Casket for Sale, Only Used Once (2 page)

"I've
gotta
be honest with you. The whole 'bring me Andrew Mayhem' thing is only because I got stuck here and needed a way to buy myself some time."

For the briefest of moments I was actually kind of offended.
"So, what now?"

"Now?
Well, I've had some time to think things over, and revenge nonsense sounds like a good idea." He shoved the woman out of the way, dropped his knife, and kicked it across the floor toward me. "One-on-one. Let's see what you can do."

I picked up the knife. It had some blood and mustard on it. "I don't want to fight you."

The Headhunter grinned. "This is your chance to beat me fair and square. I don't even have my sword. We'll find out if you're as tough as you say you are."

"I never said I was tough."

"Yes, you did."

I shook my head. "No, I didn't."

"I'm sure you did."

"Nope.
Not something I would say."

The Headhunter looked confused for a moment, and then shrugged. "Either way, it's time for a rematch. This time you don't have your wife to protect you.
You and me, Mayhem.
You with the knife, me with my bare hands.
May the best man
win.
"

We stared at each other.

"You've
gotta
be kidding me." I casually stepped out of the way. A gunshot rang out, shattering the window, and the Headhunter dropped to the ground, screaming and clutching his bleeding leg. Within moments, several cops burst into Hector's Subs-N-Suds, their guns pointed at the fallen kidnapper.

Wow. The Headhunter, a savage serial killer who'd come terrifyingly close to murdering my wife and I, had turned into a complete idiot.

I smiled. If even a lunatic like the Headhunter posed no real threat these days, then my vow to stay out of trouble would be no problem to uphold.

Chapter Two

Six Months Later

WEDNESDAY NIGHTS WERE typically spent hanging out with my friend, Roger
Tanglen
, at the Blizzard Room, which was the lamest coffee shop in
Florida
and possibly the world. Most of our conversation was devoted to the low quality of the coffee. It was a long-running, if pathetic, tradition.

But the Blizzard Room was no more. It had burned to the ground (faulty wiring) last week. We'd actually noticed a few sparks the last couple of times we were there, but thought they were meant to be decorative.

So now we sat in the Java Joint, an upscale, modern coffee shop with tables that didn't wobble if you breathed near them and a menu selection longer than my children's combined Christmas lists.

I sipped my cappuccino. "Wow," I said. "It contains heat."

"And the foam doesn't make your tongue numb."

"And the cup retains most of the coffee."

We drank in silence for a long moment.

"Now what do we talk about?" I asked.

"I
dunno
."

We drank in silence for a longer moment.

"We could talk about our relationships," Roger suggested.

"Pass."

"I don't understand why you don't like her."

"I said, pass."

"C'mon, Andrew, she's a nice person. She's gorgeous, we get along great, and I'm learning more about menstruation than I ever thought possible."

"Don't even joke about that. Your continued emasculation is a serious problem."

"I'm just saying
,
she's the best thing that ever happened to me. She might be The One."

The horrid creature in question was Samantha. Samantha Tracer.
Samantha the Demon Monster from Planet Wretch.
He'd met her maybe a month ago, and she'd immediately latched onto him the same way that crab thing latched onto John Hurt's face in
Alien
. I half-expected a phallic-looking extraterrestrial to burst out of Roger's stomach at any moment.

Even though he's a loser like me, Roger dates fairly regularly. He's short,
kinda
pudgy, losing his hair, and has a big nose, but he's got these beautiful blue eyes (so I'm told, since I'm really not the best judge of a guy's beautiful blue eyes) that just about bring women to their knees. I'm taller, have more hair, more muscles, and a nose that's in proportion, but my eyes are a non-bringing-women-to-their-knees dingy brown color. We both dress like slobs.

So I wasn't surprised when Roger started dating Samantha, who is admittedly, for all her life-sucking evil, a blonde bombshell. I was surprised it got so serious so fast. My best friend shouldn't be talking about "The One" after a month of dating, and he
certainly
should not have reached the point where phrases like "we could talk about our relationships" came up in our man-to-man conversations.

"She's not The One."

"She might be," Roger insisted.

"She's not."

"I'm serious, I don't get this. Why don't you like her?"

"Because she's Satan."

"Be more specific. What about her makes her Satan?"

"I don't know, it's just ... it's just this Satan-vibe I get from her."

Roger glared at me. "That's not good enough. If you've got a problem with my girlfriend, I want to know what it is. Don't give me this vague Satan-vibe crap. What don't you like about her?"

"She's needy."

"She is
not
needy! She's one of the most independent women I know! And I've dated plenty of needy women you've liked. C'mon, Andrew, you've
gotta
do better than that."

I sighed and took a drink of my coffee. The honest truth is I didn't know
why
I disliked Samantha so much. It was a purely emotional response, based on nothing I could describe, but I wanted her out of my and Roger's life.

"She has head lice," I said.

"Damn it, Andrew, you're really starting to piss me off. Do you want me to stop seeing her? Is that what you want?"

"Yes, please."

"Well,
it's
not
gonna
happen, so you'd better get over whatever issues you've got with her. You're supposed to be happy for me. You've got a wife and kids. Maybe that's what I want, too."

"I don't think she has child-bearing hips."

"Okay, you know what, you seem pretty determined to be an asshole tonight. I'll talk to you tomorrow." Roger pushed back his chair, got up, and walked out of the Java Joint, leaving his obscenely overpriced coffee behind.

Fine.
If he wanted to continue with that fatality-laden train wreck of a relationship, who was I to save him? He could marry her for all I cared. Have six or seven
hellspawn
. But when he came crawling back to me, shriveled and burnt and coughing up flames, I'd just invite him to pucker up those scorched lips and kiss my--

"Hi," said a woman, sliding into the seat Roger had vacated.

"Uh, hi," I responded. She looked to be in her early twenties, with flowing black hair draped over her shoulders, lipstick a good six shades too red, and sexy wire-framed glasses.

"You look lonely."

"No, I'm fine."

"Just so you know
,
I'm not here to hit on you. You're Andrew Mayhem, right?"

"Yeah."

"I have a proposition for you."

"No," I said.

"Hear me out. I'm willing to offer you--"

"No."

"It's a lot of--"

"No."

"But--"

"
Nooooo
," I said, singing the word.

"I don't think you--"

"No, no, no, nope,
nein
, nix, negative,
nyet
,
non
, nada, nein
... I already said
nein
, didn't I? ...
no
, no, no. No."

"
Nada
means 'nothing.'"

"Same difference."

The woman frowned. "May I ask why you're turning me down?"

"You may."

"Why?"

"Because these days I'm a responsible citizen.
I no longer accept money from strange women in coffee shops to do things that end up getting me almost killed. Twice I've done it, and twice I've regretted it. You're looking at the new, improved--"

"One hundred thousand dollars," said the woman.

I tried to say
nada
, but the word stuck in my throat.

"One hundred thousand dollars to deliver a suitcase."

Don't ask what's in the suitcase
, I silently pleaded with myself.
Don't ask what's in the suitcase. Don't ask what's in the suitcase.

"What's in the suitcase?" I asked, overcoming my mental pleading on a technicality.

"You don't need to know."

"Where do you want it delivered? Antarctica?"

"
Arizona
."

"That's pretty far."

"It's for a hundred thousand dollars."

Do not, under any circumstances, accept this offer. This one deserves the big N-O. Run screaming out of the coffee shop with your hands over your ears if you have to, but do not, I repeat, do not, I repeat again, do not agree to deliver this
suitfcase
. Don't do it.
Really.

"I can't," I said, momentarily surprised that I listened to common sense. It felt kind of neat.

The woman stared at me for a long moment, and then she shrugged. "Have it your way."

"I will. But I appreciate the offer."

She nodded and left. I took a sip of my coffee, enjoying the feeling of being an intelligent, responsible--

Holy crap, I just turned down a hundred grand, what the hell is wrong with me?

--adult.

This was the new Andrew Mayhem.
The most responsible guy on the block.
The guy you'd call if you needed somebody to hold your ladder steady while you changed a light bulb.
The guy who always had jumper cables in the trunk of his car.
Even my Christmas cards were going to be on time this year.

Now if only I could talk some sense into Roger, everything would be perfect.

* * * *

THE NEXT DAY, I drove home from work whistling a merry tune. I'd held my job in the mailroom of a heartless corporation run by sinister men in dark suits for more than three months, and today at lunch my boss' boss had nodded and half-smiled in my direction. My future was looking bright.

I opened the front door of my two-story suburban home and saw my children crouched on the floor, their backs to me. They were very excited about something.
Something that snorted.

"Is there a pig in the house?" I asked, shutting the door behind me.

"Daddy!" shouted Theresa, getting to her feet and rushing over to give me a great big hug. She was nine and going through an Affectionate Phase. Now, she'd always been an affectionate child, but these days she'd hug you while you were walking up stairs. She'd even taken to hugging her little brother
without
the intent of crushing him to death.

Kyle, my seven-year-old, stayed crouched on the floor, petting what I saw was not, in fact, a member of the swine family but rather a dog.
A pug.
One of those tiny flat-faced bug-eyed curly-tailed wrinkly-
foreheaded
things.
It snorted happily.

"Why is there a pug in our house?" I asked.

"That's Joe," Theresa informed me.

"Hi, Joe.
Why is there a pug in our house?"

"He's mine!" Theresa said with a big grin.

"He's mine, too!" Kyle shouted.

"Is not!"

"Mom said you could only keep him if we shared!"

"We're keeping him?" I asked. "He's a permanent pug?"

Theresa nodded. "Uh-huh."

Joe snorted some more.

"Where's your mother?"

"Upstairs. See, Misty is moving, and she said she'd have to get rid of Joe and maybe put him in the pound, and she asked if I wanted him, and Misty's mom brought him over and Mom said we could keep him."

"He's mine, too!" Kyle insisted.

"Shut up. I didn't say anything about that!"

"Well, he
is
!"

"No duh, stupid."

"Don't call your brother stupid," I said. "And don't tell him to shut up. And isn't Misty that kid who always shoved paste in her ears?"

"It was Play-
Doh
."

Joe continued to snort.

"Is he supposed to be that ugly?" I asked.

"He's not ugly, he's cute."

The pug, released from Kyle's petting grip, trotted over and sniffed my feet, snorting all the while. I reached down to scratch his head. I'd always liked dogs, although my tastes ran in the direction of big manly dogs instead of tiny little porcine ones.