Christopher Moore - A Dirty Job

The tweed woman backed away toward the door, holding the sneakers behind her. Charlie stalked her down the aisle, taking the occasional grab at the All Stars. “Give them.”

When the woman butt-bumped into the front door and the bell over the jamb jingled, she looked up and Charlie made his move, faking hard left, then going right, reaching around her and grabbing the laces of the sneakers, as well as a scoop of big, tweedy ass in the bargain. He quickstepped back toward the counter, tossed the sneakers to Ray, and then turned and fell into a sumo stance to challenge the tweed woman.

She was still at the door, looking as if she couldn’t decide to be terrified or disgusted. “You people need to be put away. I’m reporting you to the Better Business Bureau and the local merchants’ association. And you, Mr. Asher, can tell Ms. Severo that I will be back.” And with that, she was through the door and gone.

Charlie turned to Ray. “Ms. Severo? Lily? She was here to see Lily?”

“Truant officer,” Ray said. “She’s been in a couple of times.”

“You might have said something.”

“I didn’t want to lose the sale.”

“So, Lily—”

“Ducks out the back when she sees her coming. The woman also wanted to check with you that the notes for Lily’s absences were legitimate. I vouched.”

“Well, Lily is going back to school, and as of right now, I’m back to work.”

“That’s great. I took this call today—an estate in Pacific Heights. Lots of nice women’s clothes.” Ray tapped a piece of notepaper on the counter. “I’m not really qualified to handle it.”

“I’ll do it, but first we have a lot to catch up on. Flip the ‘Closed’ sign and lock the front door, would you, Ray?”

Ray didn’t move. “Sure, but—Charlie, are you sure that you’re ready to go back to work?” He nodded to the sneakers and frog on the counter.

“Oh, those, I think there’s something wrong with them. You don’t see anything unusual about those two items?”

Ray looked again. “Nope.”

“Or that once I took the frog away from her, she went right for a pair of sneakers that are clearly not her size?”

Ray weighed the truth against the sweet deal he had here, with an apartment and under-the-table income and a boss that had really been a decent guy before he went 51/50, and he said, “Yeah, there was something strange about her.”

“Aha!” said Charlie. “I just wish I knew where I could get a Geiger counter.”

“I have a Geiger counter,” Ray said.

“You do?”

“Sure, you want me to get it?”

“Maybe later,” Charlie said. “Just lock up, and help me gather up some of the merchandise.”

Over the next hour Ray watched as Charlie moved a set of what seemed randomly chosen items from the store to the back room, directing him to under no circumstances put them back out or sell them to anyone. Then he retrieved the Geiger counter that he’d obtained on a sweet trade for a stringless oversized tennis racket and tested each item as Charlie instructed. And, of course, they were as inert as dirt.

“And you don’t see any glowing or pulsating or anything in this pile?” Charlie asked.

“Sorry.” Ray shook his head, feeling a little embarrassed that he was witnessing this. “Good first day back to work, though,” Ray said, trying to make it all better. “Maybe you should call it a day, go check on the baby, and make that estate call in the morning. I’ll box this stuff up and mark it so Lily won’t sell or trade it.”

“Okay,” Charlie said. “But don’t throw it out, either. I’m going to figure this out.”

“You betcha, boss. See you in the morning.”

“Yeah, thanks, Ray. You can go home when you finish.”

Charlie went back to his apartment, checking his hands the whole way to see if any of the red glow from the pile of objects had rubbed off on them, but they seemed normal. He sent Jane home, fed and bathed Sophie, and read her to sleep with a few pages from Slaughterhouse-Five, then went to bed early and slept fitfully. He awoke the next morning in a haze, then sat bolt upright in bed, eyes wide and heart pounding when he saw the note sitting on the nightstand. Another one. Then he noticed that this time it wasn’t his handwriting, and the number was obviously a phone number, and he sighed. It was the estate appointment that Ray had made for him. He’d put it on the nightstand so he wouldn’t forget. Mr. Michael Mainheart, it read; then upscale women’s clothing and furs, with a double underline. The phone number had a local exchange. He picked up the note, and under it was a second piece of notepaper, this one with the same name, written in his own handwriting, and under it, the numeral 5. He didn’t remember writing any of it. At that moment, something large and dark passed by the second-story bedroom window, but by the time he looked up, it was gone.

Ablanket of fog lay over the Bay and from Pacific Heights the great orange towers of the Golden Gate Bridge jutted through the fog bank like carrots from the faces of sleeping conjoined twin snowmen. In the Heights, the morning sun had already opened the sky and workmen were scurrying about, tending yards and gardens around the mansions.

When he arrived at the home of Michael Mainheart the first thing Charlie noticed was that no one noticed him. There were two guys working in the yard, to whom Charlie waved as he passed, but they did not wave back. Then the mailman, who was coming off the big porch, drove him off the walkway into the dewy grass without so much as an “excuse me.”

“Excuse me!” Charlie said, sarcastically, but the mailman was wearing headphones and listening to something that was inspiring him to bob his head like a pigeon feeding on amphetamines, and he bopped on. Charlie was going to shout something devastatingly clever, then thought better of it, for although it had been some years since he’d heard of a postal employee perpetrating a massacre, as long as the term “going postal” referred to anything besides choosing a shipping carrier, he felt he shouldn’t press his luck.

Called a wack job by a complete stranger one day and shouldered off the sidewalk by a civil servant the next: this city was becoming a jungle.

Charlie rang the bell and waited to the side of the twelve-foot leaded-glass door. A minute later he heard light, shuffling steps approaching and a diminutive silhouette moved behind the glass. The door swung open slowly.

“Mr. Asher,” said Michael Mainheart. “Thank you for coming.” The old man was swimming in a houndstooth suit that he must have bought thirty years ago when he was a more robust fellow. When he shook Charlie’s hand his skin felt like an old wonton wrapper, cool and a little powdery. Charlie tried not to shudder as the old man led him into a grand marble rotunda, with leaded-glass windows running to a vaulted, forty-foot ceiling and a circular staircase that swept up to a landing that led off to the upper wings of the house. Charlie had often wondered what it was like to have a house with wings. How would you ever find your car keys?

“Come this way,” Mainheart said. “I’ll show you where my wife kept her clothes.”

“I’m sorry about your loss,” Charlie said automatically. He’d been on scores of estate calls. You don’t want to come off as some kind of vulture, his father used to say. Always compliment the merchandise; it might be a piece of crap to you, but they might have a lot of their soul poured into it. Compliment but never covet. You can make a profit and preserve everyone’s dignity in the process .

“Holy shit,” Charlie said as he followed the old man into a walk-in closet the size of his own apartment. “I mean—your wife had exquisite taste, Mr. Mainheart.”