'A Dirty Job Chapter 6\r'

'6\r\nVARIABLE SPEED HEROES\r\nIn the pass behind Ashers Secondhand, the emperor moth of San Francisco hand-fed olive focaccia to the troops and move to keep dog s non from fouling his breakfast.\r\nâ€Å"Patience, Bummer,” the emperor state to the Boston terrier, who was leaping at the day-old roll protrude of flat bread homogeneous a hidery Super B only, period Lazarus, the solemn golden retriever, stood by, waiting for his share. Bummer snorted an impatient reply (thus the dog s non). Hed worked up a furious appetite because breakfast was running young today. The emperor thatterfly had slept on a bench by the Maritime Museum, and during the night his arthritic knee had snaked out of his wool overcoat into the damp cold, making the passing game to North Beach and the Italian bakery that gave them separated day-old a slow and dreadful ordeal.\r\nThe Emperor groaned and sat tear on an empty draw crate. He was a great rolling view as of a opus, his shoulders b road scarce a precise broken from carrying the weight of the city. A white trail of h atmosphither and beard wreathed his face wish well a storm cloud. As far as he could remember, he and the troops had pat involute the city streets forever, besides upon advance consideration, it baron sire unless been since Wednesday. He wasnt solely sure as shooting.\r\nThe Emperor headstrong to make a contract to the troops about the importance of compassion in the face of the rising tide of heinous fuckery and govern workforcetal weaselocity in the nearby kingdom of the United States. (He piece his audience was some attentive to his proclamations when the meat-laced focaccia were still nuzzled in the larder of his overcoat pokes, and presently a pepperoni and Parmesan reposed redolent in the woolly depths, so the purplish hounds were rapt.) exclusively just as he cleared his throat to begin, a cargo van came screaminging roughly the corner, went up on cardinal wheels as it plowed through a row of gar graspe cans, and slid to a stop not fifty feet a behavior. The drivers-side room access flew exposed and a lithe while in a suit leapt out, carrying a jaw and a womans fur coat, and made a beeline for the stick out door of Ashers. al iodine originally he got two steps the man ferocious to the concrete as if hit from behind, wherefore rolled on his hold up and began flailing at the air with the cane and the coat. The Emperor, who knew most e genuinely iodine, recognised Charlie Asher.\r\nBummer erupted into a perish of yapping, notwithstanding the more level indicateed Lazarus growled once and took tally toward Charlie.\r\nâ€Å"Lazarus!” the Emperor shouted, except the retriever charged on, followed outright by his bug-eyed brother in arms.\r\nCharlie was back on his feet and cut the cane as if he was fencing with well-nigh phantom, using the coat kindred a shield. existent on the street, the Emperor had quiver wordn a lot of bulk battling with un calculaten demons, but Charlie Asher was apparently scoring few hits. The cane was making a thwacking noise against what appeared to be slew air †but no, there was close tothing there, a shadow of some sort?\r\nThe Emperor climbed to his feet and limped into the fray, but before he got two steps Lazarus had leapt and appeared to be attacking Charlie, but he soared over the storekeeper and snapped at a spot higher up his head †then hung there, his jaws sunk into the substantial neck of thin air.\r\nCharlie took advantage of the distraction, stepped back, and swung the cane above the levitating golden retriever. in that respect was a smack, and Lazarus let go, but now Bummer launched himself at the invisible foe. He missed whatever was there, and terminate up performing a doggy lave shot into a garbage can.\r\nCharlie made for the make door of Ashers again, but found it gaoled, and as he reached for his keys, something caught him from behind .\r\nâ€Å"Let go, fuckface,” the shade screeched.\r\nThe fur coat Charlie was property appeared to be swept out of his hand and was form outed genuine up, over the four-story building and out of sight.\r\nCharlie turned and held the cane at ready, but whatever had been there take hold ofmed to be g angiotensin-converting enzyme now.\r\nâ€Å"Arent you just supposed to sit above the door and nevermore and be poetic and crush?!” he shouted at the sky. Then, for good measure, added, â€Å"You demonic fuck!”\r\nLazarus barked, then whined. A sharp and golden yapping rose from Bummers garbage can.\r\nâ€Å"Well, you dont run across that every day,” express the Emperor as he limped up to Charlie.\r\nâ€Å"You could see that?”\r\nâ€Å"Well, no, not really. Merely a shadow, but I could see that something was there. on that point was something there, wasnt there, Charlie?”\r\nCharlie nodded, trying to catch his breath. â€Å"It volition be back. It followed me across the city.” He dug into his pocket for his keys. â€Å"You guys should duck into the store with me, Your Majesty.” Of course Charlie knew the Emperor. Every San Franciscan knew the Emperor.\r\nThe Emperor smiled. â€Å"Thats very kind of you, but we entrust be perfectly safe. For now I fate to free my charge from his galvanized prison.” The macroscopical man reorient the garbage can and Bummer emerged snorting and tossing his head as if ready to tear the ass out of every man or beast foolhardy adequate to cross him (and he would befool, as long as they were knee-high or shorter).\r\nCharlie was still having trouble with the key. He knew he should have had the lock replaced, but it worked, if you very wellssed it a itsy-bitsy, so hed never made it a priority. Who the blaze thought youd ever have to get in quick to escape a giant chick? Then he comprehend a screech and turned to see not one, but two huge ravens coming over the roof and nosedive into the road counsel. The dogs arfed a frantic barking salvo at the avian intruders and Charlie put so much body position into wiggling the key in the lock that he mat up an atrophied dancing muscle tear in his hip.\r\nâ€Å"Theyre back. Cover me.” Charlie threw the cane to the Emperor and braced himself for the impact, but as currently as the cane touched(p) the old mans hand the birds were gone. You could almost hear the drink down of the air replacing the space they had interpreted up. The dogs caught themselves in mid-ruff; Bummer whimpered.\r\nâ€Å"What?” the Emperor verbalise. â€Å"What?”\r\nâ€Å"Theyre gone.”\r\nThe Emperor looked at the sky. â€Å"Youre sure?”\r\nâ€Å"For now.”\r\nâ€Å"I byword two shadows. Really sayinging machine them this time,” the Emperor tell.\r\nâ€Å"Yes, there were two this time.”\r\nâ€Å"What are they?”\r\nâ€Å"I have no idea, but when you took the cane they †well, they disappeared. You really precept them?”\r\nâ€Å"Im sure of it. Like pasturage with a purpose.”\r\n in conclusion the key turned in the lock and the door to Ashers back room swung open. â€Å"You should come in. Rest. Ill order something to eat.”\r\nâ€Å"No, no, the men and I must be on our rounds. Ive decided to make a proclamation this morning and we subscribe to to see the printer. Youll be needing this.” The Emperor presented the cane to Charlie homogeneous he was turning over a blade of the realm.\r\nCharlie started to take it, then thought better of it. â€Å"Your Majesty, I regain youd better keep that. It looks as if you cogency be able to use it.” Charlie nodded toward the Emperors creaky knee.\r\nThe Emperor held the cane steady. â€Å"I am not a worshiper of the material, you manage?”\r\nâ€Å"I understand that.”\r\nâ€Å"I am a firm turn overr that trust is the source of most of hu man suffering, youre aware, and no perpetrator is more heinous than desire for material gain.”\r\nâ€Å"I run my business based on those very principles. Still, I insist you keep the cane †as a favor to me, if you would?”\r\nCharlie found himself affecting the Emperors noble speech patterns, as if somehow he had been transported to a royal court where a nobleman was noble by bread crumbs in his beard and the royal guard were not above licking their balls.\r\nâ€Å"Well, as a favor, I allow for accept. It is a fine piece of craftsmanship.”\r\nâ€Å" only when more importantly, it will brook you to make your rounds in good time.”\r\nThe Emperor now betrayed the desire in his heart as he let fly a wide grinning and hugged the cane to his chest. â€Å"It is fine, indeed. Charlie, I must confess something to you, but I ask you to grant me the credulity collectible a man who has just shared witness, with a friend, of two giant, raven-shaped shades.â €\r\nâ€Å"Of course.” Charlie smiled, when even a moment before he would have thought his smile disjointed somewhere in the months past.\r\nâ€Å"I hope you wont call up me base, but the second I touched this, I tangle as if I had been waiting for it my strong support.”\r\nThen, for no reason that he could think of, Charlie state, â€Å"I hit the hay.”\r\nA few minutes before, inside the store, Lily had been incubation. It wasnt her common brood, the reaction to a world where everyone was stupid and life was meaningless and the mere act of living was futile, curiously if your mother forgot to get c take outee at the store. This one was a more specific brood, that had started out when she arrived at work and re had pointed out that it was her turn to damp the vacuuming tiara, and insisted that if she wore the tiara, she actually vacuum the store. (In fact, she analogousd wearing the rhinestone tiara that Charlie, in a move of blatant bourgeois sne akiness, had designated be worn by whoever did the vacuuming and sweeping each day, and no other time. It was the vacuuming and sweeping she objected to. She felt manipulated, apply, and generally taken advantage of, and not in the fun means.) But today, after shed put the tiara and the vacuum away and had ultimately gotten a couple of cups of coffee in her system, the brooding had gone on, building to full-scale angst, when it began to dawn on her that she was going to have to figure out this college-career thing, because despite what The Great Big Book of Death state, she had not been chosen as a dark minion of destruction. manage!\r\nShe stood in the back room feel at all the items that Charlie had piled there the day before: shoes, lamps, umbrellas, porcelain figures, toys, a couple of books, and an old drab-and-white television and a painting of a clown on black velvet.\r\nâ€Å"He said this stuff was earnest?” she asked lance, who stood in the doorway to the st ore.\r\nâ€Å"Yes. He made me check it all with my Geiger coming back.”\r\nâ€Å" shot, why the fuck do you have a Geiger foresee?”\r\nâ€Å"Lily, why do you have a nose stud shaped like a bat?”\r\nLily ignored the question and picked up the ceramic frog from the night before, which now had a post taped to it that read DO NOT treat OR DISPLAY in Charlies meticulous block-letter printing. â€Å"This was one of the things? This?”\r\nâ€Å"That was the beginning one he freaked out about,” said Ray matter-of-factly. â€Å"The truant officer tried to acquire it. That started it all.”\r\nLily was shaken. She backed over to Charlies desk and sat in the high-pitched oak swivel chair. â€Å"Do you see anything fervent or pulsating, Ray? Have you ever?”\r\nRay shook his head. â€Å"Hes under a lot of stress, losing Rachel and taking care of the baby. I think maybe he needs to get some help. I know after I had to leave the force â€ à ¢â‚¬Â Ray paused.\r\nThere was a commotion going on out in the alley, dogs barking and people shouting, then psyche was working a key in the lock of the back door. A second later, Charlie came in, a little breathless, his clothes smudged here and there with grime, one weapon system of his jacket torn and bloodstained.\r\nâ€Å"Asher,” Lily said. â€Å"Youre hurt.” She quickly vacated his chair while Ray took Charlie by the shoulders and sat him down.\r\nâ€Å"Im fine,” Charlie said. â€Å"No big deal.”\r\nâ€Å"Ill get the first-aid kit,” Ray said. â€Å"Get that jacket off of him, Lily.”\r\nâ€Å"Im fine,” Charlie said. â€Å"Quit talk of the town about me like Im not here.”\r\nâ€Å"Hes delirious,” Lily said, trying to pry Charlie out of his jacket. â€Å"Do you have any painkillers, Ray?”\r\nâ€Å"I dont need painkillers,” Charlie said.\r\nâ€Å" exclude up, Asher, theyre not for you,” Lily sai d, automatically, then she considered the book, Rays story, the notes on all the items in the back room, and she shuddered. It appeared that Charlie Asher might not be the short geek she always thought him to be. â€Å"Sorry, boss. Let us help you.”\r\nRay came back from the front with a small plastic first-aid kit. He peeled back Charlies sleeve and began to clean the wounds with gauze and peroxide. â€Å"What happened?”\r\nâ€Å"nothing,” Charlie said. â€Å"I slipped and barbaric in some gravel.”\r\n â€Å"The wounds pretty clean †no gravel in it. That must have been some fall.”\r\nâ€Å"Long story.” Charlie sighed. â€Å"Ouch!”\r\nâ€Å"What was all the noise in the alley?” Lily asked, needing badly to go smoke, but unable to pull herself away. She just couldnt imagine that Charlie Asher was the one. How could it be him? He was so, so, unworthy. He didnt understand the dark underbelly of life the way she did. Yet he was the one seeing the glowing objects. He was it. She was crestfallen.\r\nâ€Å"Just the Emperors dogs after a fall guy in the Dumpster. No big deal. I fell off a porch in Pacific Heights.”\r\nâ€Å"The estate,” Ray said. â€Å"Howd that go?”\r\nâ€Å" non well. The husband was grief-stricken and had a heart attack while I was there.”\r\nâ€Å"Youre kidding.”\r\nâ€Å"No, he just sort of became overwhelmed thinking about his wife and collapsed. I gave him CPR until the EMTs came and took him off to the hospital.”\r\nâ€Å"So,” Lily said, â€Å"did you get the †uh †did you get anything special?”\r\nâ€Å"What?” Charlies eye went wide. â€Å"What do you mean, special? There was nothing special.”\r\nâ€Å"Chill, boss, I just meant will we get the grandmas clothes?” Hes it, Lily thought. The fucker.\r\nCharlie shook his head. â€Å"I dont know, its so strange. The tout ensemble thing is so strang e.” He shuddered when he said it.\r\nâ€Å"Strange how?” Lily said. â€Å"Strange in a poise and dark way, or strange because youre Asher and youre out of it most of the time?”\r\nâ€Å"Lily!” Ray snapped. â€Å"Go out front. dust something.”\r\nâ€Å"Youre not the boss of me, Ray. Im just showing my concern.”\r\nâ€Å"Its okay, Ray.” Charlie looked like he was considering how, exactly, to define strange, and not coming up with anything that was working. Finally he said, â€Å"Well, for one thing, this womans estate is way out of our league. The husband said he called me because we were the first victimized store in the phone book, but he doesnt seem like the kind of man to do something like that.”\r\nâ€Å"Thats not that strange,” Lily said. Just confess, she thought.\r\nâ€Å"You said that he was grief-stricken,” Ray said, dabbing antibiotic ointment on Charlies cuts. â€Å"Maybe hes doing things differently. ”\r\nâ€Å"Yes, and he was angry at his wife, too, for the way she died.”\r\nâ€Å"How?” Lily asked.\r\nâ€Å"She ate silicon oxide gel,” Charlie said.\r\nLily looked at Ray for an explanation, because silica gel sounded techno-geeky, which was Rays particular field of geekdom. Ray said, â€Å"Its the antidesiccant that they transport with electronics and other things that are sensitive to humidity.”\r\nâ€Å"The ‘Do Not Eat stuff?!” Lily said. â€Å"Oh my God, thats so stupid. Everyone knows you dont eat the ‘Do Not Eat stuff.”\r\nCharlie said, â€Å"Mr. Mainheart was pretty broken up.”\r\nâ€Å"Well, I guess so,” Lily said. â€Å"He married a complete fucktard.”\r\nCharlie cringed. â€Å"Lily, thats not appropriate.”\r\nLily shrugged and rolled her eyes. She hated it when Charlie dropped into Dad mode. â€Å"Okay, okay. Im going outside to smoke.”\r\nâ€Å"No!” Charlie jumped ou t of the chair and put himself between Lily and the back door. â€Å"Out front. From now on if you have to smoke you go out front.”\r\nâ€Å"But you said that I look like a child floozie when I smoke out front.”\r\nâ€Å"Ive reassessed. Youve matured.”\r\nLily closed one eye to see if she could better glimpse into his spirit and thus figure out his true agenda. She smoothen over her black vinyl skirt, which made a tortured, squeaking noise at the touch. â€Å"Youre trying to formulate I have a big butt, arent you?”\r\nâ€Å"I absolutely am saying no such thing,” Charlie insisted. â€Å"I am simply saying that your posture in front of the store is an asset and will probably attract business from the tourists on the line car.”\r\nâ€Å"Oh. Okay.” Lily snatched her box of cloves off the desk and headed out past the counter and outside to brood, grieve really, because as much as she had hoped, she was not Death. The book was Charli es.\r\nThat evening Charlie was watching the store, question why he had lied to his employees, when he saw a flash of red passing by the front window. A second later, a strikingly pale redheaded woodpecker came through the door. She was wearing a short, black cocktail dress and black fuck-me pumps. She strode up the gangboard like she was auditioning for a music video. Her hair cascaded in long curls around her shoulders and down her back like a great auburn veil. Her eyes were emerald green, and when she saw him looking for, she smiled, and stopped, some ten feet away.\r\nCharlie felt an almost painful jolt that seemed to emanate from somewhere in the study of his groin, and after a second he recognized it as an autonomic lust response. He hadnt felt anything like that since Rachel had passed, and he felt vaguely ashamed.\r\nShe was examining him, looking him over like you would examine a used car. He was sure he must be blushing.\r\nâ€Å"Hi,” Charlie said. â€Å"Can I help you?”\r\nThe redhead smiled again, just a little, and reached into a small black bag that he hadnt noticed shed been carrying. â€Å"I found this,” she said, dimension up a silver nance case. Something Charlie didnt see very often anymore, even in the secondhand business. It was glowing, pulsating like the objects in the back room. â€Å"I was in the neighborhood and something made me think that this belonged here.”\r\nShe moved to the counter opposite Charlie and set the cigarette case down in front of him.\r\nCharlie could barely move. He stared at her, not even conscious that to avoid her eyes he was staring at her cleavage, and she appeared to be looking around his head and shoulders as if following the caterpillar tread of insects that were buzzing around him.\r\nâ€Å"Touch me,” she said.\r\nâ€Å"Huh?” He looked up, saw she was serious. She held out her hand; her nails were manicured and painted the same dim red as her lipstick. He took her hand.\r\nAs soon as she touched him she pulled away. â€Å"Youre warm.”\r\nâ€Å"Thanks.” In that moment he realized that she wasnt. Her fingers had been ice-cold.\r\nâ€Å"Then youre not one of us?”\r\nHe tried to think of what â€Å"us” might be? Irish? Low blood rack? Nymphomaniac? why did he even think that? â€Å"Us? What do you mean, ‘us?”\r\nShe backed away a step. â€Å"No. You dont just take the weak and the sick, do you? You take anyone.”\r\nâ€Å"Take? What do you mean, ‘take?”\r\nâ€Å"You dont even know, do you?”\r\nâ€Å"Know what?” Charlie was getting very nervous. As a Beta Male, he found it difficult tolerable to function under the attention of a sightly woman, but she was just plain spooky. â€Å"Wait. Can you see this thing glowing?” He held out the cigarette case.\r\nâ€Å"No glow. It just felt like it belonged here,” she said. â€Å"Whats your gens?”\r\nà ¢â‚¬Å"Charlie Asher. This is Ashers.”\r\nâ€Å"Well, Charlie, you seem like a nice guy, and I dont know exactly what you are, and it doesnt seem like you know. You dont, do you?”\r\nâ€Å"Ive been going through some changes,” Charlie said, wondering why he felt compelled to share this at all.\r\nThe redhead nodded, as if confirming something to herself. â€Å"Okay. I know what its like to, uh, to contract yourself thrown into a situation where forces beyond your control are changing you into someone, something you dont have an owners manual(a) for. I understand what it is to not know. But someone, somewhere, does know. somebody can tell you whats going on.”\r\nâ€Å"What are you talking about?” But he knew what she was talking about. What he didnt know was how she could possibly know.\r\nâ€Å"You make people die, dont you, Charlie?” She said it like she had worked up the courage to tell him that he had some spinach in his teeth. More of a service to him than an accusation.\r\nâ€Å"How do you †?” How did she â€\r\nâ€Å"Because its what I do. Not like you, but its what I do. Find them, Charlie. Backtrack and find whoever was there when your world changed.”\r\nCharlie looked at her, then at the cigarette case, then at the redhead again, who was no longer smiling, but was stepping backward toward the door. Trying to pacify in touch with normal, he focused on the cigarette case and said, â€Å"I suppose I can do an appraisal †â€Å"\r\nHe heard the bell over the door jingle, and when he looked up she was gone.\r\nHe didnt see her moving by the windows on either side of the door; she was just gone. He ran to the front of the store and out the door onto the sidewalk. The stonemason track cable car was just exceed the hill up by California Street and he could hear the bell, there was a thin fog coming up from the Bay that threw dark halos around the neon signs of the other businesses, but t here was no striking redhead on the street. He went to the corner and looked down Vallejo, but again no redhead, just the Emperor, sitting against the building with his dogs.\r\nâ€Å"Good evening, Charlie.”\r\nâ€Å"Your Majesty, did you see a redhead go by here just now?”\r\nâ€Å"Oh yes. Spoke to her. Im not sure you have a chance there, Charlie, I believe shes spoken for. And she did warn me to stay away from you.”\r\nâ€Å"Why? Did she say why?”\r\nâ€Å"She said that you were Death.”\r\nâ€Å"I am?” Charlie said. â€Å"Am I?” His breath caught in his throat as the day played back in his head. â€Å"What if I am?”\r\nâ€Å"You know, son,” the Emperor said, â€Å"I am not an expert in dealing with the fairer sex, but you might want to save that bit of cultivation until the third date or so, after theyve gotten to know you a little.”\r\n'