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"Lily!" Ray snapped. "Go out front. Dust something. "
"You're not the boss of me, Ray. I'm just showing my concern. "
"It's okay, Ray. " Charlie looked like he was considering how, exactly, to define strange, and not coming up with anything that was working. Finally he said, "Well, for one thing, this woman's estate is way out of our league. The husband said he called me because we were the first secondhand store in the phone book, but he doesn't seem like the kind of man to do something like that. "
"That's not that strange," Lily said. Just confess, she thought.
"You said that he was grief-stricken," Ray said, dabbing antibiotic ointment on Charlie's cuts. "Maybe he's doing things differently. "
"Yes, and he was angry at his wife, too, for the way she died. "
"How?" Lily asked.
"She ate silica gel," Charlie said.
Lily looked at Ray for an explanation, because silica gel sounded techno-geeky, which was Ray's particular field of geekdom. Ray said, "It's the antidesiccant that they pack with electronics and other things that are sensitive to humidity. "
"The 'Do Not Eat' stuff?!" Lily said. "Oh my God, that's so stupid. Everyone knows you don't eat the 'Do Not Eat' stuff. "
Charlie said, "Mr. Mainheart was pretty broken up. "
"Well, I guess so," Lily said. "He married a complete fucktard. "
Charlie cringed. "Lily, that's not appropriate. "
Lily shrugged and rolled her eyes. She hated it when Charlie dropped into Dad mode. "Okay, okay. I'm going outside to smoke. "
"No!" Charlie jumped out of the chair and put himself between Lily and the back door. "Out front. From now on if you have to smoke you go out front. "
"But you said that I look like a child hooker when I smoke out front. "
"I've reassessed. You've matured. "
Lily closed one eye to see if she could better glimpse into his soul and thus figure out his true agenda. She smoothed over her black vinyl skirt, which made a tortured, squeaking noise at the touch. "You're trying to say I have a big butt, aren't you?"
"I absolutely am saying no such thing," Charlie insisted. "I am simply saying that your presence in front of the store is an asset and will probably attract business from the tourists on the cable car. "
"Oh. Okay. " Lily snatched her box of cloves off the desk and headed out past the counter and outside
to brood, grieve really, because as much as she had hoped, she was not Death. The book was Charlie's.
That evening Charlie was watching the store, wondering why he had lied to his employees, when he saw a flash of red passing by the front window. A second later, a strikingly pale redhead came through the door. She was wearing a short, black cocktail dress and black fuck-me pumps. She strode up the aisle like she was auditioning for a music video. Her hair cascaded in long curls around her shoulders and down her back like a great auburn veil. Her eyes were emerald green, and when she saw him looking, she smiled, and stopped, some ten feet away.
Charlie felt an almost painful jolt that seemed to emanate from somewhere in the area of his groin, and after a second he recognized it as an autonomic lust response. He hadn't felt anything like that since Rachel had passed, and he felt vaguely ashamed.
She was examining him, looking him over like you would examine a used car. He was sure he must be blushing.
"Hi," Charlie said. "Can I help you?"
The redhead smiled again, just a little, and reached into a small black bag that he hadn't noticed she'd been carrying. "I found this," she said, holding up a silver cigarette case. Something Charlie didn't see very often anymore, even in the secondhand business. It was glowing, pulsating like the objects in the back room. "I was in the neighborhood and something made me think that this belonged here. "
She moved to the counter opposite Charlie and set the cigarette case down in front of him.
Charlie could barely move. He stared at her, not even conscious that to avoid her eyes he was staring at her cleavage, and she appeared to be looking around his head and shoulders as if following the path of insects that were buzzing around him.
"Touch me," she said.
"Huh?" He looked up, saw she was serious. She held out her hand; her nails were manicured and painted the same deep red as her lipstick. He took her hand.
