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face of Charles Manson.
    * * * *
    It was night when I finally woke up. I had been slumped forward, hanging on my strained seat belt. I wiped away some eye-funk and immediately winced. Ow. Still fresh. Gotta be careful with the new mug.
    I took a look at my new face in the rear view mirror, then compared it with the picture of Larsen taped to the visor. Not bad. I looked exactly like Larsen, if Larsen had gained a couple of pounds. My hair was still dark, and too short, but nothing Miss Clairol and a few hours couldn't fix.
    Or course, the biggest difference would be my height and build--basically, everything from the neck down. The body was the one constant, no matter how many souls I collected, or how many times I switched faces. It wasn't even my original body (it'd burned in the car fire) or Robert's. Maybe it belonged to the guy who had collected Robert's soul. Robert only mentioned him twice by name--"Ralph"--and never talked about where he'd ended up. I figured original ownership couldn't have gone too far back; the body was still in decent physical condition. Sure, a few sagging lines here and there, and I wasn't pitching a tent every morning, but that was to be expected. Maybe it was 40 years old? 45, tops? I wished this thing had come with insurance papers and a title.
    What this all boiled down to, of course, was that this job wasn't going to go on forever. At some point, like a car, this body was going to hit a certain mileage and fizzle out. I hoped I wasn't in the driver's seat when it happened.
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    Six
    The Face They Feared
    The next morning I woke up and brushed my teeth--carefully--combed my hair, and tried to substitute my coffee with a piss-warm Fresca. It didn't work.
    It was time for a talk with Brad. No excuses now. Yeah, he'd been through a brutal murder. Sure, he'd watched his wife die. But enough was enough. It was time for him to start blabbing.
    Besides, it was something to distract me from the raw, throbbing pain in my newly-crafted face.
    I lay down on the bed, closed my eyes and transported myself to the new Brain Hotel room where I'd been keeping Brad. I didn't bother to knock.
    There wasn't much to it. Just your college dorm room basics: single bed, wooden desk, metal chair, sink, mirror, wastebasket, couch, mounted shelf. (In fact, I had modeled most new rooms after my own college dorm room, from Nevada State, circa 1963.) Brad was sitting on the couch, fully awake, reading a newspaper. Or at least the pieces I'd absorbed last night. I wonder how it looked--random sentences and images, interrupted by white space?
    "Good morning," I said.
    Brad looked at me for a moment, then nodded and looked back down at the paper.
    "We have some business to discuss."
    "Yes, we do," he replied, his voice quaking.
    "Do you have any questions?"
    "Only one," Brad said.
    "Go ahead."
    "What year is this?"
    I hadn't expected that. Usually, a newly-collected soul will spit out something like, "Are you Jesus?" or "Where's my momma?" or "Where are the gates and the clouds?"
    I frowned at him. "Why do you ask?"
    Brad folded the newspaper and tucked it between the cushions. "Well, the last thing I remember, it was Sunday, August 31st, 1975, and I was being stabbed to death on my back porch. But today I wake up, and I appear to be fully healed. A rational mind would assume quite a few years--not to mention, extensive plastic surgery--were to have passed for this to happen."
    "I saw you reading the paper," I said. "Check at the date."
    "Yeah, I know. It says September 5th, 1975. But if it's September 5th, then how can my body be completely healed?"
    I smiled. "Because that isn't your body."
    Brad's eyes narrowed. "Oh no?"
    "Nope."
    "Okay. I'll bite. Whose is it?"
    "Nobody's. When you look down at yourself, you're seeing your own mental projection."
    "Oh," Brad said.
    There was an uncomfortable silence.
    "Aren't you going to ask where you are?" I said, finally.
    "Well there's no need, is there?" he said. "It's clear than