A Dirty Job Chapter 10

PART TWOSECONDHAND SOULSDo non strain decease. Death will find you.But translatek the road which makes death a fulfillment. Dag Hammarskjld10DEATH TAKES A WALKMornings, Charlie walked. At hexad, aft(prenominal) an early breakfast, he would change state the care of Sophie over to Mrs. Korjev or Mrs. Ling (whoevers turn it was) for the workday and walk stroll very, pacing erupt the city with the sword-cane, which had nonplus part of his daily regalia, wearing soft, sick-leather locomote lieu and an expensive, randomness batch suit that had been retailored at his cleaners in Chinatown. Although he pret destinati atomic number 53d to fix a purpose, Charlie walked to give himself time to think, to try on the size of creation Death, and to mind at alto spring upher the people bug divulge and well-nigh in the morning. He wondered if the girl at the flower stand, from whom he often bought a carnation for his lapel, had a soulfulness, or would give hers up while he watc hed her die. He watched the guy in North Beach make cappuccinos with faces and fern leaves wasted in the foam, and wondered if a guy deal that could actu aloney function without a soul, or was his soul collecting dust in Charlies back elbow room? There were a lot of people to see, and a lot of sentiment to be done.Being out among the people of the city, when they were scarcely starting to move, accost the day, do makey, he started to ascertain not practiced the responsibility of his tonic role, solely the power, and finally, the specialness. It didnt subject area that he had no idea what he was doing, or that he capability stool lost the love of his life for it to clear he had been chosen. And realizing that, one day as he walked down calcium Street, down Nob Hill into the financial district, where hed invariably tangle low and out of touch with the world, as the brokers and bankers quickstepped well-nigh him, barking into their cell phones to Hong Kong or capital of the United Kingdom or New York and never making essence contact, he started to not so much stroll, as strut. That day Charlie Asher climbed onto the California Street line of stage business car for the first time since he was a kid, and hung mangle the bar, out over the passage, holding out the sword-cane as if charging, with Hondas and Mercedes zooming a massive the bridle-path beside him, leaving under his armpit just inches away. He got turned at the end of the line, bought a Wall Street Journal from a machine, hence walked to the warm storm drain, spread out the Journal to protect his trousers against oil stains, then got down on his work force and knees and screamed into the drain grate, I countenance been chosen, so dont fuck with me When he stood up again, a dozen people were standing(a) at that place, counting for the light to change. Looking at him.Had to be done, Charlie said, not apologizing, just explaining.The bankers and the brokers, the executive assis tants and the human-resource people and the woman on her way to serve up clam chowder in a sourdough bowl at the Boudin Bakery, all nodded, not sure exactly why, except that they worked in the financial district, and they all silent being fucked with, and in their souls if not in their minds, they knew that Charlie had been yelling in the unspoilt direction. He folded his paper, tucked it under his arm, then turned and crossed the highway with them when the light changed.Sometimes Charlie walked whole blocks when he thought only of Rachel, and would become so engrossed in the memory of her eyes, her smile, her touch, that he ran straight into people. opposite times people would bump into him, and not even rob his notecase or say excuse me, which might be a matter of course in New York, tho in San Francisco meant that he was close down to a soul vessel that needed to be rallyd. He effect one, a bronze fireplace poker, set out by the fit with the trash on Russian Hill. Anot her time, he spotted a glowing vase displayed in the bay window of a Victorian in North Beach. He screwed up his courage and knocked on the door, and when a teenaged woman answered, and came out on the porch to look for her visitor, and was bewildered because she didnt see anyone there, Charlie slipped ultimo her, grabbed the vase, and was out the side door before she came back in, his heart pounding equivalent a war drum, adrenaline sizzling through his veins like a hormonal tilt-a-whirl. As he headed back to the shop that particular(prenominal) morning, he realized, with no minute sense of irony, that until he became Death, hed never felt so alive.Every morning, Charlie tried to walk in a contrary direction. On Mondays he liked to go up into Chinatown just later dawn, when all the deliveries were being make crates of produce, carrots, permittuce, broccoli, cauliflower, melons, and a dozen varieties of cabbage, tended by Latinos in the Central Valley and consumed by Chine se in Chinatown, having passed through Anglo hands just long enough to extract the nourishing money. On Mondays the look for companies delivered their fresh catches usually strong Italian men whose families had been in the business for five generations, handing off their catch to inscrutable Chinese merchants whose ancestors had bought angle from the Italians off horse-drawn wagons a hundred days before. All sorts of live and of late live fish were moved crossways the sidewalk snapper and holibut and mackerel, sea bass and ling cod and yellowtail, clawless Pacific lobster, Dungeness crab, ghastly monkfish, with their long saberlike teeth and a single spine that jutted from their head, bracing a lambent lure they used to draw in prey, so abstruse in the ocean that the sun never shone. Charlie was fascinated by the creatures from the very deep sea, the big-eyed squid, cuttlefish, the blind sharks that located prey with electromagnetic impulses creatures who never saw light. T hey made him think of what might be facing him from the Underworld, because even as he fell into a rhythm of finding names at his bedside, and soul vessels in all manner of places, and the beance of the ravens and the shades subsided, he could feel them under the track whenever he passed a storm sewer. Sometimes he could hear them whispering to one another, hushing quickly in the rare moments when the street went quiet.To walk through Chinatown at dawn was to become part of a dangerous dance, because there were no back doors or alleys for loading, and all the wares went across the sidewalk, and although Charlie had enjoyed neither danger nor dancing up till now, he enjoyed playacting dance partner to the thousand tiny Chinese grand gives in black slippers or jelly- tricked p croakic shoes who scampered from merchant to merchant, squeezing and smelling and thumping, flavour for the freshest and the best for their families, twanging orders and questions to the merchants in Mandari n, all the while just a second or a slip away from being run over by sides of beef, great racks of fresh duck, or hand trucks stacked steep with crates of live turtles. Charlie was yet to retrieve a soul vessel on one of his Chinatown walks, but he stayed ready, because the swirl of time and motion figure that one foggy morning someones granny was passage to quiver knocked out of her moo shoes.One Monday, just for sport, Charlie grabbed an eggplant that a spectacularly sere granny was going for, but instead of twisting it out of his hand with some mystic kung fu move as he expected, she looked him in the eye and shook her head just a jog, barely perceptible genuinely it might contribute been a tic, but it was the almost eloquent of gestures. Charlie read it as saying O White Devil, you do not deficiency to purloin that purple fruit, for I have four thousand years of ancestors and civilization on you my grandparents built the railroads and dug the silver mines, and my pare nts survived the earthquake, the fire, and a night club that outlawed even being Chinese I am mother to a dozen, grandmother to a hundred, and great-grandmother to a legion I have birthed babies and washed the dead I am history and suffering and receiptledge I am a Buddha and a dragon so farm your fucking hand off my eggplant before you lose it.And Charlie let go.And she grinned, just a little. Three teeth.And he wondered if it ever did fall to him to retrieve the soul vessel of one of these crones of Chronos, if hed even be able to lift it. And he grinned back.And asked for her phone number, which he gave to Ray. She seemed nice, Charlie told him. Mature.Sometimes Charlies walks took him through Japantown, where he passed the most enigmatic shop in the city, Invisible Shoe Repair. He really intended to stop in one day, but he was lock in coming to terms with giant ravens, adversaries from the Underworld, and being a Merchant of Death, and he wasnt sure he was ready for invisib le shoes, let alone invisible shoes that needed repair He often tried to look past the Japanese characters into the shop window as he passed, but saw no topic, which, of course, didnt mean a thing. He just wasnt ready. But there was a pet shop in Japantown (House of Pleasant Fish and Gerbil), where he had originally gone to buy Sophies fish, and where he returned to replace the TV attorneys with six TV detectives, who also simultaneously took the big Ambien a week later. Charlie had been overwrought to find his baby daughter drooling away in front of a bowl floating more dead detectives than a film noir festival, and after flushing all six at once and having to use the plunger to ban Magnum and Mannix, he vowed that next time he would find more vital pals for his little girl. He was coming out of House of PF&G one afternoon, with a Habitrail pod containing a pair of sturdy hamsters, when he ran into Lily, who was making her way to a coffeehouse up on Van Ness, where she was plann ing to meet her friend Abby for some latte-fueled speed brooding.Hey, Lily, how are you doing? Charlie was trying to appear matter-of-fact, but he found that the awkwardness between him and Lily over the last few months was not mitigated by her seeing him on the street carrying a plastic box full of rodents.Nice gerbils, Lily said. She wore a Catholic schoolgirls plaid skirt over black tights and Doc Martens, with a tight black PVC bustier that was squishing pale Lily-bits out the top, like a can of biscuit dough thats been smacked on the edge of the counter. The hair color du jour was fuchsia, over violet eye shadow, which matched her violet, elbow-length lace gloves. She looked up and down the street and, when she didnt see anyone she knew, fell into step next to Charlie.Theyre not gerbils, theyre hamsters, Charlie said.Asher, do you have something youve been keeping from me? She tilted her head a little, but didnt look at him when she asked, just kept her eyes forward, scanning t he street for someone who might recognize her walking next to Charlie, thus forcing her to commit seppuku.Jeez, Lily, these are for Sophie Charlie said. Her fish died, so Im bringing her some new pets. Besides, that whole gerbil thing is an urban myth I meant that youre Death, Lily said.Charlie nearly dropped his hamsters. Huh?Its so wrong Lily continued, walking on after Charlie had halt in his tracks, so now he had to scurry to catch up to her. Just so wrong, that you would be chosen. Of all of lifes many disappointments, Id have to say that this is the crowning disappointment.Youre sixteen, Charlie said, still stumbling a little at the matter-of-fact way she was discussing this.Oh, throw that in my face, Asher. Im only sixteen for two more months, then what? In the blink of an eye my dishful becomes but a feast for worms, and I, a forgotten sigh in a sea of nothingness.Your birthday is in two months? Well, well have to get you a nice cake, Charlie said.Dont change the subjec t, Asher. I turn in all about you, and your Death persona.Charlie stopped again and turned to look at her. This time, she stopped as well. Lily, I know Ive been acting a little curiously since Rachel died, and Im sorry you got in trouble at school because of me, but its just been trying to deal with it all, with the baby, with the business. The stress of it all has I have The outstanding Big Book of Death, Lily said. She steadied Charlies hamsters when he lost his grip. I know about the soul vessels, about the dark forces rising if you fuck up, all that stuff all of it. Ive known longer than you have, I think.Charlie didnt know what to say. He was feeling timidity and relief at the same time panic because Lily knew, but relief because at least someone knew, and believed it, and had actually seen the hold up. The bookLily, do you still have the book?Its in the store. I hid it in the back of the glass cabinet where you keep the valuable stuff that no one will ever buy.No one e ver looks in that cabinet.No kidding? I thought if you ever found it, Id say it had always been there.I have to go. He turned and started walking the other direction, but then realized that they had already been heading toward his neighborhood and turned approximately again. Where are you going?To get some coffee.Ill walk with you.You will not. Lily looked around again, wary that someone might see them.But, Lily, Im Death. That should at least have given me some level of cool.Yeah, youd think, but it turns out that you have managed to take up the cool out of being Death.Wow, thats harsh.Welcome to my world, Asher.You cant tell anyone about this, you know that?Like anyone cares what you do with your gerbils.Hamsters Thats not Chill, Asher. Lily giggled. I know what you mean. Im not going to tell anyone except Abby knows but she doesnt care. She says shes met some guy whos her dark lord. Shes in that stage where she thinks a dick is some kind of mystical head game wand.Charlie a djusted his hamster box uncomfortably. Girls go through a stage like that? Why was he just hearing about this now? sluice the hamsters looked uncomfortable.Lily turned on a heel and started up the street. Im not having this chat with you.Charlie stood there, watching her go, balancing the hamsters and his completely useless sword-cane while trying to scape his cell phone out of his jacket pocket. He needed to see that book, and he needed to see it sooner than the hour it would take him to get home. Lily, wait he called. Im calling a cab, Ill give you a ride.She waved him off without looking and kept walking. As he was waiting for the cab connection to answer, he perceive it, the voice, and he realized that he was standing justifiedly over a storm drain. It had been over a month since hed heard them, and he thought maybe theyd gone. Well have her, too, Meat. Shes ours now.He felt the apprehension rise in his throat like bile. He snapped the phone leave off and ran after Lily, cane rattling and hamsters bouncing as he went. Lily, wait WaitShe spun around quickly and her fuchsia wig only did the quarter turn instead of the half, so her face was covered with hair when she said, One of those ice-cream cakes from 31 Flavors, okay? After that, despair and nothingness.Well put that on the cake, Charlie said.