Christopher Moore - Secondhand Souls

Lemon took a step toward the counter, then saw something there in Minty’s stare that stopped him. He checked his watch, which was thin and gold and looked feminine on a man his size. “You lucky I got appointments and shit.” He turned on his heel and strolled away, limping a little from his burden of unshakable chill. The bell over the door jingled and he was gone.

“You a lying motherfucker,” Minty said. He went to the back room, found a bottle of cognac he kept in the desk, uncorked it, then paused, corked it, put it away. He didn’t need to steady his nerves. He went back out front. Flipped and cued the album on the turntable, then sat on the high-backed stool he kept behind the counter, stretched his legs out, threw his head back, closed his eyes, and let Bird’s notes wash over him.

He didn’t know what he would have done if Lemon had come at him, if whatever Lemon was now, or what deity was wearing Lemon had come at him—he didn’t have a plan, didn’t have a clue, but he was steady, cool as a sea breeze, unafraid, because there was something, even if he didn’t know exactly what it was. Even as he’d asked Lemon, What make you special? he had felt it. You ain’t the only one, Lemon.

Lily said, “Has it ever occurred to you that this Death Merchant thing is just a shitty job?”

“A dirty job,” Charlie said. “The Big Book says it’s a dirty job. But, yeah. I used to think that we were like Death’s middle management, but we’re not. We’re Death’s grunts.”

They were sitting at the bar in Charlie’s empty shop, there to plan what they were going to do with it. “Whatever you are, it’s ridiculous. There’s no vacation time, no retirement, and if you fuck up, the universe as we know it will collapse. Plus, the system is insanely complex, and you know what chaos theory says about that.”

“Sure,” said Charlie. “But go ahead and say so I’ll know that you know, though.”

“Chaos theory, more or less, says that in any complex dynamic system, it’s impossible to predict behavior because even the tiniest variable can have a huge effect down the line, throw everything into chaos.”

“Right,” Charlie said. “But Audrey doesn’t think that chaos is necessarily bad. It sounds kind of bad to me.”

“That’s because you’re thinking of chaos as disorder, but they’re not the same thing. And she’s a Buddhist, and they’re all about just making sure you’re paying attention or something. Remember what she said about the universe seeking order, balance, and the wobbles when it can’t find it? Well, chaos is the condition between order and disorder, the transition between one system and another. So that’s what’s going on.”

“Well good,” Charlie said. “I should check on Sophie. I left her playing upstairs.”

“You have no idea what I’m talking about, do you?”

“Yes, it’s just that when I try to apply it… No. How do you know this stuff? Isn’t chaos theory math or something? I thought you went to culinary school.”

“That’s where I learned it. First day, right after you learn to wash your hands and sharpen a knife. You have to know chaos theory to make basic biscuits.”

“Really? For biscuits? I never gave my mom credit… Really?”

“No, not really, Asher. Did your brain stay tiny and reptilian when Audrey changed you into a real boy? I’m trying to tell you I don’t think we should reopen your store. I don’t think you’re going to need it, because there’s a new system happening. I’m trying to tell you I don’t want to work in retail, for you or for Rivera. I have a thing now. I’m beyond working in retail.”

“The crisis line, I understand.”

“No, not the crisis line—yes, the crisis line, but there’s something else. Look, I’ve always had an empty place in my life that I’ve alternatively tried to fill with food and penises, but now I have something. Mike, the guy who used to be you, that guy you look like, he’s calling me. He’s calling me from the bridge—from beyond the grave. Just me, only me.”

“Wow,” Charlie said. “Like, now? Since—I mean—after he’s dead?”

“Yesterday,” Lily said. “From one of the hardwired lines on the Golden Gate.”

“Wow,” Charlie said.

“Yeah,” Lily said.

“How’s he doing?”

“Kind of hard to say. He sounds happy, but a little freaked out that he’ll be accused of boning a nun.”

“Hey, that’s consensual. And she’s not really a nun anymore.” He hung his head. “I miss her.”

“And it’s been how long since you’ve seen her?”

“Yesterday.”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake, Asher. One day? M and I broke up months ago, and still when I think about him as I’m going to sleep, my heart sounds like someone falling down the stairs. One day?”

“But I just got her back, sort of.”

“One day? Mike told me the ghost on the bridge has been waiting for her lover for two hundred years. And there’s thousands of others, waiting. Who knows how long. Blow me, one day , Asher.”

“Wait, thousands?”

“What? Yeah. He said there are thousands of ghosts on the bridge.”

Charlie swiveled on his stool, looked at her head-on—up until then they’d been more or less talking at a Cinzano poster that had been left up from the pizza and jazz days. “Lily, when you looked at the Emperor’s ledger the other night, was Mike Sullivan’s name in it?”

“Yeah, he was one of the last. But I thought that was just because his soul wasn’t retrieved by one of you guys, like all the others.”

“Can you call him?”

“Of course I can’t call him. He calls through magic or something, there’s no number. But I’m the only who can hear him. That’s what I’m saying, Asher. I have to stay at the Crisis Center. That’s my special thing.”

“I’ve got to go call Audrey. I left my phone upstairs.”

“You massive wuss. Are you missing the fact that I am the only person who can speak to the dead, Asher?”

“Right, just you and the Emperor,” Charlie said. “Be right back.” He ran through the back room and up the stairs.

“It’s a big fucking deal!” she shouted after him, then settled into her well-practiced pout. Fuckstick , she thought. “Fuckstick!” she called after him, knowing he wouldn’t hear it, but saying it because it needed to be said.

“Lily!” called a voice from the stairwell.

Sophie ran, stumbled, hopped, tumbled, down the stairs the way she did, then climbed up on the bar stool next to Lily.

“I needs me my gin and juice,” she said.

“No gin,” said Lily.

“Just juice, then,” Sophie said.

Lily slid her Starbucks over to the kid, who took a sip, made a face, then slid it back.

“Where’s Daddy—I mean Mike?”

“You just missed him.”

More noise on the stairs, deliberate, heavy steps, lots of them, a tired horse descending.

Sophie leaned over and whispered wetly, “I’m not ’sposed to call my dad Daddy in front of anyone because it would be weird.”

“Well, we wouldn’t want it to be weird,” Lily said.

Mrs. Korjev came out of the back room, eclipsing Mrs. Ling, who was right behind her, but identifiable by the squeak of the little cart she always rolled her groceries in, despite having to fold and unfold it to get it up and down stairs, and up curbs, and on and off buses, or trains, about a thousand times every trip.

Lily greeted each of the grandmothers and they returned her greetings with the same distaste and distrust they had paid her since she was sixteen and had first come to work for Charlie Asher.

“Lily,” each of them had said in turn, slowly, as a greeting, just short of spitting in three languages after.