The Getaway God (Sandman Slim 6)
Page 180
“Yeah?”
“May I speak to you for a moment?”
“No. It’s Christmas. Go away.”
“I can’t.”
“Sure you can. Aim your feet. First right, then left. Try it.”
He knocks again.
“What?”
“Mr. Stark. I understand you do investigations.”
“No. That’s my boss. She’s outside. In the back with a drunk Czech and a hot blonde. You can’t miss them.”
He knocks.
“Please, Mr. Stark. I’d rather deal with you. My case is unique.”
“How unique?”
The guy who pushes the stall door open looks like yesterday’s lunch, eaten and thrown back up again. A gray, patchy beard. Hair a terminal thicket of cowlicks. A trench coat that might have been tan once, but is now the color of cold grease and rhino shit.
“Please, Mr. Stark,” he says. “It has to be you.”
“Why?”
He opens his coat. He isn’t wearing a shirt. His chest is a mass of torn muscle and cracked bones. There’s a gaping hole where his heart should be.
“Mr. Stark, I need your help with an investigation. My name is Death. And I appear to have been murdered.”
I hate this job already.