Christopher Moore - Secondhand Souls

The store was laid out in a barbell shape; he paced the whole front, then paused at the counter before going to the back. The guy behind the counter was about thirty, wearing a too-small plaid cotton short-sleeve, the bottom buttons unbuttoned, the shirt flaring over too-tight, too-short, gold polyester dress slacks, his hair a tangled mushroom shape, his beard more the function of not shaving than grooming— that shit was growing down his neck . The yellow fellow looked over the counter at the guy’s shoes: like something out of a Dorthea Lange Depression work-camp photo, toes all bent up and nasty.

“Can I help you,” said Neck Beard, a little indignant, the yellow fellow in his personal space.

“What’s your name?”

“Evan,” said Evan.

“Evan, this everything?” Yellow stirred the air with a long finger to include the whole store. “This your whole inventory?”

“There are a few things in the back room, mostly duplicates, some estate stuff I’m supposed to unpack and file. Nothing good.”

“Uh-huh,” said Yellow, noticing the locked glass case on the wall behind the counter was conspicuously half empty. “What you got in there?”

Evan looked over his shoulder dismissively, shrugged. “Some rare pressings, first editions. Usually these three shelves on the right are what the owner calls his ‘special collection’: just crap, mixed-up genres, vinyl, 78s, 45s, like a Fleetwood Mac CD, a beat-up wax Edison cylinder, worthless—not anything anybody’d want, no need to lock them up.”

“But he do? He lock them up, keep watch on them like they solid gold, right?”

“Yeah,” said Evan, just weary of it all. “I don’t understand it, unless he’s keeping them ironically, because they are worthless, so he’s kind of making a statement by pretending they have value.”

“So where, ironically , do you think he put them?”

Shrug. “Who cares?”

Yellow’s hand shot out and struck Evan’s throat like a viper, catching his windpipe between his thumb and fingers, pinching it. Evan made a cat-yakking-up-a-hairball noise, but could not move.

“Son, I’ma tell you something ain’t nobody else in the world can tell you: you got no soul. And I’ma tell your future, too: you ain’t never gonna get a soul, you keep makin’ people’s shit small.”

Evan’s eyes started to roll back in his head and the big man shook him like dust mop until he came back to the room. “You ain’t shit, Evan, and you ain’t never gonna be shit until you show some passion for something. Y’all got to love something. Y’all got to hate something. Y’all got to want something. Pissing on other people’s passion ’cause you trying to be cool just make you a coward—a little bitch.” Shake. Rattle. Roll.

“You don’t love nothin’, Evan. You’re no use to me. You’re no use to anyone. In fact, I’ma choke you out. Say good-bye to the world, Evan.”

“Wait!” Evan gasped.

“Wait, what? Ain’t no thing. I’ma choke you out ironically , Evan, so you be too cool for school. Cool as a motherfuckin’ corpse, Evan.” He let a little air through.

“I love something! I do love something.”

“You do?”

“My cat, Cisco.”

“Cisco? After the outlaw?”

“After the networking company.”

“Yeah, I’m sho-nuff gonna choke this motherfucker out!” Yellow said to the ceiling, just an amen short of preaching.

“There won’t be anyone to take care of him. The people in my building will take him to the shelter and they’ll put him down.”

Yellow loosened his grip. “Evan, did you just say something that wasn’t about you?”

Evan nodded as best he could.

“Where is the shit was in that case?”

“With Fresh. It was gone this morning when I got here.”

“Tell you what, Evan, I’ma give you a gift—a gift of passion. You got a passion for finding the shit was in that case.”

Yellow let him go. Evan fell back against the glass case, gasping. The man in yellow reached in his vest, pulled out a business card, and threw it on the counter. “That shit turn up, you call that number.”

Evan nodded.

“And that’s all you know about this encounter, Evan. You got a passion for finding that shit and calling that number. You didn’t see nobody, you didn’t hear nobody, you don’t even know how you got that card.”

Evan nodded.

“And shave your motherfucking neck.” Yellow pulled a silk handkerchief from his breast pocket and wiped his choking hand as he left the shop. “That shit is nasty.”

The bell over the door rang and Evan looked up, surprised that no one was there. No one had been in all morning. Just as well, he could feel a sore throat coming on.

It’s done,” Audrey said. She opened her eyes and looked around.

“What’s done?” said Jane, she looked up from her phone just in time to see a dark shape plummeting out of the fog bank above them. Two things hit the water with explosive impact only about fifteen feet from the boat— Pow! Pow! — a water spout shot up and dispersed over and around them.

“Holy fuck!” Jane said, staring at the water.

“Audrey, can you hand me that,” Minty Fresh said, pointing to the big, gray suitcase at the stern. His diving mask was on his head. He hit a button on his watch.

“Holy fuck!” Jane said.

Audrey stood, grabbed the handle, and swung it over to the big man, who stepped past the console and set it in the bow.

“What’s in there?” Audrey asked.

“Soul vessels,” said the Mint One. “After Cavuto, I wanted them with me.”

“Holy fuck!” Jane said, still staring at the settling spot where Mike had hit the water.

“Jane!” said Minty Fresh. She shook off the amazement and looked at him. “We need to get into the water.”

Jane shook her head. “Too much current, someone has to drive the boat.” She wore a wet suit under a yellow Gore-tex rain jacket, which she had refused to take off because she wasn’t happy about her butt.

Minty looked to Audrey, who shook her head.

“Fine, fold down that swim platform, Audrey,” said Minty. He moved to the rear of the console—his fins now in the space where Audrey had been sitting—sat on the gunwale, then pulled down his mask, put his snorkel in, and flipped over backward into the water. He took one breath on the surface and dove, his fins standing straight up out of the water like the flukes of a sounding whale. Sirens began to sound on the bridge.

“There’s enough foam in those motorcycle leathers to bring him to the surface,” Jane said. “Isn’t there?”

Audrey shrugged… who knows?

Jane maneuvered the boat to keep it near the point of impact. Without a word, Audrey reached over the stern of the boat and folded down an aluminum and teak swimming platform that formed a little dock at water level next to the big Mercury outboards. Jane pulled a backpack with the defibrillator in it out from under the console and handed it back to Audrey.

They watched the water fizz where Mike had gone in, looking for any sign of movement. A shadow rose in the deep green water and heads broke the surface. A geyser of seawater sprayed into the air as Minty Fresh cleared his snorkel. He looked around, located the boat, then hooked Mike under the chin in the crook of his arm, and started kicking for the boat.

“Backboard,” said Audrey. She was still in her nun robes, yellow and maroon silk, now beginning to whip in the cold wind.

There was an orange plastic backboard lashed to the rail on the console. Jane slipped the knot and handed one end of the board back to Audrey, who caught it by one of the many handles. The two of them lowered it over the side and waited. Minty Fresh swam Mike’s limp body up to the backboard, then pushed him onto it as Jane and Audrey held it steady. The big man cinched a nylon strap around Mike’s chest, then another around his feet, then kicked back to the swim platform, which he launched himself up and around into a sitting position. He allowed himself one breath, pulled his fins off and threw them into the boat, then was on his feet, reaching over the side to grab the backboard.