Charlie tripped over a spittoon and caught himself on an elk-antler coatrack.

“You okay?” asked the proprietor, looking up from the book he was reading. He was maybe sixty, skin spotted from too much sun, but he hadn’t seen any in a while and he’d gone pasty. He had long, thinning gray hair and wore oversized bifocals that gave him the look of an educated turtle.

“No, I’m fine,” Charlie said, ripping his gaze off the soul-vessel books.

“I know it’s a little cluttered in here,” the turtle guy said. “I’ve been meaning to clear it out, but then, I’ve been meaning to clear it out for thirty years and I haven’t managed it yet.”

“It’s okay, I like your store,” Charlie said. “Great selection.”

The owner looked at Charlie’s expensive suit and shoes and squinted. It was clear he recognized the worth of the clothes and was qualifying Charlie as a rich collector or antiques hunter. “You looking for anything special?” he asked.

“Sword-cane,” Charlie said. “Doesn’t have to be antique.” He wanted to buy this guy a coffee and share stories of snatching soul objects, of confronting the Underworlders, of being a Death Merchant. This guy was a kindred spirit, and from the size of his collection of soul objects, all of them books, he’d been doing this longer than Minty Fresh.

Turtle guy shook his head. “Haven’t seen one for years. If you want to give me a card, I’ll put out feelers for you.”

“Thanks,” Charlie said. “I’ll keep looking. That’s part of the fun.” He started backing down the aisle, but he couldn’t leave without saying something else, getting some kind of information. “Hey, how is it, doing business in this neighborhood?”

“Better now than it used to be,” said the guy. “The gangs have settled down some, this part of the Mission has turned into the edgy, artsy-fartsy neighborhood. That’s been good for business. You from the City?”

“Born and raised,” Charlie said. “Just haven’t been to this neighborhood much. You haven’t had any weird stuff on the street last couple of weeks, then?”

The turtle guy looked fully at Charlie now, even took off his giant glasses. “Except for the thumper sound systems going by, quiet as a mouse. What’s your name?”

“Charlie. Charlie Asher. I live over in the North Beach—Chinatown area.”

“I’m Anton, Charlie. Anton Dubois. Nice meeting you.”

“Okay,” Charlie said. “I have to go now.”

“Charlie. There’s a pawnshop off Fillmore Street. Fulton and Fillmore, I think. The owner carries a lot of edged weapons. She might have your cane.”

“Thanks,” Charlie said. “You watch yourself, Anton. Okay?”

“Always do,” said Anton Dubois, and he looked back to his book.

Charlie left the store feeling even more anxious, but not quite as alone as he had five minutes before. The next day, he found a new sword-cane at the pawnshop in the Fillmore, and he also found a case of cutlery and kitchen utensils that pulsated with red light. The owner was younger than Anton Dubois, late thirties maybe, and wore a.38 revolver in a shoulder holster, which shocked Charlie less than the fact that she was a woman. He’d envisioned all the Death Merchants as being men, but of course there was no reason to think that. She wore jeans and a plain chambray shirt, but was dripping with mismatched jewelry that Charlie guessed was a self-indulgence she justified for being “in the business” the same way he justified his expensive suits. She was pretty in a lady-cop sort of way, with a nice smile, and Charlie found himself wondering if he should maybe ask her out, then heard an audible pop in his head as that bubble of self-destructive stupidity exploded. Sure, dinner and a movie, and release the Forces of Darkness on the world. Great first date. Everyone was right, he really needed to get laid.

He bought the sword-cane for cash, without quibbling, and left the store without engaging the owner in conversation, but he took a business card from the holder on the counter as he left. Her name was Carrie Lang. It was all he could do to not warn her, tell her to be careful of what might be coming from below, but he realized that every second he was there, he was probably increasing the danger to all of them.

Watch yourself, Carrie, he whispered to himself as he walked away.

That evening he decided to take action to ease some of the tension in his life. Or at least it was decided for him when Jane and her girlfriend Cassandra showed up at the apartment and offered to watch Sophie.

“Go, find a woman,” Jane said. “I got the kid.”

“It doesn’t work that way,” Charlie said. “I was gone all day, I haven’t spent any quality time with my daughter.”

Jane and Cassandra—an athletic, attractive redhead in her midthirties, who Charlie promised himself he would have asked out if she hadn’t been living with his sister—pushed him out the door, slammed it in his face, and locked it.

“Don’t come home until you’ve gotten some,” Jane shouted over the transom.

“Does that work for you?” Charlie shouted back. “Just go find someone to do you, like a scavenger hunt?”

“Here’s five hundred dollars. Five hundred dollars works for anyone.” A wad of bills came flying over the transom, followed by his cane, a sport coat, and his wallet.

“This is my money, isn’t it?” Charlie shouted.

“It’s you that needs to get laid,” Jane shouted back. “Go. Don’t come back until you’ve done the dance of the beast with two backs.”

“I could just lie.”

“No, you can’t,” Cassie said. She had a sweet voice, like you’d want her to tell you a bedtime story. “The desperation will still show in your eyes. And I mean that in a nice way, Charlie.”

“Sure, how else could I take it?”

“Bye, Daddy,” Sophie said from the other side of the door. “Have fun.”

“Jane!”

“Relax, she just came in. Go.”

So Charlie, thrown out of his own home, by his own sister, said good-bye to the daughter he adored and went out to find a total stranger with whom to be intimate.

Just a massage,” Charlie said.

“Okay,” said the girl as she arranged oils and lotions on a shelf. She was Asian, but Charlie couldn’t tell from where in Asia, maybe Thailand. She was petite and had black hair that hung down past her waist. She wore a red silk kimono with a chrysanthemum design. She never looked him in the eye.

“Really, I’m just tense. I don’t want anything but a completely ethical and hygienic massage, just like it says on the sign.” Charlie stood at the end of a narrow cubicle, fully dressed, with a massage table on one side of him and the masseuse and her shelf of oils on the other.

“Okay,” said the girl.

Charlie just looked at her, unsure of what to do next.

“Clothes off,” said the girl. She placed a clean white towel on the massage table near Charlie, nodded to it, then turned her back. “Okay?”

“Okay,” Charlie said, feeling now that he was here, he needed to go through with it. He’d paid the woman at the door fifty dollars for the massage, after which she made him sign a release that stated that all he was getting was a massage, that tipping was encouraged, but did not imply any services beyond a massage, and that if he thought that he was getting anything but a massage he was going to be one disappointed White Devil. She made him initial each of the six languages it was printed in, then she winked, a long slow wink, exaggerated by very long false eyelashes, and performed the internationally accepted blow-job mime, with round mouth and rhythmic tongue pushing out the cheek. “Lotus Flower make you bery relax, Mr. Macy.”

Charlie had signed Ray’s name, not so much as a small revenge for calling the cops on him, but because he thought the management might recognize Ray’s name and give him a discount.

He kept his boxers on and climbed on the table, but Lotus Flower slipped them off him as deftly as a magician pulling a scarf from his sleeve. She draped a towel over his bottom and dropped her kimono. Charlie saw it fall and glanced back to see a tiny, seminaked woman rubbing oil on her palms to warm it. He looked away and slammed his forehead into the table several times even as he felt his erection struggling for freedom beneath him.