Secondhand Souls (Grim Reaper 2)

“Thanks, I will.”

“Ta,” she said, and in a wisp of smoke, she was gone.

“That’s somewhat disturbing,” said the Emperor. The men frisked at his sides, hopeful eyes searching for another beef jerky.

“She does that,” said Rivera. He led them to the brown Ford and opened the rear door for them. “Did you get your journal?” he asked.

“In the recycle bin,” said the Emperor. “Its purpose has been served. I’m going to turn my attentions to the living citizens of my city. They need me.”

“Of course they do,” said Rivera. The Emperor and his men tumbled into the Ford and Rivera drove them to North Beach, where he installed them in their closet with a large sausage pizza, several bottles of water, and two new wool blankets, before he went home and fell into a sleep as deep as the dead.

Religion in Chinatown, as in most places, is based less on a cogent theology and more on a collection of random fears, superstitions, preju­dices, forgotten customs, vestigial animism, and social control. Mrs. Ling, while a professed Buddhist of the Pure Land tradition, also kept waving cat charms, lucky coins, and put great faith in the good fortune of the color red. She gave gifts of money on the Chinese New Year, threw I-­Ching coins for guidance, believed in the comfort of ghost brides for old men who died alone, and was very much in favor of any tradition, superstition, or ritual that involved fireworks, including New Year’s, Independence Day, and the end of the Giants’ season. She followed the Chinese zodiac with a stubborn devotion, and because she was born in the year of the dragon, she thought them the luckiest of all creatures. Which was why her friend Vladlena Korjev found her in the state she did when she returned home from the hospital.

Having not encountered her friend in the hallways after two days home, and hearing strange noises at Mrs. Ling’s door, Mrs. Korjev did as they had agreed (“In case we fall, and break hip, like bear”) and used her key to let herself into Mrs. Ling’s apartment. She found her friend seated at one end of the sofa, watching her stories on the Chinese channel, while at the other end of the sofa sat Wiggly Charlie. Each was joyfull

y eating a mozzarella stick, and Mrs. Ling, who was mildly lactose intolerant, let fly with a diminutive “bfffffrat” of gas every thirty seconds or so, at which both she and Wiggly Charlie would snicker until they wheezed.

“He lucky dlagon,” explained Mrs. Ling. Wiggly Charlie had avoided the braised fate of a prior, and less chatty, Squirrel Person when, after being roughly yanked from his cat carrier by his feet, he asked the petite matron for a cheese, thereby establishing his lucky-­magic-­dragon-­ness. Mrs. Ling agreed that if Mrs. Korjev would keep the secret, she could share in the dragon’s luck, and the three spent many a pleasant afternoon sitting on the sofa, dragon in the middle, grandmother on either end, watching stories, eating cheese sticks, and gleefully giggling at Mrs. Ling’s delicate condition.

Some mornings, Mrs. Ling would put Wiggly Charlie in the cat carrier and take him for a ride around the neighborhood in her cart, feeling very special and blessed among the multitudes in North Beach and Chinatown, for she alone rolled with a dragon. Other mornings Wiggly Charlie spent with Mrs. Korjev, who would stand him on her counter and drill him like a Cossack sergeant major:

“Need a cheez,” Wiggly Charlie would say.

“How you need cheese?” Mrs. Korjev would inquire.

“Like bear,” the lucky dragon would reply.

And thus a cheese would be bestowed upon the long-­donged dragon.

The care and feeding of their lucky dragon, as well as the leap in credibility engendered by his very existence, helped the two grandmothers better adjust to the condition of their Sophie, who now had not two, but three mommies, and to the fact that the sneaky, usurping drug fiend Mike Sullivan was, in fact, Charlie Asher.

Once you accept you have a miniature talking dragon in your midst, the idea that your former landlord has changed bodies and has taken a Buddhist nun as a bride is a minor leap of faith. Audrey left her resident position at the Buddhist Center and moved in with Charlie despite some objections from Sophie (“Really, Dad, the shiksa booty nun?”) and they, with the help of two loving aunties, and the two rental grandmothers, set about raising the little girl who would possibly grow up to be Death.

“Maybe she has always had the powers, but just didn’t want to hurt anyone,” said Audrey.

“So you think my daughter may still be Death, but she’s broken?” Charlie said.

“Not broken,” Audrey said, “just not finished yet.”

“I’m telling you, that child is not normal,” said Minty Fresh, who had seen her through the eyes of Anubis and knew. “For one thing, she got a mouth on her like a sailor.”

“Her auntie Jane is very proud of that,” said Charlie.

After a time, their suspicions about Sophie’s future were confirmed when the hellhounds returned and remained Sophie’s constant companions everywhere but at school, where they waited patiently outside as she instructed until they could escort her home in the afternoon. The goggies were quite happy and fairly well behaved, only occasionally sneaking down to a North Beach sidewalk café where one would eat a comfort dog off the lap of some self-­indulgent diner, only to return looking innocent but for the leash hanging out of the corner of his mouth. To atone, Charlie encouraged San Francisco’s animal control ­people to put the hellhounds down, and at Sophie’s instruction, they would go away in the back of a truck, only to return a few hours later, justice done, somewhat stoned on whatever poison they’d been given, to resume spinning bags of kibble into great steaming spools of stool.

When Inspector Alphonse Rivera returned to his bookstore and opened his copy of the Great Big Book of Death, he found the entire text had been changed to the following:

“Congratulations, you were one of the select few chosen to act as Death. It was a dirty job, but someone had to do it. A new order has been established and your services will no longer be required. Feel free to keep the calendar and the number two pencils for your own personal use. Best of luck in all your future endeavors.”

Rivera called the other Death Merchants that he knew to confirm that their copies of the Big Book had changed as well, which they had. For a moment, he considered putting a price tag on his copy of the Big Book and offering it for sale in his shop, but after contemplating how sneaky and ever-­changing the universe appeared to be, he decided instead to keep it in his personal collection, just for reference, in case things got weird.

He also decided, having served twenty-­five years as a policeman and survived the reset of the Wheel of Life and Death still never having shot a human being, nor having been shot, that he would take a second retirement and become a bookseller full-­time, despite the precarious prospects of that profession.

On his second day of his second retirement, Rivera called Lily Severo’s mother, Elizabeth, and invited her to join him for coffee. The two found they quite liked each other, and started dating regularly. What began as gratitude for being rescued from loneliness developed into love; they rev­eled in sharing who they were and how they had come to this place in their lives, and everything was made that much sweeter by how much their relationship annoyed Lily.

Lily, having served nobly as oracle to the bridge, found the specialness she felt by having been chosen remained, even after the ghosts moved on. She comported herself, at least outwardly, with less cynicism and hostility toward the world, and at times, with humility and style, if only because she knew secretly how much it annoyed everyone who had known her before.

“So,” Charlie Asher said to her, “I’m going to reopen the shop. I mean, it was a successful business for my family for thirty years before I became Death, there’s no reason why it can’t be again. And the pizza oven is still in there. So I thought we might go into business together.”