A Dirty Job (Grim Reaper #1) (32 page)

“Yeah, I guess so,” Charlie said. “So there is some order to this.”

“You’re the expert,” Vern said—then he dropped his fork. “Who is that? She’s so hot.”

“That’s my sister,” Charlie said. Jane was coming across the room toward them. She was wearing Charlie’s charcoal double-breasted Armani and the strappy black pumps; her platinum hair was lacquered into thirties finger waves, which flowed out from under a small black hat with a veil that covered her face down to her lips, which shone like red Ferraris. To Charlie, she looked, as usual, like the cross between a robot assassin and a Dr. Seuss character, but if he tried to squint past the fact that she was his sister, and a lesbian, and his sister, then he could possibly see how the hair, lips, and sheer linear altitude of her might strike someone as hot. Especially someone like Vern, who would require climbing equipment and oxygen to scale a woman Jane’s height.

“Vern, I’d like you to meet my incredibly hot sister, Jane. Jane, this is Vern.”

“Hi, Vern.” Jane took Vern’s hand and the Death Merchant winced at her grip.

“Sorry for your loss,” Vern said.

“Thanks,” Jane said. “Did you know our mother?”

“Vern knew her very well,” Charlie said. “In fact, it was one of Mom’s dying wishes that you let Vern buy you a doughnut. Wasn’t it, Vern?”

Vern nodded so hard that Charlie thought he could hear vertebrae cracking.

“Her dying wish,” Vern said.

Jane didn’t move, or say anything. Because her eyes were covered, Charlie couldn’t see her expression, but he guessed that she might be trying to burn holes in his aorta with her laser-beam vision.

“You know, Vern, that would be lovely, but could I take a rain check? We just buried my mother and I have some things to go over with my brother.”

“That’s fine,” Vern said. “And it doesn’t have to be a doughnut, if you’re watching your figure. You know, a salad, coffee, anything.”

“Sure,” Jane said. “Since it’s what Mom wanted. I’ll give you a call. Charlie told you I’m a lesbian, though, right?”

“Oh my God,” Vern said. He almost doubled over with excitement before he remembered that he was at a postfuneral potluck and he was openly imagining a ménage à trois with the deceased’s daughter. “Sorry,” he squealed.

“See you, Vern,” Charlie said as his sister hustled him toward the kitchen cubicle of the clubhouse. “I’ll e-mail you about that other thing.”

As soon as they rounded the corner into the kitchen Jane punched Charlie in the solar plexus, knocking the wind out of him.

“What were you thinking?” Jane hissed. She flipped back her veil so he could see just how pissed off she was, just in case the punch in the breadbasket hadn’t conveyed the message.

Charlie was gasping and laughing at the same time. “It’s what Mom would have wanted.”

“My mom just died, Charlie.”

“Yeah,” Charlie said. “But you have no idea what you’ve just done for that guy in there.”

“Really?” Jane raised an eyebrow.

“He will remember this day always,” Charlie said. “That guy will never again have a sexual fantasy in which you do not walk through, probably wearing borrowed shoes.”

“And you don’t find that creepy?”

“Well, yes, you’re my sister, but it’s a seminal moment for Vern.”

Jane nodded. “You’re a pretty good guy, Charlie, looking out for a tiny stranger like that.”

“Yeah, well, you know—”

“For an ass bag!” Jane said as she sank a fist into Charlie’s solar plexus.

Strangely, as he gasped for breath, Charlie felt that wherever his mother was right now, she was pleased with him.

Bye, Mom,
he thought.

Tomorrow we shall meet,

Death and I—

And he shall thrust his sword

Into one who is wide awake.

—Dag Hammarskjöld

ALVIN AND MOHAMMED

W
hen Charlie arrived home from his mother’s funeral, he was met at the door by two very large, very enthusiastic canines, who, undistracted by keeping watch over Sophie’s love hostage, were now able to visit the full measure of their affection and joy upon their returning master. It is generally agreed, and in fact stated in the bylaws of the American Kennel Club, that you have not been truly dog-humped until you have been double-dog-humped by a pair of four-hundred-pound hounds from hell (Section 5, paragraph 7: Standards of Humping and Ass-dragging). And despite having used an extra-strength antiperspirant that very morning before leaving Sedona, Charlie found that getting poked repeatedly in the armpits by two damp devil-dog dicks was leaving him feeling less than fresh.

“Sophie, call them off. Call them off.”

“The puppies are dancing with Daddy.” Sophie giggled. “Dance, Daddy!”

Mrs. Ling covered Sophie’s eyes to shield her from the abomination of her father’s unwilling journey into bestiality. “Go wash hands, Sophie. Have lunch while you daddy make nasty with shiksas.” Mrs. Ling couldn’t help but do a quick appraisal of the monetary value of the slippery red dogwoods currently pummeling her landlord’s oxford-cloth shirt like piston-driven leviathan lipsticks. The herbalist in Chinatown would pay a fortune for a powder made from the desiccated members of Alvin and Mohammed. (The men of her homeland would go to any length to enhance their virility, including grinding up endangered species and brewing them in tea, not unlike certain American presidents, who believe there is no stiffy like the one you get from bombing a few thousand foreigners.) Yet it appeared that the desiccated-dog-dick fortune would remain unclaimed. Mrs. Ling had long ago given up on collecting hellhound bits, when after trying to dispatch Alvin with a sharp and ringing blow to the cranium from her cast-iron skillet, he bit the skillet off its handle, crunched it down in a slurry of dog drool and iron filings, and then sat up and begged for seconds.

“Throw some water on them!” Charlie cried. “Down, doggies. Good doggies. Oh, yuck.”

Mrs. Ling was galvanized into action by Charlie’s distress call, and timing her move with the oscillating pyramid of man and dog meat in the doorway, dashed by Charlie, into the hallway, and down the steps.

LILY

Lily came up the stairs and skidded to a stop on the hallway carpet when she saw the hellhounds pounding away at Charlie. “Oh, Asher, you sick bastard!”

“Help,” Charlie said.

Lily pulled the fire extinguisher off the wall, dragged it to the doorway, pulled the pin, and proceeded to unload on the bouncing trio. Two minutes later Charlie was collapsed in a frosty heap on the threshold and Alvin and Mohammed were locked in Charlie’s bedroom, where they were joyfully chewing away on the expended fire extinguisher. Lily had lured them in there when they had tried to bite the CO
₂
stream, seeming to enjoy the freezing novelty of it over the welcome-home humping they were giving Charlie.

“You okay?” Lily said. She was wearing one of her chef coats over a red leather skirt and knee-high platform boots.

“It’s been kind of a rough week,” Charlie said.

She helped him to his feet, trying to avoid touching the damp spots on his shirt. Charlie did a controlled fall toward the couch. Lily helped him land, ending with one arm pinned awkwardly under his back.

“Thanks,” Charlie said. There was still frost in his hair and eyelashes from the fire extinguisher.

“Asher,” Lily said, trying not to look him in the eye. “I’m not comfortable with this, but I think, given the situation, that it’s time I said something.”

“Okay, Lily. You want some coffee?”

“No. Please shut up. Thank you.” She paused and took a deep breath, but did not extricate her arm from behind Charlie’s back. “You have been good to me over the years, and although I would not admit this to anyone else, I probably wouldn’t have finished school or turned out as well as I have if it hadn’t been for your influence.”

Charlie was still trying to see, blinking away ice crystals on his eyelids, thinking that maybe his eyeballs were frostbitten. “It was nothing,” he said.

“Please, please, shut up,” Lily said. Another deep breath. “You have always been decent to me, despite what I would call some of my bitchier moments, and in spite of the fact that you are some dark death dude, and probably had other things to worry about—sorry about your mom, by the way.”

“Thanks,” Charlie said.

“Well, given what I’ve heard about your night out before your mom died and whatnot, and what I’ve seen here today, I think—that it’s only right—that I do you.”

“Do me?”

“Yes,” she said, “for the greater good, even though you are a complete tool.”

Charlie squirmed away from her on the couch. He looked at her for a second, trying to figure out if she was putting him on, then, deciding that she wasn’t, he said, “That’s very sweet of you, Lily, and—”

“Nothing weird, Asher. You need to understand that I’m only doing this out of basic human decency and pity. You can just take it to the hoes on Broadway if you need to get your freak on.”

“Lily, I don’t know what—”

“And not in the butt,” Lily added.

There was a high-pitched little-girl giggle from behind the couch. “Hi, Daddy,” Sophie said, popping up behind him. “I missed you.”

Charlie swung her up over the back of the couch and gave her a big kiss. “I missed you, too, sweetie.”

Sophie pushed him away. “How come you have frosting on your hair?”

“Oh, that—Lily had to spray some frost on Alvin and Mohammed to settle them down and it got on me.”

“They missed you, too.”

“I could tell,” Charlie said. “Honey, could you go play in your room for a bit while I talk to Lily about business?”

“Where are the puppies?” Sophie asked.

“They’re having a T.O. in Daddy’s room. Can you go play and we’ll have some Cheese Newts in a little while?”

“Okay,” Sophie said, sliding to the floor. “Bye, Lily.” She waved to Lily.

“Bye, Sophie,” Lily said, looking even more pale than usual.

Sophie marched away in rhythm to her new chant, “Not in the butt—not in the butt—not in the butt.”

Charlie turned to face Lily. “Well, that ought to liven up Mrs. Magnussen’s first-grade class.”

“Sure, it’s embarrassing now,” Lily said, without missing a beat, “but someday she’ll thank me.”

Charlie tried to look at his shirt buttons as if he were deep in thought, but instead started to giggle, tried to stop, and ended up snorting a little. “Jeez, Lily, you’re like a little sister to me, I could never—”

“Oh, fine. I offer you a gift, out of the goodness of my heart, and you—”

“Coffee, Lily,” Charlie said with a sigh. “Could I just get you to make me a cup of coffee instead of doing me—and sit and talk to me while I drink it? You’re the only one who knows what’s going on with Sophie and me, and I need to try to sort things out.”

“Well, that will probably take longer than doing you,” Lily said, looking at her watch. “Let me call down to the store and tell Ray that I’ll be a while.”

“That would be great,” Charlie said.

“I was only going to do you in exchange for information about your Death Merchant thing, anyway,” Lily said, picking up the phone on the breakfast bar.

Charlie sighed again. “That’s what I need to sort out.”

“Either way,” Lily said, “I’m unbending on the butt issue.”

Charlie tried to nod gravely, but started giggling again. Lily chucked the San Francisco Yellow Pages at him.

THE MORRIGAN

“This soul smells like ham,” said Nemain, wrinkling her nose at a lump of meat she had impaled on one long claw.

“I want some,” said Babd. “Gimme.” She slashed at the carrion with her own talons, snagging a fist-sized hunk of flesh in the process.

The three were in a forgotten subbasement beneath Chinatown, lounging on timbers that had been burned black in the great fire of 1906. Macha, who was starting to manifest the pearl headdress she wore in her woman form, studied the skull of a small animal by the light of a candle she’d made from the fat of dead babies. (Macha was ever the artsy-craftsy one, and the other two were jealous of her skills.) “I don’t understand why the soul is in the meat, but not in a man.”

“Tastes like ham, too, I think,” Nemain said, spitting glowing red bits of soul when she talked. “Macha, do you remember ham? Do we like it?”

Babd ate her bit of meat and wiped her claws on her breast feathers. “I think ham is new,” she said, “like cell phones.”

“Ham is not new,” Macha said. “It’s smoked pork.”

“No,” said Babd, aghast.

“Yes,” said Macha.

“Not human flesh? Then how is there a soul in it?”

“Thank you,” Macha said. “That’s what I’ve been trying to say.”

“I’ve decided that we like ham,” said Nemain.

“There’s something wrong,” Macha said. “It shouldn’t be this easy.”