The Phantom Cabbie 
H. Turnip Smith

H. Turnip Smith dwells deep beneath the damp soil
of an Ohio graveyard from which he arises periodically
to inflict his fiction upon the world. A graduate of
the Ohio Institute of Channeling and
Keyboarding, Smith dictates much of his work via
direct connection to the great beyond.
©Copyright 2001
H. Turnip Smith

Harry’s body looked rather excellent in the coffin in his best,
black tuxedo with the scarlet satin cummerbund. It amused Louise
somewhat to think of his corpse wearing no shoes, but that was
show business. The undertaker had given Harry’s cheeks a rosy, if
somewhat oily, glow, and only the closest inspection would have
revealed the yellow marbling at the neckline where the Acme Life
Toner Tint had failed to get the job done or the faint, black,
virtually-invisible, stitching where his lips had been sewed together.
Too bad that it had taken death to achieve that. As a studio exec,
Harry had always had too much to say.
As a matter of fact, Louise might have been able to tolerate the
trampy call-girl girlfriends if it hadn’t been for his big mouth.
Meanwhile, the creepy, piped-in organ music in the background
offended her somewhat, so maudlin and weepy, but that was part
of the price you paid for a successful murder. Not that, despite the
$5,000 for useless flowers, she wished it had been unsuccessful; she
simply felt itchy and hypocritical in black crepe and a veil, and her
lace underwear itched.
Herman Lowenstein had just passed the casket and was
embracing her. As usual, the Chivas Regal on his breath was illconcealed
by mints.
“It’s really a damn shame, Louise. Harry was such a sweet guy.
What a shame to go like this in his prime. These heart attacks you
just never know.”
Particularly when your wife helps it along with a little poison,
Louise thought before she said, “Yes, Herman, but when our time
comes, we all have to go to a better place.”
That’s when for the first time, Louise thought she heard laughter.
It was as if Harry’s corpse had sat up in the elegant, steel box and
begun hoohooing out loud.
“Such a vital guy, though, Louise. Not an enemy in the world. I
know you’ll miss him.”
As much as a mangled thumb with a hangnail, Louise thought,
giving Herman one of her patented petite, sexy hugs that suggested
so much more than it delivered, eliciting roars of laughter from
Harry’s corpse.
That evening Louise dined alone. She was knocked out after the
endless yammering of the hired Episcopalian minister. What had
gotten into the fool, presenting Harry as a man who lived only to
serve God and then going on and on about what a tragic loss his
death had been to the motion picture community?
Louise sat sipping Chablis in the darkened solarium staring out at
Hollywood twinkling with a million lights far below. Meanwhile on
the television wall screen, another ubiquitous analyst in a cheap suit
was going on and on about the situation in Iran, which she couldn’t
have cared less about, when she heard a rapping at the gigantic
picture window.
“The wind,” Louise said to herself, shivering in her zebra-striped
negligee, the one Harry described as “dowdy,” as she rustled silkily
across the room.
However, there was no one and nothing at the window, but the
rapping continued.
“Odd,” she thought, feeling the faintest bit spooked. She mixed
herself a Tom and Jerry, trying to ignore the rapping as she tried to
calculate exactly how much per month she’d have to live on now
that Harry was out of the picture. However, her math was so poor
that the effort broke down in mid-arithmetic.
She’d just taken her first sip of the Tom and Jerry when the pole
lamps in the far corner of room suddenly illuminated with an eerie,
blue glow.
Louise screamed. “Who’s there?” she cried. She was not the
emotional type by a long shot, but this was unnerving.
“It’s me, Harry.” His voice was as New York Jewish as lox, bagels,
and the diamond district. It was as if he were sitting in his black,
leather recliner staring at the television.
“What do you want?” Louise clutched a pillow to her trembling
breasts.
“Oh nothing. Just thought I’d drop by and see how you’re getting
along. It’s too damn warm where I am now.”
“It’s just like you to do something like this to spoil my mood,
Harry. I’m calling the police, you bastard!”
“Again? That was quite an act you put on the first time when you
pretended to find my body after watching me twitch all night with 
that dose of succinol-choride you injected me with.”
“Oh you’re impossible!” Suddenly Louise realized she was
standing in the darkness talking to a dead man she couldn’t even
see. Her blood felt 36 degrees Farenheit. She fumbled for a pack of
cigarettes and then ran to switch on the lights. The room full of
elegant Claude Brac furniture was absolutely empty save for herself.
Well, if Harry’s ghost were going to be hovering about Sans
Pareil, she was not sticking around. Making doubly sure every room
she entered was blazing with light, she packed her Louis Vuitton
and called a cab to take her to the airport.
The cabbie was the most repulsive thing she’d ever seen outside
one of Harry’s cheap, B-rated, horror flics. Face yellow and twisted
by fire, the cabbie’s mouth appeared to be a slash in the moondesolate
crater of his face. Despite his black livery uniform, at first,
Louise hesitated getting into the cab. Finally, with a resigned
shudder, she sank into the luxurious leather seats of the limo.
“Los Angeles international,” she said, “and hurry.”
Wasn’t it, by God, just like Harry’s ghost to crack a stupid, sick
joke about how warm it was where he was staying? Well why
should she have even been frightened? The ghost was probably as
fumbling and ineffectual as Harry had been in real life. Anyway, the
hell with ghosts! She’d board a plane for Cozumel or Miami Beach
or Paris and strike up an affair with a handsome, muscular, 30 year
younger-than-she type, and live happily ever after on Harry’s
fortune.
The cab driver began whistling. “The worms crawl in; the worms
crawl out, the worms play pinochle in your mouth.” For God’s
sakes, she recognized the tune from grade-school.
“Do you mind?” she said sharply.
The cabbie abruptly stopped whistling as the big limo took a left
out onto the freeway. Even at ten in the evening, the highway was
jammed; however, the cabbie drove skillfully, weaving in and out of
traffic, traveling at well over the speed limit. Finally, Louise lost
patience as the cab used the berm to pass a bus dawdling in the
fast lane.
“I’d like to get to the airport in one piece if you don’t mind,” she
said.
The cabbie speeded up, swerving back into the passing lane.
Louise’s heart thumped hard as the lights of on-coming cars flashed
past.
“Will you please slow this vehicle down!” she shouted. “I’ve got
your license number, and I’m going to report you to your
supervisor.”
The cabbie made no reply as Louise heard the sound of all four
barrels of the carburetor kicking in as the black limo gained even
more momentum, hurtling forward now, seemingly heedless of the 
tangle of buses and trucks gridlocked up ahead.
“Damn you. Didn’t you hear me? I said ‘slow down,’ you fuck!”
Louise thrust herself out of the seat, reaching for the cabbie’s neck
in order to sink her fingernails until he submitted as she suddenly
realized the driver’s seat was unoccupied.
She screamed as the big car flashed blindly into the red, blinking
snarl of stalled traffic immediately ahead, and she suddenly heard
Harry’s boring voice again, “Oh come on, Louise, for Christ’s sake.
You’ve always enjoyed warm weather best. I’m sure you’ll love it
here.