“If I have time,” Candy says.
“Sure. I’m not bothering you, am I?”
“Of course not, dear. But why don’t you take your food into the bedroom and watch cartoons until your little friend comes over and you can go out and play?”
“This is a really good burrito.”
“Get out,” she says, so I do. Vidocq gets to the store a half hour after I finish eating.
DEATH, VIDOCQ, AND I go into the storage room. I bring three glasses.
It’s introductions all around, then it’s drinks all around. Vidocq and I down some of the Jack. Death sniffs his, sips, and makes a face.
“I don’t know if this body likes it.”
“You’re not supposed to like it. You’re just supposed to absorb it into your tissues.”
“I think you’re making fun of me.”
I shake my head.
“I wouldn’t do that.”
“What he means,” says Vidocq, “is that whiskey, like many of the more interesting things in this world, is an acquired taste.”
“Why acquire a taste for something you don’t like?”
I set the bottle down by my chair leg.
“Do you hate it?”
“I don’t know.”
“Well, there you go. You try it. Then try it again until you know. Sometimes you find the thing you didn’t like the first time becomes one of your favorite things.”
Death sips his whiskey again.
“I don’t think this is going to be a favorite thing.”
“That’s all right. It just means more for Vidocq and me.”
Death sets down his glass on a box that stands in for a bedside table.
“So here’s the thing: no one is coming for you,” I say. “There’s no cavalry. No golden chariot full of angels. Trust me. I checked.”
Death sighs, unconsciously rubs his chest and the scar over his missing heart.
“I’m not surprised. Someone would have come for me already if they could.”
“For now, you’re just one of us chickens.”
“That might be preferable to being a human.”
“I hear humans taste lousy deep-fried.”
Vidocq clears his throat.
“What is the process of death like? From your perspective, as a being not subject to its laws.”