The Mystic Arts of Erasing All Signs of Death Read Online Free PDF

and stopped for the light at Highland.
    A school bus crossed the intersection.
    I closed my eyes for a moment, when I opened them it was gone. I looked down the street, knowing it must have just turned the corner, but unable to keep myself from thinking other thoughts. Thinking about the Flying Dutchman. Ghost ships. Haunted freighters, lost souls that manifest and dissolve, unbidden. Just the usual.
    The light changed and I sipped my coffee.
    —So where we headed?
    Gabe glanced at his right blind spot and changed lanes.
    —Koreatown. Code enforcement. Second day. Guy had stuff piled floor to ceiling. No egress. Blocked himself out of his own bathroom. Been filling gallon milk jugs with piss. Shitting in little individual ziplock bags.
    —Ah, man, Po Sin said it wasn't a real shit job!
    He looked at me, my face reflected in the mirrored lenses below the deep, horizontally scored forehead and cropped graying hair.
    He looked back at Sunset.
    —He lied.
    Po Sin was waiting when we got there, studying several large red splotches of paint on the back and sides of his Clean Team van.
    He watched us get out of Gabe's wheels and pointed at the van.
    —Motherfucker.
    Gabe walked over, pulling the tie from his neck and folding it into a neat roll that he tucked in his pocket. He touched the paint with the tip of his finger, leaving a slight imprint.
    —Couple hours after midnight. Maybe three or four AM.
    Po Sin kicked one of the van's tires.
    —Motherfucker.
    I took a look. The paint covered the name of the company on both sides of the van and dripped down over the phone number and web address.
    —That sucks.
    Po Sin turned his face to the sky.
    —Motherfucker!
    Gabe picked a scrap of yellow rubber that was stuck in the paint.
    —Water balloon.
    —Motherfucking water balloon!
    —Where was it parked?
    Po Sin pointed north.
    —At the shop. Around back. They didn't just drive by and heave one out the window, they parked, got out, walked around, and pelted it. Only reason they didn't get the windshield was because I had it nosed in against the fence back there.
    —No one at the shop?
    Po Sin walked to the back of the van, taking a set of keys from his pocket.
    —Someone was supposed to be at the shop. Someone was sure as hell supposed to be at the motherfucking shop!
    He pointed a finger at the sky.
    —They're asking for it. There is no denying they are asking for it! And they are going to fucking get it!
    Gabe hooked a thumb in a belt loop of his black slacks.
    —How you want to go about it?
    Po Sin looked down from the sky.
    —Eye for an eye.
    Gabe took the sunglasses from his face. Crease-cornered eyes, the faded black outline of a tear tattooed beneath the left. He nodded.
    —OK, I'll make some calls.
    Po Sin looked again at the van.
    —Motherfucker.
    He unlocked the van and opened the rear doors.
    —Let's get to work.
    He pulled out three white packets and handed one to me and one to Gabe. I watched them shake theirs out until they unfolded into paper jumpsuits. Po Sin's the size of a mainsail, Gabe's meant for a normal human. I did the same and stepped into mine and watched how they tied the flaps on theirs. I was tying mine closed when I heard a long loud rip and watched Po Sin pull a huge roll of duct tape around and around his ankle, sealing the leg of the Tyvek suit to the top of the plastic shoe cover he'd slipped over his boot. He did the same with his other ankle. And then both wrists. And then the neck. He passed the tape to Gabe who did likewise.
    Gabe offered me the tape.
    —Do it yourself, or need a hand?
    I got taped up and hooded and Gabe showed me how to fit the goggled filter mask over my mouth and nose and I followed him into the hotel, Po Sin trailing behind us, glancing back at his vandalized van.
    —Motherfucker.
    The roaches swarmed me. The first bag I shifted disturbed their routine and they swarmed me, simultaneously revealing what my feet had been crunching on when I walked into the dark