“I think you get another chance.”

“Really? Like reincarnation? What about Jesus and stuff?”

“I think that there’s a lot of stuff that’s not in the book. In any of the books.”

“Where’s this coming from? I never got the impression you were spiritual. You wouldn’t even go to yoga with me.”

“I wouldn’t go to yoga with you because I’m not bendy, not because I’m not spiritual.”

They’d gotten to the door, and when Charlie pulled it open it made the same sound a refrigerator door makes. When they stepped out onto the front porch he realized why, as a wave of hundred-and-ten-degree heat hit them.

“Jeez, did you accidentally open the door to hell?” Jane said. “I don’t need to smoke this badly. Get inside, get inside, get inside.” She shoved him inside and closed the door. “That’s heinous. Why would someone live in this climate?”

“I’m confused,” Charlie said. “Did you start smoking again or not?”

“I didn’t really,” Jane said. “I just have one when I’m really stressed out. It’s like thumbing your nose at Death. Haven’t you ever felt like doing that?”

“You have no idea,” Charlie said.

With Charlie and Jane there, they sent the hospice nurse home at night and watched Lois in four-hour shifts. Charlie gave his mother her medication, wiped her mouth, fed her what little she would take in, but by now she was mostly having sips of water or apple juice, and he listened as she lamented losing her looks and her things, as she remembered being a great beauty, the belle of the ball at parties before he was born, an object of desire, which clearly she loved more than being a wife or a mother or any of the dozen other faces she had worn in her life. Sometimes she would actually turn her attention to her son…

“I loved you as a little boy. I would take you to cafés in North Beach and everyone would just dote on you. You were so sweet. Beautiful. Both of us were.”

“I know.”

“Remember when we dumped all of the cereal out of the boxes so you could get the prize out? A little submarine, I think? Do you remember?”

“I remember, Mom.”

“We were close then.”

“Yeah, we were.”

Charlie would take her hand then and let her remember great times that they had never really had. The time had long passed for correcting facts and changing impressions.

When she exhausted herself he let her sleep, and read by a flashlight sitting in the chair at her bedside. He was there, in the middle of the night, reading a crime novel, when the door opened and a slight man of about fifty crept into the room, stopped by the door, and looked around. He wore sneakers and black jeans, a long-sleeved black T-shirt—but for the oversized wire-frame glasses, he was just short a hand grenade and a survival knife from looking like someone on a commando mission.

“Just be quiet,” Charlie said softly. “She’s sleeping.”

The little man jumped straight up about two feet and came down in a crouch. He was breathing hard and Charlie was afraid he might faint if he didn’t relax.

“It’s okay. It’s in the top drawer of that dresser over there—it’s a squash-blossom necklace. Take it.”

The little man ducked behind the door, then peeked around the edge. “You can see me?”

“Yes.” Charlie put his book down and got up from the chair, and went to the dresser.

“Oh, this is bad. This is really, really bad.”

“It’s not that bad,” Charlie said.

The little man shook his head violently. “No, it’s really bad. Look away. Look over there. I’m not here. I’m not here. You can’t see me.”

“Here it is,” Charlie said. He took the squash-blossom necklace from its velvet case in the drawer and held it up.

“What is?”

“What you’re looking for.”

“How did you know?”

“Because I do what you do. I’m a Death Merchant.”

“A what?”

Then Charlie remembered that Minty Fresh said he had coined the term, so maybe only the Death Merchants in San Francisco knew it. “I collect soul vessels.”

“No, you don’t. You can’t see me. You can’t see me. Sleep. Sleep.” The little man was waving his hands up and down in the air like he was drawing a curtain of deception before him, or possibly clearing spiderwebs out of the room.

“These are not the droids you seek,” Charlie said, grinning.

“What?”

“You don’t have Jedi powers, you git. Just take the necklace.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Come with me,” Charlie said. “It’s time for my sister to watch her anyway.” He led the little guy out of his mother’s room into the living room. They stood by the front window, looking at the sun coming up and casting shadows of the broken teeth of the red rock mountains around them. “What’s your name?”

“Vern. Vern Glover.”

“I’m Charlie. Nice to meet you. How long does she have, Vern?”

“What do you mean?”

“How long on your calendar. How many days were left?”

“How do you know about that?”

“I told you. I do what you do. I can see you. I can see that necklace glowing red. I know what you are.”

“But you can’t. The Great Big Book says that horrible Forces of Darkness will rise if I talk to you.”

“See this cut over my ear, Vern?”

Vern nodded.

“Forces of Darkness. Fuck ’em. Fuck the Forces of Darkness, Vern. How long does my mother have?”

“It’s your mother? I’m sorry, Charlie. She has two more days.”

“Okay,” Charlie said, nodding. “Then we’d better go get a doughnut.”

“Pardon?”

“Doughnut! Doughnut! You like doughnuts, don’t you?”

“Yes, but why?”

“Because the continuance of human existence as we know it depends on us having doughnuts together.”

“Really?” Vern’s eyes went wide.

“No, not really. I’m just fucking with you.” Charlie put his arm around Vern’s shoulder. “But let’s go get one anyway. I’ll wake my sister for her watch.”

Charlie called home from his mobile phone to check on Sophie. Then, satisfied she was safe, he returned to the booth at Dunkin’ Donuts, where Vern and a cruller were waiting for him. Vern had taken off his stocking cap and had a wild mop of silver gray hair over large, aviator-frame glasses that made him look like a tan and wiry mad scientist.

“So like she was really hot?”

“Vern, you wouldn’t believe. I’m telling you, body of a goddess. Covered with really fine feathers, soft as down.” Charlie innately recognized another Beta Male like he recognized another Death Merchant, so he nearly stumbled over himself to tell the story of his adventure with the sexy sewer harpy, knowing he had a sympathetic audience.

“But she was going to put her claw through your brain, right?”

“Yeah, she said she was, but you know something, I think there was some chemistry there.”

“You don’t think it was just that she had your crank in her hand at the time, because that can cloud a guy’s judgment.”

“Yeah, there’s that, but still, you have to think, of all the Death Merchants in all of the cities on the planet, she chose me to share the death wank. I think she had a thing for me.”

“Well, you’re in the City of Two Bridges,” said Vern, brushing a little maple glaze from the corner of his mouth. “That’s where it’s supposed to happen.”

“Where what’s supposed to happen?” Charlie had really enjoyed being the senior Death Merchant, acting as the elder statesman to Vern, who had been called to recruit souls only six months ago. Now he was thrown.

“In The Great Big Book of Death, it says that we can’t talk about what we do, or try to find each other, or the Forces of Darkness will rise up in the City of Two Bridges and there will be a horrible battle and the Underworld will rise and cover the land if we lose. You guys have two bridges in San Francisco, right?”

Charlie tried to hide his surprise. Vern had obviously gotten a different version of the Great Big Book than they got in San Francisco. “Well, two main ones, yes. Sorry, it’s been a long time since I read the book. Remind me why the City of Two Bridges is so important?”