The Wrong Goodbye

“Jesus, dude —that fucking hurts. You try that voodoo shit again, I’m gonna break your fucking face.”

Sure, his words were plenty tough, but they were betrayed by the frightened look in his eyes.

“Really? That’s the way you wanna play it? Me, I’d prefer to keep this all friendly- like, but you want to play the bad-ass, be my guest —we’ll see how far it gets you.”

I drove my fingers into his chest once more. This time, he tried to fight, but it wasn’t any use —with his soul held tight inside my fist, his borrowed body wouldn’t listen. Once his thrashing died down, I let him go. He collapsed back onto the tiles, sweating and exhausted.

“Gio,” he said, sucking wind. “My name is Gio.”

At that, I deflated a little. I don’t know what I was hoping for —some kind of clue, I guess, as to what Danny was up to —but the name meant nothing to me. “Tell me, Gio,” I said, sighing, “you got a last name?”

“Gio is my last name. My first name’s Francis, but nobody calls me that but my mother.”

Suddenly, the pieces fell into place. “Gio,” I said. “As in, short for Giordano?”

“That’s right,” he said, eyeing me with sudden suspicion. “How the hell’d you know that?”

I thought back to my meeting with Danny, to the sob-story he’d spun about his missing soul. “The bloke was a mob enforcer out of Vegas by the name of Giordano,” he’d said. “Only now his soul is missing. Stolen right out from under me.” But that wasn’t exactly true, now, was it? Turns out, Danny had Giordano’s soul the whole time. Which meant the whole fucking meeting was nothing but an elaborate bait-and-switch. He must’ve figured that when I buried Giordano’s soul, his Deliverants would be appeased, and he could go about his merry way with his stolen Varela, leaving me to twist in the wind. But why? What in the hell could he possibly want with Varela’s soul? And more importantly, how the hell was I going to get it back?

“Hey, buddy,” Gio said, “you still there?”

“What?” I said, snapping out of my reverie. “Yeah. I’m still here.” For now, I added mentally —because once my superiors caught wind of the fact that I’d lost Varela’s soul, they were going to shelve me for sure. Which meant I had to find that soul, and fast.

“You wanna tell me how you knew my name?”

“I know your name because I heard it from the guy who was sent to kill you.”

“This guy,” he asked, his face clouded with sudden anger, “he a friend of yours?”

“He was,” I said.

“Yeah? The way you say that, it don’t sound like you and him are very buddy-buddy now.”

“No,” I said, “it really doesn’t.”

“Well, it’s a shame for him he missed me, ’cause now that fucker’s gonna hafta pay.”

“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