Marvin took another paranoid glance up and down the darkened deserted street, checking once more for potential witnesses that might observe him moving the body from the car to his uncle’s apartment. Uncle Ricky had always been there for him, taking Marvin in after his parents’ tragic fireball of a death several years previous on the night of his twelfth birthday. Now, he found himself indebted to Ricky not just financially, but with a deep loyalty as well. Which weighed heavier is up for debate.

The corpse was bloated, a heavyset man in his late-thirties, and Marvin had to drag the rolled carpet up a flight of stairs, and he wasn’t even past the stoop yet. The four stone stairs leading to the grimy splintered front door were small, but so was Marvin; it took him a few minutes. Dumping the relatively obscured body, packing it into a dimly lit corner, Marvin peered upwards at the flickering bulb wanely illuminating the second floor containing Ricky’s ‘mortuary’, a thinly veiled cover for his illicit business.

“Rick!” Marvin called up, voice wavering. He knew how angry Ricky could get when he was late with the delivery. “Ricky! I need help! He’s too heavy!”

“Fucking hell, Marvin! How many times do I have to tell you! You don’t give the bodies pronouns, you fucking dullard!” Ricky presented himself atop the stairs, being heard yelling before being visible in the gloom. Marvin could see he was clutching a bottle, again. “They’re just ‘it’ now!”

“Ah, jeez. sorry, Ricky…” Marvin could feel the disdain radiating towards him, and he decided he’d better deal with the task at hand, lest Ricky decide that he should deal with Marvin. “I know there’s nothing left in ‘em and all, but they were someone at some point…”

Ricky descended the stairs like a bat out of hell, forcing his nephew into the corner with the corpse which was beginning to smell having been out of the morgue freezer drawer for too long. Rick always stressed the importance of a properly refrigerated corpse, it makes the whole process easier. 

“How many times, Marvin! How many times!” Ricky seethed the words through his stained surgical mask, flailing his arms wildly as he spoke. “They’re fucking dead, Marvin! Bodies! That makes them an it, okay?!”

“Okay, Rick… I understand.”

“Good.” Ricky put his hand on his young nephew’s shoulder, adopting a fatherly countenance as he lowered his whisky stained cloth mask. “You know I’m only so hard on you because I want you to succeed, right?” 

“Yeah…”

“Great!” Ricky backed off, examining his newest prospect. “Let’s get this body to the lab before it starts to smell even worse. We’ve got a client in Reno who wants kidneys and this rotter needs harvesting before they notice it’s missing.”

With the cadaver unrolled, Marvin took the legs and Ricky pulled it up by the arms, guiding the naked chalk-white specimen into the sea of stainless steel where it’d be dissected and butchered.