Secondhand Souls (15 page)

“You bitch!” said Abby. She grabbed the front of Lily’s shirt and made to tear it open, but instead just stretched it out and spun Lily halfway around.

“Heart rhythm normal. Do not shock,” said the box.

“What’s going on here?” came a voice from down the hall.

It was a heavyset, coplike guy, in that he had a gun and a uniform, but he didn’t look like he ever had to do any difficult cop stuff.

Abby took off running the way they had come. Lily grabbed the defibrillator just as it was about to be yanked out of her hand and followed.

“Heart attack! Heart attack!” Abby yelled ahead. “Out of the way, I’m having a fucking heart attack.”

“She is,” said Lily, holding up the defibrillator as she ran. “Slow down, Abs, you’re pulling out the wires.”

Abby jumped into the Prius. Lily bundled the defibrillator into her friend’s lap, then jumped in the Prius’s back door behind her. “Go! Go! Go!”

And with all the roaring fury of a golf cart escaping the back nine, they sped into the traffic on Van Ness and were immediately stuck behind a bus, which, it turned out, didn’t matter, because no one was chasing them.

“Do not shock. Heart rhythm normal,” the box said.

“You got electro-stickum on my best bra,” Abby said. “I have to change before work, now.”

“They look good on you, though—like a sexy torture robot.”

“Yeah?” Abby was trying to look at her chest while driving. “See if there’s extras in the little box.”

So that had happened, and Lily had called M and told his voice mail, “No problem on the defibrillator, I’ll have it for you,” but then doubt started rising as evening came on, and by midnight she really, really wanted to be asleep, not thinking about killing a guy, but the stupid foghorn.
What, ships didn’t have radar and stuff, they still had to use nineteenth-century technology to keep from crashing into rocks?

She went to her bedroom window, threw up the sash, and stuck her head out as the foghorn sounded.

“Really?” she shouted.

Again the horn.

“Seriously!”

“How ’bout you be quiet,” said Mr. Lee, the old Chinese guy who lived in the apartment below her and was hanging out the window smoking.

“Sorry,” she said, and slunk back to bed.

AUDREY AND CHARLIE

Since meeting with Mike, Audrey had spent three days fasting, chanting, and meditating, preparing herself to perform the ritual of Chöd, trying to achieve the mental state necessary, without, of course, thinking about achieving the mental state necessary, which is sort of the tricky part of Buddhism.

Late Wednesday night found her sitting in the lotus position on a wide, padded stool at the end of the bed while Charlie paced frantically around her, nervous about his big moment. She had not slept and would not sleep, having achieved the state of waking trance that she would need to maintain through the ritual, but Charlie’s toenails,
snickt, snickt, snickting
on the carpet threated to pull her out of her trance.

Calmly, evenly, quietly, she said, “Charlie. Please.”

“I can’t sleep. I’ve tried. All the things that could go wrong. What if it doesn’t work and Sophie never has her daddy? You could have done all of this for nothing. Mike might back out, and who could blame him. I’m sure there’s a way I could screw this up. And you know if there’s a way to, I will. And not only that—”

“Please,” she said, not a note of alarm or anger, every breath with purpose.

“I just can’t sleep, there’s the—” and he was off again.
Snickt, snickt, snickt.

Audrey, her face a model of the beautiful and compassionate Buddha, stood on the cushioned stool, ever so slowly—Venus rising from the sea on the half shell—and let her silk saffron robe slip off her until she stood there naked.

“Hey,” Charlie said. “Wow. What, are you—”

Charlie, all of his vital energies and most of his fluids having been inspired to swiftly migrate to his enormous dong, was spun around as the member unfurled from his waist until it achieved its full appreciation, then he plopped over on his side unconscious on the rug, where he remained, snoring, until dawn.

Audrey slowly lowered herself back into the lotus position and continued her meditation through the night.

THE MORRIGAN

They had once been death goddesses of the Celts, the three, and had reigned over the battlefields of the North for a thousand years, plucking souls from the dead and dying, and driving warriors on with fury and terror, switching from their raven and crow forms to the silky, razor-clawed harpy-women as whim and wind suited them. Now they were patchwork shadows, licking their wounds in a closed train tunnel under Fort Mason Great Meadow, unable even to hold three-dimensional form, distinguishable from the oil stains left by the tractors and other heavy equipment stored in the tunnel only in that they were moving.

“Did guns get worse?” asked Nemain, the venomous one, trying to hold on her left arm, which was attached by only a thread of pitch. “I was shot when I was above before, and I don’t remember it being this bad.” She tried to will herself to hold form, but melted back a flat shadow. She looked to the man in yellow, who sat in the seat of the skip-loader, leaning on one elbow.

“And it wasn’t the same one who shot you before?” asked the Yellow Fellow.

“Different. Bigger. Bigger gun. But I stung him in the heart before he shot my arm.”

“We’re going to need more souls to heal,” said Macha, who had reverted to the shadow of her bird form, a hooded crow. The cold, fog-diffused moonlight in the tunnel shone through ragged holes in her wings and breasts. “The five that were in the bookstore were barely enough for us to take form. Now . . .”

“I want to take the head of the banshee,” said Babd, the third of the sisters, who leaned on the wheel of a skip-loader for balance, her left leg gone from the shin down. She had wielded the terrifying screech that drove warriors to suicidal frenzy on the battlefield, so the more gentle screamer, the banshee, had always been especially annoying to her. “But I can’t do it with only one leg. We need souls.”

“Ladies, ladies, relax. I will bring you what you need,” he said. And he would. He hadn’t anticipated the setback of a heavily armed policeman who had been forewarned by a banshee when he sent them into the soul-seller’s store. They hadn’t been strong enough for that, and now they weren’t even strong enough to go above and hold a useful form, or, if necessary, face the Luminatus and her hellhounds. He wasn’t exactly sure he wanted them to be. They
had
torn his predecessor, Orcus, to pieces. It was a dilemma he needed to ponder. He would bring them what they needed to heal, but
only
what they needed.

“For now y’all can lick your wounds in the trunk of the Buick. I’ll be back in a butterfly wink.”

He limped off down the tunnel alongside the heavy equipment, limped not because he was injured, but as a matter of style.

When he was gone, Babd said, “How long is that? Is that more than a week?”

“He’s being colorful,” said Nemain. “He’s very colorful.”

“If I want any color out of him, I’ll open one of his veins,” said Macha.

“Ooo, I like that,” said Babd. “I’m going to say that to the banshee.”

“Not the same,” said Macha, shaking her shadowy head.

“Yeah,” said Nemain. “No blood.”

“Butterflies,” said Babd. “Yuck.” She shuddered so that even in her shadow form her feathers bristled with revulsion.

15

Thursday at the Bridge

T
hursday was similar to any other workday for Mike Sullivan, in that he got up, got dressed, and drove to the bridge. But this Thursday was a little different in that he wouldn’t be driving back. He was awakened by the knock on his door, and when he opened it, a thin woman with severe blond hair dropped a gear bag at his feet.

“What are you, about a forty, forty long?” she said instead of hello.

“Huh?” said Mike.

“Jacket size.”

“Yeah, a forty.”

“Yeah; me, too,” she said. “Thirty-eight actually, but I like shoulder pads. I have to have the waist taken in a little, too.”

“Okay,” said Mike.

“I’m Jane. I’m going to be your new sister.”

Mike shook her hand. “You wanna come in?”

“No, gotta go. I’m on the catch team. There’s motocross leathers in there. Not really leather, though, some kind of bulletproof fabric. They were my brother’s. Should fit you. If they’re snug, that’s good, they’ll hold your bones in place.”

Mike was suddenly wide-awake. It was the “
hold your bones in place
” line that did the trick.

“There’s plates over the spine, elbows, forearms, knees. All should fit under your coveralls without showing. I also threw in a kayaker’s
helmet—”

“No,” said Mike.

“Look, I’m just trying to keep you from getting too mashed up.”

“I’m not wearing a helmet.”

“You wear a hard hat on the bridge, don’t you?”

“Yeah, but.”

“Fine, wear that.”

“I will.”

“Okay, there’s also a five-pound paper bag of sand in the satchel. You want to throw that in right before you jump. I mean,
right
before you jump. You’re basically going to jump into the hole that the bag makes in the surface of the water.”

“How do I get a five-pound bag out onto the bridge unnoticed?”

“Do you ever bring your lunch?”

“Well yeah, but—”

“You aren’t going to need your lunch today. Take the sand instead. If everything goes right, you’ll just knock yourself out and drown.”

“You’re kind of being mean to me, considering . . .” He realized then that she hadn’t looked him in the eye once since she’d shown up. Now she did.

“I’m just trying to get through this, okay, Mike? I can’t get my head around what you’re doing for us, and it’s easier if I think of you as some random insane guy.”

“Sure, I get that.”

“Sorry. I’m sometimes overly stern with the mentally ill. I’ll work on that.”

“Uh, thanks?”

She held her arms out stiffly, offering a hug above the gear bag at their feet. Mike leaned over and shared an awkward, only-collar-bones-touching-back-patting hug with her.

“Okay. Good talk,” Jane said, pushing away. “You have the number.”

“Yes,” Mike said.

“So, unless something different happens with the weather, I’ll see you at nine?”

“Nine,” Mike said.

“Thanks,” she said. “Really.” Then she quickstepped away down the hallway like she was trying to get through a haunted graveyard as fast as possible without actually running.

T
hey had rented a twenty-four-foot Boston Whaler from the marina by the ballpark. Rivera was to have been their pilot, but they’d agreed to call him off when they got news of Cavuto’s murder. Jane stood at the center console, steering. Minty Fresh stood to her side, holding the stainless rail on the console, towering over her. On the deck behind Jane, Audrey sat in the lotus position, apparently in some kind of trance, although she could move and react when they needed her to. Her head bobbed as the boat bounced over a light chop in the bay. Charlie, in his wizard robe and a dog’s life jacket that had come with the boat, was at the stern, wedged between the bait box and a large waterproof suitcase that Minty Fresh had brought on board.

“So, a green wet suit?” said Jane. “Bold choice.”

“I wanted it in a sea foam,” said the Mint One, who was already wearing his fins. “But the guy who was making it could only get neoprene in forest green.”

“Very froggy,” said Charlie, shouting to be heard over the big twin Mercury outboards.

“You need to consider your glass house,” said Minty.

“But hey, webbed feet,” Charlie said, wiggling his duck feet before him. “Nice, right?”

Jane glanced back. “I can’t even look at you like that. It’s just like Mom used to say, you’re a freak of nature.”

“Mom said that?” Charlie thought he was pouting, but since he had no lower lip to protrude, it looked more like his jaw was flapping in the breeze.

“Well, she did one time—she was repeating what I had just said when she asked me to drive you to school one day. Still.”

“Not for much longer,” said Minty Fresh, letting them both off the hook of family history.

“Shhhh,” shushed Jane. “We’re harshing Audrey’s chi or something.”

Jane throttled down the outboards a little as they rounded Alcatraz and the current coming in the Golden Gate kicked the waves up.

“Where’d you learn to drive a boat?” Minty Fresh asked.

“Our dad used to take us fishing,” shouted Charlie. “Jane always got to drive the boat.”

“Shhhh,” shushed Audrey, who evidently was not as deep in trance as they thought.

“Sorry,” said Charlie.

“Uh-oh,” said Jane as she steered toward the north tower of the bridge. “That’s not good.”

A finger of fog was streaming in through the Golden Gate; from their position, it appeared to be above the water, but below the deck of the bridge.

Minty Fresh lifted his sunglasses to get a better look. “You can see to steer, right?”

“So far,” said Jane. “But I don’t know if we’ll be able to see the bottom of the bridge from under it. It might be a whiteout by the time we get there.” She checked her watch.

Five minutes later, when they were a half mile out, the fingerling of fog had taken on the aspect of a snowy knife blade, inserting itself between the bridge towers and the water just below the roadway.

“We won’t be able to see the bottom of the bridge,” said Jane, digging in her rain-jacket pocket for her phone. “I’m calling it off.”

L
ily was supposed to be at work at nine, and she had actually been headed that way, but after dropping off the defibrillator at Charlie’s store for his sister, and learning that the big gay cop, Cavuto, had been killed, she started to shake, and as her bus approached her stop near the Crisis Center offices she realized she just couldn’t do it. She got off the bus and flagged down a taxi.

“Take me to the Golden Gate Bridge,” she said.

“You want me to take you to the visitor center, or to the bridge. Because if I take you to the bridge, I’m going to have to go to Marin to turn around and pay the toll to come back and it’s going to cost you.”

“Sure, the visitor center,” she said, not really thinking it through.

She got out of the cab at the visitor center and paid, then started running up the trail for the bridge. She hadn’t even gotten to the tollbooths before she was out of breath and had to slow to a walk. She checked the time on her phone: 8:55. Five minutes. She started to jog in the wobbly, ankle-breaking way that drunk girls do, although she wasn’t drunk, just really out of shape.

He was going to jump off from the steel structure under the road, about two hundred feet south of the north tower. She looked up. She wasn’t even to the south tower. She’d never make it. And if she did, what was she going to do? You couldn’t even get to where he was going to be from the walkway; at least
she
didn’t know how to get there.

But there was fog coming in under the bridge, like a plank or something. He wouldn’t jump in the fog. That was one of the plans, she was sure of it.

She scrolled up his number and pressed dial. This was her thing, this was what she did. This was what made her special. She would get the bridge painter off the bridge.

“Hi, Lily,” Mike said.

“Mike, you can’t do this. Not today.”

“I have to, Lily. But I wouldn’t be here if not for you.”

She made an exasperated growling noise.

“Are you okay?” Mike asked. “You sound like you’re choking. Are you crying.”

“No, I’m running.” She was crying. “I’m right above you on the walkway.” She
was
, kind of, above him, and she
was
on the walkway, she just wasn’t
right
above him on the walkway, by about a quarter of a mile.

“That’s very sweet of you,” Mike said. “But really, I’ll be fine. I don’t know, I feel like I’m done here.”

“You’re totally not done. You paint the bridge I’m looking at it. I can see a spot you missed right here. There’s rust.”

“This is what’s supposed to be, Lily. She needs me.
They
need me.”

She held the phone to her chest until the urge to scream that he was a fucking lunatic passed, then, very calmly she said, “Just come up, Mike. This is a bad idea. There’s fog. You can go back down if your mind is set on it, but for now, please just come up here. Hang out with me for a little bit. I’m waiting.”

“Are you using the ‘promise of sex’ thing on me, Lily?”

“No, that’s not what this is. That’s a different thing completely. This is—”

“Well, that would be lovely, and under other circumstances, I’d jump at the opportunity.”

“Really?”
He did not just say that. Did he really say that?

“I mean, I’m flattered, but Concepción is waiting for me, and she has my heart.”

“Mike, did you just call that ghost your boo?”

“Good-bye, Lily. Thank you. I have to go, I have another call.”

Her phone beeped as he disconnected. She stopped walking and just looked at it.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” she screeched.

A father who was walking his two elementary school kids across the bridge took their heads and steered them away from the foulmouthed girl with too much eye makeup. He glared over his shoulder at her.

“Oh, lick my love-luge, Dockers, I’m trying to save a fucking life here.”

She couldn’t see the screen of her phone through the blur of her tears. She wiped her eyes on her sleeve, and looked again: nine o’clock.

H
i, Jane,” Mike said into the phone. He stood on a beam under the roadway, facing the city, one arm wrapped around a crossbeam. He’d already slipped out of his safety harness, leaving the lines attached to the bridge. At his feet, the bag of sand. The chant Audrey had taught him was repeating in his mind, over, and over, and over, as constant as the ocean.

“Mike, it’s not a go,” said Jane. “We can’t even see you.”

Mike looked down on the strip of fog that was streaming not more than twenty feet below him. Incredibly dense, but wispy and soft-looking on top. Looking out, the bay was clear all the way to Berkeley, the fog only coming in from the ocean side, the strip of vapor like the fog bank testing the temperature of the bay before coming through the Gate. He’d seen it before, he’d seen it all.

“It’s clear all around you, though, right?” Mike said.

“Yes, but not above us. It’s not safe.”

Concepción materialized before him, about ten feet away, smiling, her arms out.

Mike laughed. “Good-bye, Jane. Take care of my body.”
Eyes forward, knees a little bent, hands in a fist,
he thought
.
He crouched, put his phone on the beam, then stood and faced Concepción, holding the bag of sand before him.

“Come to me,” she said. “Come to me, my sweet Nikolasha.”

The Sanskrit chant circling in his head, Mike dropped the bag of sand and stepped out into space.

T
he man in yellow could just hear them saying—after the Morrigan killed the cop and took the soul vessels from the bookstore, completely wasting them—he could just hear them saying, “
They’re creatures of darkness, it’s not like they’re just going to waltz right in in broad daylight and take the souls.”

Everybody like
s a surprise
, he thought.

So, just a little after nine in the morning, when a pasty guy in big glasses flipped the “Open” sign on the front door at Fresh Music, the man in yellow waltzed right in, in broad daylight, to take the souls.

It was a nice store, stained glass in the front windows true to the Edwardian architecture of the building, poster-sized black-and-white photos of jazz, soul, and rock greats. Iconic album covers in frames over the racks of used vinyl:
Bitches Brew, Lush Life, Sticky Fingers, Abbey Road, Born to Run.
The yellow fellow strolled by the racks, flipping an album here, there, looking for that beautiful red glow that the ladies loved so.

The store was laid out in a barbell shape; he paced the whole front, then paused at the counter before going to the back. The guy behind the counter was about thirty, wearing a too-small plaid cotton short-sleeve, the bottom buttons unbuttoned, the shirt flaring over too-tight, too-short, gold polyester dress slacks, his hair a tangled mushroom shape, his beard more the function of not shaving than grooming—
that shit was growing down his neck
. The yellow fellow looked over the counter at the guy’s shoes: like something out of a Dorthea Lange Depression work-camp photo, toes all bent up and nasty.

“Can I help you,” said Neck Beard, a little indignant, the yellow fellow in his personal space.

“What’s your name?”

“Evan,” said Evan.

“Evan, this everything?” Yellow stirred the air with a long finger to include the whole store. “This your whole inventory?”

“There are a few things in the back room, mostly duplicates, some estate stuff I’m supposed to unpack and file. Nothing good.”

“Uh-huh,” said Yellow, noticing the locked glass case on the wall behind the counter was conspicuously half empty. “What you got in there?”

Evan looked over his shoulder dismissively, shrugged. “Some rare pressings, first editions. Usually these three shelves on the right are what the owner calls his ‘special collection’: just crap, mixed-up genres, vinyl, 78s, 45s, like a Fleetwood Mac CD, a beat-up wax Edison cylinder, worthless—not anything anybody’d want, no need to lock them up.”