A Dirty Job (Grim Reaper 1)

"I will not lay a hand on Mrs. Johnson or Mrs. Pojo. . . Mrs. Pokojo - or that other woman either. You have my word on it. " Charlie raised his hand as if swearing on a Bible and dropped one of his crutches.

"Why don't you just use the cane?" Ray said.

"Right," Charlie said. He leaned the crutches on the door and tried his weight on the bad leg and the cane. The doctors had, indeed, said that it was just a flesh wound, so there was no tendon damage, just muscle, but it hurt like hell to put any weight on that foot. The cane would work, he decided. "I should be back to relieve you before five. " He limped out the door.

Ray didn't like being lied to. He'd had quite enough of that from his desperate Filipinas and was becoming sensitive about being taken for a fool. Who did Charlie Asher think he was fooling? As soon as he got the store squared away, he'd give Rivera a call and see for himself.

He went out into the store and did a little dusting, then went to Charlie's "special" rack, where he kept the weird estate items that he made such a fuss about. You were only supposed to sell one to each customer, but Ray had sold five of them to the same woman in the last two weeks. He knew he should have said something to Charlie, but really, why? Charlie wasn't being open with him about anything, it seemed.

Besides, the woman who bought the stuff was cute, and she'd smiled at Ray. She had nice hair, a cute figure, and really striking light blue eyes. Plus there was something about her voice - she seemed so, what? Peaceful, maybe. Like she knew that everything was going to be okay and no one needed to worry. Maybe he was projecting. And she didn't have an Adam's apple, which was a big plus in Ray's book lately. He'd tried to get her name, even get a look at something in her wallet, but she'd paid in cash and had been as careful as a poker player covering her cards. If she'd driven, she'd parked too far away for him to see her get into her car from the store, so there was no license number to trace.

He resolved to ask her name if she came in today. And she was due to come in. She only came in when he was working alone. He'd seen her check through the window once when he was working with Lily, and only came into the store later when Lily was gone. He really hoped she'd come in.

He tried to calm himself down for his call to Rivera. He didn't want to seem like a rube to a guy who was still on the job. He used his own cell phone for the call so Rivera would see it was him calling.

Charlie didn't like leaving Sophie for this long, given what had happened a few days ago, but on the other hand, whatever might be threatening her was obviously being caused by his missing these two soul vessels. The quicker he fixed the problem, the quicker the threat would be diminished. Besides, the hellhounds were her best defense, and he'd given express instructions to Mrs. Ling that the dogs and Sophie were not to be separated for any amount of time, for any reason.

He took Presidio Boulevard through Golden Gate Park into the Sunset, reminding himself to take Sophie to the Japanese Tea Garden to feed the koi, now that her plague on pets seemed to have subsided.

The Sunset district lay just south of Golden Gate Park, bordered by the American Highway and Ocean Beach on the west, and Twin Peaks and the University of San Francisco on the east. It had once been a suburb, until the city expanded to include it, and many of its houses were modest, single-story family dwellings, built en masse in the 1940s and '50s. They were like the mosaics of little boxes that peppered neighborhoods across the entire country in that postwar period, but in San Francisco, where so much had been built after the quake and fire of '06, then again in the economic boom of the late twentieth century, they seemed like anachronisms from both ends of time. Charlie felt like he was driving through the Eisenhower era, at least until he passed a mother with a shaved head and tribal tattoos on her scalp pushing twins in a double stroller.

Irena Posokovanovich's sister lived in a small, one-story frame house with a small covered porch that had jasmine vines growing up trellises on either side and springing off into the air like morning-after-sex hair. The rest of the tiny yard was meticulously groomed, from the holly hedge at the sidewalk to the red geraniums that lined the concrete path up to the house.

Charlie parked a block away and walked to the house. On the way he was nearly run over by two different joggers, one a young mother pushing a running stroller. They couldn't see him - he was on track. Now, how to go about getting in? And then what? If he was the Luminatus, then perhaps just his presence would take care of the problem.

He checked around back and saw that there was a car in the garage, but the shades were drawn on all the windows. Finally he decided on the frontal approach and rang the doorbell.

A few seconds later a short woman in her seventies wearing a pink chenille housecoat opened the door. "Yes," she said, looking a little suspicious as she eyed Charlie's walking cast. She quickly flipped the lock on the screen door. "Can I help you?"

It was the woman in the picture. "Yes, ma'am, I'm looking for Irena Posokovanovich. "

"Well, she's not here," said Irena Posokovanovich. "You must have the wrong house. " She started to close the door.

"Wasn't there a death notice in the paper a couple of weeks ago?" Charlie said. So far, his awesome presence as the Luminatus wasn't having much of an effect on her.

"Well, yes, I believe there was," said the woman, sensing an out. She opened the door a little more. "It was such a tragedy. We all loved Irena so much. She was the kindest, most generous, most loving, attractive - you know, for her age - well-read - "

"And evidently didn't know that it's considered common courtes

y when you publish a death notice to actually die!" Charlie held out the enlarged driver's-license picture. He considered adding aha! but thought that might be a little over-the-top.

Irena Posokovanovich slammed the door. "I don't know who you are, but you have the wrong house," she said through the door.

"You know who I am," Charlie said. Actually, she probably had no idea who he was. "And I know who you are, and you are supposed to have died three weeks ago. "

"You're mistaken. Now go away before I call the police and tell them that there's a rapist at my door. "

Charlie gagged a little, then pushed on. "I am not a rapist, Mrs. Poso. . . Posokev - I'm Death, Irena. That's who I am. And you are overdue. You need to die, this minute if possible. There's nothing to be afraid of. It's like going to sleep, only, well - "

"I'm not ready," Irena whined. "If I was ready I wouldn't have left my home. I'm not ready. "

"I'm sorry, ma'am, but I have to insist. "

"I'm sure you're mistaken. Perhaps another Mrs. Posokovanovich. "

"No, here it is, right here in the calendar, with your address. It's you. " Charlie held his date book turned to the page with her name on it up to the little window in the door.

"And you say that that is Death's calendar?"