—”
“The reason’s not important,” he said.
“It’s important to me,” I said. “The reason is that if someone is burying you alive, chances are they’re probably in a hurry and doing a half-ass job. So you’re probably just a few feet deep.”
“Which means.”
“Which means,” I said, ducking beneath the flash of passing headlights, “that you can get out. If you can find the coffin’s center of balance, figure out which end is resting higher. You can break through.”
“This is difficult because.”
“This is difficult because you can’t gain enough leverage. You can’t swing your arms. Why is this so important to you?”
He ignored me. “If the coffin is wood.”
“If the coffin is wood, you’re going to have to bust the shit out of your hands, maybe even your head. You have to use focus techniques. Find the lid’s weak point, probably along the seam, and bash it in. Get ready for a mouthful of mud and remember that you can breathe through it. It won’t seem like it, but you can. All right? A-plus?”
“And if it is a metal casket.”
“We can go over this while we fill the hole.”
“And if it is a metal casket.”
I clenched my teeth. “If it is a metal casket you need to disassemble it. Sometimes there’s runners on the inside you can take off and use like a crowbar. If the casket is lined you can use the fabric to protect your hand while you punch. You can also use the material for a hood when the dirt starts coming in.”
“Which it will.”
“Which it will,” I repeated. “Right. Okay. Got it.”
“ ‘To die is natural; but the living death / Of those who waken into consciousness.’ ” I was lost before