21

COMMON COURTESY

Charlie was torn - he really wanted to take his sword-cane, but he couldn't carry it while using the crutches. He considered duct-taping it to one of the crutches, but he thought that might attract attention.

"You want me to go with you?" Ray asked. "I mean, you okay to drive, with your leg and all?"

"I'll be fine," Charlie said. "Someone needs to watch the store."

"Charlie, before you go, can I ask you something?"

"Sure." Don't ask, don't ask, don't ask, Charlie thought.

"Why did you need me to find these two women?"

You robot-necked bastard, you had to ask. "I told you, estate stuff." Charlie shrugged. No big deal, let it go, nothing to see here.

"Yeah, I know you told me that, and normally that would make sense, but I found out a lot about these two while looking for them - no one in either of their families has died recently."

"Funny thing," Charlie said, juggling his keys, the cane, his date book, and his crutches by the back door. "Both bequests were from nonrelatives. Old friends." No wonder women don't like you, you just won't leave things alone.

"Uh-huh," Ray said, unconvinced. "You know, when people run, when they go as far as faking their own death to get away, they are usually running from something. Are you that something, Charlie?"

"Ray, listen to yourself. Are you back on your serial-killer thing? I thought Rivera explained that."

"So this is for Rivera?"

"Let's say he's interested," Charlie said.

"Why didn't you just say so?"

Charlie sighed. "Ray, I'm not supposed to talk about this stuff, you know that. Fourth Amendment and all. I came to you because you're good, and you have contacts. I depend on you and I trust you. I think you know that you can depend on me and trust me, right? I mean, in all these years, I've never put your disability pension in jeopardy by being careless about our arrangement, have I?"

It was a threat, however subtle, and Charlie felt bad for doing it, but he just couldn't let Ray continue to push on this, particularly since he was in unexplored territory himself - he didn't even know what kind of bluff he was covering.

"So Mrs. Johnson isn't going to end up dead if I find her for you?"

"I will not lay a hand on Mrs. Johnson or Mrs. Pojo...Mrs. Pokojo - or that other woman either. You have my word on it." Charlie raised his hand as if swearing on a Bible and dropped one of his crutches.

"Why don't you just use the cane?" Ray said.

"Right," Charlie said. He leaned the crutches on the door and tried his weight on the bad leg and the cane. The doctors had, indeed, said that it was just a flesh wound, so there was no tendon damage, just muscle, but it hurt like hell to put any weight on that foot. The cane would work, he decided. "I should be back to relieve you before five." He limped out the door.

Ray didn't like being lied to. He'd had quite enough of that from his desperate Filipinas and was becoming sensitive about being taken for a fool. Who did Charlie Asher think he was fooling? As soon as he got the store squared away, he'd give Rivera a call and see for himself.

He went out into the store and did a little dusting, then went to Charlie's "special" rack, where he kept the weird estate items that he made such a fuss about. You were only supposed to sell one to each customer, but Ray had sold five of them to the same woman in the last two weeks. He knew he should have said something to Charlie, but really, why? Charlie wasn't being open with him about anything, it seemed.

Besides, the woman who bought the stuff was cute, and she'd smiled at Ray. She had nice hair, a cute figure, and really striking light blue eyes. Plus there was something about her voice - she seemed so, what? Peaceful, maybe. Like she knew that everything was going to be okay and no one needed to worry. Maybe he was projecting. And she didn't have an Adam's apple, which was a big plus in Ray's book lately. He'd tried to get her name, even get a look at something in her wallet, but she'd paid in cash and had been as careful as a poker player covering her cards. If she'd driven, she'd parked too far away for him to see her get into her car from the store, so there was no license number to trace.

He resolved to ask her name if she came in today. And she was due to come in. She only came in when he was working alone. He'd seen her check through the window once when he was working with Lily, and only came into the store later when Lily was gone. He really hoped she'd come in.

He tried to calm himself down for his call to Rivera. He didn't want to seem like a rube to a guy who was still on the job. He used his own cell phone for the call so Rivera would see it was him calling.

Charlie didn't like leaving Sophie for this long, given what had happened a few days ago, but on the other hand, whatever might be threatening her was obviously being caused by his missing these two soul vessels. The quicker he fixed the problem, the quicker the threat would be diminished. Besides, the hellhounds were her best defense, and he'd given express instructions to Mrs. Ling that the dogs and Sophie were not to be separated for any amount of time, for any reason.

He took Presidio Boulevard through Golden Gate Park into the Sunset, reminding himself to take Sophie to the Japanese Tea Garden to feed the koi, now that her plague on pets seemed to have subsided.

The Sunset district lay just south of Golden Gate Park, bordered by the American Highway and Ocean Beach on the west, and Twin Peaks and the University of San Francisco on the east. It had once been a suburb, until the city expanded to include it, and many of its houses were modest, single-story family dwellings, built en masse in the 1940s and '50s. They were like the mosaics of little boxes that peppered neighborhoods across the entire country in that postwar period, but in San Francisco, where so much had been built after the quake and fire of '06, then again in the economic boom of the late twentieth century, they seemed like anachronisms from both ends of time. Charlie felt like he was driving through the Eisenhower era, at least until he passed a mother with a shaved head and tribal tattoos on her scalp pushing twins in a double stroller.

Irena Posokovanovich's sister lived in a small, one-story frame house with a small covered porch that had jasmine vines growing up trellises on either side and springing off into the air like morning-after-sex hair. The rest of the tiny yard was meticulously groomed, from the holly hedge at the sidewalk to the red geraniums that lined the concrete path up to the house.

Charlie parked a block away and walked to the house. On the way he was nearly run over by two different joggers, one a young mother pushing a running stroller. They couldn't see him - he was on track. Now, how to go about getting in? And then what? If he was the Luminatus, then perhaps just his presence would take care of the problem.

He checked around back and saw that there was a car in the garage, but the shades were drawn on all the windows. Finally he decided on the frontal approach and rang the doorbell.

A few seconds later a short woman in her seventies wearing a pink chenille housecoat opened the door. "Yes," she said, looking a little suspicious as she eyed Charlie's walking cast. She quickly flipped the lock on the screen door. "Can I help you?"

It was the woman in the picture. "Yes, ma'am, I'm looking for Irena Posokovanovich."

"Well, she's not here," said Irena Posokovanovich. "You must have the wrong house." She started to close the door.

"Wasn't there a death notice in the paper a couple of weeks ago?" Charlie said. So far, his awesome presence as the Luminatus wasn't having much of an effect on her.

"Well, yes, I believe there was," said the woman, sensing an out. She opened the door a little more. "It was such a tragedy. We all loved Irena so much. She was the kindest, most generous, most loving, attractive - you know, for her age - well-read - "

"And evidently didn't know that it's considered common courtesy when you publish a death notice to actually die!" Charlie held out the enlarged driver's-license picture. He considered adding aha! but thought that might be a little over-the-top.

Irena Posokovanovich slammed the door. "I don't know who you are, but you have the wrong house," she said through the door.

"You know who I am," Charlie said. Actually, she probably had no idea who he was. "And I know who you are, and you are supposed to have died three weeks ago."

"You're mistaken. Now go away before I call the police and tell them that there's a rapist at my door."

Charlie gagged a little, then pushed on. "I am not a rapist, Mrs. Poso...Posokev - I'm Death, Irena. That's who I am. And you are overdue. You need to die, this minute if possible. There's nothing to be afraid of. It's like going to sleep, only, well - "

"I'm not ready," Irena whined. "If I was ready I wouldn't have left my home. I'm not ready."

"I'm sorry, ma'am, but I have to insist."

"I'm sure you're mistaken. Perhaps another Mrs. Posokovanovich."

"No, here it is, right here in the calendar, with your address. It's you." Charlie held his date book turned to the page with her name on it up to the little window in the door.

"And you say that that is Death's calendar?"

"That's correct, ma'am. Notice the date. And this is your second notice."

"And you are Death?"

"That's right."

"Well, that's just silly."

"I am not silly, Mrs. Posokovanovich. I am Death."

"Aren't you supposed to have a sickle and a long black robe?"

"No, we don't do that anymore. Take my word for it, I am Death." He tried to sound really ominous.

"Death is always tall in the pictures." She was standing on tiptoe, he could tell the way she kept bouncing up by the little window to get a look at him. "You don't seem tall enough."

"There's no height requirement."

"Then could I see your business card?"

"Sure." Charlie took out a card and held it against the glass.

"This says 'Purveyor of Fine Vintage Clothing and Accessories.'"

"Right! Exactly!" He knew he should have had a second set of business cards printed up. "And where do you think I get those things? From the dead. You see?"

"Mr. Asher, I'm going to have to ask you to leave."

"No, ma'am, I'm going to have to insist that you pass away, this instant. You're overdue."

"Go away! You are a charlatan, and I think you need psychological help."

"Death! You're fucking with Death! Capital D, bitch!" Well, that was uncalled for. Charlie felt bad the second he said it. "Sorry," he mumbled to the door.

"I'm calling the police."

"You go ahead, Mrs.  -  uh - Irena. You know what they'll tell you, that you're dead! It was in the Chronicle. They hardly ever print stuff that's not true."

"Please go away. I practiced for a long time so I could live longer, it's not fair."

"What?"

"Go away."

"I heard that part, I mean the part about practicing."

"Never you mind. You just go take someone else."

Charlie actually had no idea what he would do if she let him in. Maybe he had to touch her for his Death abilities to kick in. He remembered seeing an old Twilight Zone as a kid, where Robert Redford was Death, and this old lady wouldn't let him in, so he pretended to be injured, and when she came to help him...ALA-KAZAM! She croaked, and he peacefully led her off to Hole in the Wall, where she helped him produce independent movies. Maybe that would work. He did have the cast and the cane going for him.

He looked up and down the street to make sure that no one could see him, then he lay down, half on the little porch, half on the concrete steps. He threw his cane against the door and made sure that it clattered loudly on the concrete, then he let out what he thought was a very convincing wail. "Ahhhhhhhhh, I've broken my leg."

He heard footsteps inside and saw gray hair at the little window, bouncing a little so she could see out.

"Oh, it hurts," Charlie wailed. "Help."

More steps, the shade in the window to the right of the door parted and he saw an eye. He grimaced in fake pain.

"Are you all right?" said Mrs. Posokovanovich.

"I need help. My leg was hurt before, but I slipped on your steps. I think I've broken something. There's blood, and a piece of bone sticking out." He kept his leg below the level where she could see it.

"Oh my," she said. "Give me a minute."

"Help. Please. The pain. So - much - pain." Charlie coughed the way cowboys do when they are dying in the dirt and things are getting all dark.

He heard the latch being thrown, and then the inner door opened. "You're really hurt bad," she said.

"Please," Charlie said, holding his hand out to her. "Help me."

She unlatched the screen. Charlie suppressed a grin. "Oh, thank you," he gasped.

She threw open the screen door and blasted him in the face with a stream of pepper spray. "I saw that Twilight Zone, you son of a bitch!" The doors slammed. The latch was thrown.

Charlie's face felt like it was on fire.

When he could finally see well enough to walk, as he limped back to his van, he heard a female voice say, "I'd have let you in, lover." Then a chorus of spooky-girlish laughter erupted from the storm sewer. He backed against the van, ready to draw the sword from the cane, but then he heard what sounded like a small dog barking in the sewer.

"Where did he come from?" said one of the harpies.

"He bit me! You little fucker!"

"Get him!"

"I hate dogs. When we take over, no dogs."

The barking faded away, followed by the voices of the sewer harpies. Charlie took a deep breath and tried to blink the pain out of his eyes. He needed to regroup, but then he was taking the old lady down, pepper spray or not.

It took him the better part of an hour to get into position, but once he was ready, he put down the cinder block, flipped open his cell phone, and dialed the number he'd gotten from information.

A woman answered. "Hello."

"Ma'am, this is the gas company," Charlie said in his best gas-company voice. "My grid is showing pressure loss at your address. We're sending a truck right out, but you need to get everyone out of the house, right now."

"Well, I'm the only one here right now, but I'm sorry, I don't smell gas."

"It may be building up under the house," Charlie said, feeling proud of himself for being quick on his feet. Is there anyone else in the house?"

"No, just me and my kitty, Samantha."

"Ma'am, please take the cat and go out by the street. Our truck will meet you there. Go right now, okay?"

"Well, all right."

"Thank you, ma'am." Charlie clicked off. He could feel movement inside of the house. He moved right to the edge of the porch roof and raised the concrete cinder block over his head. It'll look like an accident, he thought, like a cinder block fell off the porch roof. He was glad that no one could see him up here. He was sweating from the climb, his armpits stained, his trousers wrinkled.

He heard the door open and got ready to throw the cinder block as soon as his target emerged from under the roof.

"Good afternoon, ma'am." A man's voice, out by the street.

Charlie looked down to see Inspector Rivera standing at the sidewalk, having just climbed out of an unmarked car. What the hell was he doing here?

"Are you the gas company?" said Mrs. Posokovanovich.

"No, ma'am, I'm from the San Francisco police." He flashed his badge.

"They told me there was a gas leak," she said.

"That's been taken care of, ma'am. Could you step back inside and I'll check with you in a minute, okay?"

"Well, okay, then."

Charlie heard the doors open and close again. His arms were trembling from holding the cinder block over his head. He tried to breathe quietly, thinking that the sound of his wheezing might attract Rivera's attention, make him visible.

"Mr. Asher, what are you doing up there?"

Charlie nearly lost his balance and went over. "You can see me?"

"Yes, sir, I certainly can. And I can also see that cinder block you're holding over your head."

"Oh, this old thing."

"What were you planning on doing with that?"

"Repairs?" Charlie tried. How could Rivera see him when he was in soul-vessel-retrieval mode?

"I'm sorry, but I don't believe you, Mr. Asher. You're going to have to drop the cinder block."

"I'd rather not. It was really hard getting it up here."

"Be that as it may, I'm going to have to insist that you drop it."

"I was planning on it, but then you showed up."

"Please. Indulge me. Look, you're sweating. Climb down and you can sit in my air-conditioned car with me. We'll chat - talk about Italian suits, the Giants - I don't know - why you were about to brain that sweet old lady with a cinder block. Air-conditioning, Mr. Asher - won't that be nice?"

Charlie brought the cinder block down and rested it on his thigh, feeling his trousers snagging beyond repair as he did so. "That's not much of an incentive. What am I, some primitive Amazon native? I've had air-conditioning before. I have air-conditioning in my own van."

"Yes, I'll admit it's not exactly a weekend in Paris, but the next choice was that I shoot you off the roof, and they put you in a body bag, which is going to be sweltering on a warm day like this."

"Oh, well, yes," Charlie said. "That does make air-conditioning sound a lot more inviting. Thanks. I'm going to toss my brick down first, if that's okay?"

"That would be great, Mr. Asher."

Disillusioned with DesperateFilipinas, Ray was browsing through the selection of lonely first-grade teachers with master's degrees in nuclear physics on when she came through the door. He heard the bell and caught her out of the corner of his eye, and forgetting that his neck vertebrae were fused, he sprained the left side of his face trying to turn to see her.

She saw him looking and smiled.

Ray smiled back, then, out of the corner of his eye, saw the monitor with the photo of the first-grade teacher holding her breasts, and sprained the right side of his face trying to turn in time to punch the power button before she passed the counter.

"Just browsing," said the love of his life. "How are you today?"

"Hi," Ray said. In his mental rehearsals, he started with "hi," and it just sort of burped out of him before he realized that it put him behind a beat. "I mean, fine. Sorry. I was working."

"I can see that." Again the smile.

She was so understanding, forgiving - and kind, you could just tell that by her eyes. He knew in his heart that he would even sit through a hat movie for this woman. He would watch A Room with a View AND The English Patient, back-to-back, just to share a pizza with her. And she would stop him from eating his service revolver halfway through the second movie, because that's just how she was: compassionate.

She made a show of browsing the store, but two minutes hadn't passed before she made for Charlie's special shelf. Even the sign said SPECIAL ITEMS - ONE PER CUSTOMER, but it didn't say if that was a per-day policy, or one per lifetime. Charlie hadn't really specified, now that Ray thought about it. Sure, Lily had yammered on about how important it was that they adhere to the policy, but that was Lily, she might have grown up some, but she was still disturbed.

After a short time she picked up an electric alarm clock and brought it over to the counter. This was it. This was it. Ray heard the back door open.

"Will this be everything?" he said.

"Yes," said the future Mrs. Ray Macy. "I've been looking for one like this."

"Yep, you can't beat a Sunbeam," Ray said. "That's two-sixteen with tax - aw, heck, call it two even."

"That's very nice of you," she said, digging into a small purse woven from colorful Guatemalan cotton thread.

"Hi, Ray," Lily said, suddenly standing there beside him like some evil phantom who appeared out of nowhere to leech every potentially joyous moment out of his life.

"Hi, Lily," he said.

Lily clicked some keys on the computer. Slowed down by his freshly sprained face, Ray wasn't able to turn before she'd hit the power button on the monitor.

"What's this?" asked Lily.

With his free hand, Ray thumped Lily in the thigh under the counter.

"Ouch! Freak!"

"I'm sure you'll enjoy waking up with that," Ray said, handing the alarm clock to the woman who would be his queen.

"Thank you so much," said the lovely brunette goddess of all things Ray.

"By the way," Ray said, pushing on, "you've been in a couple of times, I was wondering, you know, because I'm curious that way, uh, what's your name?"

"Audrey."

"Hi, Audrey. I'm Ray."

"Nice to meet you, Ray. Gotta go. Bye." She waved over her shoulder and headed out the door.

Ray and Lily watched her walk away.

"Nice butt," Lily said.

"She said my name," Ray said.

"She's a little bit - I don't know - unimaginary for you."

Ray turned to the nemesis Lily. "You have to watch the store. I have to go."

"Why?"

"I have to follow her, find out who she is." Ray began to gather his stuff - phone, keys, baseball cap.

"Yeah, that's healthy, Ray."

"Tell Charlie I - don't tell Charlie."

"Okay. So is it okay if I switch the computer from the UGLY Web site?"

"What are you talking about?"

Lily stepped back from the screen and pointed to the letters as she read, "Ukrainian Girls Loving You - U-G-L-Y, ugly." Lily smiled, a perky, self-satisfied smile, like that kid who won the spelling bee in third grade. Didn't you hate that kid?

Ray couldn't believe it. They weren't even being subtle about it anymore. "Can't talk," he said. "Gotta go." He ran out the door and headed up Mason Street after the lovely and compassionate Audrey.

Rivera had driven up to the Cliff House Restaurant overlooking Seal Rocks and forced Charlie to buy him a drink while they watched the surfers down on the beach. Rivera was not a morbid man, but he knew that if he came here enough times, eventually he'd see a surfer get hit by a white shark. In fact, he sorely hoped that it would happen, because otherwise, the world made no sense, there was no justice, and life was just a tangled ball of chaos. Thousands of seals in the water and on the rocks - the mainstay of the white shark diet - hundreds of surfers in the water, dressed like seals, well, it just needed to happen for all to be right with the world.

"I never believed you, Mr. Asher, when you said that you were Death, but since I couldn't explain whatever that thing was in the alley with you, didn't want to explain, in fact, I let it slide."

"And I appreciate that," said Charlie, showing a little discomfort at drinking a glass of wine with handcuffs on. His face was candy-apple red from having been burned by the pepper spray. "Is this normal procedure for interrogations?"

"No," Rivera said. "Normally the City is supposed to pay, but I'll have the judge take the drinks off your sentence."

"Great. Thanks," Charlie said. "And you can call me Charlie."

"Okay, and you can call me Inspector Rivera. Now, braining the old lady with the cinder block - just exactly what were you thinking?"

"Do I need a lawyer?"

"Of course not, you're fine, this bar is full of witnesses." Rivera had once been a by-the-book kind of cop. That was before the demons, the giant owls, the bankruptcy, the polar bears, the vampires, the divorce, and the saber-clawed woman-thing that turned into a bird. Now, not so much.

"In that case, I was thinking that no one could see me," Charlie said.

"Because you were invisible?"

"Not really. Just sort of not noticeable."

"Well, I'll give you that, but I don't think that's any reason to crush a grandmother's skull."

"You have no proof of that," Charlie said.

"Of course I do," Rivera said, holding up his glass to signal to the waitress that he needed another Glenfiddich on the rocks. "I saw pictures of her grandchildren, she showed me when I went in the house."

"No, I mean you have no proof that I was going to crush her skull."

"I see," said Rivera, who did not see at all. "How did you know Mrs. Posokovanovich?"

"I didn't. Her name just showed up in my date book, like I showed you."

"Yes, you did. Yes, you did. But that doesn't really give you a license to kill her, now does it?"

"That's the point, she was supposed to be dead three weeks ago. There was even a death notice in the paper. I was just trying to make sure it was accurate."

"So in lieu of having the Chronicle print a correction, you thought you'd bash in granny's brains."

"Well, it was that or have my daughter say 'kitty' at her, and I refuse to exploit my child in that way."

"Well, I admire your taking the high ground on that one, Charlie," Rivera said, thinking, Who do I have to shoot to get a drink around here? "But let's just say that for one millisecond I believe you, and the old lady was supposed to die, but didn't, and that because of it you were shot with a crossbow and that thing I shot in the alley appeared - let's just say I believe all that, what am I supposed to do about it?"

"You need to be careful," Charlie said. "You may be turning into one of us."

"Pardon?"

"That's how it happened to me. When my wife passed away, in the hospital, I saw the guy that came to collect her soul vessel, and wham, I was a Death Merchant. You saw me today, when no one else could, and you saw the sewer harpy, that night in the alley. Most of the time, I'm the only one who can see them."

Rivera really, really wanted to turn this guy over to a psychiatrist at the hospital and never see him again, but the problem was, he had seen the woman-thing, that night and another time on his own street, and he had seen reports of weird stuff happening in the City over the last two weeks. And not just normal San Francisco weird stuff, but really weird stuff, like a flock of ravens attacking a tourist in Coit Tower, and a guy who slammed his car through a storefront in Chinatown, saying that he had swerved to miss a dragon, and people all over the Mission saying that they'd seen an iguana dressed like a musketeer going through their garbage, tiny sword and all.

"I can prove it," Charlie said. "Just take me to the music store in the Castro."

Rivera looked at the sad, naked ice cubes in his glass and said, "Anyone ever tell you that it's hard to follow your train of thought, Charlie?"

"You need to talk to Minty Fresh."

"Of course, that clears things up. I'll have a word with Krispy Kreme while I'm there."

"He's also a Death Merchant. He can tell you that what I'm telling you is true and you can let me go."

"Get up." Rivera stood.

"I'm not finished with my wine."

"Leave the money for the drinks and get up, please." Rivera hooked his finger in Charlie's handcuffs and pulled him up. "We're going to the Castro."

"I don't think I can work my cane with these things on," Charlie said.

Rivera sighed and looked down on the surfers. He thought he saw something large moving in a wave behind one surfer, but as his heart leapt at the prospect, a sea lion poked his whiskered face out of the curl and Rivera's spirits sank again. He threw Charlie the handcuff keys.

"Meet me in the car, I have to take a leak."

"I could escape."

"You do that, Charlie - after you pay."