Secondhand Souls (10 page)

“Are you Mike?” Lily said, walking up to the guy who she figured was Mike. He was, as he’d described himself, “kind of normal-looking”: midthirties, medium height, medium build, dark hair, greenish eyes, a lot like Charlie Asher, only with more muscle. He was wearing jeans and a clean, blue oxford-cloth shirt, but it was clear he had shoulders and arms—Charlie’s arms had just been props he used to keep his sleeves from collapsing. Why was she even thinking about Asher?

He stood. “I am,” he said. “Lily?”

“Sit,” she said. She sat across from him. “You know this is not a date, right?”

“Of course. Thanks for meeting me. You know, on the phone, that first day, you said you knew things, and well, I wanted to pick your brain.”

“In Fiji, they have a special pick just for eating human brains. They call it a brain fork.”

“Not like that.”

“I know,” she said. She signaled to the server, a girl about her age with a short blond mop of mini-dreadlocks.

Lily ordered a black brewed coffee and Mike followed her lead until the server said, “You want anything in that?,” directed at Lily.

“Like?”

“We just got our liquor license. We don’t have the bar put together yet, but we can make you an Irish coffee.”

“A shot of Irish whiskey would be great,” Lily said.

“You?” the girl asked Mike.

Mike cringed a bit and looked at Lily when he answered. “I’m trying to stay away from depressants. I’ve just gone through a breakup and some stuff.”

“Me, too,” said Lily. “Put his shot in mine as well.”

The server smiled. “I know. I’m dating an old guy, too. Don’t you love how they act like every decision is life-altering?”

“I’m not an old guy,” said Mike.

“It’s not a date,” said Lily.

“I’ll be back with your coffee,” said dread girl. “Anything else right now?”

“A Viagra and a pair of handcuffs,” said Mike, deadpan.

“Nice,” said dread girl, then to Lily, “If you don’t want him, I’ll take him.” And off she went.

“You’re sharper than you look,” Lily said.

“Thanks. I think. You’re younger than you sounded on the phone.”

“My experience weighs on me far more than my years show.” She sighed, a tragic sigh that she didn’t get to use much anymore since she’d been forced by a brutal society to behave like a grown-up, and since she’d lost weight, most of her mopey Goth clothes didn’t fit, so she was almost never dressed for tragic sighing. “I’ve seen too many things that can never be unseen, Mike.”

“I guess I thought you were older because of how you dealt with that jumper.”

Was he trying to say something? She didn’t need anyone else judging her and she wished she had worn something low-cut so she could accuse him of looking at her boobs, which he totally was not, which was annoying. “I don’t know what you mean,” she said.

“You were so calm, unconcerned. I mean, that guy
died
.”

“You think I’m unconcerned? That I don’t care? Do you know why I’m cynical and snarky on the crisis line?”

He shook his head.

“Because it works. It’s normal. They need normal, fast. They need out of the spiral they’re in, so if they’re suddenly offended by me, or horny for me, I don’t care. What they’re
not
focused on is their own pain, they’re not alone, there’s someone else on the planet with them who is annoying and possibly sexy, and it gets them to put the pills or the gun down, it gets them off the bridge in a safe way. That’s my jam. It used to be being
dark and mysterious
, but you can’t out-dark the people I was hanging out with, and if I get the least bit drunk or high, I tell everyone everything I know, so I’m a fucking loser at mysterious. Yeah, we lost that guy, but I saved five others this month. I’m good at what I do.”
Five and half, bitches!
she thought.

“I know, that’s why I called you,” Mike said.

“Wait. What?”

“And because she told me to.”

“Who told you to?”

Their coffees came before he could answer and he waited for Dread Girl to leave before he answered her.

“This is going to sound really strange,” he said. “I can’t quite believe I’m going to say it—”

“If you start talking about your ex, I will knock you out of that chair—”

“A ghost. The ghost of Concepción de Arguello, daughter of the governor of Alta California.”

“Where is that? I don’t even know where that is,” Lily said. He was doing that big lie with a little detailed lie to give it the credibility thing.

“It’s here,” Mike said, gesturing to the street and around them. “
This
is Alta California.”

“This is the Marina. This is where you go between the fraternity or sorority house and your first divorce. Look around, except for our waitress, who I guarantee doesn’t live in this neighborhood, it’s all people who are completely self-absorbed without a shred of self-awareness.”

“Wow, that’s harsh,” Mike said.

“You haven’t served them,” Lily said. She smiled, not a lot of teeth but a sparkle of mischief in her eye, then sipped her hot liquor through the straw.

“Ghost,” Mike said.

“So?” Lily said.

“This was Alta California in the early 1800s.”

“You’re not going to just forget you said that, then? I’m willing. I mean, to be honest, you’ve probably lost your shot with me, because I have a rule about not boning the mentally disturbed, but we can be acquaintances, and I promise not to cock-block you with the waitress—she seems into you. But don’t you think that was disrespectful, her hitting on my date like that.”

“I’m not your date.”

“She doesn’t know that.”

“You told her that.”

“Whose side are you on, anyway?”

“She said that you knew Death and could help with the Ghost Thief. That I should call you.”

“The waitress?”

“The ghost.”

“You’re going to tell me, so tell me?” she said. She signaled for the waitress to bring her another, then, in her head, she conjured sad French accordion music playing, mimes and ballerinas entering the stage to act out Mike’s story, guys rhythmically kicking Gérard Depardieu in the kidneys as a backbeat, because fuck him, why did he have to be in everything French?

So he told her, about Concepción, about the other ghosts, about how they had only spoken to him, about the Friends of Dorothy, about all of it, and as he told her, she believed him, because his wasn’t even close to the most bizarre story she’d been part of, and then she realized . . .

“Oh my fucking god, the guy who paints the fucking bridge orange for a living is
special
and I get to go back to retail. Oh, fuck me. Fuck me roughly with a big spiky demon dick!”

“Huh?” said Mike, who hadn’t expected that particular reaction. “People are looking.”

“Fuck them!” Lily said. “They’re not special. I know, because I’m not special and I recognize the symptoms. Although all you Marina people
think
you’re fucking special, don’t you? You entitled fucks!”

The waitress was making her way over to try to settle Lily down, but Mike signaled that he had this and she went the other way.

“Concepción evidently thinks you’re special,” Mike said. “She said you would be able to help save them from the Ghost Thief.”

“I don’t even know what that is,” Lily said.

“Maybe you’re supposed to find out,” Mike said. “And right now I
need
you.”

“What for? You’re the magic ghost-talker guy.”

“I need you to talk me out of jumping off the bridge.”

Part Two

With nothing will be pleased until he be eased

With being nothing.

— William Shakespeare,
Richard II,
Act V, Scene V

10

Remembrance of Things Past

S
he was so slight that her body made barely a rise in the sheets, like a wave on a calm pond from a phantom wind—her face might have been a skeletal mask laid upon the pillow for presentation, her long white hair brushed out to one side the way she liked it.

“You are trying to disappear,” Baptiste sang from the doorway, “but
I
see you.” He wheeled his mop bucket into her room.

“Bonjour, Monsieur Baptiste,”
Helen said, her voice little more than a whisper.

“
Bonjour, Madame Helen
,” said Baptiste. “
Commen
t allez-vous?
”

“
Pas trés bien. Je suis fatiguée, monsieur.”

“I won’t be long, then you can rest. Can I bring you anything,
chère
?”

“No, thank you. Thank you for speaking French with me, no one does that anymore. I spent my semester abroad in Paris, you know?”

She told him this every day he worked, and every day he replied, “Ah, the City of Light. So many delights. What, I wonder, is your favorite?”

And here, her answer often changed. “I loved walking through the Jardin du Luxembourg in the autumn, when the wind was blowing a little, and chestnuts would drop out of the trees and sometimes hit one of the old men who sat on the benches reading. Plop, right on the head.” She laughed, then coughed. “Now I’m the old one.”

“Nonsense,
chère
.” He was not so young himself, and by the end of his workday, gray stubble would show on his dark cheeks as if they had been dusted with ash.

“You want some oxygen?”

“Non, merci,”
she said.

He was not authorized to put the cannula in her nose and turn on the oxygen, but he had done it before when she was in discomfort, and he did a lot of things he was not authorized to do. He rolled his bucket to the corner, dipped his mop in the water, then leaned on the ringer until it was nearly dry. When he wiped the mop out into the corner, the room filled with the smell of the lemon disinfectant, but above it he could still detect the acid smell of her organs shutting down. Helen had been in hospice for six months, longer than most of the patients. He had become attached to her and he was sad her time was coming to an end. Speaking French to her was a kindness he didn’t get to grant to most of the patients, although he made an effort to try to do something actively kind for each one of them, every day, even if it was only asking after a grandchild, changing the channel on the television, or singing a soft song to them as they slept.

They all would pass, and he would grieve for each one, even if he was only the man who mopped the floors, gathered the laundry, emptied the bins. He would say hello to each one every day, if they were conscious or not, and say good-bye each evening as well, so if they died in the night, good-bye would not go unsaid. But Helen concerned him more than the others. Her name had not appeared in his date book and he did not see the object around her glowing red. From her symptoms, he could tell he had only days to retrieve her soul vessel, and he did not want to go to her house, as he sometimes did. He did not want to see the life she had left, which was grand and full and opulent; he knew because she had told him, and he did not want to see what she was leaving because it would make him more sad.

He mopped from the wall to her bedside, then ran the mop under her bed and up onto some very nice Italian shoes. On the other side of the bed stood a sharp, well-dressed Latin man who was looking around the room with some urgency—trying to look around Baptiste, not at him.

“Who are you?” Baptiste asked, and the man in the nice suit leapt back as if he’d encountered an electric fence at Helen’s bedside.

“Santa Maria!” he said. Then he looked back quickly, as if something might be following. Finally, he looked at Baptiste. “You can see me?”

Baptiste smiled. “I can, but Madame Helen cannot.”

“I’m blind,” said Helen.

“What are you, some kind of ninny? Say hello to
Madame
,” said Baptiste.

C
harlie paced across the parlor of the Three Jewel Buddhist Center, the claws on his duck feet snagging occasionally on the Persian rug, at which Audrey tried not to cringe. She was not attached to material things, but it was a nice rug.

“I’m telling you, Audrey, they’re squirrelly,” Charlie said.

“Really? Squirrelly? Who would have thought?”

“No, I don’t mean it that way. Well, yes that way, but what I’m saying is that the Squirrel People are going loopy, not exactly dirt-eating loonies, although there is a little of that. Okay, fine, they’ve turned into dirt-eating loonies. There, I’ve said it.”

“So they won’t help us find the Death Merchants or the missing soul vessels?”

“I went to ask them, but they . . .” Charlie considered for moment whether he wanted to say exactly what he had seen, and if he knew, in fact, what he had seen. “Look, they’re my friends, but the Squirrel People are loopy.”

“We prefer
People of the Squirrel
,” said Bob, the beefeater-bobcat guy, who stepped out from behind a wastebasket in the butler’s pantry and strode into the parlor using his spork as a walking stick. “Or just,
the People
.”

“You shouldn’t lurk, Bob, it’s not polite,” said Audrey.

“Your hair looks nice,” said Bob.

Audrey had not put any product in her hair and had just brushed it up and over, so it fell softly to her left shoulder. It did look nice, Charlie thought, and he wanted to punch Bob for having said so before him.

“He’s just trying to distract you,” Charlie said.

“I heard you two talking,” said Bob. “So we checked the places where we found the souls before, the Death Merchants.”

“And?” Audrey said.

“When were you spying on us?” Charlie asked.

“They’re all gone,” Bob said, ignoring Charlie’s question. “All of the Death Merchants that
we
took soul vessels from were killed by the Morrigan except Charlie and the tall Minty One. I don’t know if there are others.”

“When were you going to tell us?” Audrey asked.

“Now?” Bob ventured.

“So the Squirrel People are still going out in the city?” Charlie asked. “Using the sewers?”

“Mostly,” Bob said.

“What about the Death Merchants’ date books?” Audrey asked. “The soul vessels?”

Bob shrugged.

Charlie said, “So, if they’re like me, their books kept getting names—”

“They aren’t like you,” Bob said. “Their souls moved on. You’re a monstrosity with a human soul.”

Audrey cringed but pushed on: “Have your people seen any new Death Merchants?” The Squirrel People could see the glow of soul objects, as could she, and she’d never really questioned why, but it had been a useful talent when she was misguidedly having them steal souls from the Death Merchants’ shops.

“We haven’t looked,” said Bob. “I only had them look in the places we’d been before because I heard you two talking.”

“No soul vessels lying around either?” Charlie asked.

“Nope,” said the bobcat.

“If all those souls have gone uncollected—”

“Plus the ones in your and Rivera’s books,” Audrey said. She looked to Bob. “Could the People of the Squirrel help Charlie find the soul vessels in
his
book, at least?”

“We need new outfits,” said Bob.

“Pardon?” Audrey said.

“You only made us one set of clothes each. They’re wearing out.” He presented the elbow of his red coat, revealing a hole there.

Audrey said, “I suppose I could patch—”

“I’d like leather armor,” said Bob. “Like a samurai. Like a shogun.”

“But strictly speaking, you don’t even need clothes,” Audrey said.

“Strictly speaking, no one does,” said Bob.

“Your clothes take a lot of time to make, Bob. They’re miniature theatrical costumes. The stitching is actually more difficult than regular clothes because they’re smaller. I don’t think I can—”

“Fine,” said Bob. “
The People
do not need you.” He walked back into the butler’s pantry.

“She buys the groceries,” Charlie called after him.

“We can find food.”

“Clothes are merely adornments of ego, anyway,” Audrey said.

Bob stopped, walked back, stood in the doorway, and dropped his spork. He undid the brass buttons of hs long red coat and pulled it open, revealing crisscrossed strands of muscle running over bone—some of the ham-colored fibers had crept up his neck and were starting to form the beginnings of cheeks on the bobcat skull that was his face. The high beefeater collar had hidden the progress.

“Adornment of ego?” Bob said.

“Oh, yeah,” Charlie said. “Well have a look at this.” He started to untie his robe and Audrey held her hand out to stop him.

“I’ll make new clothes,” she said.

“For all of us,” Bob said.

“For all of you,” Audrey said.

“And extras. So we can change.”

“Fine,” said Audrey. “I’ll get started tonight.”

“Good,” said Charlie. “Because if we don’t get this done, the dark could rise again, and you know what comes then . . .”

“About that,” said Bob. He buttoned his jacket, picked up his spork, and turned to walk away. “You may want to get yourself a spork or something.”

“What?” Charlie scampered into the butler’s pantry after Bob, but he was gone. Charlie returned into the parlor. “There’s a vent in there behind the wastebasket—drops right into the space under the house.”

“You’re not a monstrosity, Charlie,” Audrey said.

“It’s okay,” he said, waving the thought away with a raptor’s talon. “But I can’t collect souls like this, and I don’t trust the Squirrel People.”

“I have an idea, but it might be a little, uh, humbling.”

“We just got owned by a guy who carries a spork.”

“Good point. Also, because you’re officially still a Death Merchant, at least your date book is still active, I’m hoping that you’ll still be invisible when you’re collecting a soul vessel.”

“Not invisible; people just don’t see you. If you call their attention to you, they can.”

“You didn’t have to be naked for that to work, did you?”

“No.”

“Good, because—”

“Yeah, I know,” he said.

“You know about the cat carrier?”

“No, I was thinking of something else.”

Y
ou can see me?” Rivera asked the guy with the mop. After actually collecting several soul vessels from the names on his list, he was starting to gain some confidence as a Death Merchant. He’d even managed to enter the houses of two of his “clients” unnoticed, passing right by people who didn’t realize he was there. All his years as a cop had conditioned him to take special care in entering a residence, so to ease his mind he had started to think of the names in his date book as warrants, which also expired if not served. The fresh names had worked, the older ones, not so much, but this name had only appeared in his book this very morning. Now he was busted while standing over this poor woman’s hospice bed like some kind of ghoul. There was only one proper way to deal with this: badge the shit out of the mop guy.

“Inspector Alphonse Rivera,” he said, flipping open his badge wallet to flash the seven-pointed gold star. “SFPD homicide.”

“Uh-huh,” said the mop guy, much less impressed than Rivera had hoped. “I am Jean-Pierre Baptiste. Are you lookin’ for something, Inspector?” He was black, about sixty, and spoke with a musical Caribbean accent—from a French-speaking island, Rivera guessed.

“I’m working a case, and I’m looking for a book that I was told I might find here.” All the soul vessels he had found had been books, which had been convenient, since he owned a bookstore, but then, it appeared that the universe preferred specialty retailing.

“This book you’re looking for, you think it might be glowing red?”

Rivera felt an electric shiver run from his heels to the crown of his head, only a little less paralyzing than when the banshee had shocked him with the stun gun.

“I don’t know what you mean,” Rivera said, not even convincing himself. He’d interviewed witnesses who lied so badly that he was embarrassed for them and had to look away to keep from wincing. Usually, after a few minutes, they would realize they weren’t pulling it off and would just cave in and tell the truth. Now he knew how they felt.

“Let us step out into the hallway,” Baptiste said, “so
Madame
Helen can get some rest.” To Helen he said,
“À bientô
t, madame,
I will stop in before I go home
.
”

“
Monsieur Baptiste,”
said Helen, gesturing for him to come closer.

“I am here,
madame,
” he whispered.

“Don’t let that man alone in here with me. I think he’s Mexican. I think he’s after my Proust.”

“I will keep it safe,
madame
. But I don’t know where it is.”

“I had Nurse Anne wrap it in a towel and put it in the bottom drawer. Don’t look now, but check once you get rid of him.”

“I will,
madame
.” Baptiste looked to the little white dresser. There was one in each room, where patients’ personal things were kept. “I will.”

He left his mop bucket in the room and joined Rivera in the hall, then signaled for the policeman to follow him outside. He told the nurse at the desk that he was going on break and led Rivera outside to a spot by a covered bus stop. The hospice was in the outer Sunset, where San Francisco met the sea, and even though it was a sunny day, a cold wind swirled in the streets.

“You heard her?” Baptiste asked.

Rivera nodded.

“Don’t think badly of Helen. She has also asked me to keep the
darkie nurses
out of her room. A long time ago, when she was a little girl, someone planted a small seed of fear in her, and now, when all of her fears are bubbling up, this is one she has yet to let go, but she has not lived her life this way.”

“Then she doesn’t know you’re—”

“I speak French with her,” said Baptiste with a shrug—
c’est la vie.
“Now, for you, Inspector, how did you know it was a book?”