"No, not how long before the person dies, how long you have to retrieve the vessel, how many days are left. I've been looking at this for a long time, and the number is never above forty-nine. I thought that might be significant, so I started looking for it in literature about death and dying. Forty-nine days just happens to be the number of days of bardo, the term used in the Tibetan Book of the Dead for the transition between life and death. Somehow, we Death Merchants are the medium for moving these souls, but we have to get there within the forty-nine days, that's my theory, anyway. Don't be surprised sometimes if the person has been dead for weeks before you get his name. You still have the number of days left in bardo to get the soul vessel. "
"And if I don't make it in time?" Charlie asked.
Minty Fresh shook his head dolefully. "Shades, ravens, dark shit rising from the Underworld - who knows? Thing is, you have to find it in time. And you will. "
"How, if there's no address or instructions, like 'it's under the mat. '"
"Sometimes - most of the time, in fact - they come to you. Circumstances line up. "
Charlie thought about the stunning redhead bringing him the silver cigarette case. "You said sometimes?"
Fresh shrugged. "Sometimes you have to really search, find the person, go to their house - once I even hired a detective to help me find someone, but that started to bring the voices. You can tell if you're getting close by checking to see if people notice you. "
"But I have to make a living. I have a kid - "
"You'll do that, too, Charlie. The money comes as part of the job. You'll see. "
Charlie did see. He had seen already: the Mainheart estate clothing - he'd make tens of thousands on it if he got it.
"Now you have to go," said Minty Fresh. He held out his hand to shake and a grin cut his face like a crescent moon in the night sky. Charlie took the tall man's hand, his own hand disappearing into the Death Merchant's grip.
"I'm still sure I have questions. Can I call you?"
"No," said the mint one.
"Okay, then, I'm going now," Charlie said, not really moving. "Completely at the mercy of forces of the Underworld and stuff. "
"You take care," said Minty Fresh.
"No idea what the hell I'm doing," Charlie went on, taking tentative baby steps toward the door. "The weight of all of humanity on my shoulders. "
"Yeah, make sure you stretch in the morning," said the big man.
"By the way," Charlie said, out of rhythm with his whining, "are you gay?"
"What I am," said Minty Fresh, "is alone. Completely and entirely. "
"Okay," Charlie said. "I'm sorry. "
"It's okay. I'm sorry I smacked you in the head. "
Charlie nodded, grabbed his sword-cane from behind the counter, and walked out of Fresh Music into an overcast San Francisco day.
Well, he wasn't exactly Death, but he wasn't Santa's helper, either. It didn't really matter that no one would believe him even if he told them. Death Merchant seemed a little dire, but he liked the idea of being a secret agent. An agent of KARMA - Karma Assessment Reassignment Murder and Ass - okay, he could work on the acronym later, but a secret agent nevertheless.
Actually, although he didn't know it, Charlie was well suited to be a secret agent. Because they function below the radar, Beta Males make excellent spies. Not the "James Bond, Aston Martin with missiles, boning the beautiful Russian rocket scientist on an ermineskin bedspread" sort of spy - more the "bad comb-over, deep-cover bureaucrat fishing coffee-sodden documents out of a Dumpster" spy. His overt nonthreateningness allows him access to places and people that are closed to the Alpha Male, wearing his testosterone on his sleeve. The Beta male can, in fact, be dangerous, not so much in the "Jet Li entire body is a deadly weapon" way but more in the "drunk on the riding mower making a Luke Skywalker assault on the toolshed" sort of way.
So, as Charlie headed for the streetcar stop on Market Street, he mentally tried on his new persona as a secret agent, and was feeling pretty good about it, when, as he passed a storm drain, he heard a female voice whisper harshly, "We'll get the little one. You'll see, fresh Meat. We'll have her soon. "
As soon as Charlie walked into his store from the alley, Lily bolted into the back room to meet him.
"That cop was here again. That guy died. Did you kill him?" To the machine-gun update she added, "Uh, sir?" Then she saluted, curtsied, then did a praying-hands Japanese bow thing.
Charlie was thrown by all of it, coming as it did when he was in a panic about his daughter and had just driven across town like a madman. He was sure the gestures of respect were just some dark cover-up for a favor or a misdeed, or, as often was the case, the teenager was messing with him. So he sat down on one of the high hardwood stools near the desk and said, "Cop? Guy? 'Splain, please. And I didn't kill anyone. "
Lily took a deep breath. "That cop that was by here the other day came back. Turns out that guy you went up to see in Pacific Heights last week" - she looked at something she had written on her arm in red ink - "Michael Mainheart, killed himself. And he left a note to you. Saying that you were to take his and his wife's clothes and sell them at the market rate. And then he wrote" - and here she again referred to her ink-stained arm - "'What about "I just want to die" did you not understand?'" Lily looked up.
"That's what he said after I gave him CPR the other day," Charlie said.