There was a merchant in Bagdad who sent his servant to market to buy provisions and in a little while the servant came back, white and trembling, and said, Master, just now when I was in the market-place I was jostled by a woman in the crowd and when I turned I saw it was Death that jostled me. She looked at me and made a threatening gesture; now, lend me your horse, and I will ride away from this city and avoid my fate. I will go to Samarra and there Death will not find me. The merchant lent him his horse, and the servant mounted it, and he dug his spurs in its flanks and as fast as the horse could gallop he went. Then the merchant went down to the market-place and he saw me standing in the crowd and he came to me and said, Why did you make a threatening gesture to my servant when you saw him this morning? That was not a threatening gesture, I said, it was only a start of surprise. I was astonished to see him in Bagdad, for I had an appointment with him tonight in Samarra.
-- W. Somerset Maugham, used by John O'Hara here.
La Compadre Sebastiana pulls up to an old house in her black caddie lowrider. The wife of the newly wed couple inside recognizes her immediately and tells her husband: "Go hide in the bathroom, maybe I can stall her and find out what she wants."
Before skeletal figure in the long flowing black widow's dress could knock on the front door, the young wife opens the door and says: "Sebastiana! How nice to see you, won't you come inside for tea?" Getting down to business, La Compadre says: "Where is your husband, I've come for him." The husband hears this through the bathroom door and shaves off his beard, hair and mustache so that Death wouldn't recognize him.
He introduces himself as the young lady's brother. The Saint of Death drank tea and chattered her lipless mouth with the couple about the old people who are no longer in the village until well into the afternoon.
Rising to leave, Lady Death announces: "Well, it's too late to bother looking for your husband, I'll just take baldy here with me."