Free A Dirty Job (Grim Reaper #1) by Christopher Moore

need painkillers,” Charlie said.
    “Shut up, Asher, they’re not for you,” Lily said, automatically, then she considered the book, Ray’s story, the notes on all the items in the back room, and she shuddered. It appeared that Charlie Asher might not be the hapless geek she always thought him to be. “Sorry, boss. Let us help you.”
    Ray came back from the front with a small plastic first-aid kit. He peeled back Charlie’s sleeve and began to clean the wounds with gauze and peroxide. “What happened?”
    “Nothing,” Charlie said. “I slipped and fell in some gravel.”
    “The wound’s pretty clean—no gravel in it. That must have been some fall.”
    “Long story.” Charlie sighed. “Ouch!”
    “What was all the noise in the alley?” Lily asked, needing badly to go smoke, but unable to pull herself away. She just couldn’t imagine that Charlie Asher was the one. How could it be him? He was so, so, unworthy . He didn’t understand the dark underbelly of life the way she did. Yet he was the one seeing the glowing objects. He was it. She was crestfallen.
    “Just the Emperor’s dogs after a seagull in the Dumpster. No big deal. I fell off a porch in
Pacific
Heights
.”
    “The estate,” Ray said. “How’d that go?”
    “Not well. The husband was grief-stricken and had a heart attack while I was there.”
    “You’re kidding.”
    “No, he just sort of became overwhelmed thinking about his wife and collapsed. I gave him CPR until the EMTs came and took him off to the hospital.”
    “So,” Lily said, “did you get the—uh—did you get anything special?”
    “What?” Charlie’s eyes went wide. “What do you mean, special? There was nothing special.”
    “Chill, boss, I just meant will we get the grandma’s clothes?” He’s it, Lily thought. The fucker.
    Charlie shook his head. “I don’t know, it’s so strange. The whole thing is so strange.” He shuddered when he said it.
    “Strange how?” Lily said. “Strange in a cool and dark way, or strange because you’re Asher and you’re out of it most of the time?”
    “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