The Sunset district lay just south of Golden Gate Park, bordered by the American Highway and Ocean Beach on the west, and Twin Peaks and the University of San Francisco on the east. It had once been a suburb, until the city expanded to include it, and many of its houses were modest, single-story family dwellings, built en masse in the 1940s and ’50s. They were like the mosaics of little boxes that peppered neighborhoods across the entire country in that postwar period, but in San Francisco, where so much had been built after the quake and fire of ’06, then again in the economic boom of the late twentieth century, they seemed like anachronisms from both ends of time. Charlie felt like he was driving through the Eisenhower era, at least until he passed a mother with a shaved head and tribal tattoos on her scalp pushing twins in a double stroller.

Irena Posokovanovich’s sister lived in a small, one-story frame house with a small covered porch that had jasmine vines growing up trellises on either side and springing off into the air like morning-after-sex hair. The rest of the tiny yard was meticulously groomed, from the holly hedge at the sidewalk to the red geraniums that lined the concrete path up to the house.

Charlie parked a block away and walked to the house. On the way he was nearly run over by two different joggers, one a young mother pushing a running stroller. They couldn’t see him—he was on track. Now, how to go about getting in? And then what? If he was the Luminatus, then perhaps just his presence would take care of the problem.

He checked around back and saw that there was a car in the garage, but the shades were drawn on all the windows. Finally he decided on the frontal approach and rang the doorbell.

A few seconds later a short woman in her seventies wearing a pink chenille housecoat opened the door. “Yes,” she said, looking a little suspicious as she eyed Charlie’s walking cast. She quickly flipped the lock on the screen door. “Can I help you?”

It was the woman in the picture. “Yes, ma’am, I’m looking for Irena Posokovanovich.”

“Well, she’s not here,” said Irena Posokovanovich. “You must have the wrong house.” She started to close the door.

“Wasn’t there a death notice in the paper a couple of weeks ago?” Charlie said. So far, his awesome presence as the Luminatus wasn’t having much of an effect on her.

“Well, yes, I believe there was,” said the woman, sensing an out. She opened the door a little more. “It was such a tragedy. We all loved Irena so much. She was the kindest, most generous, most loving, attractive—you know, for her age—well-read—”

“And evidently didn’t know that it’s considered common courtesy when you publish a death notice to actually die!” Charlie held out the enlarged driver’s-license picture. He considered adding aha! but thought that might be a little over-the-top.

Irena Posokovanovich slammed the door. “I don’t know who you are, but you have the wrong house,” she said through the door.

“You know who I am,” Charlie said. Actually, she probably had no idea who he was. “And I know who you are, and you are supposed to have died three weeks ago.”

“You’re mistaken. Now go away before I call the police and tell them that there’s a rapist at my door.”

Charlie gagged a little, then pushed on. “I am not a rapist, Mrs. Poso…Posokev—I’m Death, Irena. That’s who I am. And you are overdue. You need to die, this minute if possible. There’s nothing to be afraid of. It’s like going to sleep, only, well—”

“I’m not ready,” Irena whined. “If I was ready I wouldn’t have left my home. I’m not ready.”

“I’m sorry, ma’am, but I have to insist.”

“I’m sure you’re mistaken. Perhaps another Mrs. Posokovanovich.”

“No, here it is, right here in the calendar, with your address. It’s you.” Charlie held his date book turned to the page with her name on it up to the little window in the door.

“And you say that that is Death’s calendar?”

“That’s correct, ma’am. Notice the date. And this is your second notice.”

“And you are Death?”

“That’s right.”

“Well, that’s just silly.”

“I am not silly, Mrs. Posokovanovich. I am Death.”

“Aren’t you supposed to have a sickle and a long black robe?”

“No, we don’t do that anymore. Take my word for it, I am Death.” He tried to sound really ominous.

“Death is always tall in the pictures.” She was standing on tiptoe, he could tell the way she kept bouncing up by the little window to get a look at him. “You don’t seem tall enough.”

“There’s no height requirement.”

“Then could I see your business card?”

“Sure.” Charlie took out a card and held it against the glass.

“This says ‘Purveyor of Fine Vintage Clothing and Accessories.’”

“Right! Exactly!” He knew he should have had a second set of business cards printed up. “And where do you think I get those things? From the dead. You see?”

“Mr. Asher, I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”

“No, ma’am, I’m going to have to insist that you pass away, this instant. You’re overdue.”

“Go away! You are a charlatan, and I think you need psychological help.”

“Death! You’re fucking with Death! Capital D, bitch!” Well, that was uncalled for. Charlie felt bad the second he said it. “Sorry,” he mumbled to the door.

“I’m calling the police.”

“You go ahead, Mrs. — uh—Irena. You know what they’ll tell you, that you’re dead! It was in the Chronicle. They hardly ever print stuff that’s not true.”

“Please go away. I practiced for a long time so I could live longer, it’s not fair.”

“What?”

“Go away.”

“I heard that part, I mean the part about practicing.”

“Never you mind. You just go take someone else.”

Charlie actually had no idea what he would do if she let him in. Maybe he had to touch her for his Death abilities to kick in. He remembered seeing an old Twilight Zone as a kid, where Robert Redford was Death, and this old lady wouldn’t let him in, so he pretended to be injured, and when she came to help him…ALA-KAZAM! She croaked, and he peacefully led her off to Hole in the Wall, where she helped him produce independent movies. Maybe that would work. He did have the cast and the cane going for him.

He looked up and down the street to make sure that no one could see him, then he lay down, half on the little porch, half on the concrete steps. He threw his cane against the door and made sure that it clattered loudly on the concrete, then he let out what he thought was a very convincing wail. “Ahhhhhhhhh, I’ve broken my leg.”

He heard footsteps inside and saw gray hair at the little window, bouncing a little so she could see out.

“Oh, it hurts,” Charlie wailed. “Help.”

More steps, the shade in the window to the right of the door parted and he saw an eye. He grimaced in fake pain.

“Are you all right?” said Mrs. Posokovanovich.

“I need help. My leg was hurt before, but I slipped on your steps. I think I’ve broken something. There’s blood, and a piece of bone sticking out.” He kept his leg below the level where she could see it.

“Oh my,” she said. “Give me a minute.”

“Help. Please. The pain. So—much—pain.” Charlie coughed the way cowboys do when they are dying in the dirt and things are getting all dark.

He heard the latch being thrown, and then the inner door opened. “You’re really hurt bad,” she said.

“Please,” Charlie said, holding his hand out to her. “Help me.”

She unlatched the screen. Charlie suppressed a grin. “Oh, thank you,” he gasped.

She threw open the screen door and blasted him in the face with a stream of pepper spray. “I saw that Twilight Zone, you son of a bitch!” The doors slammed. The latch was thrown.

Charlie’s face felt like it was on fire.

When he could finally see well enough to walk, as he limped back to his van, he heard a female voice say, “I’d have let you in, lover.” Then a chorus of spooky-girlish laughter erupted from the storm sewer. He backed against the van, ready to draw the sword from the cane, but then he heard what sounded like a small dog barking in the sewer.