“Pardon?”
“That’s how it happened to me. When my wife passed away, in the hospital, I saw the guy that came to collect her soul vessel, and wham, I was a Death Merchant. You saw me today, when no one else could, and you saw the sewer harpy, that night in the alley. Most of the time, I’m the only one who can see them.”
Rivera really, really wanted to turn this guy over to a psychiatrist at the hospital and never see him again, but the problem was, he had seen the woman-thing, that night and another time on his own street, and he had seen reports of weird stuff happening in the City over the last two weeks. And not just normal San Francisco weird stuff, but really weird stuff, like a flock of ravens attacking a tourist in Coit Tower, and a guy who slammed his car through a storefront in Chinatown, saying that he had swerved to miss a dragon, and people all over the Mission saying that they’d seen an iguana dressed like a musketeer going through their garbage, tiny sword and all.
“I can prove it,” Charlie said. “Just take me to the music store in the Castro.”
Rivera looked at the sad, naked ice cubes in his glass and said, “Anyone ever tell you that it’s hard to follow your train of thought, Charlie?”
“You need to talk to Minty Fresh.”
“Of course, that clears things up. I’ll have a word with Krispy Kreme while I’m there.”
“He’s also a Death Merchant. He can tell you that what I’m telling you is true and you can let me go.”
“Get up.” Rivera stood.
“I’m not finished with my wine.”
“Leave the money for the drinks and get up, please.” Rivera hooked his finger in Charlie’s handcuffs and pulled him up. “We’re going to the Castro.”
“I don’t think I can work my cane with these things on,” Charlie said.
Rivera sighed and looked down on the surfers. He thought he saw something large moving in a wave behind one surfer, but as his heart leapt at the prospect, a sea lion poked his whiskered face out of the curl and Rivera’s spirits sank again. He threw Charlie the handcuff keys.
“Meet me in the car, I have to take a leak.”
“I could escape.”
“You do that, Charlie—after you pay.”
22
RECONSIDERING A CAREER IN SECONDHAND RETAIL
Anton Dubois, the owner of Book ’em Danno in the Mission, had been a Death Merchant longer than anyone else in San Francisco. Of course he hadn’t called himself a Death Merchant at first, but when that Minty Fresh fellow who opened the record store in the Castro coined the term, he could never think of himself as anything else. He was sixty-five years old and not in the best health, having never used his body for much more than to carry his head around, which is where he lived most of the time. He had, however, in his years of reading, acquired an encyclopedic knowledge of the science and mythology of death. So, on that Tuesday evening, just after sundown, when the windows of his store went black, as if all the light had been sucked suddenly out of the universe, and the three female figures moved toward him through the store, as he sat under his little reading light at the counter in the back, like a tiny yellow island in the vast pitch of space, he was the first man in fifteen hundred years to know exactly what—who—they were.
“Morrigan,” Anton said, with no particular note of fear in his voice. He set his book down, but didn’t bother to mark the page. He took off his glasses and cleaned them on his flannel shirt, then put them back on so as not to miss any detail. Just now they were only blue-black highlights moving among the deep shadows in the store, but he could see them. They stopped when he spoke. One of them hissed—not the hiss of a cat, a long, steady tone—more like the hiss of air escaping the rubber raft that is all that lies between you and a dark sea full of sharks, the hiss of your life leaking out at the seams.
“I thought something might be happening,” Anton said, a little anxious now. “With all the signs, and the prophecy about the Luminatus, I knew something was happening, but I didn’t think it would be you—in person—so to speak. This is very exciting.”
“A devotee?” said Nemain.
“A fan,” said Babd.
“A sacrifice,” said Macha.
They moved around him, just outside his circle of light.
“I moved the soul vessels,” Anton said. “I guessed that something had happened to the others.”
“Aw, are you disappointed because you’re not the first?” said Babd.
“It will be just like the first time, pumpkin,” said Nemain. “For you, anyway.” She giggled.
Anton reached under his counter and pushed a button. Steel shutters began to roll in the front of the store over the windows and door.
“You afraid we’ll get away, turtle man,” said Macha. “Don’t you think he looks like a turtle?”
“Oh, I know the shutters won’t keep you in, that’s not what they’re for. The books say that you’re immortal, but I suspect that that’s not exactly true. Too many tales of warriors injuring you and watching you heal yourself on the battlefield.”
“We will be here ten thousand years after your death, which starts pretty soon, I might add,” said Nemain. “The souls, turtle man. Where did you put them?” She extended her claws and reached out so they caught the light from Anton’s reading lamp. Venom dripped from their tips and sizzled when it hit the floor.
“You’d be Nemain, then,” Anton said. The Morrigan smiled, he could just see her teeth in the dark.
Anton felt a strange peace fall over him. For thirty years he had, in some way or another, been preparing for this moment. What was it that the Buddhists said? Only by being prepared for your death can you ever truly live. If collecting souls and seeing people pass for thirty years didn’t prepare you, what would? Under the counter he carefully unscrewed a stainless-steel cap that concealed a red button.
“I installed those four speakers at the back of the store a few months ago. I’m sure you can see them, even if I can’t,” Anton said.
“The souls!” Macha barked. “Where?”
“Of course I didn’t know it would be you. I thought it might be those little creatures I’ve seen wandering the neighborhood. But I think you’ll enjoy the music, nonetheless.”
The Morrigan looked at each other.
Macha growled. “Who says things like ‘nonetheless’?”
“He’s babbling,” said Babd. “Let’s torture him. Take his eyes, Nemain.”
“Do you remember what a claymore looks like?” Anton asked.
“A great, two-handed broadsword,” said Nemain. “Good for the taking of heads.”
“I knew that, I knew that,” said Babd. “She’s just showing off.”
“Well, in this time, a claymore means something else,” Anton said. “You acquire the most interesting things working in the secondhand business for three decades.” He closed his eyes and pushed the button. He hoped that his soul would end up in a book, preferably his first edition of Cannery Row, which was safely stored away.
The curved claymore antipersonnel mines that he had installed in speaker cabinets at the rear of the store exploded, sending twenty-eight hundred ball bearings hurtling toward the steel shutters at just under the speed of sound, shredding Anton and everything else in their path.
Ray followed the love of his life a block up Mason Street, where she hopped on a cable car and rode it the rest of the way up the hill into Chinatown. The problem was that while it was pretty easy to figure out where a cable car was going, they only came along about every ten minutes, so Ray couldn’t wait for the next one, jump on, and shout, “Follow that antiquated but quaint public conveyance, and step on it!” And there were no cabs in sight.
It turned out that jogging up a steep city hill on a hot summer day in street clothes was somewhat different from jogging on a treadmill in an air-conditioned gym behind a row of taut fuck puppets, and by the time he got to California Street, Ray was drenched in sweat, and not only hated the city of San Francisco and everyone in it, he was pretty much ready to call it quits with Audrey and go back to the relative desperation of Ukrainian Girls Loving Him from afar.