The Wrong Goodbye

by Chris F. Holm

  "I hope that's true," I said, "but Danny didn't miss."

  "The fuck're you talking about?"

  "Look at yourself, man – this the body you remember?"

  He did. It wasn't. He kinda freaked a little, then, but once I calmed him down, I explained as best I could. When I finished, he sat there stunned for a while, saying nothing, and occasionally shaking his head in disbelief. Eventually, though, he found his voice.

  "So I'm dead, then, huh?"

  "Yup."

  "And damned to hell for all eternity."

  "Yup."

  "And you – you're some kind of fucking Grim Reaper!"

  I let out a bark of a laugh, shrill and humorless. "More like the devil's mailman," I replied.

  "I dunno, dude – I think you're selling yourself short. You gave me another body. Another chance."

  "More like a short reprieve."

  He considered that a moment. "So what's to keep me from taking off? Making a run for it, and starting somewhere new?"

  "Well, me, for one – I mean, you've got to know I can't just let you walk. And even if I did, they'd hunt you down. Your soul belongs to hell now – and believe me, these guys always get their man. My guess is you wouldn't last a week. Besides, you're not going to take off on me – not when we have a job to do."

  "Really," he said, his voice dripping sarcasm. "You and me working together like some kinda buddycomedy? I gotta tell you, dude, I don't see it. I mean, ain't you one of the guys I should be hiding from in the first place? What makes you think I'd wanna help you?"

  "Because the man who killed you also fucked me over but good. Because I plan to hunt him down and make him pay. And because right now, you're the best lead I've got. So you tell me – you want to see the bastard hang?"

  He seemed to mull it over for a second, and then he smiled.

  "Shit," he said. "Just tell me where we start."

  I helped the big man to his feet, and looked him up and down. "Why don't we start by getting you some clothes?"

  8.

  "So how's this work, exactly?" Gio asked, tucking his shirt into his dress pants and straightening his tie. "How'm I gonna help you find this guy?"

  "When a Collector takes a mark's soul, there's this moment – a moment when that Collector experiences the lifetime of joy and sorrow, of happiness and regret, that brought the mark into their grasp. The thing is, that moment cuts both ways, which means that once it comes to pass, the collected can forever sense the presence of the person who collected them. That isn't usually much of an issue, on account of once the collection happens, the collected's dead, but in the rare instance a Collector makes a play and misses, it can make their second try a bitch. And if, after you're collected, you're unlucky enough to wind up a Collector yourself, that ability to sense the one who collected you never fades – it gnaws at you for all eternity."

  "Wait – you're telling me I'm like some kind of asshole compass? That you're gonna follow me to the dude who screwed us over?"

  "I wish it were that simple," I said. "But for you to sense Danny, we're going to have to get you close to him. Which means we need to find out where he's gone off to – and to do that, we need to figure out what he's playing at."

  "How we gonna do that?"

  "I'm not sure," I admitted. "But I've got an idea where we can start."

  "Well, let's get going, then – we're burnin' daylight! I think it's high time we made this fucker pay!"

  I had nothing to say to that, so I just gritted my teeth and nodded. Truth be told, Gio's enthusiasm made me feel like shit. He had no idea what I was about to drag him into. He had no idea he was only here because Danny's plan to appease his Deliverants by getting me to inter his soul had failed. He had no idea that Danny would be as desperate to put him in the ground as I was to bury Varela.

  He didn't know because I didn't tell him. Telling him would have only complicated matters, and matters were plenty complicated already. Besides, it wasn't like telling him would've made a difference. Gio here was damned either way – the only question was whether he was going help me extract his pound of flesh before he went. And until that time came, I didn't need him getting cute on me. So I didn't tell him.

  Keeping Gio in the dark was the right call – the smart play. But knowing that didn't make me feel like any less a heel for doing it.

  Just then, a whimpering alerted me to the fact that our mortician friend had awoken. He looked to have a pretty good goose-egg on his forehead from where he'd connected with the floor tiles, and as I watched, he collected himself into a ball and began rocking back and forth, knees hugged tight to his chest. His eyes were fixed on a spot on the floor six inches in front of his shoes, and he was muttering something to himself, though what it was, I couldn't hear. A prayer, I suppose, if he were so inclined. Or it coulda been a grocery list.

  "The hell's the matter with him?" asked Gio.

  "Cut him some slack," I said. "Poor bastard's had two corpses get up off his table in as many days."

  "Well, then, you'd think he'd be getting used to it by now."

  I approached Ethan, crouching down beside him and putting a hand on his shoulder. It was a friendly gesture, but he flinched nonetheless. "Listen, Ethan," I said, in the sort of tone you might use to soothe a frightened child, "you did good. You honored your end of the deal, and now I'm going to honor mine. Me and Gio – er, Mr Frohman – are taking off, and my guess is, you'll never see either of us again, OK?"

  I don't know if he heard me. I suppose it didn't matter. I'd said my piece – and besides, once we were out of Ethan's life, everything would eventually return to what, in the world of a mortician, passed for normal. That was more than you could say for either me or Gio here, a fact that went a long way toward blunting my sympathy and assuaging my guilt.

  Gio, for his part, was busy struggling into the jacket of his burial suit – a jacket that, with the proper support, could've sheltered a family of four. Once he managed to squeeze himself into it, he sat down to pull on his shoes, grunting with exertion as he tried to reach his feet.

  "Jesus, dude, it ain't that I'm ungrateful for you bringing me back and all, but next time you find me a body, you think I could see something in a medium? I mean this guy's freakin' gaaah–"

  At that last, he tossed his loafer to the floor in sudden fright, the intended end of his sentence forgotten. When the shoe hit the tiles, a fat orange-brown cockroach spilled out of it and skittered under the stainless steel mortuary table. Gio recovered quickly, blushing at his startlement and retrieving his errant loafer. I, on the other hand, did not. At the sight of the cockroach, a chill crawled up the length of my spine as though on spindly insect legs, and a cold sweat broke out across my face and neck.

  "Hey, Captain Mumbles," Gio yelled toward the fetal Ethan, full of false bluster now in compensation for his bout of fear, "what kind of funeral home are you runnin' anyway? I mean, I know you keep dead bodies and shit in here, but can't you fucking clean? You owe better to the folks that come through here than to bury 'em full a roach eggs." Ethan didn't reply – he just rocked and stared at nothing. "Hey, asshole," Gio continued, "I'm talkin' to you!"

  "Leave him alone," I said, my voice thin and tinny to my ears. "The roach wasn't his fault. You want to blame somebody, you're going to have to take it up with me."

  Gio balked at my admonition, wheeling toward me with an eye-roll and a derisive snort. "What, you moonlighting as his housekeeper?"

  "Francis," I said, my voice dripping quiet menace, "I'm telling you to drop it."

  Something in my tone must've convinced him, because the predatory smile that his chiding of Ethan had brought to his face faltered, and then disappeared altogether. He followed my gaze to the spot where the cockroach had disappeared from sight and stared at it with an expression like clouds gathering. "So that thing," he said, his words devoid now of all humor, "it's like some kinda bad guy or something?"

  I shook my head, though my eyes never left the shadowy
underside of the mortuary slab. "More like some kind of sign," I replied.

  "OK, then, a sign. But a sign of what?"

  "A sign we're running out of time."

  "Get your things," I said, "we're going."

  "Everything I got in the world right now, I'm wearing. Where the hell we going?"

  I drew my thumb and forefinger across my lips as if to zip them, and then nodded toward the door, still staring at the spot on the floor where the cockroach had been. Truth be told, I didn't know if it could understand what we were saying, or whether my reticence would delay my Deliverants' pursuit either way. What I did know was that I wasn't gagging for a repeat of the whole bugs-in-my-motel-room incident, so for now, discretion seemed the better part of valor.

  Out in the driveway, Gio caught sight of Ethan's tiny, ancient hatchback. "You're kidding me, right? I seen Matchbox cars bigger than this thing. No way this dude you stuck me in is gonna fit inside that piece of shit."

  "Yeah, well, he's going to have to, because it's all we've got."

  He eyed the Fiesta up and down and shook his head in disbelief. I had to admit, the car didn't look much larger than his Frohman-suit, and its faded blue exterior was flecked with enough rust to make me wonder if it was structurally sound enough to carry him. As we climbed into it, I heard him mutter something about clowns and sardines, but it was kind of hard to hear him over the squeaking of the shocks.

  I thumbed the ignition, and nothing happened. I frowned, and tried again. Nothing still. Three tries later, the old girl sprung to life, but I guess my frown stayed put, because Gio clapped me on the shoulder and smiled.

  "Hey, man, lighten up! We ain't neither of us dead yet – we may as well have some fun while we're here! 'Sides, you and me decked out in a coupla kick-ass suits, hunting down the shit-bag who killed me? We're like the fucking Blues Brothers, man! We're on a mission from God."

  I'll admit, mob stooge or not, I felt sorry for the guy. Poor son of a bitch was wrong on so many counts, I didn't even know where to start. So I didn't. Didn't bother to point out that he and I were dead already, or that if God was the one pulling our strings, He was a supreme deity with one sick sense of humor.

  No, I didn't say any of that. Instead, I shook my head at the damned man's pointless optimism and threw the Fiesta into reverse, wincing as it labored backward into the quiet suburban street.

  9.

  The Shady Acres Rest Home was a sprawling clapboard mansion in the southern style, nestled in the sun-scorched Alabama countryside about an hour's drive from Montgomery. Years of unrelenting heat and humidity had reduced the once-white paint to a blistered patchwork the color of old newspapers, which draped like lace over the ash-gray wood beneath. In the lot beside the building, a few dusty old sedans glinted in the afternoon light – staff, I assumed, because the row of spots marked Visitors was vacant until I piloted the Fiesta into the one nearest the entrance.

  I climbed out of the car and felt the hot breath of the Gulf breeze against my cheeks. We'd been driving for going on fifteen hours, Gio and I, our only stop three frantic minutes at a strip-mall in St Louis spent swapping the Fiesta's plates with a pair from a navy blue VW Rabbit. Gio spent the first few hours of the drive peppering me with inane questions – about my job, my life, about the places I'd been and the people I'd dispatched. He'd also blathered at length about the guys he'd whacked and the scams he'd pulled working for the Family out in Vegas. No doubt he felt some kind of kinship between us, seeing my job as nothing more than the supernatural extension of his own. But it wasn't – not to me, at least. Unlike Gio, I took no joy in what I did, and God willing, never would. Besides, thanks to Danny, I already had more friends than I could handle – the last thing I needed was another. So I mostly kept quiet, and waited for Gio to talk himself out. Somewhere around Nashville, road-weariness set in, and he lapsed into a sort of drowsy, companionable silence. I'm not gonna lie, I was grateful for the quiet, but if you want to know the whole truth, I was glad to have some company as well. So long as he kept his yap shut, at least.

  "So," Gio said, the Fiesta rocking as he grabbed hold of the oh-shit handle above the passenger seat and hoisted his fat frame out of the car, "you gonna tell me what the hell we're doing here? Besides sweating to death, that is," he added, mopping his prodigious brow with his tie.

  "We're here to see an old friend," I replied.

  Gio eyed the nursing home with skepticism. "Exactly how old a friend are we talkin' here?"

  "Old enough."

  "This dude gonna know where to find the guy who offed me?"

  "No, he's not."

  "Then why did we come all this way to see him?"

  "Because unless I'm much mistaken, he's going to lead us to someone who might. You got the time?"

  "Last I saw, the clock on the dash read quarter to one."

  "We'd best get moving, then, unless you feel like waiting around here till next week."

  By the look on his sweaty, heat-flushed face, I'd say he didn't much relish the thought of spending the week in such steamy environs. Which was fine by me, because I sure as hell didn't – though my reluctance had nothing to do with the heat. No, for me it was more the frickload of angry, crawly Deliverants on our tail that made me reluctant to stay anyplace for one second longer than we had to.

  Inside, the lobby of the nursing home was quiet. A ceiling fan turned lazily above an empty seating area comprising a rose damask sofa and two matching armchairs, all at least as old and timeworn as the building itself. A wooden reception desk ran the length of the far wall, and behind it sat a plump, silver-haired woman in pale blue scrubs, her nose buried in an Elmore Leonard novel. As we approached, she set the book down and flashed us a tired, perfunctory halfsmile that looked as if it had walked into the room only to forget what it was doing there.

  "Can I help you, darlin'?" she asked, her vowels stretching pleasantly beneath the weight of her drawl.

  "Yes," I said, "I'm here to see Mariella Hamilton."

  "And your relation to the patient?"

  "I'm her grandson."

  "Her grandson," she echoed, incredulous.

  "That's right."

  "What about him?" she asked, raising an eyebrow as she took in Gio's massive frame. "He her grandson, too?"

  "No," I said, flashing her my best we're-all-friendshere smile. "But he's an old friend of the family – grew up a few doors down. I'm sure she'd like to see him."

  The woman shook her head. "Sorry, darlin', but if he ain't family, he'll have to wait here. The rules, you understand."

  Gio made like he was gonna object, but I cut him off. "That's fine," I said. "He'll wait."

  The way the woman eyed the two of us, it was clear she didn't believe a word of what I'd said. But then she shrugged, as if deciding she didn't care much either way. "Mariella's in room 2123," she said, her words tinged with weary resignation. "Just follow the hallway to your left until you reach the staircase, and–"

  "Thanks," I said. "I know the way."

  Mariella Hamilton was a tiny, frail specimen of a woman, nestled in the soft white blankets of her hospital bed like a champagne flute wrapped for transport. Looking at her, I couldn't fault the nurse downstairs her skepticism at my claim we were related. Her skin was the color of brown sugar – a far cry from my meatsuit's pasty white – and stretched tight and shiny across her fragile bones. Though she couldn't be a day under eighty, her hair was still largely black, and pulled into a severe bun, so that what few streaks of white were present swirled like creamer through coffee atop the contours of her head. Her eyes were closed, as always, and her hands were crossed atop her breast. Clipped to one finger was a sensor, which ran to the heart monitor that blipped a quiet rhythm from its perch beside the bed – the same rhythm it had blipped, without fail or deviation, for the last twenty-seven years.

  I leaned in close and kissed her forehead. Then I took a seat in the chair beside the bed, gathering her hands into my own. I closed my eyes and bowed my
head, my lips moving in silent prayer. It was only when the sound of footfalls echoed through the room that I raised my head again, blinking against the sudden brightness as I turned to see the source of the interruption.

  Turns out the interruption was a hulking kid of maybe twenty-three, with thick arms, dishwater hair, and dull, close-set eyes that glowered out at the world from beneath a brow that could have sheltered woodland creatures in a storm. He was dressed in the same pale blue scrubs as the woman downstairs, though his were nowhere near as clean, and he was carrying a tray laden with alcohol swabs, a rubber tourniquet, and a handful of needle-tipped test tubes of the type used to collect blood. When he saw me sitting there, he froze. Confusion and good manners played tug-of-war with his face. Eventually, good manners won out, and he smiled, continuing into the room and setting his tray down on the bedside table beside me.

  "Sorry to barge in on you like that," he said, his words tinged with the same drawl as the nurse I'd spoken to downstairs. "Mariella here doesn't get company too often. Truth be told, you scared the hell out of me!"

  "Did I?" I asked.

  "You did, at that," he said, looping the tourniquet around Mariella's arm above the elbow and tapping at one suddenly protruding vein. Seated as I was, the kid towered over me, the scent of soap and sweat and sick clinging to his massive frame.