Doyle After Death by John Shirley Read Free Book Online

we’re not gone, we’re here. Wherever here is. How about transitional ? Naw, that sounds like we got a sex change in the works. Passed on ? Nope, sounds like something too bruised to buy in the produce department. I’ll think of something . . . plenty of time . . . got to be something better than aftered. ”
    He shook his head wearily. “A real wise guy. Haven’t had a real wise guy here in a long time. It’s been pleasant not having one.” He looked at me—­and there was a moment, just a moment, when I seemed to see myself through his eyes. Literally, through his eyes. Standing behind the bar, looking at Nick Fogg. A cynical ex-­detective with a defensive smart-­aleck veneer. Then it was gone, and I was looking at the major again. That was weird.
    He sniffed. “Just get used to it. You’re aftered, and you’re in the afterworld. We don’t go with after life , much, in Garden Rest, because we’re still alive, just in a different kind of body.”
    Some in the Before might be puzzled by references to time in the afterlife. But that’s another misconception, that there’s no time after death. I understand there is a stage, later on, called Living Outside Time, if you play your cards right, but most of us aftered spirits are in time. We can even age—­in a peculiar way.
    â€œWell, get on with it,” Brummigen said grumpily.
    I sipped the whiskey. It tasted like a slightly astringent wet caramel to me. Not much kick. But there’s something in it that smooths anxiety with an easygoing, comforting tipsiness. “Get on with what?” I asked.
    â€œWhen newcomers wander into the bar they like to talk about how they died.”
    â€œSo it’s okay to say died but not dead ?”
    â€œYeah. You can even say dead —­but you got to use it right. Depends on who and what you’re talking about. So—­let’s get on with it . . .”
    My turn to shrug. “Okay. How I died is—­I died stupidly. I was depressed and I was self-­medicating a helluva lot and I took some valium and drank a lot of Jameson’s and they didn’t mix well and I choked on . . . well, I died from it.”
    He nodded without amusement or sympathy. “Stupid, all right.”
    â€œI remember as I was dying I started remembering that kids’ song, ‘Found a peanut, Found a peanut . . . it was rotten, it was rotten . . .’ ”
    â€œAnd you ate it anyway. And you died. Everybody’s always gotta have one of these cute little details about when they died.”
    Everybody? I was tempted to remind him he’d only been in the afterlife for about ten years. He talked like he’d been running this place for a century. Nine years ago it was called Flannagan’s.
    I finished my drink and said, “Now I know why this place is almost empty. You’re not exactly Charles the Cheerful Bartender. Tell me something—­if it’s so wrong to say dead , how come you sell booze”—­I pointed at it—­“called Dead Granddad?”
    He shrugged. “You gotta have some sense of humor about being aftered. And by the way, the emphasis is on the first syllable—­it’s af -­tered. Now you tell me something, Fogg. When you did the stupid substance combo, what were you so depressed about?”
    â€œBeing a failure. Hurting someone because of . . . taking a job I shouldn’t have taken. Losing my girl. Losing my job with the Hammett Agency. Turning from a promising gumshoe into a lousy detective. Couldn’t get much work on my own.”
    â€œAnd you want a do-­over, I suppose.”
    I shook my head. He gave me another whiskey, and I sipped it before I answered. It was growing on me. A pleasant burnt-­sugar aftertaste, like roasted marshmallows. “No use wanting a do-­over now. Like trying to rebuild a