Christopher Moore - A Dirty Job

Fresh shrugged. “Sometimes you have to really search, find the person, go to their house—once I even hired a detective to help me find someone, but that started to bring the voices. You can tell if you’re getting close by checking to see if people notice you.”

“But I have to make a living. I have a kid—”

“You’ll do that, too, Charlie. The money comes as part of the job. You’ll see.”

Charlie did see. He had seen already: the Mainheart estate clothing—he’d make tens of thousands on it if he got it.

“Now you have to go,” said Minty Fresh. He held out his hand to shake and a grin cut his face like a crescent moon in the night sky. Charlie took the tall man’s hand, his own hand disappearing into the Death Merchant’s grip.

“I’m still sure I have questions. Can I call you?”

“No,” said the mint one.

“Okay, then, I’m going now,” Charlie said, not really moving. “Completely at the mercy of forces of the Underworld and stuff.”

“You take care,” said Minty Fresh.

“No idea what the hell I’m doing,” Charlie went on, taking tentative baby steps toward the door. “The weight of all of humanity on my shoulders.”

“Yeah, make sure you stretch in the morning,” said the big man.

“By the way,” Charlie said, out of rhythm with his whining, “are you gay?”

“What I am,” said Minty Fresh, “is alone. Completely and entirely.”

“Okay,” Charlie said. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay. I’m sorry I smacked you in the head.”

Charlie nodded, grabbed his sword-cane from behind the counter, and walked out of Fresh Music into an overcast San Francisco day.

Well, he wasn’t exactly Death, but he wasn’t Santa’s helper, either. It didn’t really matter that no one would believe him even if he told them. Death Merchant seemed a little dire, but he liked the idea of being a secret agent. An agent of KARMA—Karma Assessment Reassignment Murder and Ass—okay, he could work on the acronym later, but a secret agent nevertheless.

Actually, although he didn’t know it, Charlie was well suited to be a secret agent. Because they function below the radar, Beta Males make excellent spies. Not the “James Bond, Aston Martin with missiles, boning the beautiful Russian rocket scientist on an ermineskin bedspread” sort of spy—more the “bad comb-over, deep-cover bureaucrat fishing coffee-sodden documents out of a Dumpster” spy. His overt nonthreateningness allows him access to places and people that are closed to the Alpha Male, wearing his testosterone on his sleeve. The Beta male can, in fact, be dangerous, not so much in the “Jet Li entire body is a deadly weapon” way but more in the “drunk on the riding mower making a Luke Skywalker assault on the toolshed” sort of way.

So, as Charlie headed for the streetcar stop on Market Street, he mentally tried on his new persona as a secret agent, and was feeling pretty good about it, when, as he passed a storm drain, he heard a female voice whisper harshly, “We’ll get the little one. You’ll see, fresh Meat. We’ll have her soon.”

As soon as Charlie walked into his store from the alley, Lily bolted into the back room to meet him.

“That cop was here again. That guy died. Did you kill him?” To the machine-gun update she added, “Uh, sir?” Then she saluted, curtsied, then did a praying-hands Japanese bow thing.

Charlie was thrown by all of it, coming as it did when he was in a panic about his daughter and had just driven across town like a madman. He was sure the gestures of respect were just some dark cover-up for a favor or a misdeed, or, as often was the case, the teenager was messing with him. So he sat down on one of the high hardwood stools near the desk and said, “Cop? Guy? ’Splain, please. And I didn’t kill anyone.”

Lily took a deep breath. “That cop that was by here the other day came back. Turns out that guy you went up to see in Pacific Heights last week”—she looked at something she had written on her arm in red ink—“Michael Mainheart, killed himself. And he left a note to you. Saying that you were to take his and his wife’s clothes and sell them at the market rate. And then he wrote”—and here she again referred to her ink-stained arm—“‘What about “I just want to die” did you not understand?’” Lily looked up.

“That’s what he said after I gave him CPR the other day,” Charlie said.

“So, did you kill him? Or whatever you call it. You can tell me.” She curtsied again, which disturbed Charlie more than somewhat. He’d long ago defined his relationship with Lily as being built on a strong base of affectionate contempt, and this was throwing everything off.

“No, I did not kill him. What kind of question is that?”

“Did you kill the guy with the cigarette case?”

“No! I never even saw that guy.”

“You realize that I am your trusted minion,” Lily said, this time adding another bow.

“Lily, what the hell is wrong with you?”

“Nothing. There’s nothing wrong at all, Mr. Asher—uh, Charles. Do you prefer Charles or Charlie?”

“You’re asking now? What else did the cop say?”

“He wanted to talk to you. I guess they found that Mainheart guy dressed in his wife’s clothing. He hadn’t been home from the hospital for an hour before he sent the nurse away, got all cross-dressed up, then took a handful of painkillers.”

Charlie nodded, thinking about how adamant Mainheart had been about having his wife’s clothes out of the house. He was using any way he could to feel close to her, and it wasn’t working. And when wearing her clothes didn’t put him closer, he’d gone after her the only way he knew how, by joining her in death. Charlie understood. If it hadn’t been for Sophie, he might have tried to join Rachel.

“Pretty kinky, huh?” Lily said.

“No!” Charlie barked. “No it’s not, Lily. It’s not like that at all. Don’t even think that. Mr. Mainheart died of grief. It might look like something else, but that’s what it was.”

“Sorry,” Lily said. “You’re the expert.”

Charlie was staring at the floor, trying to put some sense to it all, wondering if his losing the fur coat that was Mrs. Mainheart’s soul vessel meant that the couple would never be together again. Because of him.

“Oh yeah,” Lily added. “Mrs. Ling called down all freaked out and yelling all Chinesey about a black bird smashing the window—”

Charlie was off the stool and taking the stairs two at a time.

“She’s in your apartment,” Lily called after him.

There was an orange slick of TV attorneys floating on the top of the fishbowl when Charlie got to his apartment. The Asian powers were standing in his kitchen, Mrs. Korjev was holding Sophie tight to her chest, and the infant was virtually swimming, trying to escape the giant marshmallowy canyon of protection between the massive Cossack fun bags. Charlie snatched his daughter as she was sinking into the cleavage for the third time and held her tight.

“What happened?” he asked.

There followed a barrage of Chinese and Russian mixed with the odd English word: bird, window, broken, black, and make shit on myself .

“Stop!” Charlie held up a free hand. “Mrs. Ling, what happened?”

Mrs. Ling had recovered from the bird hitting the window and the mad dash down the steps, but she was now showing an uncharacteristic shyness, afraid that Charlie might notice the damp spot in the pocket of her frock where the recently deceased Barnaby Jones lay orangely awaiting introduction to some wonton, green onions, a pinch of five spices, and her soup pot. “Fish is fish,” she said to herself when she squirreled that rascal away. There were, after all, five more dead attorneys in the bowl, who would miss one?