“I don’t take long shots.” Arthur Pearce meant it.
Doing so would fail the clients. Like others in his profession, Arthur was well aware that it wasn’t his money that was at stake. He was in a position of trust. People came along, knowing little or nothing about how to pick stocks. They counted on Arthur and his likesakes to find ones that would make money without wrecking their futures in the process. For his own money, he could take a little more risk. His knowledge base was far more thorough; more importantly, he could control his own outcome every step of the way. If he flopped on his own account, he would know why and how. He could have chosen differently at the time, and there was no moment that his own money was out of his supervision. None of these options were available to the person who entrusted Arthur, his colleagues, and his firm with their own money. So, he had to observe a higher standard – a more rigorous methodology - when providing his services to others.
It was bad enough to see a company’s prospects melt away for no anticipable reason. Although frustrating, it did happen from time to time; the future was always uncertain.
A company tanking because of a knowable blot in its financials was another matter. How could someone paid to analyze companies miss the obvious? Wasn’t that a clear case of delinquency?
As Arthur’s experience grew, though, he had become inured to the fact that there were potential blots in most of them. At bottom, the valuation techniques he and his colleagues used combined fact finding, slight pessimism and assumptions of normalcy. He trusted that they would usually work out. They did in many cases, but there was the occasional blotch that a nettled client could point to as evidence that none of them knew what they were doing. Arthur was no stockbroker; he neither knew nor cared to know how to mollify an angry client. All he aimed to do was to make sure the clients didn’t have reason to get vexed. Good service: that was the best anger management tool.
However, the combination of less-than-ideal companies, some picks that went wrong for reasons evident only in retrospect, with both capstoned by recurrent disaster stories, changed him subtly. He found himself getting extra warm when a stock he found and recommended was picked up by his colleagues at other firms.
Like many professionals, he worked in his sleep. The question that concerned Arthur’s idled brain was a permanent domicile. He and his partner already had enough for a down payment, even with the more restrictive credit rules now in place. They could move into a starter home or a modest condo. On the other hand, the market was still hot and so was his hand. Arthur knew he couldn’t time the market, but he also knew that the opportunity cost of buying a home was higher than in the recent past. The housing market was wrecked, with bargains aplenty. Inventories, including foreclosures, were clogged enough to –
His upper body leapt up, knowing that there was a third party in the room. His apartment building rated a concierge/security professional, so an intruder was well outside the course of his events. Checking over, he saw Lana’s body still semi-curled in sleep. He might have been –
Now, he saw. There was an intruder, but one that didn’t fit any category of threat. A huge, hulking figure whose body parts weren’t visible – not even the face. Its robe was either invisible or black. A hood covered his…its head, except for an oddly bulbous nose. Not wanting to be precipitous, Arthur paused. He had not long to wait.
“I am here to ask your assistance with a death.” That was all, from a voice that was pretty authoritative. Deep baritone.
Levity might not hurt. “I take it you’re not a funeral director.” His own voice didn’t waver, but sounded as if it had.
The creature didn’t reply further. Arthur saw its hands emerge from its robe – bloodless and withered – and move to its hood. The head seemed a skull, and the face seemed all eyes. Eyes, containing unquenchable anger, which moved normally. Arthur’s sense of advantage vanished, replaced by something more than fear. His body was possessed by an itchy compulsion to move while being drained of the strength to do so.
“I am Death.” Lana hadn’t moved at all, but Arthur was too possessed to ask if he was having a nightmare. “Get up.”
Largely grateful for the opportunity, Arthur did so. His girlfriend not reacting didn’t surprise or both him. For all intents and purposes, it was he and this creature. Whatever it was.
Whatever it was, it had about eight inches on old Arthur. His twitching was still impelling, so he paced around a little, feeling weak while doing so. The creature, thankfully now re-covered, didn’t seem to mind.
Then, the significance hit him. “Am I – uh, dead?”
“As I said before, I need your assistance with a death. Your own time is not yet. However, if you choose to do so, you will learn the year of your death.”
A bargain. A real bargain…
Now oddly calm, Arthur weighed it over. It was valuable information. If he was destined to die at seventy, there was little reason for filling up a retirement plan except for tax advantages. His money would better be put into life insurance, seeing as how he’d win the bet with the insurance company. There was also the option of living a little better, and investing more in his future kids.
On the other hand, if his time was due at ninety, he’d best be stuffing as much money as he could in his plan. He could also take risks with his money even when retired. Arthur began to see, as his sense slowly recovered, that he was being handed one of the most valuable unknowns in financial planning. But what about –
“Sir? Might I ask, does this knowledge cover only me?” Death, after an imperceptible pause, nodded.
That confirmation meant that a crucial part of the equation – Lana – was out of the picture. Now, the offer didn’t seem like such a miracle.
Still, one was half of two. “Okay, I’ll help you out.” It might have been shock, but Arthur was now businesslike. That enervating urge to move around was gone.
The room they were in now came close to being the conceptual opposite of Arthur’s place. He noticed that he now had night vision, enhanced by a small desk light near what was obviously a corpse. The room was slovenly, and probably stank. There was some sort of painting, or print, on an easel far away from the bed. A computer was on the clothes chest beside the bed, with no chair beside it. Whoever this fellow was, poverty was his friend. A close look at the corpse showed a purplish tinge, along with a spilled bottle which had dripped liquid on the bedsheet and the body. The fellow seemed about his age.
Death intervened. “Your task is to prepare this soul to accompany me. In order to win the year of your death, he must be ready and his exit must be expeditious. You may summon me in your mind once you and he are ready.” So there was no time limit, Arthur added to himself. Sounded straightforward.
When Death vanished, Arthur changed his estimate. It was actually going to be easy. Whoever this fellow was, he might as well have been a suicide. Not that he had much to live for. This room had to be part of a welfare motel, and Arthur didn’t see anything consistent with hope or progress. The fellow might as well have been waiting to die. He also might be older than Arthur had estimated.
“Time to get up,” he announced. That would anchor in a smooth transition.
The fellow’s spirit moved up from his comatose body, looking like he had awoken from sleep. After muttering something, he looked over at Arthur evaluatively.
“Who are you?” Some of the mutter was still there. “And why am I – normal?”
Briskness was still indicated. “I’m Arthur, and you’re now dead.”
Surprisingly, the long-haired fellow grinned. “Hey! Dead, am I? Wow!” Standing up, he was slightly shorter than his guide. Wavy hair, dark, bunched and probably not washed. Brown eyes, with a look that suggested he didn’t know what was going on given the circumstances. Arthur told himself that, like many another job, this one looked easier than it was going to be.
He looked over at the print. “I can use this, that’s for sure. Smack really worked.”
So that was it, Arthur noted with a hostile curdling in his stomach. A heroin addict, overdosed. “You’d better look back at the bed,” he continued politely.
The kid did, and saw what Arthur had seen. And froze for several seconds.
It took most of those for Arthur to realize it wasn’t shock or self-mourning. The fellow began to look like he was about to take a photograph of himself.
“So that’s it,” he wondered. “They must have been right about the booze.” He continued to look, his head moving systematically over the scene of his own passing.
An irritation began to show in Arthur’s voice. “Planning to paint a picture?”
“Could you freeze it, please.” The tone that wrapped the words was oddly inappropriate, as the fellow didn’t seem to have heard the note of sarcasm. “You’ve already been through it; I haven’t.”
“Pal, I’m alive here. I don’t really have the time that you do.”
“You are?” the fellow replied abstractedly. “Then how could you be here with me? We’re either both alive or both dead. There’s no half-way house…”
All right, the hup-to approach isn’t moving the process. Time for another approach, even if the obvious one was making that same feeling creep up in Arthur’s stomach.
The bonhomie was, of course, artificial. “So, what do you see in heroin that’s to your benefit?”
“It helps me create.”
The creepiness was back. Whoever this guy was, he didn’t stick to an excuse. Oh no, he had to elaborate upon it. Arthur was soon hearing a blended mix of digital-artwork expertise and junkie apologetics. Yeah, right. We all need an edge…. Oh my, the art-looking public is just too demanding for artistes that stay clean…. Oh yes, the junk has nothing to do with it. Su-u-u-re….
Still, this waif fellow did seem to know what he was talking about. And, Arthur had to admit, there wasn’t any of the self-justifying crap that artistes normally use. No talk about a special mission, or the iniquities of whatever. The guy was talking about what he had done.
“You’re not listening, are you.” The guy smiled, probably to himself. “Not that it matters now.”
Arthur sighed. He had a job to do, and it was getting along. “At least you know. Now, as to the matter of what happens next… “
The junkie guy didn’t pick up on it at first. Then, “I guess you want to get out of here. Okay, do whatever.”
Death appeared momentarily. The artist guy looked up at him in the same way he had looked at his own corpse. Evaluatively. The only words he said to the apparition were, “yeah. I’m ready.” With that, they were gone; Arthur was left alone in the place for a moment.
Lana was still sleeping; that was the first thing he had checked when he was whisked back. So was he.
He didn’t need to check on the hulking presence that was now behind him. “It is done,” the same voice said with the same authority behind it. The austere authority of the Grim Reaper, the spirit who saw everyone once their time was through.
Arthur didn’t turn around at first. “So how’d it go,” he asked quietly.
“It went the way that it should.” That was all; no details. Arthur turned around, and his eyes met the top of Death’s neck. “You have fulfilled your part of the bargain.”
Now it was payment time. “Your own death will take place fifty-one years hence.”
Eighty-two. Now, Arthur could adjust his financial plan to fit. For having to put up with a junkie, it was a huge return. There was nothing to say but, “Thanks. I appreciate it.” With that acknowledgement, Death was gone.
And left Arthur to reflect over what he had seen. The guy he ushered was an artist; that was for sure. At least, he had been. He seemed to know what he was doing, despite the heroin habit. Poison; he had poisoned himself. He seemed to know it, too. Come to think of it, he hadn’t really been whiny either. From what Arthur recalled, that artist hadn’t been all that self-justifying.
Oddly, an earworm intruded in his thoughts from some old movie he had seen some time ago. Some old martinet, a real gargoyle of a fellow, bellowing about how he resented people questioning him about his career. Something about his methods.
It didn’t fit, as that artist had been a hippie type. Still…
Arthur wasn’t anti-art, not by any means. He and Lana had even gone shopping for a picture or two to brighten the place up. They hadn’t seen the artists, of course, but few people did; that’s what galleries were for. He was just anti-drug. Had he heard that one of his colleagues was doing the lines, he wouldn’t have been – well, brusque – but he would be distancing himself; that was for sure. His nose felt puerile even thinking about cocaine.
He didn’t know what they did to come up with what they came up with. It wasn’t his place to. They produced the product in the studio, the gallery moved it, and people like Arthur bought it. That was the supply chain, and there was no need to interfere with it.
Still, Arthur thought while wondering how to get back in his body, it would have been nice to have gotten the guy’s name.
