“Would you like to hear my third point?”
I blew a lock of hair off my face and turned to her. “Sure.”
“Third, just who are you going to send that letter to, exactly?”
Damn. She had a point. But I was busy looking at Mr. Wong’s back. I saw something I’d never noticed before through the threadbare material of his shirt. Dropping the letter, I strolled over to him, stood on my tiptoes, and peeked down the collar of his gray shirt.
“Holy cow,” I said. His entire back was covered in tattoos. “I think Mr. Wong may have been triad.”
“Triad?” she asked, standing slowly. “Aren’t they kind of dangerous?”
“From what I hear, they are.” I reached around him and unbuttoned the top couple of buttons of his shirt. “I am so sorry, Mr. Wong. So, so, so, so sorry.”
After I’d unfastened enough to pull the shoulders down, I carefully peeled back the shirt and examined the artwork. It was stunning, but not what I’d seen in the movies that would link him to any underground organized crime syndicate, Chinese or otherwise. It was Chinese characters, beginning with a straight line across, then more characters falling from there and forming vertical lines of text. Only, I couldn’t read them.
I’d been born knowing every language ever spoken on Earth. Part of the gig, I guessed. Even though that didn’t include the ability to read and write said languages, I knew just enough Mandarin to be dangerous.
Cookie was standing back, watching me with nervous anxiety. “Well? Is he triad?”
“No. I mean, I don’t think so. I’m not sure what he is. It’s just words. Chinese characters. But I don’t recognize them. I can’t read it.” A thought hit me, and I turned to her. “Aren’t you supposed to be getting ready for your fake date?”
She pulled her bottom lip between her teeth. “I’m not sure, Charley.”
“Cook,” I said, righting Mr. Wong’s shirt just in case he was triad and could put out a hit for my head to be brought to him in a plain, brown package, and stepped to her. “You have to snap out of this.” I took her shoulders and gave her a little shake. I didn’t slap her, though. That might be taking it a bit far. “You want this, remember? For reasons known only to you and God above, you have the hots for my uncle.”
She drew in a deep breath and nodded. “You’re right. It’s for his own good.”
“Damn straight, it is. And it’ll be funny to watch him squirm. I can’t wait to see the look on his face—”
“Charley!”
“But that’s not the only reason I’m doing this! I swear.”
“You are such a bad liar.”
I chuckled and led her to the door. “Go get ready for your fake date. Ubie should be here around six. Ish. You never know with him.”
She nodded again, handed me her cup, then headed across the hall to her own apartment. I said a quick prayer, asking for divine intervention in her fashion choice, then went back to Mr. Wong. Some of the lines of text went all the way down his back and disappeared into the top of his pants, but no way was I going there. I had to leave him at least an ounce of dignity.
I could try to draw the tats, as I had with Mr. A, but that would take me forever, and I just wasn’t that good. Time to kill two bad guys with one bullet. I summoned Angel, a thirteen-year-old departed gangbanger who’d wanted to see me naked before he’d agree to become my investigator. I was happy to report he had yet to see me naked and he was indeed my investigator. I’d blackmailed him. It was how I rolled.
“Hey, Charley,” he said, popping in behind me. Very close behind me.
I stepped away from him and gave him a good once-over. “You’re being very nice today,” I said, letting the suspicion I felt show. “What gives?”
“What?” he asked. He stepped to Sophie, my sofa, and fell back to land softly on her soft cushions. “I can’t say hey to my favorite grim reaper?”
Oh, wow. Something was definitely up. I strolled over to him, turned around, and plopped down on his stomach to incapacitate him. Then I proceeded to tickle him until he begged for mercy.
“Okay, okay,” he said, laughing like a schoolkid. It was nice. “I give up.”
“What’s up with the nice act?” When he hesitated, I went back in for the ribs.
“No! Okay, I’ll tell you. I’m just happy. My mom’s doing really well.”
“Yeah, thanks to the raise I gave you. So, she fell for the ‘dead uncle left her money’ thing?”
He wiped his eyes as I let him up. “Seems like it. She’s just happier now. Something has changed.”
“Angel, maybe she’s happy because she’s figured out you’re still around.”
His disposition went from light to dark in a flash. “No, she’s not. I told you, I don’t want her to know.”
“I know. Geez. I didn’t tell her anything. But she suspects. You know that, right?”
He sat back down and rubbed the peach fuzz on his chin. “I know. As long as she doesn’t know for certain, she’ll be fine.”
“Well, either way,” I said, going to warm up my coffee, “I’m glad she’s doing well.”
“Yeah, me, too.”
“I have two jobs for you.”
“Okay, but I’ve decided I need weekends and holidays off.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. It just sounds good. And I need benefits.”
I gave him my best deadpan expression. “Isn’t it a little late for medical?”
“No, I need other benefits. Like seeing you naked. But only sometimes. I’m not greedy.”
“You are not seeing me naked. Now, do you want to know the jobs or not?”
“Sure. Why not? I’m only dead. It’s not like I can argue.”
I curled up beside him, and he put an arm around my shoulders. “Can we make out?”
“No. Can you draw?”
He shrugged. “I used to be pretty good. Haven’t tried it in about thirty years.”
“But you can manipulate objects sometimes. I’ve seen you.”
“Yeah. Do you need a nude portrait done?”
“Yes, actually, I do.”
He rose slightly. “Really?”
“Yes. Of Mr. Wong’s back.”
Disappointment lined his handsome face. “That old guy? I’m not sure that’s a good idea.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. He’s …
escalofriante
.”
“Angel Garza,” I said, leaning away from him. “Mr. Wong is not creepy. Why would he give you the chills?”
“He just does.”
“That’s not nice.”
“Whatever you say,
’jita
.”
“And you can’t call me
’jita
. It’s wrong. I’m older than you are.”
He still had his arm on my shoulders when his full mouth tilted playfully. “You are not older than me. If you’ll let me see you naked, I’ll prove it to you.”
The way Angel talked, the departed could have sex. But really? Could they? I wasn’t about to find out with a thirteen-year-old. “You are not seeing me naked. I need you to draw the tattoos on his back.”
“I can try, but I don’t think he’ll like it. What if he’s ticklish?”
I pursed my lips in reprimand. “I don’t know what else to do, unless you can talk to him and find out who he is.”
“I’ve already told you: I’m not a ghost whisperer. And if you could see what I see, you wouldn’t even want to know who he is.”
I bolted upright. “Why? What do you see?” Then I remembered something. When I was hurt and almost burned alive, I’d seen Reyes’s darkness, the flames that forever engulfed him, the scars from his past. Reyes said I was looking at him from another plane. Now I just had to remember how I did that.
I looked back at Mr. Wong and concentrated. Then I squinted. Then I squinted harder until he became a blurry patch of gray.
“Is it working?” Angel asked, a soft laugh escaping him.
I gave up with a hopeless sigh. “No.”
“You’re the grim freaking reaper. You can do anything. You just haven’t figured that out yet.”
“Dude, how do you know more than I do? Are my abilities, like, common departed knowledge?”
“No,” he said with a shrug. “You kind of learn things as you go. It’s like on-the-job training.”
“That’s exactly how I feel. So, like what? What can I do that I don’t know about?”
“I just told you. Pretty much anything.”
“That’s so helpful. Thanks,” I said, giving up. Again. “What do you see?”
He looked at him, studied him a long while, then said, “Power.”
My eyes rounded. “Power? What do you mean? What kind of power?”
“That’s it. Just power. You’d have to see it to understand.
Me da mala espina
.”
Well, that was a huge help. “Something ominous is coming, huh? When isn’t it? I want you to try to draw the tattoos on his back onto this paper when you can.” I pointed to my sketchpad.
“Okay. Most likely the pencil will slip through my fingers, but I can try right now if you want.”
“Nope—right now, you have another job.”
“Okay. I get paid time and a half for overtime, right?”
“No. I need you to go check out a demon posing as a man.”
“I don’t like demons.”
“I don’t either.”
“That’s funny, since you’re sleeping with one.”
“Reyes is not a demon.”
“Keep telling yourself that,
mijita
. He is the most notorious demon of them all.”
“Are you going to go check this guy out or what?”
“Sure, but when the prince of hell turns on you and decides to engulf the world in a blazing inferno, don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
“Deal,” I said, plastering a smile on my face.
5
I’m only here to establish an alibi.
—T-SHIRT
I told Angel where he could find the Dealer, with instructions to just get a feel for him. For his power. “But don’t get too close, else he’ll sup on your soul,” I’d added, after which he’d rolled his eyes. He could be such a drama queen.
I looked back at Mr. Wong and studied him. Power. I just didn’t see it. Duff!
I bolted up again. When Duff, a departed man who’d followed me home from a bar one night—long story—first saw Mr. Wong, he seemed … surprised. Like he knew him. Or recognized him.
Mission for the moment: Find Duff.
I went to the last apartment he’d lived in. He moved around a lot, but the last time we’d talked, he told me he was back in with Mrs. Allen down the hall. She had a vicious poodle named PP. To PP’s credit, however, he did try to fight off a pack of demons for me. I had a soft spot for him now. Super soft. Like Twinkie guts, only not so marshmallowy delicious.
I knocked on Mrs. Allen’s door, waited a bit, then knocked again. PP was yapping up a storm from behind it, but it took Mrs. Allen a bit to travel that distance, even though her apartment was smaller than mine.
She cracked open the door, the chain still on, until she saw me and took the chain down to let me in.
“Hey, Charley,” she said, and I realized immediately she didn’t have her teeth in.
“Hey, Mrs. Allen.” One thing I didn’t think to come up with was an excuse for being there. “Um, I was just wondering how your … heating system was working. Mine is on the fritz.”
“My heating system.” She practically shoved me inside. “It’s awful. Never works right, and poor PP feels the cold. Breaks my heart.”
She hobbled to her thermostat. “See, it’s on seventy-five, and I know it’s not a degree over seventy-three in here.”
“Okay,” I said, searching for Duff. According to the talk on the streets, I could summon any departed, as I had with Angel, but I didn’t know Duff that well. I didn’t want to just drag him away from whatever it was he was doing. Come to think of it, what did the departed do all day?
“Duff?” I whispered, sidestepping a snarling PP and hurrying over to a bedroom door to peek inside. Nada.
“And this stove still hasn’t been fixed. I told that lazy, good-for-nothing landlord about my stove weeks ago.”
I turned back to her. “Your stove isn’t working?” I tried to walk over, but again had to sidestep PP. I glared down at him and the one fang he had left that protruded out of his gnarly mouth. “And here I thought we were friends.” He snapped at me to make sure I understood the truth of it, so I quickly made my way past. Vicious little shit.
No one in the building besides Cookie and Reyes, including the current manager, Mr. Z, knew I was a proud new owner of a run-down apartment building, so Mrs. Allen didn’t know she was talking to the person responsible for all the repairs.
“No, ma’am, it’s not. See?” She turned on all the burners, and none of them heated up. “How am I supposed to make stew?”
“Well, I’m not sure, but I’ll write that down and go talk to Mr. Z about it.”
“Lazy good-for-nothing. He won’t do anything about it.”
He would now. I’d make sure of it.
“Okay, well, thanks. I’ll let you know what I find out.”
“Thank you, honey. PP always liked you.”
PP snapped at me again, barking until I could take it no longer. I rushed out the door and back to Cookie’s apartment. I knew that Duff had spent some time crashing there, too. I’d never told Cook. It’d only freak her out, and as fun as that was to do, I didn’t want to hear how every noise in the apartment was the dead guy. Her imagination would have run rampant.
I went in without knocking, under the guise of checking on her. She was in her room, changing clothes, and from the state of her closet and drawers, she’d done that a lot.
“I just don’t know what to wear,” she said, tossing aside a nice burgundy blouse.
“That would have been great.”
“No. I don’t like the way it fits.”
“How does it fit?”
“Wrong. What about this?”
“You probably shouldn’t wear orange and purple together on a first date. Just thinking out loud.”
“But it’s a fake date. Who cares?” She picked up a glass and downed half the contents before I smelled the alcohol.
“Cookie, what the hell are you drinking?”
“I made a frozen margarita with Amber’s slushy machine. Don’t judge me.”
I stifled a giggle and looked at my watch. “Oh, my gosh. It’s almost six.”
“Oh, good heavens. I haven’t been on a date in years.”
Cookie put down the drink and started trying on blouses again while I looked for Duff, who was missing in action here, too. She tossed the fifth blouse aside when I walked back in.
“What was wrong with that one?”