Secondhand Souls (13 page)

Mike sat down on the edge of a recliner across the coffee table from her and leaned forward. “From what Lily tells me, you’re one of a kind.”

Audrey felt herself blush again and suddenly, and for no reason she could think, thought of poor Lizzie from
Pride and Prejudice
, and then remembered how she also felt that Lizzie, nay, all of the Bennet women, in fact, all of the characters in
P&P
could have benefited from a good roundhouse kick to the head, and how, if she kept blushing, she should ask this guy to deliver one to her. (Despite what she had told Charlie, she did know a little kung fu, which she had learned in college, at San Francisco State, not in a monastery in Tibet.
Namaste.
)

“Mike, you should know, I’ve never done this before. I have transferred conciousnesses from people to, uh, other entities, many times, actually, but not anything like this. I don’t even know if Chöd works. I mean, I’ve read scrolls written about people in the mountains who gave their bodies up for an enlightened being, but I’ve never seen it.”

“I figured,” said Mike. He smiled.

“So if you’re going to do this, you should go into it prepared for your life to simply end, as all our lives will end. Part of you will endure either way, but you shouldn’t do this just to offer up your body.”

“I know,” said Mike. “I know all that. I’ve always known that. I’m not doing this for your friend.”

“You need to be sure.”

“I’m sure.”

“And you understand that if it works, someone else will be walking around in your body. If someone you know sees him on the street, they’ll think it’s you. Your friends, your family.”

“I don’t have any family, and no close friends.”

Audrey paused. She wasn’t sure how to react to that. Well, she wanted to ask why not, but that seemed a bit cruel, considering why she was here.

“Audrey, I’ll be honest, I have never really connected with anyone. I mean, I’ve had girlfriends, even serious ones, but they’ve always left, and I’ve always let them. I’m not sad, or heartbroken, I just go to work the next day and try to do my job. Another girl comes along, and then we’re off to the races until the race ends again. Same with friends. I get along with people, I like listening to them, I play in a softball league with some cool guys, but if they all went away tomorrow I’d be fine. My folks are dead, my brother and I have been out of touch for years, all the rest of my extended family is all over the country and we don’t see one another. Not bad blood, just blood. I guess I only realized after these people, these ghosts, came to me on the bridge, but I’ve been like a ghost for a long time. It sounds like this friend of yours can put better use to this body than I ever have. He’s welcome to it.”

Audrey was breathless. He was so calm about it, so sure. This was the place you tried to get people to in
bardo,
to accept their death as part of their life, as a door through which all must pass, will pass, and have passed. He was standing calmly in the doorway, unafraid. It was the sexiest thing she’d ever encountered, and if it weren’t for Charlie, she would have wrestled him to the couch and screwed his brains out right then. No. From desire comes suffering. And besides, she could jump him after he was dead. Her Buddhist practice had suffered somewhat, she realized, since coming back to the States.

“Mike, have you thought about something less violent? Carbon monoxide? Pills?” Was she actually planning a murder with the victim?

“No, it has to be the bridge. That’s where I’m going. I mean, that’s why I’m going. Concepción, did Lily tell you about her?”

“Yes, but I don’t know about any Ghost Thief. I’ve never even heard the term before.”

Mike nodded, looked into his teacup, which he held loosely by the edge between his knees. “I figured. But they need me.”

“For what?”

“Don’t know.” He shrugged, smiled. “If your Charlie said he needed you, would you ask him what for?”

Oh yes, she was going to do him until he begged her to stop. He’d be lucky if he could walk straight when she was done with him.

She cleared her throat, fidgeted. “I guess not,” she said demurely.

She really did need to get laid more than once every twelve years. This must be what it’s like for locusts. Long periods of dormancy followed by crazy tantric bug-fucks. Maybe not.

She cleared her throat again, hoping it would clear her restless mind as well. “Well, we’ll have to be there, when you . . . when you . . .”

“Jump?” he offered.

“Really, do you have to jump? Maybe you can crawl up in a cubbyhole with a bottle of sleeping pills? You don’t have to jump, do you?”

“I think I do. Believe me, that part sort of gives me the willies. I mean, if you’re up on the bridge five days a week for ten years, there’s not five minutes that pass that it doesn’t occur to you that you are just one mistake from plummeting to your death.”

“That’s it!” she said.

“That’s what?”

“That’s why you’re who you are. That’s why you can do this, why we’ll be able to do this. Probably. You’ve lived every day of your life preparing for your death.”

“Not really preparing.”

“But you’re not afraid when you’re up there, right?”

“No. Well, I was a little bugged out when the ghosts first showed up.”

“But you’re aware, always.”

“You kind of have to be.”

“We can do this, Mike.” She put her tea down and reached out for his hands. He put his tea down and took her hands across the table.

“I’m sure we can do this; we just have to coordinate everything.”

“One thing . . .”

“Yes?”

“Can you pull me out of my body
before
I hit the water? I kind of don’t want to be there.”

“I think that’s going to be on you—the timing of
your
part of the ritual.”

“Great. I’m in. Now what?”

“Well, there’s your life to close up. Charlie’s going to have to sort of take over for you, at least for a while. Because even though you jump off the bridge, and you die, to everyone else it will appear that you
survived
.”

“So, what? You want me to close my credit cards, stuff like that? Get my affairs in order?”

“I guess just do things to make it easier for Charlie to move from your life to his.”

“And now his soul is trapped in some kind of jar? A vessel? Lily wasn’t clear.”

“Sure, let’s say vessel. Some kind of vessel.”

“Poor guy. And he has a little girl. You know, I wouldn’t believe any of this if the ghosts hadn’t appeared to me. I mean, Concepción was the one who told me to call Lily. A ghost! Who would have believed that?”

“I know,” said Audrey. “I’ve trained for this kind of thing for most of my adult life and it wigs me out a little.”

“I love her,” said Mike. “I’ve never been in love, but I love her.”

“Yes,” said Audrey, patting his hand.

“The ghost.”

“Right, I know,” said Audrey. “Let’s make lists. Lists will help. Let’s start with ten things to keep you from getting too broken when you fall hundreds of feet into the bay.”

So, I guess we’re going to kill this guy
, she thought. Then she said, “How does Thursday look for you?”

13

The Shadow of a Thousand Birds

M
inty Fresh had felt dread rising like acid in his throat since Rivera first showed up in his shop with the story of the banshee, but never had it been more immediate than when he walked into the pawnshop in the Fillmore to find Ray Macy standing behind a glass case full of watches and jewelry. Ray had worked with Lily at Charlie Asher’s secondhand store. Lily had described the fortyish, balding ex-cop as her nemesis, her natural enemy, and a fucktard of astounding density. Minty tried to dismiss Ray as just more of the saturated humanity that lived under the wide spray of Lily’s contempt sprinkler, except that the ex-cop had become openly hostile when Lily and Minty Fresh closed Charlie’s store to open their pizza and jazz joint. Shortly afterward, Ray moved out of Charlie’s building and Fresh thought he’d seen the last of him. But no, here he was, guarding the gate, so to speak, to the only living Death Merchant Fresh knew besides Charlie and Rivera. It was cool. He was cool.

“Mr. Fresh,” said Ray. He was a beta male, so open confrontation wasn’t really his game. Passive aggression being the beta weapon of choice.

“Ray,” said Minty Fresh. “Good to see you landed on your feet.”

Ray turned behind the counter a bit so Minty Fresh could see he was wearing a revolver on his hip, the gesture made overly obvious by Ray’s inability to turn his head. A bullet to the neck had ended his career as a cop and doctors had fused his vertebrae. Ray Macy looked at life head-on, whether he wanted to or not.

“Did you just turn so I could see you had a gun?” asked Minty Fresh, amused.

“No,” said Ray, turning back quickly.

Ray must have been a horrible, horrible cop,
Minty thought. He said, “I need to talk to Carrie Lang. This is her shop, I’m told.”

“She’s not available,” said Ray.

“I’m right here,” a woman called from the back room. “I’ll be right out.”

“She must have just come in,” Ray explained.

A blond woman in her midthirties came out of the back room.

“Whoa,” she said, when she spotted the big man. She stopped and backed up a step. “You’re a tall drink of water.”

“Honey,” said Ray, “this is Minty Fresh. Remember, I told you about him.
Him and Lily
.”

Minty considered the “honey” and gave Carrie Lang a second look: she was short, but weren’t they all? She wore an awful lot of silver Indian jewelry layered over denim and chambray, but she had a sweet smile, a nice shape, and there was a spark of intelligence in her eyes that really should have put Ray out of the running for her attention.
It’s a lonely business
, Fresh thought.

“Ms. Lang.” Minty offered his hand over the counter. “A pleasure.” As he took her hand he looked at Ray and nodded approval, giving the non-cop props for achieving out of his league.

“Mr. Fresh,” said Carrie Lang. “I’ve been by your store in the Castro. I always mean to stop in. What can I do for you?”

“I wonder if there’s someplace we can speak in private.”

“We’re pretty busy,” said Ray through gritted teeth.

“It’s about that special part of your business,” Minty said. “I, too, deal with very special secondhand items.”

Carrie Lang’s perky smile wilted. “Mr. Fresh, I don’t discuss the details of my business.”

“Under normal circumstances, neither do I, as the
Big Book
instructs, but these are really special circumstances.”

Ray turned to Carrie. “
Big Book
?” She patted his arm.

“I have an office in the back,” said Carrie. She turned and walked back through the doorway through which she’d come. “Watch your head.”

“Always do.”

Ray Macy audibly growled as Minty Fresh stepped behind the counter and ducked to go through the door.

Ray blurted, “You know Lily did me once in the back room at Asher’s.”

Minty Fresh stood to his full height and looked back over his shoulder at Ray. Carrie Lang popped back through the door, walked under Minty’s armpit, and glared at Ray.

“That is not news to me, Ray,” said Minty. But he’d bet it was news to Carrie Lang. “Miss Severo and I have parted ways. She is far too young.”

Carrie Lang held up her index finger to Ray, marking a place in the conversation where they would return at a later time—for fucking sure. Ray understood completely, and had he been able to nod, he would have, but instead he assumed the expression of someone who had just accidentally plunged an ice pick into his junk and is trying to hide the effect. Carrie exited under the big man’s armpit. “My office,” she said, leading him across the stockroom.

Her office was utilitarian, small, with all metal desk, chairs, and filing cabinets. Minty Fresh sat in a guest chair across from her. His knees touched her desk and the chair was backed flush against the door.

Lang sat, sighed. “Mr. Fresh, you know the last time we started
talking—”

“That’s why I’m here, Ms. Lang. All those secondhand dealers who were killed a year ago, ten of them, I think. They were all like us.”

She nodded. So she knew? What she didn’t know was that she’d been saved by the Squirrel People, who had knocked her out, duct-taped her up, and thrown her in a dumpster until the danger passed. They’d come in the dark and she’d never even seen them. Fresh knew.

“I don’t think they’ve been replaced. We—myself and a couple of other Death Merchants—think that the soul vessels they should have collected are still out there somewhere.”

She shrugged. “The
Big Book
says that stuff just gets taken care of. We don’t need to worry about what other—what did you call them, Death Merchants—are doing with their soul vessel?”

“I know, but apparently, they’re not taken care of. Look, have you noticed an increase in the number of names, or any strange circumstances? More important, have you seen any weird shit when you’re out and about?”

“You mean like giant ravens or voices coming out of the sewers.”

Minty Fresh tried to push back in his chair, but there wasn’t room to do it and he bumped his head on the steel door. “Yes.”

“No. I did before, last year. But it’s been quiet since. The soul vessels are about the same. I bring them in, they go out.”

“Good. That’s good. And Ray, he doesn’t know?”

“I think he suspects I’m a serial killer, but he’s clueless about the other thing.”

“You know Charlie Asher was one of us?”

“Yes. That’s how I met Ray. I went to Asher’s shop after the Latino cop told me what had happened and picked up the soul vessels that had been taken from me. The cop said it was over.”

“Rivera didn’t know. He was just being a cop. He’s one of
us
, now.”

“So maybe the others have been replaced, too.”

“No way to tell. We only knew about you because Charlie Asher went in your store once and saw the soul vessels. We don’t know what rules are still in effect. That’s what we’re trying to find out. I won’t contact you again unless it’s an emergency, just in case our contact is bringing up the forces of darkness like before. You can always reach me at my store if anything strange happens.” He threw a business card on her desk. “My mobile’s there. Anytime. Even if it’s just to fuck with Ray.”

She laughed. Her eyes had been getting wider and her expression more frightened as he had spoken, but now she smiled. She picked up his card. “Okay.”

“Just one more favor, then I’m in the wind.”

“Sure.”

“I need to look at your book. Your calendar.”

“We allowed to do that?”

“Who knows?”

“Okay.” She opened her desk drawer and pulled out a leather date book, and slid it across the desk to him. “There’s only one uncollected. Just appeared today.”

“I’m looking for a specific name. Mike Sullivan. Sound familiar? Within the last six weeks or so?” They’d figured out long ago that Death Merchants had the forty-nine days of
bardo,
the transition from life to death, to collect the soul vessel; sometimes they got it before the subject died, sometimes after.

“Nope,” she said.

He opened the book to the current date and she saw another entry on the page. “Two, I guess,” she said. “That last one wasn’t there this morning.”

Minty saw the newest name on her calendar and the number of days she had to retrieve the soul vessel:
one
.

“Oh, shit,” he said. “Shit. Shit. Shit.”

“What? What? What?” She stood and leaned over, trying to get a better look at the new entry.

“I know this guy. He’s a cop.”

S
undown. Rivera was sneaking into a house when his phone buzzed in his jacket pocket and he checked it:
Minty Fresh.
He hit mute and soldiered on, walking into a bedroom where a portly man in pajamas was holding a pillow over the face of a thin person propped up in a hospital bed.

“Just a little bit more,” said the man. He looked to the clock on the nightstand as if timing himself.

After being restrained for twenty-five years by warrants, or at least
knock and announce
, Rivera was still getting used to sneaking into a house under the cloak of kinda-sorta invisibility. He kept reminding himself that he was not here as a cop. But then the guy looked over at him.

“Holy—!” The fat guy leapt back, threw the pillow in the air, and grabbed his chest. The woman’s head in the hospital bed lolled to the side. She was dead.

“You can see me?” said Rivera.

“Well, yeah.”

“I’m afraid I’ve got some bad news, then.”

“Worse than you walked in on me smothering my mother?”

“I’m afraid so.”

“Who are you?”

Rivera badged him. “Inspector Alphonse Rivera, SFPD Homicide.”

The guy was backed against a dresser, trying to catch his breath, still holding his chest. He looked quickly to the dead woman, then back to Rivera. “Well, this is awkward.”

“You think?” said Rivera.

“It’s not what you think. She asked for it.”

“Okay,” said Rivera. He noticed a crystal perfume bottle on the dresser behind the fat guy, glowing a dull red.

“No, she really asked for it. She’s been sick. She’s my mother.” He looked at the dead woman again. “
Was
my mother. I have a videotape of her asking me to do this. We even discussed show tunes I could sing to cover the noise of her struggles.”

“Uh-huh,” said Rivera. “Decided to skip the singing, then?”

“Forgot. How did you get here so fast? You guys are a lot better at this than cops on TV. It usually takes like forty minutes to find the killer on TV.”

“Yeah, that’s not real,” said Rivera.

“So, do I need a lawyer? Are you going to take me in?”

“That depends,” said Rivera. He looked at the names in his case notebook that he’d copied out of his calendar. “Is that Wanda DeFazio?”

“Yes. Yes, it is,” said the fat guy, breathless once again.

Rivera nodded, referred back to the notebook again. “You wouldn’t be Donald DeFazio, would you?”

“Donny,” said Donny.

Rivera nodded again. He’d wondered what was going on when he had the two names appear on his calendar with the same surname. He figured it might be a car accident, husband and wife thing. He’d wanted to call Minty Fresh to ask him about it, but then, no . . .

“Donny, give me that perfume bottle behind you on the dresser.”

Donny DeFazio did what he was told, handed the crystal bottle to Rivera, who slipped it in his jacket pocket.

“You live here, Donny?”

“I have been. I had to move in six months ago to take care of my mother.”

Rivera nodded. Noncommittal cop nod. “So your possessions, they all here in the house?”

“Yes, why? Are you going to seize my stuff when you take me in? Freeze my accounts?”

Rivera shook his head at his notebook, flipped it shut, put it into his inside jacket pocket. “Nah, you’re good to go, Donny. I’m going to have a look around, though. Which is your room?”

“Down the hall.” Donny moved away from the dresser. “Wait, don’t I need to get a lawyer? Don’t you want to see the video? She was in pain. She asked me to do it?”

“I know. You feel bad about it?”

“Well, of course. I feel horrible about it. It’s the hardest thing I ever had to do.” He started gasping again.

“Well then, I’m sorry for your loss.” He pointed. “Just down the hall this way?”

Donny nodded, then grabbed his chest again, and either from relief or stress, stiffened, twitched, and slid down the front of the dresser to a splay-legged sitting position on the floor. He twitched for a few seconds, then slumped forward.

“And there we go,” said Rivera. He looked around, just in case Donny’s soul vessel might be sitting out like his mother’s, but nothing else was glowing. He backed out of the room and headed down the hall.

His phone buzzed again. There was also a text that had come in during the DeFazio deaths.
Pick the fuck up
, it said.

Rivera hit talk. “You said we weren’t supposed to talk unless it was an emergency.”

“Where’s your partner?” asked Minty Fresh.

“He’s watching my store while I’m out on a collection. I didn’t hear from you on the Lily girl, so he’s filling in until I find someone.”

“Where are you, not near him?”

“No. In Noe Valley. Looking for a vessel. I found another Death Merchant, and there’s more—”

“Yeah, we’ll get to that. Y’all might want to sit down, Inspector.”

N
ick Cavuto was reading a Raymond Chandler short story called “Red Wind” behind the counter when the banshee stepped out of the stacks.

“
AIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
!”

Cavuto dropped the paperback as he slid off the stool into a crouch, drew a ridiculously large revolver from his shoulder holster, and leveled it at the banshee. One motion.

“I will drop you, raggedy,” he said.

“I come to save your life, you great dolt, and you cast aspersions on me frock?”

Cavuto kept the gun trained on her and looked around it. “Save my life, huh?”

“You need to get out of here before dark, lad. There’s a nasty bit of business heading your way. They’re not strong enough to move in the daylight yet, but they’ll be here soon.”