“I’ve got to get my hands on those,” Charlie said, forgetting that he wasn’t exactly alone and he wasn’t exactly thinking to himself.

Then Madison McKerny noticed that Charlie was there and the screaming started.

16

THE CALL OF BOOTY II: REQUIEM FOR A FUCK PUPPET

Ray threw the door open so hard that the little bell went flying off its holder and tinkled across the floor.

“Oh, jeez,” Ray said. “You won’t believe it. I can’t believe it myself.”

Lily looked at Ray over her half-frame reading glasses and set down the French cookbook she’d been looking at. She didn’t really need reading glasses, but looking over the top of them conveyed instant condescension and disdain, a look that she felt flattered her.

“I have something I need to tell you, too,” Lily said.

“No,” Ray said, looking around to make sure there were no customers in the store. “What I have to tell you is really important.”

“Okay,” Lily said. “Mine’s not that important to me. You go first.”

“Okay.” Ray took a deep breath and launched. “I think Charlie may be a serial killer with ninja powers.”

“Wow, that is good,” Lily said. “Okay, my turn. A Miss Me-So-Horny called for you. She wanted you to know that she’s packing eight inches of luscious man-meat.” Lily held up Ray’s cell phone, which he’d left under the register.

“Oh my God, not again!” Ray cradled his head in his hands and fell against the counter.

“She said she was eager to share it with you.” Lily examined her nails. “So, Asher’s a ninja, huh?”

Ray looked up. “Yes, and he’s stalking a fuck puppet from my gym.”

“Think you’re living a rich enough fantasy life, Ray?”

“Shut up, Lily, this is a disaster. My job and my apartment depend on Charlie, not to mention that he has a kid, and the new light of my life is a guy.”

“No, she’s not.” Lily wondered about herself, giving in so early—she didn’t enjoy torturing Ray the way she used to.

“Huh? What?”

“I’m just fuckin’ with you, Ray. She didn’t call. I read all of your e-mail and IMs.”

“That stuff is private.”

“Which is why you have it all here on the store’s computer?”

“I spend a lot of time here, with the time difference…”

“And speaking of privacy, what’s the deal with Asher being a ninja and a serial killer? I mean, both? At the same time?”

Ray moved in close, and talked into his collar, as if revealing a huge conspiracy. “I’ve been watching him. Charlie’s been taking in a lot of stuff from dead people. It’s gone on for years. But he’s always having to take off on a moment’s notice, having me cover his shifts, and he never explains where he’s going, except soon after that happens, one of the dead people’s things shows up in the shop. So today I followed him, and he was after a woman who goes to my gym, who we might have seen the other day.”

Lily stepped back, crossed her arms, and looked disgusted with Ray, which was fairly easy, since she’d had years of practice. “Ray, did it occur to you that Asher handles estates, and that we’ve been doing much better business since he started doing more estates—that the quality of the merchandise is much higher? Probably because he gets there early?”

“I know, but that’s not it. You’re not around as much now, Lily. I was a cop, I notice these things. For one thing, did you know that there was a homicide detective keeping track of Charlie? That’s right. Gave me his card, told me to call if anything unusual happened.”

“No, Ray, you didn’t.”

“Charlie disappeared, Lily. I was watching him, and he just blinked out of existence, right before my eyes. And last I saw him he was going into the fuck puppet’s building.”

Lily wanted to grab the stapler off the counter and rapidly drive about a hundred staples into Ray’s shiny forehead. “You ungrateful fucktard! You called the cops on Asher? The guy who has given you a job and a place to live for what, ten years?”

“I didn’t call the black-and-whites, just this Inspector Rivera. I know him from when I was on the force. He’ll keep it on the down low.”

“Go get your checkbook and your car,” Lily barked. “We’re going to bail him out.”

“He probably hasn’t even been processed yet,” Ray said.

“Ray, you pathetic toss-beast. Go. I’ll close up the store and wait for you out front.”

“Lily, you can’t talk to me that way. I don’t have to put up with it.”

Because he couldn’t turn his head, Ray wasn’t able to avoid the first two staples Lily put in his forehead, but by then he had decided it was best to go get his checkbook and his car, and backed away.

“What’s a fuck puppet, anyway?” Lily shouted after him, somewhat surprised at the violent intensity of her loyalty to Charlie.

The policewoman fingerprinted Charlie nine times before she looked up at Inspector Alphonse Rivera and said, “This motherfucker got no fingerprints.”

Rivera took Charlie’s hand and turned it palm up, and looked at his fingers. “I can see the ridges, right there. He’s got completely normal fingerprints.”

“Well, you do it, then,” said the woman. “’Cause alls I got on the card is smooth.”

“Fine, then,” Rivera said. “Come with me.”

He led Charlie over to a wall that had a big ruler painted on it and told him to face a camera.

“How’s my hair?” Charlie said.

“Don’t smile.”

Charlie frowned.

“Don’t make a face. Just look straight ahead and—your hair is fine, though now you’ve got ink on your forehead. This is not that hard, Mr. Asher, criminals do this all the time.”

“I’m not a criminal,” Charlie said.

“You broke into a security building and harassed a young woman, that makes you a criminal.”

“I didn’t break into anything and I didn’t harass anyone.”

“We’ll see. Ms. McKerny said you threatened her life. She’s definitely going to press charges, and if you ask me, you’re both lucky I showed up when I did.”

Charlie wondered about that. The fuck puppet had started screaming and backed into her apartment, and he had followed her, trying to explain, trying to figure out how this was going to work, and at the same time paying way too much attention to her breasts.

“I didn’t threaten her.”

“You said she was going to die. Today.”

Well, they had him there. Charlie had, in all the confusion and screaming, mentioned that he had to get hold of her breasts because she was going to die today. In retrospect, he felt he probably should have kept that information to himself.

Rivera led him upstairs and into a small room with a table and two chairs. Just like on TV, Charlie looked for a one-way mirror but was disappointed to see only concrete-block walls painted in easy-clean moss-green enamel. Rivera had him sit, but then went to the door.

“I’m going to leave you here for a few minutes, until Miss McKerny comes down to file charges. It’s more hospitable here than the holding cell. You want something to drink?”

Charlie shook his head. “Should I call an attorney?”

“It’s up to you, Mr. Asher. That’s certainly your right, but I can’t advise you one way or another. I’ll be back in five. You can make your call then if you’d like.”

Rivera left the room and Charlie saw the inspector’s partner, a gruff, bald-headed bull of a guy named Cavuto, standing outside the door waiting for him. That guy actually scared Charlie. Not as much as the prospect of having to retrieve Madison McKerny’s breast implants, or what would happen if he didn’t, but still scary.

Cut him loose,” Cavuto said.

“What, cut him loose? I just got him processed, the McKerny woman—”

“Is dead. Boyfriend shot her, then, when our guys responded to the shots-fired call, did himself.”

“What?”

“Boyfriend was married, McKerny wanted more security and was going to tell the wife. He flipped out.”