Lethal Takeout Page 3

  “Cowboy hats? Humph.” Lee’s thin, black eyebrows twitched and her mouth clamped into a straight line. “Well, that’s a bit out of place.”

  “Yeah, but not as much as the dead body they left behind.” I didn’t mention the two moving shadows. Don’t ask me why; I have no idea. Maybe it was too weird on top of everything else.

  “Do you think it was a planned hit?” Lee asked, leaning forward, her black eyes gleaming with excitement.

  I frowned and glanced at the photos again. They still weren’t helping me. “What I could possibly know that’s worth killing me for? Maybe that’s why I’m still here: to find out.”

  “You’re right,” Lee quickly agreed. “You know nothing useful or incriminating or even remotely interesting to the kind of people who hire hit men.”

  “Ah… thanks. I think.”

  “Yes,” Lee mused, gazing at the shelf. “You’re at the bottom of the rung in the dangerous information category.”

  “Okay, I get the picture,” I grumbled.

  “So you were just some unlucky shmuck who happened to pick the wrong diner to get takeout.”

  “Actually,” I reminded her, “you picked the diner.”

  “That sucks,” she continued, ignoring my interruption. “And right before my retirement party.”

  We were both quiet for a few minutes. I stared out the small, rain-streaked window, the words of my murderers percolating through my thoughts. Not that either their words or my thoughts were particularly profound and witty, but that’s about all I could manage at the moment.

  “You know,” I broke the silence, “I’m not sure it was totally random. Just a feeling…”

  “A feeling is hardly proof,” Lee said.

  I rubbed my chin. I couldn’t feel the jagged scar or the two-day stubble I knew were there. “They said it was nothing personal, meaning maybe it was business, like they were waiting for me for some reason.”

  “This isn’t getting us anywhere.” Lee sighed deeply.

  “And the angels told me…”

  “You saw angels?” She looked impressed.

  “Yeah, right before I didn’t see the tunnel of light. So they told me about righting the wrongs. And if I don’t, I’ll start losing memories, and won’t be able to escape and move on. That’s not such a bad thing. Is it?”

  Lee stared at me with the dentist drill / jackhammer stare. Her face told me plumb zero. That little Chinese lady had the best poker face I’ve ever seen, and I’ve seen a few.

  “Yes, Axe, it is bad. Very bad. Souls aren’t designed to stay earthbound. It’s unnatural. It’ll take some time, but you’ll eventually lose who you really are.”

  I shrugged, like it was no big deal, even as my nonexistent stomach clenched. I thought about the faded ghosts I’d seen on the way over. “Not much to lose.”

  “Axe Cooper…”

  “So I hang out here forever with a real bad case of amnesia. Can’t be all that bad.”

  She tapped her lips with a finger and glancing at her teapot. Probably wanted to throw it at me. “And there are other dangers.”

  “I’m already dead.” I shrugged my shoulders again.

  “There are dangers worse than death, Axe. Ghosts are not immune. Forgetfulness is only the beginning.”

  I thought about the cowboy shadow, its finger tentacle wrapping around my wrist, draining the energy…

  She stood up, tugging at the hem of her Kung Fu shirt. “There’s only one place for a spook in your condition.”

  “My condition?”

  “Yes. You know: lost ghost who missed the exit to the tunnel of light. How you managed to do that is truly beyond me. I think it takes a special level of…”

  “Okay! Get over it!” I interrupted as I crossed my arms over my chest. “So I missed the exit. It was nonexistent to begin with.”

  “Don’t get all cranky on me,” Lee said as she straightened to her full height, which wasn’t that impressive. “It’s not my fault you didn’t see the light.”

  “Nope, sure isn’t. I’m a horrible driver. I admit it. Actually…” I paused and gazed up at the ceiling. “Come to think of it, I don’t have a driver’s license.”

  “Serious? I’m glad you didn’t tell me that before I loaned you my neighbour’s car.”

  I smirked. “Yeah. And I don’t even know how to drive.”

  “Now you tell me.”

  “Yet somehow we all survived.” I paused and added, “Apart from the broken side mirror, but that was the other guy’s fault. So what place should I go to?”

  Lee was still frowning, probably thinking about the wisdom of lending a car to someone who can’t drive. “I have a friend, of sorts. She manages an agency that helps spirits. Let’s go.”

  “Where to?”

  She waggled her black eyebrows, her smile quick but bright. “The Ghost Post.”

  The Next 1,000 Years

  “This is it?” I looked at the building.

  We were about two blocks from the apartment, at the bad end of an unlit, narrow alley just off of Carrall Street and East Hastings. There was just enough space for a vehicle to squeeze past the large garbage bins lining the alley.

  I frowned and glanced at Lee. “You sure? It looks like it’s about to be torn down.”

  “It is,” Lee replied. “Some wealthy real estate developer bought the block and wants to turn it into the next ‘best place’ to live.”

  “Expensive place to live.”

  “That too.” She nodded. “But those plans are on hold for now. This area’s been slated for demolition for a couple of years.”

  “And this is where your friend works?” I had stopped moving as I eyed the building. I had to remind myself that if it collapsed, it couldn’t kill me anyways.

  “Yes. Kind of.”

  “She kind of works here?”

  “No.” Lee shook her head once. “She’s kind of my friend. Actually, she’s more like an acquaintance than a friend.”

  “Okay.”

  “And she’s a ghost. Apparently, ghosts prefer to hang out in these kinds of places.”

  I crossed my arms. “Condemned and on the verge of collapse?”

  “No. Quiet, not too many neighbours and lots of character,” Lee corrected me.

  “You can keep your character,” I grumbled, “because this here is one spook who prefers to hang out in kinds of places where the roof stays up and the walls stay vertical.”

  “For Pete’s sake, stop being so picky.”

  I continued staring at the building, part of my mind wondering for the umpteenth time who Pete was and the other part of my mind wondering how long the building would stay up. It was three stories of crumbling concrete, tucked in between two taller but equally derelict buildings. In fact, that pretty much described the whole area: derelict and crumbling.

  “Oh, look,” I exclaimed, pointing to a window on the second floor. “One whole pane of glass that hasn’t been cracked, smashed or removed!”

  “Ha ha. Since when did you get so fussy?”

  “Since I died.”

  “Right. Let’s go, picky Ghost Man.” She waved me forward.

  As we approached the entrance, I noticed a shadow. Actually, I noticed a lot of shadows. But one reminded me of someone leaning against the side of a building, so I watched it closely. It didn’t move or warp into something else or put on a cowboy hat.

  Lee started scratching her left elbow though.

  Keeping an eye on the shadow, I sped up, and Lee followed. We passed through the doorway. The door had long been removed, along with anything that was remotely valuable, interesting or fun to break. The narrow hallway looked like it hadn’t seen fresh paint or a mop in a couple decades, and it smelled worse than it looked. I couldn’t actually smell, but I could see Lee’s nose quiver and her lips twist in disgust. And for a janitor to notice a bad smell, it has to be real bad.

  “This is it.” Lee stopped.

  We faced a door that had somehow avoided forc
ed removal or vandalism. It was painted a bright white, in contrast to the dingy, no-name colour of the walls around it. Someone had painted ‘The Ghost Post’ in big, sloppy black letters; dribbles of dried paint streaked below each letter.

  “Cla-a-a-ssy,” I said. Sarcasm oozed through each syllable.

  “Shhh. They’re very sensitive, you know,” Lee shushed me as she rapped on the door.

  “Sensitive how? Emotionally or hearing?”

  “Behave,” Lee whispered just as a woman’s head popped out of the door. No, I don’t mean around the door. It was still closed. So I mean her head literally popped through the door.

  “Go away,” the woman snapped before disappearing back into the door.

  “Well, Lee, thanks for the pleasant tour of the quiet, abandoned, high-character parts of inner city Vancouver,” I said as I turned to go. “I’m sure this will be prime real estate, after about three decades, a serious earthquake and a massive face lift. Until then, I’m gonna hunt for a place that’s not about to be torn down any day. Bye.”

  “Wait, she’s not that bad,” Lee insisted as she knocked again.

  “Did you say ‘haunt’?” the ghost head reappeared, this time through the wall right beside me.

  “Nope. I said ‘hunt,’” I corrected her. “I’m going to hunt for a place to hang out that isn’t on the verge of collapsing under its own weight.”

  “A ghost! Great!” the head continued, completely ignoring my snarky comments.

  Maybe I wasn’t snarky enough. I decided to try harder next time.

  “Hi, DD.” Lee waved. “How’s life? I mean that in the most abstract way, of course.”

  “Oh, it’s you,” DD said, absently nodding back. “Open the door and bring your friend in so he can fill out an application.”

  “I don’t want to fill out an application,” I said, my eyes narrowing with suspicion.

  “Why not?” DD asked sharply.

  “Because that implies that I want a job, which I don’t.” I crossed my arms over my chest and glared down at her head. “I just got early retirement from my last job, and I’d kinda like to enjoy that, as much as a dead man can. Once I get over the whole ‘being murdered’ part, that is.”

  DD stared at me like I’d suddenly started babbling poetry in Chinese while hopping on one leg, rubbing my belly and patting my head, all at the same time. Now that I think about it, that actually sounds really hard to do. If anyone managed it, I’d be mighty impressed myself.

  DD wasn’t a spirit who was easily impressed. One eyebrow arched up.

  “You’re being difficult,” Lee said, scowling at me.

  “Agreed. So what are you planning on doing with your early retirement?” DD demanded. “Take up golf? Oops, you can’t do that, because you need a body to drag around that ridiculously heavy bag of metal sticks.”

  I hadn’t thought about that. I hadn’t actually thought about much at all, having only recently acquired my new status of being dead. “I’ll think of something,” I finally said, my mouth clenched. I wondered if all ghosts were going to be as irritating as DD.

  “Sure you will,” DD said. “And while you’re thinking about how to occupy your limitless time, you can spend some of it doing something productive and interesting, or at least productive. Now get your non-existent backside in here.” Her head jerked back through the wall.

  “That was welcoming,” I grumbled as Lee tried to open the door. “Yeah, I really like your friend.”

  “Acquaintance,” Lee corrected me. She grunted as she pushed on the door. It didn’t budge.

  “The door’s a bit sticky!” DD shouted from inside. “It’s not used very often. Put your weight on it.”

  Lee thumped her body against the door several times before it finally creaked slowly open. She rubbed her bruised shoulder as we walked into the office.

  When you hear the word ‘office,’ you probably imagine some carpeted space with desks lined up in some sort of fashion and on each desk, a computer. A phone nearby provides the occasional distraction, while a stack of paper squats ignored in a corner. Somewhere there is a printer spewing out copious amounts of tree product and in another location, usually out of sight of the boss’s office, is the coffee sanctuary.

  You can take that little image and toss it straight into the recycle bin. The office of The Ghost Post had none of that. It was a near empty room with white walls, white ceiling, white floor tiles and a closed white door on one side. The only furniture was a white bench on the far wall, which Lee sat on with a sigh of relief. DD swivelled around to face us while floating about in the middle of the white emptiness. The street lamp outside the window lit up the room.

  “I’m definitely gonna need the name of your interior decorator,” I drawled out.

  “Be nice,” Lee said as she tried to elbow me, but her elbow passed through my arm.

  “I was. Seriously.”

  “Cooper,” she whispered, “if you weren’t a ghost, I’d smack you.”

  For the first time that evening, I genuinely smiled. “Good thing I am one, then. Maybe this whole bodiless thing isn’t so bad after all.”

  “Way to go with the optimism,” Lee remarked grimly.

  “Welcome,” DD waved her arms dramatically in front of her, as if trying to embrace us in her skinny, pale arms.

  “To where?” I asked, glancing around the vacant room.

  DD stared at me. “Didn’t you read the sign on the door?”

  “Yeah, but what is this place?”

  She continued to study me intently, possibly trying to figure out what sort of creature had been dragged into her pristine white office and, more importantly, would I make a mess. For my part, I later mentioned to Lee that if genetic engineers crossed a frog with a human and added two braids of brown hair, the result would look like DD, especially the bulging frog eyes and thick lips. Lee told me that if I weren’t dead, she’d have smacked me so hard that I’d look like a frog, especially the bulging eyes and thick lips.

  Being bodiless definitely has its perks.

  DD’s thick lips quivered. “This is a safe place for ghosts.”

  I chuckled. “Yeah, because ghosts need a safe place in case someone’s trying to kill them, right?”

  DD stared at me with those bulging frog eyes, a human version of Kermit the Frog but not nearly as cute. “There are dangers.”

  I glanced at Lee. She’d said something like that. I’d always thought that once you’re dead, you’re dead, and a ghost is definitely dead. Could I die again? I shivered. Maybe she knew about the shadow cowboy that the two hit men seemed to have unleashed on me.

  As if the thought had summoned it, a small, dark cloud began to form in the hallway, right in front of the door that Lee had left open. No one else saw it: DD had her back to it; Lee was extremely near-sighted, wasn’t wearing her glasses and wasn’t paying attention anyways.

  I scratched my chin. “So… you’re sure this place is safe, eh?”

  DD nodded her head, looking bored.

  “As in nothing nasty or dangerous can enter?”

  “Yes,” DD said with a yawn. “That would be the definition of a safe place.”

  I kept staring at the shadow. It seemed solid now but shapeless and foggy. You’re probably wondering why I didn’t mention it to the others. I mean, if it turned into that energy-sucking shadow, they’d want to know, right? Well, there is a perfectly logical explanation. I… just can’t think of it right now.

  DD was staring at me like she was worried I might mess up the glowing white décor. She chewed her bottom lip. Her teeth were uneven. I glanced down at her fingers. They were tapping against her thighs; her nails were all chewed ragged and short. I wondered if that happened before she died or after. And was it possible for a ghost to chew her nails, given that she was bodiless?

  I guess she must’ve decided I wasn’t going to make any stains, because she continued.

  “In addition to being a safe house, we’re also a detective a
gency, helping ghosts figure out why they haven’t moved on, righting the wrongs, that sort of thing. We also have an online news service for ghosts, amongst other… things. And we’re something of a club, when all else fails.”

  I smirked. “So if you can’t help me figure out who killed me or right my wrongs, I can always join the club of forgetful spooks.”

  DD’s fat lips twisted into a slight sneer. “Whatever. So tell me, what’s your educational background?”

  “Accounting certificate. Then Engineering degree.”

  “Engineering?” DD frowned. “Now, what use is that?”

  I crossed my arms and looked down my nose at her. “They designed this building.”

  “Bah,” DD huffed. “Fat lot of good they did. The place is falling apart!”

  “That’s not the engineers’ fault,” I said, my voice sharp.

  The shadow had elongated into a form that was just a few stages away from a ghost-attacking, hat-wearing, two-dimensional assassin. I started to fidget.

  DD waved a hand in front of her, flashing those chewed-up nails, as if brushing an irritating little fly away. “Whatever the case, an engineer is less than useless to us at this point. What about work experience? What was your most recent job?”

  I smiled slightly. “Something you clearly don’t need. I was a janitor in a law firm.”

  “Janitor!” DD exclaimed with a level of enthusiasm that made me wonder if I’d accidentally said astronaut or Prime Minister. “A janitor is much more useful. Thank heavens”—and she turned her bulbous eyes heavenwards—“you didn’t say lawyer. But a janitor…” She sighed happily, as if I’d just solved all her problems. “We need someone to run some errands, pick up new recruits, and what else?” She paused, tapping a finger against her lips. “Oh yes. And occasionally clean up. So what do you say, janitor?”

  “I say no. And I my name isn’t ‘janitor.’ It’s Axe Cooper.”

  “Yes, yes,” she interrupted, waving my protests away with her chewed-up nails yet again. “Names are such trivial details, really. You’re hired. We’re really going to need a janitor around here, especially after we pull in the next spook on my list.” She pursed her lips and her forehead furrowed up like a farmer’s field that had just been ploughed.