everyone did when he was in pursuit of a soul vessel. In fact, when he and Ray had first come into the gym, Charlie had actually looked around for some object, pulsing red, thinking that he might have missed a name on his date book that morning.
"After I was shot I dated a physical therapist that worked here for a while," Ray said. "She called them that: fuck puppets. Every one of them has an apartment that some older executive guy is paying for - just like he paid for the health-club membership and the fake tits. They spend their days getting facials and manicures, and their nights under some suit out of his suit."
Charlie was wildly uncomfortable with Ray's litany, talking about these women who were only a couple of feet away. Like any Beta Male, he would have been wildly uncomfortable in the presence of so many beautiful women anyway, but this made it worse.
"So like they're like trophy wives?" Charlie said.
"Nuh-uh, like wannabe trophy wives. They don't get the guy, the house, whatever. They just exist to be his perfect piece of ass."
"Fuck puppets?" Charlie said.
"Fuck puppets," said Ray. "But forget them, they're not why you're here."
Ray was right, of course. They weren't why Charlie was there. Five years had passed since Rachel's death, and everyone had been telling him he needed to get back in the game, but that's not why he agreed to accompany the ex-cop to the gym. Because Charlie spent too much time on his own, especially since Sophie had started school, and because he'd been hiding a secret identity and avocation, he'd started to suspect that everyone might have one. And since Ray kept to himself, talked a lot about people in the neighborhood who had died, and because he really didn't seem to have a social life beyond the Filipino women he contacted online, Charlie suspected Ray might be a serial killer. Charlie thought he'd try to get closer to Ray and find out.
"So they're like mistresses?" Charlie said. "Like in Europe?"
"I suppose," Ray said. "But did you ever get the impression that mistresses worked this hard to look good? I think fuck puppet is more accurate, because when they get too old to hold the attention of their guy, they've got nothing more going. They'll be done, like marionettes with no one at the strings."
"Jeez, Ray, that's harsh." Maybe Ray is stalking one of these women, Charlie thought.
Ray shrugged.
Charlie looked up and down the line of perfect derrieres, then felt the weight of his years alone or in the company of a child and two giant dogs, and said, "I want a fuck puppet."
Aha! thought Ray. He's picking a victim. "Me, too," he said. "But guys like us don't get fuck puppets, Charlie. We just get ignored by them."
Aha! Charlie thought. The bitter sociopath comes out. "So that's why you brought me here, so I could show I was out of shape in front of gorgeous women who wouldn't notice?"
"No, the fuck puppets are fun to look at, but there's some normal women who come here, too." Who won't talk to me either, Ray thought.
"Who won't talk to you either," Charlie said. Because they can tell that you are a psychokiller.
"We'll see in the juice bar after our workout," Ray said. Where I'll sit at an angle so I can watch you pick your victim.
You sick fuck, they thought.
Charlie awoke to find not one, but three new names in his date book, and the last one, a Madison McKerny, had only three days for him to retrieve her soul vessel. Charlie kept a stack of newspapers in the house and, typically, would go back for a month looking for an obituary of his new client. More often, if the hellhounds would give him some peace, he would simply wait for the name to appear in the obituary section, then go find the soul vessel when it was easy to get into the house, with mourners or posing as an estate buyer. But this time he had only three days, and Madison McKerny hadn't appeared in the obituaries, so that meant she was probably still alive, and he couldn't find her in the phone book either, so he was going to need to get moving quickly. Mrs. Ling and Mrs. Korjev liked to do their marketing on Saturdays, so he called his sister, Jane, and asked her to come watch Sophie.
"I want a baby brother," Sophie announced to her Auntie Jane.
"Oh,