Christopher Moore - Secondhand Souls

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.”

Sundown. 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.