“Knock knock.”
“Who’s there?”
“Doorbell repairman.”
Vidocq chuckles. I slap Death’s knee.
“Hey, that was funny. I didn’t think you had it in you.”
“Now it’s your turn,” he says.
“No. I forgot my jokes during my vacation Downtown.”
“You’re always making jokes. You must remember one.”
“Yes,” say Vidocq. “You must remember one.”
I shoot him a quick “fuck you” with my eyes.
“Okay,” I say. “Here’s one. There’s this old preacher home in bed. He’s dying and doesn’t have much longer to go. So he sends a note to a banker and a lawyer that go to his church. They come over and sit in chairs he’s set out, one on each side of the bed. The only thing is, when they get there the preacher doesn’t say a word. He just lies there. Finally, the lawyer speaks up. ‘Excuse me, sir. We don’t seem to be talking about anything. Why did you ask us here?’ ‘Well,’ says the preacher, ‘Jesus died between two thieves and I figure if it was good enough for him, it’s good enough for me.’ ”
Death stares at me for a second like I was speaking Urdu. Then his face changes, relaxes, and he laughs.
Vidocq holds out his glass and clinks it against the bottle as I pick it up. What do you know? We had kind of a normal moment there. I look at Death smiling. Guess I’m glad I didn’t shoot him after all.
VIDOCQ LEAVES NOT long after that, still shaken by what Death said about Liliane. Figuring someone to be dead, then finding out they’re still alive and kicking, can be a shock. It happened to me with Mason. Before Christmas I thought I’d gotten rid of him so many times, but the fucker always scuttled out from under the floorboards like an armor-plated cockroach.
Vidocq is luckier than me. At least his nondead pal is someone he liked. Didn’t he? Or did I read it all wrong? Was he upset because he didn’t know someone he loved was still around and lost to him, or did he melt down because he thought he was done with her, but now knows she might be waiting around the next corner? I’ll have to ask him, but not now. He needs to calm down and remember how to breathe. He was so pale when he left he looked like he’d been huffing paint thinner all afternoon.
I guess the movie is over. Kasabia
n has the news on the big screen, so Death and I go over and watch with him.
What do you know? The world is still a big ball of shimmering shit. But before the usual parade of misery detailing all the wars, famines, and atrocities people enjoy so much, we lead in with a long story about the nondead piling up all over the world. In the U.S., they say that civilian and military hospitals are full, so they’re setting up temporary wards in school gyms and empty stadiums. The dreaming dead lie motionless under sheets, like bugs in spider silk, between goalposts and filling the outfields of baseball diamonds. The news hack describing all this says the one bright spot is that suicides are down, since the poor saps know that killing themselves is a ticket to nowhere. I look over at Death. I can’t read his expression. He’s staring at the monitor, big-eyed. He takes long, deep breaths.
I say, “I can’t keep calling you Death. It’s beginning to creep me out. You have any other names we could try?”
“Many,” says Death. “Thanatos. Azriel. Mrityu. Yan Luo. Malak al-Maut—”
I hold up a hand.
“Stop. Most of those are more depressing than Death. But I need something to call you when civilians are around. How about Vincent?”
“Why Vincent?”
“The Masque of the Red Death,” says Kasabian.
I nod.
“Vincent for Vincent Price. Death himself, as directed by Roger Corman.”
Vincent looks back at the news.
“I suppose it’s as good a name as any.”
Kasabian says, “It’s better than Sandman Slim.”
I look at him.