“We thought he was having a heart attack or a stroke or a seizure,” she interrupts him. “It was so awful, grabbing himself, falling to the floor and cracking his head, his face turning blue. No one knew what to do, had no idea he was choking. Even if we had, we couldn’t have done anything except what we did, call nine-one- one.” She suddenly looks as if she might start crying.

“Sorry to tell you, but you could have done something,” Marino says. “I’m gonna show you. Here, turn around.”

Done with his paperwork, Lucious hurries out of the morgue office, walks right past Marino and Shandy. They pay him no mind as he enters the autopsy suite unattended. Marino wraps his huge arms around her waist, makes a fist, his thumb against her upper abdomen, just above her navel. He grasps his fist with his other hand and gives a gentle upward thrust, just enough to show her. He slides his hands up and fondles her.

“Good God,” Lucy says in Benton’s ear. “He’s got a hard-on in the fucking morgue.”

In the autopsy suite, the camera picks up Lucious walking to the large black log on a countertop, the Book of the Dead, as Rose politely calls it. He starts signing in the body with the pen he took from the morgue office desk.

“He’s not supposed to do that.” Lucy’s voice in Benton’s ear. “Only Aunt Kay is supposed to touch that log. It’s a legal document.”

Shandy says to Marino, “See, it’s not hard being in here. Well, maybe it is.” Reaching back, grabbing him. “You sure know how to cheer a girl up. And I do mean up. Whoa!”

Benton says to Lucy, “This is unbelievable.”

Shandy turns around in Marino’s arms and kisses him—kissing him on the mouth right there in the morgue—and for an instant, Benton thinks they might have sex in the hallway.

Then, “Here, you try it on me,” Marino says.

In another quadrant of his screen, Benton watches Lucious thumbing through the morgue log.

When Marino turns around, his arousal is apparent. Shandy can barely get her arms all the way around him, starts to laugh. He puts his huge hands over hers, helps her push, says, “No kidding. You ever see me choking, you push just like this. Hard!” He shows her. “Point is to force the air out so whatever’s caught in there flies out, too.” She slides her hands down and grabs him again, and he pushes her away and turns his back to Lucious as he emerges from the autopsy suite.

“She figured out anything about that dead little boy?” Lucious snaps the rubber band around his wrist. “Well, I guess not, since he’s entered in the Dead Log as ‘undetermined.’”

“He was undetermined when he was brought in. What you been doing, snooping through the book?” Marino looks ridiculous, his back to Lucious.

“Obviously, she can’t handle such a complicated case. Too bad I didn’t bring him in here. I could have been of assistance. I know more about the human body than any doctor.” Lucious moves to one side and stares down in the direction of Marino’s crotch. “Well, hello,” he says.