“One thing . . .”
“Yes?”
“Can you pull me out of my body before I hit the water? I kind of don’t want to be there.”
“I think that’s going to be on you—the timing of your part of the ritual.”
“Great. I’m in. Now what?”
“Well, there’s your life to close up. Charlie’s g
oing to have to sort of take over for you, at least for a while. Because even though you jump off the bridge, and you die, to everyone else it will appear that you survived.”
“So, what? You want me to close my credit cards, stuff like that? Get my affairs in order?”
“I guess just do things to make it easier for Charlie to move from your life to his.”
“And now his soul is trapped in some kind of jar? A vessel? Lily wasn’t clear.”
“Sure, let’s say vessel. Some kind of vessel.”
“Poor guy. And he has a little girl. You know, I wouldn’t believe any of this if the ghosts hadn’t appeared to me. I mean, Concepción was the one who told me to call Lily. A ghost! Who would have believed that?”
“I know,” said Audrey. “I’ve trained for this kind of thing for most of my adult life and it wigs me out a little.”
“I love her,” said Mike. “I’ve never been in love, but I love her.”
“Yes,” said Audrey, patting his hand.
“The ghost.”
“Right, I know,” said Audrey. “Let’s make lists. Lists will help. Let’s start with ten things to keep you from getting too broken when you fall hundreds of feet into the bay.”
So, I guess we’re going to kill this guy, she thought. Then she said, “How does Thursday look for you?”
13
The Shadow of a Thousand Birds
Minty Fresh had felt dread rising like acid in his throat since Rivera first showed up in his shop with the story of the banshee, but never had it been more immediate than when he walked into the pawnshop in the Fillmore to find Ray Macy standing behind a glass case full of watches and jewelry. Ray had worked with Lily at Charlie Asher’s secondhand store. Lily had described the fortyish, balding ex-cop as her nemesis, her natural enemy, and a fucktard of astounding density. Minty tried to dismiss Ray as just more of the saturated humanity that lived under the wide spray of Lily’s contempt sprinkler, except that the ex-cop had become openly hostile when Lily and Minty Fresh closed Charlie’s store to open their pizza and jazz joint. Shortly afterward, Ray moved out of Charlie’s building and Fresh thought he’d seen the last of him. But no, here he was, guarding the gate, so to speak, to the only living Death Merchant Fresh knew besides Charlie and Rivera. It was cool. He was cool.
“Mr. Fresh,” said Ray. He was a beta male, so open confrontation wasn’t really his game. Passive aggression being the beta weapon of choice.
“Ray,” said Minty Fresh. “Good to see you landed on your feet.”
Ray turned behind the counter a bit so Minty Fresh could see he was wearing a revolver on his hip, the gesture made overly obvious by Ray’s inability to turn his head. A bullet to the neck had ended his career as a cop and doctors had fused his vertebrae. Ray Macy looked at life head-on, whether he wanted to or not.
“Did you just turn so I could see you had a gun?” asked Minty Fresh, amused.
“No,” said Ray, turning back quickly.
Ray must have been a horrible, horrible cop, Minty thought. He said, “I need to talk to Carrie Lang. This is her shop, I’m told.”
“She’s not available,” said Ray.
“I’m right here,” a woman called from the back room. “I’ll be right out.”
“She must have just come in,” Ray explained.