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BENEATH THE NUMBER FORTY-ONE BUS

It eeks before Charlie left the apartment and walked down to the auto-teller on Coluuy His weapon of choice was the number forty-one bus, on its way froe, to the Presidio, by the Golden Gate Bridge If you’re going to get hit by a bus in San Francisco, you want to go with the forty-one, because you can pretty e view

Charlie hadn’t really counted on killing a guy that ister at the thrift store, check his balance, and maybe pick up some yellow mustard at the deli (Charlie was not a brown uy Brown- it was okay for race-car drivers and serial killers, but for Charlie, a fine line of French’s yelloas all the spice that life required) After the funeral, friends and relatives had left a e, which was all he’d eaten for the past teeks, but noas down to ham, dark rye, and premixed Enfamil formula, none of which was tolerable without yellow mustard He’d secured the yellow squeeze bottle and felt safer noith it in his jacket pocket, but when the bus hit the guy, mustard completely slipped Charlie’s one autu had ceased its relentless crawl out of the Bay each h breeze that the few sailboats that dotted the Bay looked like theyfor an Impressionist painter In the split second that Charlie’s victiht not have been happy about the event, but he couldn’t have picked a nicer day for it

The guy’s name was William Creek He was thirty-two and worked as a market analyst in the financial district, where he had been headed thatwhen he decided to stop at the auto-teller He earing a light wool suit and running shoes, his work shoes were tucked into a leather satchel under his arm The handle of a compact umbrella protruded froht Charlie’s attention, for while the handle of the ulowing a dull red as if it had been heated in a forge

Charlie stood in the ATM line trying not to notice, trying to appear uninterested, but he couldn’t help but stare It was glowing, for fuck’s sake, didn’t anyone see it?

Willialanced over his shoulder as he slid his card into theat hireat s to block Charlie’s view as he keyed in his PIN number Creek snatched his card and the expectorated cash from the machine, turned, and headed away quickly toward the corner

Charlie couldn’t stand it any longer The u heart As Creek reached the curb, Charlie said, "Excuse me Excuse me, sir!"

When Creek turned, Charlie said, "Your umbrella - "

At that point, the nuh the intersection at Colu toward the curb for its next stop Creek looked down at the satchel under his ar shoe caught the slight rise of the curb He started to lose his balance, the sort of thing we all h the city, trip on a crack in the sidewalk and take a couple of quick steps to regain equilibrium, but William Creek took only one step Back Off the curb

You can’t really sugarcoat it at this point, can you? The nuood fifty feet through the air before he hit the backof a SAAB like a great gabardine sack of meat, then bounced back to the paves - the satchel, the u Heuer watch - skittered on down the street, ricocheting off tires, shoes,to rest nearly a block away

Charlie stood at the curb trying to breathe He could hear a tooting sound, like so a toy train whistle - it was all he could hear, then someone ran into him and he realized it was the sound of his own rhythuy with the umbrella - had just been wiped out of the world People rushed, crowded around, a dozen were barking into cell phones, the bus driver nearly flattened Charlie as he rushed down the sidewalk toward the carnage Charlie staggered after hi to ask him - "

No one looked at Charlie It had taken all of his will, as well as a pep talk from his sister, to leave the apart to tell him that his u to his accusers But no one accused him, really They ran by him, some headed toward the body, some away from it - they batted him around and looked back, baffled, like they’d collided with a rough air current or a ghost instead of afor the evidence Then he spotted it, allowing red, pulsating like failing neon "There! See!" But people were gathered around the dead man in a wide se any attention to the frightened thinnonsense behind theh the croard the umbrella, determined now to confirm his conviction, too far in shock to be afraid When he was only ten feet away from it he looked up the street tobefore he ventured off the curb He looked back just as a delicate, tar-black hand snaked out of the storm drain and snatched the co around to see if anyone had seen what he had seen, but no one had No one even rabbed his sleeve as he passed, but when the cop spun around and his eyes ith confusion, then what appeared to be real terror, Charlie let hiot work to do - sorry"

The cop shuddered and pushed through the crowd of onlookers toward the battered body of Willia, across Columbus and up Vallejo, until his breath and heartbeat in his ears drowned all the sounds of the street When he was a block away fro aircraft or a huge bird, and with it Charlie felt a chill vibrate up his back He lowered his head, pumped his arms, and rounded the corner of Mason just as the cable car was passing, full of slanced up, just for a second, and he thought he saw so over the roof of the six-story Victorian across the street, then he bolted through the front door of his shop

"Hey, boss," Lily said She was sixteen, pale, and a little bottoroo Today her hair happened to be lavender: fifties-housewife helmet hair in Easter-basket cellophane pastel

Charlie was bent over, leaning against a case full of curios by the door, sucking in deep raspy gulps of secondhand store asped

"Excellent," Lily said, ignoring equally his e for the register"

"With a bus," Charlie said

"Ray called in," she said Ray Macy was Charlie’s other employee, a thirty-nine-year-old bachelor with an unhealthy lack of boundaries between the Internet and reality "He’s flying to Manila to Time Ray’s convinced that they are soulin the sewer," Charlie said

Lily examined a chip in her black nail polish "So I cut school to cover I’ve been doing that since you’ve been, uh, gone I’ to need a note"

Charlie stood up and made his way to the counter "Lily, did you hear what I said?"

He grabbed her by the shoulders, but she spun out of his grasp "Ouch! Fuck Back off, Asher, you sado freak, that’s a new tattoo" She punched hi her own shoulder "I heard, you Cease your trippin’, s’il vous plaît" Lately, since discovering Baudelaire’s Fleurs du Mal in a stack of used books in the back roo her speech with French phrases "French better expresses the profound noirness of my existence," she had said

Charlie put both hands on the counter to keep the, then spoke slowly and deliberately, like he was speaking to soe: "Lily, I’ kind of a badaway your education so you can come here and alienate customers forhuo"

Lily sat down on the chroister and pulled her long lavender bangs out of her eyes "So you want me to pay close attention to your confession to et an old cassette recorder off the shelf and get everything down on tape? You’re saying that by trying to ignore your obvious distress, which I would have to later recall to the police, so I can be personally responsible for sending you to the gas cha inconsiderate?"

Charlie shuddered "Jeez, Lily" He was continually surprised at the speed and accuracy of her creepiness She was like soht side, her extre to go to the gas cha There was so me, and - "

"Silence!" Lily put her hand up, "I’d rather not showevery detail of your heinous criraphic memory to be recalled in court later I’ll just say that I saw you but you seemed normal for soraphic et the futility of - "

"You forgot to take out the trash at least eight tiet"

Charlie took a deep breath, the fa hi, what color shirt are you wearing?" He raised an eyebrow like he had her there

Lily smiled and for a second he could see that she was just a kid, kind of cute and goofy under the fierce uess"

"You know I only own black" She grinned "Glad you didn’t ask hair color, I just changed this ood for you, you know That dye has toxins"