Christopher Moore - Secondhand Souls

“So?” she said as she sat. She sipped her coffee.

“So,” Minty Fresh repeated, tenting his long fingers on his chest.

“What can I do?” she asked.

“Rivera is trying to catch up on his list, retrieving soul vessels. He’s back on the force.”

“When was he not a cop?”

“Retired. Temporarily. Back now. He needs someone to work in his shop. He asked for you.”

“Wait. What?”

“Eventually we’re going to have to figure out a way for Asher’s shop to open again, too, if everything doesn’t blow up. But first things first.”

“You called me, had me come down here, dumped all this world-shaking shit on me because you want me to work in fucking retail?” Oh, it was so wrong. So, so, unfair. Bullshit, that’s what it was. Bullshit!

“He needs someone,” said Minty.

“Someone, but not me. Some anonymous, unspecial person with no talent, not me. I’ve saved five and a half lives this month already.”

“A half?”

“Jumped but lived, so, you know, technically, I didn’t stop the guy from jumping, but he failed, too, since he lived, so it’s a tie, so half a save. Anyway, the point is, I have important things to do.”

“I told him that.”

“No, you didn’t.”

“I did. I told him you were special,” he said.

“Wait,” she said, then dug into her purse for her phone to buy time to think. What was he trying to pull now? She was not going to let him get away with that weak-ass charm thing he did. She looked at her phone to check the time, then stood up. “Look, I’ll let you know. I’ve got to go. I have a date with the guy who paints the Golden Gate Bridge.”

That sounded way less impressive than she had hoped it would.

“There’s only one?”

“Yes,” she said. She had no idea. There was now.

“Y’all have a good time, then,” Minty said. “Good seeing you, Darque.”

“Yeah, you too,” she said, fussing with stuff in her purse as if she were searching for car keys, which she wasn’t, since she didn’t have a car, but it was a thing you could do when you couldn’t think of what to do.

“Thanks for the coffee,” he said. He watched as she walked away and thought, She’s too young, too short, and way to motherfuckin’ spooky, and I miss her. But at least I won coffee.

At the door of the coffee shop she turned and said, “You did not win.” Then she walked out.

Motherfuckin’ spooky, he thought.

Dawn, pink and chilly. The Emperor of San Francisco was trudging along the waterfront by the Aquatic Park when a guinea pig dressed in the pumpkin pants and satin doublet of an Elizabethan dandy ran by on disproportionately long, wading-bird legs, a small model tugboat thrown over its shoulder. It was followed by two equally patchwork creatures dressed in what appeared to be red shop rags, the type that are sold in rolls; one creature had the head of a calico cat, the other that of an armadillo, the latter chanting “go, go, go” as they passed.

“Well, you don’t see that every day,” said the Emperor. Lazarus, the golden retriever, ruffed in sympathy, but Bummer, the Boston terrier, was already after them, hell-bent for leather, emitting a staccato growl that sounded as if he had swallowed a very small and angry motorcycle and was trying to keep it down as he ran.

Not in my town, Bummer thought . Not in my town.

Lazarus looked to the Emperor as if to say, We have to go after him, don’t we? He fell into a tolerant trot while the Emperor tucked his walking stick under his arm and hitched up the army-surplus map bag he had slung over his shoulder to hold the heavy journal containing his list of the dead, and strode along behind.

His bad knee had been bothering him more than usual lately, since they’d started sleeping nearer the water, in and around Fort Mason, sometimes in a nook or cranny at the St. Francis Yacht Club, instead of in the utility closet behind the pizzeria in North Beach whose benevolent owner had cleared out the space and even provided a key for the Emperor and his men. Something about being closer to the bridge helped the names of the dead come to him, and on recent mornings he could scarcely work the stiffness out of his hand before the names and numbers began flooding his mind, and he would have to sit down wherever he was and record them. At first he’d gone to the library, and to the police station, and even to City Hall to get the names the dead had asked for, but these were names he hadn’t found there, and the dates went back much further than the year the dead had originally asked him to record.

At the edge of the park, streetcar tracks, long unused, ran into a long concrete trench where the street cars used to pass before entering the tunnel under the great meadow above Fort Mason. Bummer chased the hodgepodge creatures into the trench, knowing that there was a set of steel doors closing off the tunnel at the end and soon he would tear ass out of whatever these things were, or at least stand tough and give them a stern barking at.

As the doors came into his view, Bummer smelled a foul, avian odor that he’d encountered before, and he stopped so abruptly he nearly toppled over. The doors covered only the lower portion of the tunnel; the arch above, nearly four feet high, was open and dark. At the base of the doors was a wide puddle that looked like tar or heavy oil.

The Emperor and Lazarus caught up to Bummer just as one of the creatures, the calico-cat-headed one, bounced up and over the doors, into the dark arch. As the second one, the guinea pig, crouched to leap over the top of door as well, out of the puddle came a sleek feminine hand with long talons that impaled the little dandy in the chest. Another hand snaked out of the dark liquid, snatched the toy tugboat, and submerged, then a third emerged, talons bared, and with the first one tore the guinea pig to shreds; blood and silk splattered the door and the concrete walls of the trench.

The third creature turned and ran back toward the Emperor and his men, who also turned and followed it out of the trench.

Above his own rasping breath the Emperor heard, “Oh, that’s delicious, isn’t that delicious?” in a breathy, female voice, that wafted from the dark tunnel.

They’d agreed to meet at an independent coffee place off Union Street in the Marina called The Toasted Grind. Did nobody drink anymore? Lily wondered. She loved coffee, but this was turning out to be a stressful day and a couple of stout Long Island iced teas would certainly take the edge off, especially if the bridge guy was buying. She’d only agreed to this because the bridge guy had called as she was getting ready to meet M, and she thought it would be something she could tell the Mint One that would make him jealous. Oh, well.

“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.