Hell to Pay Read online

  "Whatever, man," I said, shifting from foot to foot. "If you're mad about the blow, talk to Uncle Jerry."

  "Uncle Jerry is dead."

  That was a gut punch. A moment later, I found I was sitting down despite his protestations. I'd lost track of my friend, thinking the guy was invincible. Always time to catch up. That wouldn't be the case now. "What? Dead?"

  Enrique seemed to take some pleasure in my dismay. What a prick.

  "He was stupid. Got into some trouble in Baja."

  "Where?"

  "Baja California. But I think Baja California Sur, not the northern part."

  I couldn't believe my friend was dead. Couldn't process it.

  "What happened?"

  "Well," the drug dealer said, stroking his chin. "I think the people of southern Baja were tired of being governed by those in the north. Two entirely different areas, and the governor, he didn't—"

  "No, man! What happened to Uncle Jerry?"

  He stopped stroking. "He did what Uncle Jerry do. He made the wrong people mad."

  "Jesus."

  "Which is what you've done. With me."

  "You are my wrong people?"

  "That's correct," he said, his robe flapping open, and I was treated to an image that I would take a lot of drinking to delete from my memory. "And it's not like you made your neighbor in the next trailer angry because your dog was barking at the moon all night. No. They might call the policia or maybe poop in your Walmart barbecue grill."

  "Right."

  "Me," Enrique said, standing over me. I kept my eyes off the robe flap. "I kill the dog."

  I was still shaken, the world spinning around me. "Wait," I said. "You're going to kill my dog?"

  "No, that is not—"

  "I don't have a dog. There was a squirrel that would come by sometimes and eat out of the bird feeder. It was for the birds, but he would hop up there. Birds stopped coming around, so we just made it a squirrel feeder."

  "Fine, fine! I kill the squirrel."

  "You're going to kill a squirrel?"

  "NO! You're not listening," he said, spun around, and plopped back into his chair. He grabbed his drink, pushed the tiny umbrella aside, and took a long draw from his straw. "According to my accountant, you owe me one hundred seventy-four thousand two hundred and seventeen dollars."

  "Would you take a check?"

  "No!" he said then thought a moment. "Nobody uses checks anymore, pendejo! You have twenty-four hours to get me my money. If you don't, I'll have you killed."

  I swallowed hard. "Is that before or after you kill the dog and squirrel?"

  He then shouted a long string of Spanish at me—despite being, as I knew, from Bakersfield—and I got the hell out of there.

  That had been about eight months ago. And of course, that was significantly longer than the twenty-four hours I'd been given.

  Since returning to the US, my "to-do" list had grown.

  1. Pay Enrique $174, 217.

  2. Do many good things so that when I die, I can join Cassie.

  If I didn't do number one quickly, I would have no time to do the second one. And that was the one that mattered to me. However, that kind of cash wasn't easy to come up with.

  I pulled out my phone and thumbed my bank account app. It read, $243.17.

  I had a ways to go.

  As I sat there in my North Dallas duplex, feeling sorry for myself, it took me a moment to finally hear the knocking. Slowly, I eased out of bed and went to the door, but then I froze for a moment. Knocks at my door weren't uncommon after a recent entrepreneurial enterprise of mine had just started to take off. But mulling over my debt to the "wrong people," I was suddenly spooked.

  I looked down at my hand on the door handle.

  What if Enrique found me?

  I looked out the peephole and saw nobody there. Someone was messing with me.

  Then, another knock. This time louder, more forceful.

  Again, I looked out the peephole. No one. I tried to see left then right through the tiny fish-eye lens. Then slowly, rising into view, I saw a hand with the middle finger raised.

  Cracking open the door, I looked down.

  "Hey, Raz," the Actor said.

  * * *

  I had been living in the unfinished duplex that I'd rented cheaply because the previous tenants had been methheads who'd left the place a mess. Tiny holes speckled the walls where they'd put incense to cover the smell. They'd probably been cooking the stuff.

  "Nice place," he said and sauntered in, plopping down on my couch.

  My mouth hung open for a moment.

  He stared at me with a weak smile. "Nice to see you too."

  "What?" I asked, stammering slightly. "H-how?"

  The Actor swiveled his head around and took in the room. "You've done well for yourself, I see. No TV, no chairs. Is that a bloodstain on the carpet?"

  "Uh," I said, closing the door and locking it. I sat on the other end of the couch. "Dog vomit, I think."

  "You got a dog?" he asked then muttered, "That might be handy."

  "Huh? No, no dog," I said dreamily. "I sort of had a squirrel for a while."

  "What?"

  "But there's a good chance it's been assassinated."

  The Actor pulled his eyebrows together, frowning. "What are…?" he started then shook his head. "Don't care. Do you have anything to eat? I'm starving."

  I started to get up then turned back toward him. "How did you know I was here?"

  He smiled at me. "'Bring Back the King.'"

  Ah.

  After the Actor's show had been canceled, one night, when I was drunk, I'd created a Kickstarter campaign to bring his character back with his own show. I'd raised just over twelve hundred bucks. Not enough to pay for a pilot, so I'd put that very small nest egg into starting my little businesses in North Dallas.

  "Sorry you got killed off," I said, walking toward the kitchen.

  "I wasn't killed off," he said. "I killed everyone else. Bloodbath." He shrugged and laid his head back on the armrest of the couch. "Show over."

  Cracking the fridge open, I tried to find something to eat amongst the litany of brown bottles.

  "I see you ditched the little pink robe," I said.

  "Red robe," he said. "I had it enshrined. To remind me of my bravery and valor."

  "Uh-huh," I said. Giving up on the food, I grabbed two brown bottles and returned to the couch. "You still didn't explain how you found me."

  He pointed at the bottles in my hand. "Do I get one of those, or are you drinking both?"

  I handed him one.

  He said, "You shot your little fund-raising video outside a construction site." He dropped his chin to his chest and quoted me. "'This is where we'll film the series, but I need your money, my lords and ladies, to finish the project.' Pathetic."

  "Whatever."

  "You can even see in the video the placard in the background where it says it's the ground-breaking for a day care."

  I shrugged. "It… I mean, it was initially all in good faith."

  "How initially?"

  I popped open the home brew. "When I first turned on the library's computer to make the Kickstarter account." I took a sip and frowned. "After that it… well, I sorta needed the money."

  "Uh-huh." He tried to twist the cap. "Ow!"

  I grabbed it from him, opened it, and handed it back. I pointed at the bottle. "Started my own label. Ready to make my fortune."

  He took a sip and smacked his lips. "This is horrible. You won't be able to do that."

  "It's fourteen percent alcohol and infused with THC."

  He shrugged. "You might be able to do that."

  "Maybe. Just keep it away from open flames." I sipped the horrible brew. "So, I assume this isn't a pleasure visit."

  He took another long swig then rolled the bottle in his tiny fingers. "I kind of fucked up, Rasputin."

  "Figured that."

  "Actually, it's kind of your fault. So, I was hoping, you know, m
aybe since I helped you out before…"

  "My fault?" I asked, then a glimmer of realization hit me. "Oh Jesus. What did you do?"

  He stood again, pacing the room. He kept his voice even, but I caught him glancing out the window once or twice.

  "Listen, it's not easy for a guy like me to get work in this industry."

  "Because you can't act?"

  "Fuck you."

  I laughed. "No, man, I'm kidding. Actually, I thought you were really good in the one with the train."

  He sighed. "Everyone likes the train one."

  "Fine. Get another train movie."

  "Actually." His eyes went distant for a moment. "I did get offered a sort of train movie."

  "Cool. Do that one."

  "Except a different, um, kind of train. An adult feature."

  "Right."

  "And I would be somewhere between the diner car and the caboose."

  "Christ, don't ever tell me about that again, 'kay?"

  He glanced at the door then quickly sat down. "Listen, I'm in real trouble, man."

  "We all got problems." Mine was a deranged drug dealer with a pedantic accountant and a homicidal dislike of nut-addled tree rodents.

  He looked at his finger and put the slight cut from the bottle cap into his mouth for a moment. "My contract was supposed to make me king. King of Hollywood. Like the next, I dunno, Brad Pitt or Tom Cruise."

  "How's that working out for you?"

  "Not so good."

  I shrugged, took another sip, and shivered from it. "Then get a better agent."

  Slowly, he shook his head.

  "What?"

  "Not that kind of contract."

  Oh shit. "What did you do?"

  He stood and paced again. "Well, it worked for you. Kinda."

  "What did you do, man?"

  He stopped and turned to me, his eyes wide, red rimmed. "I went to the crossroads."

  "Oh, fuck no."

  "Oh, fuck yes."

  "Why?"

  "After the show ended, I thought I'd have loads of offers! But it was drier than Justin Bieber's panties at an art gallery."

  Gross.

  "So I made a deal."

  "What did you do?"

  He came over and kneeled in front of me. "You've got to help me."

  "How?"

  "I've got an ironclad contract with the Devil. It didn't work out."

  "They never really do."

  "I know that now," he said. "You've got to help me!"

  "Jesus, man," I said, my eyes moving toward the door. "Holy shit, man. Can you, I dunno, get out of it?"

  He took my hands in his. They were shaking. "There's no way to get out of it. I've checked. Had a half dozen lawyers look at it."

  "They can read hell contracts?"

  "Not a problem, most work for hell already."

  "Figures," I said and started to take a sip of my beer, but he reached up and pulled the bottle back down.

  He looked me in the eyes. "You've got to help me steal my contract back from the Devil."

  Chapter Three

  I felt sick.

  But in truth, that could have been blamed, in part, on my shitty beer.

  For the next few minutes, I told the Actor about the Sword of Damocles swinging over my head. Except it was a Honduran drug dealer instead of that Damocles guy, and the sword was more likely a large-caliber semiauto.

  I had a massive pile of cash to raise before he found me, or I was dead, and I had no idea how I was going to come up with that kind of money.

  "Maybe," the Actor said, rubbing his three-day-old beard, "we can do this so both of our problems are solved."

  "What?" I sat up, interested for the first time. "How?"

  "Well, all we need to do is somehow find out where hell keeps its records. You said you dealt with his chief council, the advocate… it could be that that guy has them. Or at least knows where they might be."

  "Okay."

  "So we find out, bust in, find my contract, and hightail it out, burn the contract in a fire and roast marshmallows over it, man!" He punched the air, excited.

  I stared at him. "How does that help me raise a hundred seventy thousand bucks to stop Enrique from killing me?"

  The Actor froze midair-punch. "I dunno. I was just kinda focused on my part. That other stuff doesn't worry me so much."

  "Thanks."

  "You know what I mean," he said. "Come on. I helped you on a deadly moronic quest that was none of my business. I'm just asking you to do the same."

  "You were compelled to help. You had to!"

  "Same diff," he said. "Except it's more important this time."

  "Why?"

  "Because now it's about me."

  I couldn't help but like the guy, but it never took long to remember why he made me want to repeatedly punch him in the face. Still, on the surface, he always played a hard-out, selfish prick. I knew that deep beneath, he had a heart. I'd seen it. And I owed him. He was right about that.

  "Okay."

  He stared at me for a moment, like I'd told a joke but was waiting to whip out the punch line. After a moment, he asked, "'Okay' what?"

  "Okay," I said and stood. I finished my beer, fought off a brief wave of vomit, then threw the bottle into the corner. It bounced and landed next to the couch. "I'll help you."

  "Really?"

  "Yes, really," I said then sat back down. "But we need a plan. A good plan."

  For the first time since he'd walked through my door, he gave me a real smile. He nodded and took another sip of his beer. "Good. Good."

  He then threw his beer bottle where I had, and it shattered, spewing the brew all down the wall and across the stained carpet. I heard sizzling as the fibers began to curl. I would have to work a bit on the formula.

  "That's actually not bad," he said. "Mind if I have another?"

  "You didn't finish the first one, man," I said, pointing at the carpet, which appeared to be smoking slightly.

  "New thing," he said and crossed behind the couch to the fridge.

  I heard clinking behind me.

  "I'm trying to cut down on my drinking, so I never finish a whole one." He handed me a bottle over my shoulder and sat back down. "Not quite on the wagon, not quite off. So, I call it 'half wagon.'"

  "You should write a self-help book," I said and opened my beer.

  "Yeah?" he asked, eyes unfocused again.

  I grabbed his bottle, opened it, and handed it back.

  One more time, I saw his eyes flit to the door. "Well, I was drunk when I made my deal, so I guess this is me trying to do better."

  That gave me a thought. "Isn't that a factor in getting out of your contract? You know, impaired or something so you were in no condition to make a deal?"

  "If that were the case," he said, slugging his beer, "Hollywood would go dark."

  "Okay," I said and sighed. "We need a plan, but—" I sipped from my own bottle. "Plans are hard."

  "Check," he said, drinking deeply again.

  "But I have an idea."

  He burped and said, "I'm all ears," and again threw his bottle to the wall, but that time it bounced and flew back toward him fast.

  Two things happened. First, despite the brown bottle rocketing back directly, impressively, toward his melon, it missed. Second, it missed because it exploded in midair, sending brown glass and shitty beer raining down onto us. I supposed I could accept that it was really only one thing that happened.

  The thick glass of the bottle had apparently been made virtually wallproof, however it seemed to be susceptible to, what, dust mites?

  "What the hell just happened?" I started to laugh, but as the Actor dove behind the couch, that vocalization died somewhere behind my teeth. Looking up at the window, I saw a woman there.

  She was dressed like she'd just stepped out of a saloon from a hundred fifty years ago. Her two were pistols raised, and with the Actor no longer in her sights, she turned them toward me.

  I rolled and we
nt over the back of the couch, landing on the Actor.

  "Fuck!"

  "Sorry, man. There was no—"

  "No, her!" he said and slipped from beneath me. On all fours, I watched as he crept toward the side of the couch. "Shit, shit, shit!"

  "What is going on?"

  The Actor peeked around the corner of the single piece of furniture in the room, snapping his head back as two more shots rang out.

  One embedded into the couch, the other the drywall behind us, spitting out white chalky grit.

  "She found me," he whispered, eyes bouncing around the room. "She's relentless. Like the terminator. Except she can't be killed and she never sleeps!"

  "Dude, that's actually exactly like the terminator." I flattened my back against the sofa. "Who is she?"

  His eyes wild, he let his mouth hang open for a moment before the word rolled out. "Sally."

  I paused. "I'm going to need a bit more to go on."

  Above us, one of the recessed lights became an ex-light, raining more glass upon us.

  The Actor said, "She's a sort of, um, contract negotiator."

  "What does th… wait, she works for the Devil?"

  He nodded like he was having a seizure.

  "What does she want?"

  Three more lights above us exploded, and we covered our heads. We were surrounded by a white-sand beach of glittering glass.

  "My contract was supposed to make me 'king of Hollywood,' right? Well, stupid, I was made king but in the storyline of my show. The Devil's part is done, so," he said, getting back on his hands and knees, "collection time."

  "She kills you, and you go work for the Old Man?"

  "Yes, something like that. I think."

  "Why doesn't he just wait? The way you live, you'll be dead in ten years."

  "Because there is a prophecy that says I am the one," the Actor said. "The one who will one day kill the Prince of Darkness."

  I stared at him for a long moment.

  "Bullshit."

  Two more lights above us exploded.

  He said, "Of course that's bullshit." He began to pull off his shirt. "He wants me dead, so I join the ranks—to be a slave and tortured or maybe do community theater, which would be a bit of both."

  "We've got to get out of here," I said, eyeballing the kitchen. It would be a tough crawl, and we would likely be exposed for a second or two. Plenty of time for Sally, the shooter, to put slugs in both of us. "If we can crawl to the kitchen, it's about five steps to the back door, maybe seven for you."