Paul Kohler - The Borrowed Souls, A Novel

“Not everybody needs to be old or have some kind of disease in order for them to die. Accident, murder”—Hauser paused—”and, well, suicide. All of those could be a factor here.”

I squinched my eyes tight at hearing his latest rationale.

“Listen, champ. You’re just gonna have to keep with it. Keep following your target. Stay with him, and death will come. I wish there was more I could say to make this easier for you.”

I opened my eyes and nodded, staring straight ahead. “Yeah. Okay.”

Hauser stood. “Anything else before I take off?”

“Now that you mention it, do you mind if I borrow your monocle for a moment? Will that help me see the exact moment Noah dies?”

Hauser smiled. “Well, the monocle isn’t really used in that way. It has a completely other purpose. There are, however, other items that are useful in our profession. But at this moment, you do not have access to any of them. You’ll have to just stick with it. Do it old school. Think of it as paying your dues.” Hauser winked. “You’ll earn your first apparatus soon enough.”

“Other items?” I asked, my interest piqued.

“Not quite yet, compadre. In due time,” Hauser said. “And one more thing. I know you’ve been spending a lot of time with him, getting to know his life, his habits, his family. Just try to keep everything in perspective. Don’t get too close. It’ll just make the collection that much more difficult in the end.”

I shrugged, disappointed at the lack of information. Before I could form another question, Hauser disappeared.

“No, no. It’s okay. I’ll just chat with you later,” I said sarcastically before I jumped back to Noah’s apartment.

When I popped into the Claytons’ apartment, I landed in their bedroom. Noah and his wife were still fast asleep. The alarm clock on the nightstand shone 5:47 in vivid red numerals.

“Any chance you want to wake up and die?” I asked. Not surprisingly, there was no response.

I made my way to the corner of the bedroom where I’d spent far too many mind-numbingly boring nights, waiting. I leaned back into the intersection of the two walls and slid my back down until my butt was firmly resting on the floor, my legs crossed beneath me, Lotus style. As I settled in for the early morning, I thought back to what Hauser had said . There are other items useful in our profession . I wondered, besides the coin, what else there was that might help me. Wilson must have had something else, something more that he’d earned along the way.

I remembered the rosary and pulled it out. While I fumbled with it, I began to hear stirrings from the bed next to me. Initially ignoring the sounds, I continued my inspection of the beaded crucifix. After a few moments of review, I dismissed its magical potential and thought about what else Wilson might have had. The only other thing he’d had with him was his sunglasses. Panic overwhelmed me at the thought of me haphazardly placing them on the dead man’s face just as an attempt to add humor to the situation. What if that pair of sunglasses allowed me to see something in the future? What if they somehow enhanced the wearer’s perception in some magical way?

“Crap,” I yelled. How could I have been so oblivious to even the most remote possibility? I thought about what Hauser had said, that Wilson’s body might very well remain in the coroner’s freezer until they determined who he was or until somebody claimed him as a long-lost relative twice removed. Knowing good and well that that event would never happen, I wondered just how long an unidentified body would continue to take up space in the city morgue. I made a mental note to ask Hauser about it.

As these thoughts coursed through my mind, I was interrupted by voices from the bed.

“Hey, baby. Are you awake?” asked Ashley, Noah’s wife.

Noah rolled over onto his back, and Ashley slid her body next to his, spooning his side with her feminine curves.

I slipped the rosary back into my breast pocket and focused completely on the couple. Was this the moment? Could Noah be having chest pains? An aneurysm? A fatal bout of halitosis?

Ashley caressed Noah’s chest for a few moments before speaking again. “What do you want to do today?

“Hrmm rmm,” Noah shrugged, not putting any more effort into the morning conversation than was necessary. “You?” he asked.

Ashley’s hand continued to weave in and out of Noah’s chest hairs, inching lower down his abdomen with each pass. “It’s up to you, Babe. You worked hard all week. It’s the weekend, and you deserve a little fun.”

Before Noah could say another word, Ashley’s hand disappeared beneath the bedsheets, causing Noah to moan slightly.

“Are you serious?” I asked. “First I have to wait for you to die, and now you are going to make love to your wife right in front of me?”

Noah didn’t answer my sarcasm but instead leaned into Ashley and kissed her passionately. The kiss only lasted a moment though, as Ashley slid herself beneath the sheets, causing more moaning from Noah.

“Nope. I’m outta here,” I grumbled before disappearing from the bedroom corner.

Having improved on my ability to jump from place to place, I popped into Noah’s living room, just on the other side of their bedroom wall. I wasn’t a stranger to watching the occasional porn video, but that was back when I had the ability to release with Cyndi. Now that I was forever in detached solitude, I didn’t need to get all dressed up with no place to go, so to speak.

As I paced around the apartment, I hoped that their impromptu act of love making would be quick so that I might be able to move on with my job. I was discovering that the more I followed Noah and his family around, the more I liked the guy. He was a good husband, and he was living it right. I knew now what Hauser meant about becoming too attached, and my only hope was that it wasn’t too late.

Moving into the kitchen, I noticed 6:12 a.m. glowing on the microwave’s digital readout. “How long am I going to have to wait?” I asked. To my surprise I heard a whimper from just down the hall. In the otherwise silent house, it sounded like a trapped animal calling out for attention. Quietly, I crept down the hall toward the sound. Just past the powder room I came to a closed door. As I stood just outside, I listened intently at the noise. The whimpering came and went, and even though I’d never been around puppies growing up, I recognized the sound instantly.

After following Noah around for so many weeks, I knew the dog was a new addition. Deciding that it was far too early for anyone else to be awake, I stepped into the room to see the puppy for myself. The room was dark, but the early sunrise cast in just enough light, revealing the compact laundry room.

Closing the door behind me, I turned and looked around for the source of the crying. In just a few moments, I found the crate that the pooch was penned up in. As I leaned in close to the wire-framed cage door, I found two dark eyes looking back at me. They belonged to what looked like a beagle puppy, and strangely, I sensed that the dog could see me.

“Hey, buddy,” I said. “You’re new around here, aren’t you?”

As soon as I muttered those words, the puppy began to bark and yelp. It was clear that he was aware of my presence and he was not happy, either about being locked up or about seeing a strange person just outside his cage.

“Hush, now. It’ll be all right,” I said as I quickly unlatched the cage door, freeing the black-and-brown spotted puppy.

The moment he was out of the cage, he rushed between my legs and began to scratch at the door that led to the rest of the apartment.

“Come here, you little shit,” I hollered, but the dog ignored me. I wondered if I was initially mistaken and he actually couldn’t see me after all.