Author: Dick Wybrow
Date: 2020-04-18 07:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Fiction; Humorous; Black Humor
Description: "The Actor is in trouble. The Running-From-the-Devil kinda trouble. Actually, he's now literary running from the Devil. Having joined Raz on a quest to save that man's wife, The Actor saw first hand the power of the Crossroads. So, in an attempt to save his ruined career, he does the unthinkable: the Actor makes his own deal with the Devil to become the "King of Hollywood. Of course, he was tricked. He needs Raz to help steal the contract back. To come up with a plan to do that, they'll need the gang back together. But Anza, their brilliant planner, is now missing somewhere down in Mexico. And
Publisher: Dee Dub Publishing

Hell to Pay

by Dick Wybrow

PRAISE FOR PREVIOUS NOVELS
by DICK WYBROW

Hell inc. (Hell inc Series Book 1)

One of the best comedic adventure stories I've ever read!  Hilarious with a great deal of heart!

-- James Jones

"I'm a fan of Jim Butcher, Dean Koontz, Charlaine Harris, B.C.Johnson. Dick Wybrow deserves to be in that group of my favorites in that genre." -- Lisa, Amazon Reviewer

This author is downright funny. I rarely leave a review that doesn't have some form of critique in it, but this book made me laugh so often I never got a chance to find something negative.

-- Michael, GoodReads

The InBetween (Painter Mann Series Book 1)

“Dick Wybrow has crafted a totally original and amazing supernatural thriller. Edgy and fast-paced, The InBetween is a hell of an idea. What a great read!”

-- Brad Meltzer, The Escape Artist

"Dick Wybrow gives readers imaginative and poignant perspectives on death combined with comedy, mystery, and horror, making The InBetween an enjoyable read. I look forward to Book Two."

-- Readers' Favorite Book Review

The Night Vanishing (Painter Mann Series Book 2)

"The entire book is a fairly high octane trippy carnival ride from start to finish. I liked Painter's integrity and sarcasm (he's a smart*ss in the Harry Dresden mold)... Fun and interesting series, weird and cool."

-- Annie, GoodReads

Hey, get a “bite” of The Swordsmen FREE …

If you’d like a free copy of Book One of Dick Wybrow’s humorous semi-apocalypse story The Swordsmen (Fifty Shades of Gray Matter) and get the latest updates from the author, click here.

Copyright © Dick Wybrow 2020
dickwybrow.com

Edited by Red Adept

Cover by Warren Design

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemble to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved

Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the copyright owner of this book.

To you, the Reader…

I’ll often interview dozens of people for a novel. Run it by folks I trust to tell me if I’m off base, on base or sliding into first (note for non-baseball fans, we generally don’t slide into first)

But in the end, this is a production of two: just you and me.

I write the story. You are the producer, director and craft services of this manuscript. This story is one that plays out in your mind.

All I can hope is that I’ve given you a good story to work with.

Thank you.

Chapter One

The beer was late. Again.

Whipping through the dark streets of North Dallas, the cargo van's driver earned an impressive collection of middle fingers, horn blasts, at least one "pendejo!" and something yelled by a foreign driver that sounded like the Swedish Chef burning his hand on a hot iron skillet.

Delivering beer was, in theory, easy. One day soon, he was sure it would be carried out by drone trucks, but for now, it was at least a way for troubled high school dropouts to keep from stealing purses or peddling drugs. Or worse. But that was only if said beer deliverer could actually deliver said beer at a time that looked very similar to the hour and minute printed out on a clipboard somewhere else in the city.

The driver took the corner way too fast, praying there weren't any cars in the alley behind The Bar. He didn't clear the corner properly, and the van's mirror scraped along the brick, showering sparks onto a wobbly dude peeing on a wall in the dark.

"Goddamn it, watch out!"

"Sorry!" the driver yelled out the window for at least the tenth time in the past twenty minutes. He'd gotten lucky. If the peeing guy had been taller, he'd have taken the man's head off.

He risked a quick glance in the now spiderweb-cracked mirror to see if the dude was still upright. "Fuck," he said as he stared at the image. Strangely, the man in the alley looked squished somehow. "Now I've busted the mirror. Great."

He skidded to a stop behind the delivery bay of The Bar and reached for his door. He'd only cracked it open a few inches when it was slammed shut.

"Don't bother getting out," the bouncer said. He wore a black T-shirt with white lettering that simply read THE BAR. However, the way it stretched across the man's barrel chest made it look as if the phrase were yelling at anyone who might read it. "You're late."

The driver's fingers stung. "So was your mother." When the bouncer's beet-red face filled his side window, his indignation vanished. He added, "And look how well that turned out," tacking on a smile at the end like an exclamation point, or just a silent plea not to be beaten to death.

The bouncer didn't have to collect the kegs of beer, but he liked carrying them, one on each shoulder, because he thought it might impress the new waitress. So far, she was the only female employee who hadn't either outright rejected him or threatened police involvement.

"Hey, baby," he said after kicking the rear delivery door closed with his boot and walking deeper into the bar.

The pretty waitress reached up to the kegs and rested her hands on them, sighing. The extra bit of weight drew a soft grunt.

He kept smiling. "I ever tell you that my johnson hooks upward? Family trait. Drives the ladies wild," he said. "Uh, doesn't drive the ladies in our family wild, I mean. I don't sleep with the ladies in my family."

"Uh-huh." She pulled the rubber branded lids off each keg.

His smile fell, and he looked to a big metal door with a latched handle. "Can you at least open the cooler door for me?"

She called back, "Your dick curves upward. Use it to open the door."

Walking the short beer-and-mold-stained hallway toward the kitchen, she glanced up and saw a half dozen customers on barstools. The usual fare—students, sales reps, assorted losers. The odd one out was the strange woman in the cowboy hat.

"Hey, intern," she said, leaning against the door of the cooks' station.

A teenage boy had his arm in the oven up to his shoulder, and her voice made him jump. He dropped the extra-large Italian-style pizza, which sent his wrist banging against the top of the oven. He reflexively pulled his arm down, burning it on the bottom, then lifted it, burning the top again, then the bottom as he pulled his arm out. He dropped the metal clamp on the floor and cradled his hand.

"Poor baby," she said and blew him a kiss.

He frowned, but he thought she was so hot he would keep the memory of those puckered lips for later.

"Can you take these up to the bar?"

"I'm Cook's Assistant Two, not an intern. That's not my job," he said, grabbing the rubber lids. "I'll be back in one minute."

The Brazilian cook, the boy's boss, smiled wide, his dark features suddenly glowing. His words slathered with a thick accent, he said, "Make it two. Two minutes."

The waitress slipped past the assistant as he rounded the corner. He peeked back. She was already up on the counter. The cook spread her knees, pulling her tight rump toward his pelvis.

The Cook's Assistant II mumbled, "It's like he brags about the two minutes. Who brags about that?"

He passed the wait station with its double sink and disheveled piles of lazily folded napkins and noticed the dishwasher hadn't come for either of the tubs of plates, glasses, and cutlery. Both were overflowing.

"Not my job either."

A few more feet down the hallway, he stepped up onto the rubber mat and waited at the entryway. He knew better than to go in. Cooks didn't go into the bar area, and bar staff didn't go into the kitchen. Each had their own domain. They were like vampires and werewolves, except hundreds of degrees lamer.

"Cook Ass Two." A husky voice came out of the darkness. "What are you doing in my bar?"

"Not in your bar," he said, pointing at the invisible line. "Outside the bar proper." He held up the two rubber lids.

The bartender tucked his long hair behind his ears, a move the Cook's Assistant II was convinced the guy thought made him look cool. It didn't.

"Why didn't what's-her-name, the new waitress, bring them up?"

"She's talking with Cook."

"Talking?"

"Well," the younger man said with a slight Texas drawl, "I expect her tongue is movin'."

A shrug from the bartender. "At least you get a two-minute break out of it."

"I suppose."

"But don't sit in my bar. You stand there. And take that two minutes off your fifteen," the bartender said. "When you get back there, give the counter a Clorox rub before you do anything else."

"Gross."

The bartender nabbed the circular lids from the kid and walked to the beer taps, sliding each into a hard plastic sheath at the front of them. He then grabbed two half pitchers and pulled the taps. First came the sound of air, then hissing and a gurgling noise, then finally foam spurted from one then the other, plopping down in clumps into the rubber mat.

Staring at it made the boy's stomach turn a little.

The bartender turned back to the cook's assistant. "Maybe use two Clorox wipes."

A moment later, beer began to pour from the tap on the left, so he popped a pitcher under it, waited a few seconds, then stopped the flow. After a quick look around the bar, he shrugged and drank the very frothy beer. He stood waiting, with his fingers above the other tap, and wiped the foam from his mouth with his sleeve.

"That one's upside down." The woman's voice sounded like she'd been gargling broken glass.

He looked up. "Huh?"

"You put this one in upside down. Cain't read the name of the brew you got on offer. You gotta turn the little circle bit so it's facing the right way."

The froth turned to beer on tap two, and the bartender pulled it to a stop. Just before downing the brew in the second jug, he smiled, thinking he looked charming. He didn't. "Can you spin it the right way around for me?"

"What do I get out of the deal?"

He eyeballed her.

Ten years earlier, she must have been fine looking. Still a handsome woman, she wore a cowboy hat and western outfit. He didn't know if she was wearing spurs—he couldn't see her feet—but something told him she had a pair. Somewhere. The only makeup she wore were the pistols on either hip.

Welcome to Dallas.

"Do that for me," he said as he drained the small pitcher. "And you'll have my undying gratitude."

Her face was like tanned leather, but when she smiled, she had perfect brilliant-white teeth. "Irony, I suppose some might call that. Your choice to use that word."

"Gratitude?"

"No," she said and sipped at her shot of whiskey. "The other one."

His smile fell. "Are you meeting someone here tonight?"

"Maybe." She nodded and pulled a long knife from the inside of her coat.

He flinched slightly. She then put the tip into the rubber lid and slowly turned it.

"I heard tell he comes in here sometimes."

The barman scanned his rail—broke students, a couple of out-of-town businessmen, but from what he could pick up of their conversation, they were from Japan. No tip there either.

He didn't expect much from the woman in the cowboy hat, but one could never really tell who the big tippers were. Sometimes the weirdos had dough.

He raised his eyebrows, trying to look interested. "Friend or work colleague?"

She finished her drink and tapped her shot glass with a thick fingernail that could hammer in real nails. Impressively, it would be at least the sixth time he'd refilled the tiny glass.

As he poured the shot, he saw she was chuckling.

"What?"

"You talk real pretty, you know that?" she asked. "'Work colleague.' That get you a fair bit of tail, all that fancy speaking?"

"I don't know. I mean, I'm sorry—"

"Ah, don't worry about it now." She took a small sip. "I ain't here for you."

The tone of that sentence convinced him that he knew nothing about the woman and would prefer to know less.

She added, "But yes, he and I, uh, in a manner of speaking… are work colleagues. We both serve the same master." The woman looked at her drink. "Similar, that is."

"I know what that's like." The bartender nodded then looked around the bar, avoiding her eyes. "What's he look like? Maybe I can help you, um, find your fella."

Sip. "Pretty boy. He was on some lame TV show for a while."

"Oh?"

"And if I were a man, which I am not, he could just about blow me without kneeling down," she said and smiled a pearly-white smile.

The bartender was befuddled for a moment then looked toward the door. A man walked in, zipping his fly, stumbling slightly, and the bartender did indeed recognize him but not from TV. The kneeling bit made sense, as the guy stood at the threshold, the door slowly closing behind him.

The dwarf looked toward the bartender and offered a crooked smile.

The bartender called over, nodding toward the woman in the cowboy hat, "I think this lady here's waiting for you, man."

On the doorstep, the man's face went from a very wide, sloppy grin to a straight line. He then spun and fled, the glass in the door exploding behind him.

The Actor ran into the night.

Chapter Two

In the past year, I'd really tried to be good. Or, at least, do good.

Those were two very different things. An important distinction. People could be, as my friend Anza once said, "less gooder" and still do good things. Like Hitler.

I mean… ha, I can't even. I just, oh jeez, ha! I should put that on Twitter or something. I could just picture the red-faced, moist-lipped Twitterati, thumbs flapping out their disdain for me on their over-sized, King Kong, carbon foot-printing devices.

Just a bit of fun to remind me I was alive. And I was, despite some compelling evidence to the contrary. I didn't go out much. I was moderately employed. And of course, I didn't date.

My wife, she wasn't alive. She was the opposite of that. However, before she went, she did banish the Devil back to hell, so she was probably now playing beach volleyball with St. Peter.

Of course, it was me who found the device that let her do that. Just sayin'. For anyone keeping score. And it was hard, man. I had to travel all over the world. I had help. Uncle Jerry, our pilot, Anza, my best friend's wife—she's still illegal, as far as I know—and of course, the Actor.

Before we went our separate ways, we had one more little adventure together. Didn't go quite as planned, and we all went back to our own lives. That seemed like a lifetime ago.

I looked over at a picture of my wife and me sitting on my bed stand. Um, we weren't sitting on a bed stand in the picture, you know, the photo. That's where I had the photo.

"I'm moving to a place of light and love. You'll have to be really, really good. Be incredible, sweetheart. Then we get to see each other again."

That, it turned out, was harder than it seemed.

Sure, I could look around for lost cats—I did, didn't find any. Strangely, I lost one in the process—or give my time at the library. I was asked to leave after rearranging their fiction section so all the blue-covered books were with the other blue-covered ones, red with red, etc. It looked amazing. Librarians, as hot they were with their tight little bun hairdos and pencil skirts, they no likey.

For a while, I'd even volunteered at a Puerto Rican hospital after I'd stumbled across an online ad from some Christian group. That was a weird experience.

That said, despite what I'd seen, I wasn't religious. I knew there was a heaven and hell—and of course Hell inc., a takeover faction down below that was trying to dethrone the Devil—but I preferred to stay unaffiliated.

My goal in life, now of course, was to do as much good as possible so, one day, I could join my wife and we could spend eternity just hanging out. That was all I wanted, but my twenties had been some rough years. I would have to do a lot to get my ledger back in the black. To hang with Cassie, I needed my remaining years to be opal, for Chrissakes.

But that meant, of course, I had to stay on this side of the topsoil.

Going back to Atlanta, at least for a while, was out of the question.

I mentioned that my friends and I had bounced all over the globe searching for pieces of the lamp, as instructed by the Devil. I'd made a stupid pact with the fucker at the crossroads, which despite all my efforts, turned out all right.

Atlanta could no longer be my home, which I learned about ten seconds too late some months ago. When I'd landed, instead of heading back to the old house, I'd been aggressively diverted—read: kidnapped—to face a former benefactor.

The drug dealer we'd blackmailed to lend us his private jet wasn't happy about how it had been returned. He'd also been not so happy that some of his product that had been hidden on board had gone missing.

"I think that was Uncle Jerry. It helped him stay awake," I’d said, "for a few days."

In the leafy atrium of Enrique's Peachtree Battle home, he dropped theatrically into a chaise lounge. On either side of him, two large men stood looking for an excuse to hurt someone.

When I went to sit, he said, "Aa, aa, aa! Only I will sit during an admonishing."

"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, maybe 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 went 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."

"Fuck you."

"No, fuck you, man." I watched him put his shirt under his knees and reluctantly pulled mine off as well. "You could have warned me you were bringing some nineteenth-century gunslinger to my door!"

He frowned. "I think she's eighteenth century."

I peeked between a couple of dirty cushions.

Cowboy hat, dirty-blond hair twisted into a braid that draped over her shoulder. She wore a brown vest over dark denim jeans and a pair of black leather chaps.

"No, man, she doesn't look, I dunno, all colonial times or anything. Definitely mid- or late-eighteen hundreds."

"Right, eighteenth century!"

"That's nineteenth. It gets confusing because seventeen hundreds is actually eighteenth, eighteen hundreds is nineteenth," I said in a low, panicked whisper. "But you have to count the first century, which is actually zero through one hundred."

"Ugh, confusing."

"Right?"

Both of us sat bare-chested on our shirts. I nodded for him to grab the couch at the bottom. Slowly, we scooted our knees and pulled the massive piece of ancient furniture backward, toward the kitchen door.

As we did, another couple of rounds hit the cushions. Feathers filled the air, which was a concern because it was a foam couch.

Sally had laid glass all around us, but with the shirts beneath our knees, we could slowly scoot back, using the couch as a shield, without getting cut.

"Jesus, I think she's in the house," the Actor hissed.

"I locked the door," I said. "That should give us an extra minute."

The Actor looked over at me and scowled. "You have man titties, man."

"Shut up."

"And you look like you're wearing a sweater," he said. "A sad brown sweater full of sad little holes."

"Really? That's what you want to talk about now?" I looked at him. "Christ, do you shave your chest?"

"No, of course not," he said. "I have other people do that."

"Ugh," I said. "Maybe you already work for Satan."

The Actor looked at me and smiled slowly. "You missed me, didn't you?"

I raised my elbow and looked back. We were nearly at the door to the kitchen and home free. Safe.

That's when I heard a click, and the front door handle turn. She was coming inside.

"New plan," I said, jumping up. "Let's run!"

"I thought you said you locked it!"

"Run, man!"

To avoid the remaining glass, we both jumped, landing in the kitchen, rolling end over end and banging into each other.

Sally came through the door, both pistols held high. She pointed at us, and I put my hand out and flung the refrigerator door wide open.

Thwack, thwack!

I definitely wasn't getting my deposit back.

Seconds later, we were out the door, running through the backyard.

Chapter Four

The Hooded One sat in his purple leather lounger, watching three employees in the hot tub, which had been filled with vanilla pudding.

They didn't look happy.

"Sir," the girl in the yellow bikini said. "I'm worried about what this stuff is doing to, um, my bathing suit parts."

Another, a young intern in his early twenties, leaned back on the edge of the tub with an uneasy smile. "I don't know. It's rather, uh, refreshing. I think it might be doing wonders for my skin."

The third, a heavy-set man in his forties, who had been borrowed from accounting, was in the center, moving in small circles. Only his head stuck out. A dollop of pudding fell from his chin as he moved slowly through the dessert. "It's… better if you move around, I feel," he said, it seemed, to no one but himself. "I've gone quite cold in my lower extremities."

The Hooded One stood, rolled his eyes, and sighed.

"All you people do is complain," he said and looked up to a black window, waving his hand. The pudding began to bubble as the jacuzzi jets came to life. "Heff once told me people loved his pudding pool. Relaxing helped them be more efficient in their work."

"Yeah, but I think he might have paid them to say that," the woman said, frowning.

"You are being paid, employee!"

"I'm an intern," one of the men said. "I'm, you know—"

"YOU get paid just enough to prevent you from suing the company," the Hooded One said. "If I had it my way, you would pay me to work here."

The accounting guy took a swallow of the yellow goo, instantly regretting it. "I think this pudding has turned."

Hood glanced at a notification on his cell phone then casually looked at the door. He would need to start making his rounds soon, but most of that was just injecting a bit of thrill into the lives of his adoring subordinates.

Later that night, though, he would get to see how the beta algorithms were moving along. The thought made him smile. That wasn't only about the shiver of pleasure he got from wielding the unparalleled power of his empire, which had wormed its way into every country on the planet. It included nearly every home and every life. But of course, it was mainly about the shiver.

No, he had a job to do. Misery was his business, and business was good.

"One more hour," he said, pulling on the strings of his hoodie, his fists in balls. "Then we try tapioca."

Chapter Five

"Where's your car?" the Actor asked as we wove through the neighborhood, cutting through backyards, back lanes, and back alleys.

"I don't have a car," I said, already huffing. I wished I were in better shape. In fact, that little self-admonishment could have been said at any point in my life. It seemed more important at the moment since we were being chased by a gunslinger named Sally.

"How do you not have a car, for Chrissakes?"

We passed through a gate, and when I spun back around to close it and throw the latch, I saw a cowboy hat just over the hedge across the street.

"Shit!"

We ran through the yard, passing a koi pond that looked like the owners of the home had fed them raw chicken for the past few years.

"What kind of neighborhood do you live in? What are those, piranhas?"

A shed sat in the back corner, which seemed like a good place to hide. It also seemed like a small room surrounded by thin metal that wouldn't stop bullets. Or rocks. Or even hurtful words.

I pointed to a work site, the skeleton of a building on the rise behind the property.

"She's got two six-shooters that never run out of bullets," he said, squeezing through the gap. "You want to fight her off with a belt sander?"

There was about a hundred-meter dash to get to the construction, which I'd been told by one of the people at the laundromat was going to be a day care one day. Children. They're the future.

We ran down a line of trees on the far side of the property and crossed the road, nearly getting hit by a big white van carrying senior citizens for some outing.

It was a Saturday afternoon, so we didn't see any workers milling about. A yellowed trailer nearby had a window open, and a heavyset man with a clipboard was smoking a cigarette, sitting on its steps. He seemed pretty wrapped up in his paperwork, so once on the grounds, we switched to a casual stride, as if we were simply walking by.

"Maybe we lost her," I said.

"Please, I've tried to lose her for weeks. Why the fuck don't you have a car?"

We needed to get out of sight, but I couldn't see anywhere within the construction we could hide. Then I saw an option. "Over there," I said and ran.

"Oh, fuck. Really?"

There was a line of a half dozen identical green sheds. My legs burned as I came up beside one near the far end. I opened the thin plastic door.

"No way, man."

"Come on, she'll be around that fence any second," I said. "At least here we can work something out."

"In a shitter?"

"Sure, I do my best thinking on the toilet."

"Yeah? You don't have a car. You don't have a job! How's that thinking been going so far?"

I slipped inside and went for the only seat available. Thankfully, it had a lid, which I put down before the smell could make me barf. Unfortunately, the lid was thick, hard-shell clear plastic.

The Actor growled as he came in and pressed his back against the wall opposite where a green plastic urinal bulged like a burst cyst. When I reached for the door, he took a deep breath of outside air.

The door closed. I locked it from the inside.

"What's that going to do?"

"Last line of defense, man," I said. "Okay, we need to come up with a plan."

Staring at my friend, waiting, I frowned and said, "If you don't take a breath, you're going to pass out."

"Nope," he said, his lips damp.

"Fine." I absentmindedly tugged on the sad roll of toilet paper. "Where is this contract?"

He shrugged.

"What does that mean?"

Again, he shrugged, but this time he squinted his eyes closed and slapped his hands over his mouth and nose. He was definitely turning a little blue.

I reached up with two index fingers and wiggled them under his armpits.

He blew out the breath he was holding and gulped in air. "Motherfucker, did you tickle me?"

"Had to be done."

"No tickling! I don't like—"

"What in the hell are you boys doing in there?" The voice came from outside the plastic potty. For a moment, both of us were silent.

"Answer me, fellas!" the deep voice shouted. "I know you're in there. Hell's bells, it's the only door here that says Occupied!"

The Actor scowled at me.

I said, "Your homicidal cowgirl has a very manly voice."

"That isn't her," the Actor growled at me.

"Sir, if you could give us a moment," I called out, my voice rattling off the thin walls. "My friend needs help with his medical tubing."

"Tubing?"

"Uh, sad story," I added, and the Actor looked at me wild-eyed. I shrugged. "After his girl left him, he got a bit whiskey-drunk one night and had an unfortunate accident with a canister vacuum cleaner."

The man on the other side of the door whistled. "My condolences."

"Dyson," I added, and the Actor punched me in the arm. Cut it out.

"Very fine machines," the man said, his voice softer. "Lucky to be alive."

"Yeah, but best ten minutes of his life."

The Actor balled his fists and leaned in toward me. "Will you cut it out?"

In the distance, I heard a low rumble that sounded like a Mack Truck passing by. The look on my friend's face told me I might be wrong.

"Listen, I'm the foreman at this site, and I'm all for being open-minded about alternative lifestyles and all, but if you two fellas could take your business elsewhere…"

I said, "Can you just give us a moment? It won't be more than a few minutes, I swear to you."

The Actor shook his head violently. He mouthed, Gotta go, gotta go!

I stood, stepped aside, lifted the lid and pointed into the gaping hole.

He punched me in the stomach. My friend shouted through the door, "There doesn't happen to be an eighteenth-century gunslinger on a motorcycle coming down the street by any chance, does there?"

We heard shuffling outside the door for a moment, work boots on gravel, then another few steps. "No, I don't think so."

The Actor blinked slowly and let out a breath. "Oh, thank god."

"I reckon she looks more nineteenth century."

Leaning forward, I twisted the plastic handle, and the Actor and I burst from the tiny toilet, ran a few steps passed the foreman, then looked toward the street.

Sally was casually putting the kick stand down on a beautiful black motorcycle.

"What the hell you boys gotten yourselves into?" the foreman asked.

Quickly, I scanned the gravel lot in front of the build. "Can we borrow your truck?"

"No, you cannot."

I pointed to the Actor. "But she's trying to kill him!"

He shook his head. "Probably mad you broke her cannister vacuum," he said and grinned. "Those Dysons ain't cheap."

I grabbed my friend by the shoulder, dragging him into the hulking unfinished structure. A spark flew just above my head as a shot ricocheted off a rusted beam. Another hit put a pucker into a wheelbarrow about twenty feet away.

"Where are we supposed to go?"

I looked at the open fields sprawling in all directions then back to the unfinished building.

It was hard to tell, staring at the massive, skeletal creature, whether it was two stories or three. Above us, a concrete slab half the size of a football field was held up by an array of wooden bones draped with mesh netting. An exoskeleton fashioned from hundreds and hundreds of metal interlocking tubes surrounded its exterior.

Another shot rang out and put a hole through a sign that read Happy Nappy Day Care Coming This Summer! Next to the words was a diapered baby with an ice-cream whip of yellow hair smiling and playing with a small truck. There was a hole in the baby's forehead.

"Let's go… up."

"Up? Up is a bad place to hide!" Another shot hit a one-person Bobcat tractor. Its headlight exploded.

With few other options available, I ran forward through the dried mud that surrounded the site, hopping over a trench encircling the building. Half-buried within it was thick white PVC piping.

On the bottom floor, I could just make out where an office might go. I hid behind an unfinished wall and looked to my left at an area that appeared to be a meeting room with a sunken floor.

Of course, it was some sort of day care or nursery. What sort of meetings would babies have? Angry, smelly meetings, I'd wager. Rallying against the smashed peas?

"Where to now, genius?" The Actor came up beside me, his eyes as wide as dinner plates. "She's armed! This is like hiding out in the crapper!"

Another two shots rang out, sending sparks off the metal scaffolding above us.

"She's not a very good shot, is she?"

"That's her one redeeming quality," the Actor said, scanning the space around us. "She's pretty drunk most of the time, but it only takes one shot, and I'm done!"

“Wait. I thought since you signed a Hell contract, you know, so you can’t be killed.”

He growled. “No, she’s got hellfire in those bullets. She hits me, and I go up like a Roman candle.”

"Okay. We gotta keep moving," I said and sprinted toward the back of the building where I had caught sight of a series of ladders. The Actor watched from his hiding spot.

"It's only a matter of time, Actor," Sally called out and fired two more rounds to make her point. "Why don't you be a nice lil' quarry and wait right there to let me shoot ya?"

She fired again, and two holes appeared on either side of the Actor's head.

"Let's go!" I said, clambering up the first ladder, which buckled and shook under my weight. A few moments later, I pulled open a small mesh gate and stood up on the second floor.

That level looked much like the one below—just a low, bare concrete ceiling with a series of unfinished rooms, the beginnings of a wall here and there. On my right, leaning against one side of the scaffolding were several unfinished partitions, all stacked up against each other.

Red-tinted wooden beams had been nailed together in what would later be put up as another section of wall. Empty squares denoted where windows, outlets, and other features would later be added.

A cement mixer lay idle. Next to it sat two wheelbarrows caked with bits of gray plaster.

"Fuck!" The Actor came up behind me, closing the tiny mesh door. "There are fewer places to hide here than down there."

I'd forgotten how much of a complainer he was.

"Up again," I said because he was right. Not that those words would ever pass by my lips.

"You want to go higher?" he asked, peering down to the ground below. "Where will that get us?"

I turned back to the series of ladders and grabbed the next one, taking each rung as fast as my legs would go. If Sally were to stand under us, she would have a clear shot. And if she did shoot, the bullet would have too big a target to miss.

The top floor. On one side lay spool after spool of thick black cable. The electrics were probably far from being installed, so those were sitting like high-top bar tables off to one side. Funnily enough, they looked like cheap toys for some infant in the nineteen forties. If, of course, that infant were as big as a T-Rex.

I shivered.

The skeletal beginnings of a couple of rooms stood to our left, again with a big area in the middle.

Another meeting area? What are babies getting up to?

The Actor pushed me aside and walked past, scanning the floor. "Huh, a play area," he said. "A huge, wide-open space, which in no way can stop flying bullets. What a great plan!"

Oh. Play areas. That makes more sense.

I'd had a very bad idea, the culmination of which was on the street side of the building. First, I looked around for other options, any other option, scanning the near-barren floor, so panicked it was hard to focus.

On the right side were what might be a couple of offices or bathrooms one day.

What would babies need with offices? Who are these babies?

Below us, I heard an impressive litany of cursing over the sounds of a shaky, metal ladder.

The Actor scowled at me, pointing toward where we'd just come from. He spoke through gritted teeth. "She's coming up here now, and we've got nowhere else to run!"

He was right.

"You suck at plans, Raz," he said. "If I die, it's your fault."

Out of options, I pointed to the other side of the unfinished room as I ran. Time to throw caution to the wind, or more specifically, a dwarf into a hamster tube.

Behind me, the Actor was still looking down.

"Fuck, I hate heights."

"Let's go!"

Up on the third floor, the face of the building offered a beautiful panorama of the neighborhood. In the distance, a few streets away, was a small park, a slide, a sandpit made up of shredded tires, and tubes to climb in. I remembered passing out in one of those one night when I'd had trouble locating my house.

Cars drifted down a few of the streets.

There was the store where I'd bought day-old bread and cans of beans. Two blocks over was my place. It looked better from up there. I'd never felt it was really home. Cassie wasn't there. I'd been living the last few months just sort of waiting. Waiting for something to happen.

Currently, that something was standing next to me, peering down at the long, long drop in front of us.

Time to go.

"What do we do now?"

Sally's voice was getting closer. "God-blameit, mother-of-pearl! I ain't built for climbing, you slippery bastard!"

Looking back, I saw the top of the ladder leading to the third floor shaking and banging against the side of the building. "There," I said, pointing to what looked like a huge dryer tube, snaking its way from the top floor to the bottom.

It was a bad idea.

"What?" He walked over to it and looked down. "You want to take that down? We'll break our necks. No way! Aren't there ladders on this side somewhere?"

"No, are you crazy? We're not taking that down. Too dangerous," I said. "But I think I saw something inside it we can use."

"Like what?" he asked, peering down the tube.

Then I pushed him.

The Actor's cursing was far more impressive than Sally's, echoing as he tumbled and rolled and bounced from floor to floor to floor. When I caught sight of the cowboy hat, I closed my eyes and jumped in behind him.

It was like falling into a dream. Brilliant sunlight turned to suffocating deep orange, and I tried my best to slow the fall, putting my hands out, but that only hurt more, so I just pulled my arms in and hoped I didn't land on anything pointy.

Briefly, I got caught up in a bend then wiggled, broke free, and fell the remaining few feet.

"Oof!" the Actor said and growled again. "Stop landing on me!"

"You're fine," I said scrambling to my feet. We were in a dumpster filled with construction debris. I hopped out.

The Actor looked over the edge, unsure, but when he shifted his gaze skyward, he turned pale. Sally was staring down at us, aiming her six-shooters our way.

He leaped at me, knocking me off my feet as he tumbled out of the huge iron container.

I said, "See, that worked."

He held up his hand. "I have a fucking nail in my palm!"

A shot pinged off the dumpster, and we both ducked.

I reached up and yanked the nail out. "You're fine!" I shouted, and we ran toward the street. "You're under contract. The only thing that'll really kill you is up there on the third floor!"

"I should never have come here," he said, huffing as he trailed behind me.

We heard the pop-pop-pop of shots above us.

"You're more of a danger to me than she is!"

"Me?" I shouted back. "Before today, I had zero people shooting at me. Zero!"

More shots.

"Run in a random pattern, man!" I said, going left, going right, going left. "Serpentine, serpentine!"

There we were, running for our lives, zigging and zagging away from a gunslinger hired by hell to kill my friend.

For the life of me, I didn't know why, but that made me smile.

We got to the street, and I looked back. Sally was gripping a horizontal bar on the scaffolding, eyeballing the chute.

Of course, we needed to run, but we both hesitated for a moment at the curbside to get our bearings. There were only two vehicles nearby—the foreman's shiny Ford pickup and the gunslinger's motorcycle. The truck had dualies in the back, badass sure, but it also had an owner that had already taken a disliking to me and the Actor.

The Actor had his phone out, scanning it. He said, "Okay, fine. That was horrible, but for the moment, I'm not dead. Do you have an Uber app? Never really needed it…"

"You want to wait for a taxi?"

"We can't run. Look at that thing," he said, pointing toward her gorgeous black bike. "She'll run us down in less than a minute."

Looking over at the pipes and leather and flexing muscle of the woman's motorcycle, I walked next to it like a starving man eyeballing a rib eye steak.

The Actor jabbered away behind me, and I waved his voice down so I could just take in the machine.

"Look at this," I said, my words slow and reverent. My mouth hanging slack, I ran my hand over and down its chassis. I snapped my hand back after I dragged it across something pointy. A tiny dot of blood spotted my finger.

Looking just below the tank, I saw a small metal ring with a tiny black skull hanging off it and just one key. It was still in the ignition. I clicked it forward then stood and hit the start button, but it refused to engage.

"Let's go!" he said, turning away.

"Give me a moment," I said, casting my hands over its handlebars, tank, and seat but not touching it. "She's the most beautiful creature I have ever seen." Unable to stop myself, I again lay a hand on its sweeping black body.

The bike came to life.

"What did you do?" the Actor asked.

I shook my head, turned to him, and said, "Get on!" Steeling myself, I threw one leg over the seat of Sally's motorcycle and gripped the handles.

The gunslinger hadn't yet seen us, now halfway down the garbage chute.

The Actor looked at me blankly. "You've got to be kidding."

"Come on. This'll be fun," I said and revved the engine. "And it'll damn sure slow her down."

He nodded quickly. "Let me drive."

"Okay, you are instantly excluded from that task once you say you want to drive a motorcycle," I said and patted the seat behind me. "Let's ride, baby."

The Actor shook his head and climbed on.

"And you're right, we suck at planning," I said. "We gotta go find someone, someone who's good at planning."

"Where are we going?"

"Hold on!" I shouted back. "We're going to Atlanta!"

"Why?"

I took a deep breath, gunned the engine, and smiled again. "We need a plan. Smartest person I know lives there."

"Who?"

I said, "Anza."

Chapter Six

It was nice to be back on the road.

Sure, it was a road where we had a homicidal gunslinger behind us trying to kill the Actor, and of course, in front of us, wanting to kill me, was an Atlanta-based Honduran drug lord born in Bakersfield—who, despite his claims, had zero ties to Honduras.

But that long strip of blacktop held the promise of something new ahead, or maybe it was the promise that whatever was behind us was literally behind us. We couldn't put everything onto a stolen motorcycle, gun the engine, and leave all our troubles behind. They were still in there, in the folds of our clothes, in the dirt under our nails, and in the sweat on our skin. That said, it felt so damn good to have the wind in my hair.

"Get your goddamn hair out of my face!"

The Actor didn't seem to be enjoying it as much as I was.

After we crossed the Mississippi, I pulled the hell bike off into a rest area somewhere outside of Vicksburg. I'd moved all over the United States back in my radio days, when I was a disc jockey at various stations. Rock, alternative rock, AC, hot AC, album rock, country, and even once on a gospel AM station in Missouri. I'd never spent much time in Mississippi, but it was a beautiful state.

"Christ, I can't stand the South."

"Is there anything you do like, man?" I asked, climbing off the bike. "I'm sorry things aren't working out how you planned, but you're the one who screwed up. That's why we're here."

"Hey, when we were flying all over the planet"—he kicked one leg over the seat, slid, and landed with both feet on the dusty concrete—"looking for some stupid lamp to save your sick wife, I never rubbed your nose in it."

"You did. Constantly."

"Well, maybe a bit," he said, "but you know, not constantly."

"There're probably some snacks at the vending machine. You want a soda or something?"

"Christ, can't we stop at a restaurant or diner or something?"

We'd parked in the "Cars" section of the rest area. On the other side of a strip of lush green lawn were a handful of caravans and RVs. Lining the road to get back onto the interstate were a succession of eighteen-wheelers.

The inside of the pavilion was a step into the past. The walls had various pictures of a Civil War battle and replicated newspaper clippings from the time. In the center of the room was a model boat, and a tiny sign on it said it was a one-sixteenth scale of something called the USS Cairo, a gunboat.

I sat on a plastic seat to rest my legs for a minute. It had been a while since I'd ridden a motorcycle, and my undercarriage wasn't happy with me at all.

The Actor said, "My taint feels like a freshly clubbed baby seal."

An older couple with a young girl turned and scowled at him. The little girl dropped a red sucker she'd been enjoying. She then bent to pick it up, licked it off, and put it back in her mouth. They left.

"We should rent a car," he said, standing in front of the offerings of one of the four vending machines. "There's gotta be som—"

"No, man, let's stay on the road and get there. Do you think Sally's going to just go, 'Oh well, they stole my bike. Might as well give up'?"

"All the more reason to ditch the thing!"

"Are you kidding? You do know we've gone about four hundred miles and that beautiful machine hasn't needed to stop once to fill up?"

The Actor slowly turned to me. "I'm running from eternal damnation, and you're worried about gas money? Shit, I'll pay the bill."

"You can't solve all your problems by throwing money at them, man."

He shrugged, staring through the glass again. "Most of them."

"We're not getting a rental. We got wheels," I said, stretching my legs. "Besides you know that most of the service industry is in some way hell run or hell affiliated. A rental car agency? You might as well dial up the Devil himself, and say 'hey, here I am!'"

The Actor pulled out a credit card and swiped it over a tiny black pad in front of the machine. He punched in a few numbers. The big box came to life. The corkscrew metal bar twisted until his bag of chips moved forward. The turning stopped, and the chips dipped forward, then dangled there, balancing on the edge of the shelf.

"Is the whole world working against me?"

"You do it to yourself," I said. We needed to get back on the road, but I wanted to wait until my balls stopped buzzing. That said, it wasn't wholly unpleasant. "So what happened? Why the hell would you get involved with this shit after last time?"

The Actor thumped the glass of the vending machine, trying to get the bag to move. "You have no idea how hard the entertainment industry is."

"I was in radio for more than a decade. I know how tough media can be."

"Really? Radio? It's not the same."

"Well, if you mean that I never had someone to write my scripts, fix my hair, provide me free lunch, tell me where to stand, where to walk, and how to say the words someone else wrote, then no, it's not the same."

He began to walk away then turned back and kicked the machine by the coin return. The chips held fast. However, a long white package fell from the third row. The Actor reached into the slot, pulled it out, and inspected the sugar-coated rainbow-colored strands.

Stripping it open, he put one end of a blue rope in his mouth and chomped. The end of the limp spaghetti-like candy wiggled as if he were eating it alive.

"This is going to make me fat."

"It's not going to make you fat," I said. "Okay, so you were all sad clown because you got fired."

"The show ended, Raz," he said and sat at one of the cheap plastic tables. "My agent said it was supposed to be my 'vehicle' to stardom."

"Is that the one who showed up on my buddy's front door looking to kill me?"

"The demon agent? No, no. After he burst into flames, I had to get another."

"Good call."

He sighed and sucked the remainder of the blue rope into his mouth. With his mouth covered in the shards of sugar left behind, he put another between his lips, red this time.

"They added all these younger actors in that final season, trying to sex it up or something, waifish dudes that looked like chicks and girls that acted like guys. My role was getting smaller and smaller."

"That's gotta be common."

"Yeah, and the common path is suddenly I find myself in an ultra-violent dual and some two-headed monster decides it wants three. Mine." He chomped, and the red worm shuddered. "My agent was focusing on some of his bigger fish while I was getting offered Italian commercials to sell energy drinks."

"It's work."

"Next step is infomercials where I'm selling monthly subscriptions to a service that provides pillows stuffed with baby hair in New Zealand."

"They have those?" Baby hair. So soft. Except for the angry, meeting-taking babies.

"I was desperate, Raz," he said, and the skin around his eyes reddened. "I went and found your crossroads. Met a guy there that gave me the chills."

I remembered. "Yeah. His name might be Roland."

"His name isn't Roland. It's Satan. Or Beelzebub. Whatever," he said and slurped the rope in whole. He fumbled in the pack, and a green string replaced it. "I told him I wanted to be king of Hollywood. All those fuckers that had laughed at me. The looks they gave me at the craft services table, like I was some homeless guy who'd snuck in and was there for the crepes."

Listening, I glanced outside and saw a couple of guys checking out the bike. We would have to go soon.

He said, "I wanted the big roles, star-making stuff, maybe some cozy series like a fighting treasure hunter, or a spy. A bunch of movies, one after the other, and I could travel the world. Hell, maybe I'd even meet a girl."

My mouth dropped open. "You meet tons of girls."

"You know what I mean. Not some, you know, actor. I'm lonely, man," he said. The sugar-sprinkled green string quivered for a moment. "Anyway, I signed on the evil dude's dotted line, and within a week, I was getting more scenes, more lines. It was like a dream."

"Or a nightmare."

He nodded. "We had another season on the schedule with the network, but somehow that got… instead, we played out the rest of the season. Four episodes. At the end of it, nearly every principal character had been stabbed, burned, bludgeoned, or eaten by dragons."

"And you were king."

"King of the realm!" he said and punched the air. "My character had back-stabbed and manipulated and weaseled and betrayed. Every time a favorite died, the viewers, the public, hated me more."

"It was just a show."

"The little people, Raz, they don't see it that way. They hated me."

"Maybe it's because you call them 'the little people.'"

"After that, I became a pariah," he said. "The show ended, and I became the most hated dwarf king in the world. For months, I got nothing. And these productions are years in the making. If I don't have anything now, I don't get anything next year and maybe the year after."

"What'd you do?"

He looked at the pack and grabbed three strands this time, shoving their tips into his mouth. "I went back to the crossroads to find that prick. Lying sack of shit," he mumbled, chomping. He looked like he was eating a tiny rainbow mop. "Instead, I found Sally waiting for me. She's been chasing me ever since."

Undoubtedly, he was one of the most unlikable people I'd ever met, but by some strange definition, he was also a friend. He'd risked his life to help me when my "real" friends ran for cover.

I stood and walked over, snapping a yellow stand from his mouth, and put it between my lips.

"We'll do it, man," I said, chewing. "We'll find your contract, steal it, and tear it up."

His eyes got damp. "Raz. You know how impossible that sounds?"

Nodding, I said, "Ah, we've done impossible before."

He followed me outside, and for a moment, we walked in silence. As we got closer to the bike, I could see two other men eyeballing it. Not actually touching it, just looking at it, as some guys do. The skinny guy with long hair held at bay by a John Deere hat was down on his haunches, elbows on each knee.

When we got close, the other, a short guy dressed head to toe in denim, was saying something to him, and the man with his nose to our motorcycle let out a low whistle.

I asked, "What's up?"

"This is a hell of a ride, sir," the smaller one said. "Hell of a ride."

"You have no idea."

"What is it?"

I shrugged. "A motorcycle."

The denim guy chuckled, and the skinny one pointed to something near the back tire without looking. His friend laughed low again.

"Looks like you got a slight leak."

"Oh?"

"Oil I reckon, but that damn stuff's red. Your ride use coolant?" he asked, and I shrugged again. He added, "Some kinda antifreeze?"

"Nah," I said, stepping up to the bike, and out of deference, his friend stood and took a few steps away. The unspoken dance of dudes. "It's probably the blood of the damned."

The man scratched his round beard and nodded. "I go with synthetics myself. Lasts longer, and the viscosity don't break down so fast."

The Actor grabbed his helmet off the back of the small metal carrier. After leaving Texas, we'd picked up two of them.

My friend said, "You didn't touch anything, did you? We just had it cleaned."

The tall, skinny guy crossed his arms. He spit at a spot by his feet. However, he hadn't gotten the clean shot he'd wanted and made a bit of a production wiping off his chin.

"You don't touch no man's hog," the big guy said then grinned with a perfect set of teeth. "Or his motorcycle."

The tall guy laughed, but no sound came out.

Grabbing my helmet off the bars, I waited a moment before putting it on. "It's not a hog. That's a Harley, right?"

"What is it, then?"

"It's… foreign."

"Rice burner?" he asked and scowled.

"Nah," I said and leaned against the bike. "Unleaded, mostly."

The two men looked at each other.

I was done chatting, so after the Actor climbed up, trying to look all nonchalant, I threw a leg over the seat.

I knocked the Actor off the bike.

"Goddamn it, Raz!"

Mumbling an apology, I slipped my helmet back on and waited for him to climb back aboard. The two men watched us. Then the skinny one nodded to my friend and raised an eyebrow to the other.

"Ain't you the Dwarf King from that show?"

The Actor sighed. "Yes."

"I thought y'all had another year. That's what the in'ernet said, anyway. Sad to see the show go," the guy said and jammed his hands in his overalls pockets. "You all ain't going to do another season?"

"How do you envision that?" the Actor asked, grabbing the strap as I fired up Sally's motorcycle. "Everyone's dead!"

The man nodded. "'Cept you."

"Except me."

"You know, Chuck here had a crush on that fire princess. Something fierce," he said. "And a bit unhealthy, truth be told."

The skinny guy scowled, looking down at his feet.

I heard my friend drop the tinted mask on his helmet with a snap. Using the balls of my feet, I slowly walked the bike backwards as the two men watched.

"You know, if you back into the spot when you park, it's easier to get out."

Nodding, I gave him a thumbs-up and pushed my own mask down into place.

There was something about being watched while trying to make a semi-complicated move. It felt like, any moment, some muscle would give out, and we would fall, crashing to the concrete to peals of laughter.

I steeled my legs, moving a bit slowly. Instead of deliberate, I hoped it looked casual and cool. After a half-minute, we were facing the interstate again. I kicked the foot gear into first and gave the guys a wave.

"You know," the big man called out after us. "I really liked you in that train movie! You should do another train movie."

We left them behind in a thin cloud of dust and smoke.

I was glad to have them in my rearview mirrors.

* * *

The short man, whose name was Ruben, watched the two men on the motorcycle ride off. He and his friend stared for just a moment as the bike hit the on-ramp then rocketed out of sight.

"Such a fine machine, that there," Ruben said.

Chuck looked over and gave him a gap-toothed smile. The rail-thin man tilted his head and lifted his shoulders.

"Yeah," Ruben said, pulling out his cell phone. He pressed the number three on the keypad and waited.

It took about seven rings, which made Ruben shake his head. These cowboy types and modern technology, he thought.

"What?" someone said when they finally picked up on the other end.

"Found your bike," Ruben said, smiling from ear to ear.

The person said, "Tell me."

Chapter Seven

As the stolen bike growled down I-10 heading into the city, the Atlanta skyline grew from the horizon like gray-black crystals glinting in the sun.

It had been the better part of a year since I'd been back in the city where I'd spent more than a decade. To say that I missed it would be an overstatement, but the familiarity of it did give me a warm feeling in my belly.

What didn't give me a warm feeling was remembering why I'd never ridden a motorcycle in Atlanta.

"Can't you go any faster?" the Actor barked over the in-helmet radio we'd picked up. I'd regretted that purchase within three minutes. "We're being lapped on both sides!"

I twisted the handle a little, and we sped up.

"We're already doing eighty, and this hell bike doesn't have a windscreen," I said. "I get hit by a Slurpee cup, and we're dead, man."

He was right though.

The posted speed here was sixty-five miles an hour, but even the crew who'd put up the sign all those years back must have laughed and laughed and laughed, taking selfies to post on social media.

No one did the speed limit in Atlanta.

The only way to not die was to match the pace of the other vehicles around us. But of course, on a packed interstate with cars going so fast, every accident led to a stomach-churning fatality.

Edging into the "slow" lane, I was rewarded with a long blare of a horn from the car we pulled ahead of. When I looked in the mirror, a woman wearing a smart gray blouse and a short blond bob in an Audi was giving me the finger. Yeah. I guess I did miss Atlanta.

From the interstate, I recognized the off-ramp for Buckhead, a very wealthy part of the city, and twisted my wrist a little to speed past it. Down that road somewhere was a drug dealer who wanted me to hand over a small fortune or die. Without the former, the latter was waiting for me.

A few miles up, I took the exit leading to my old friend's house, and in a few minutes, we were pulling up into his driveway.

Dan was loading a white van with three small cardboard boxes. The one on the top read "Study." Next to the vehicle was the detritus of household life—lamps, an ottoman, a set of shiny dumbbells.

Parking behind the van, I cut the engine and dropped the key in my pocket.

My friend took a half step back toward his house, his eyes locked on my tinted visor. When I pulled off my helmet, he hit me with a big grin.

"Rasputin!" he said. "Holy shit, I thought you were about to rob me. How are you, man?"

I'd met Dan many years earlier, when we were both in radio. He was still in and doing pretty well. I'd been out for a good while now. We were pretty inseparable for a while, but then he got married to Anza, and well, some people when they got married… I didn't see him much after that.

Out of habit, I still called him by the name he used on the air.

"Whaddya movin', Sideshow?"

He looked back at the house and smiled sadly. When he caught sight of the Actor climbing off the bike, he threw a small wave. I heard my copilot mumble something under his breath, obviously in one of his grumpier moods after riding bitch the last ten hours.

"Yeah," Dan said and sighed. "I got the morning slot on the hot AC station they just fired up in town. Flipped one of the Spanish stations."

"No shit?"

"It's an early wake-up but, you know, a bit more dough. So, I got a place in Midtown, closer to work."

It was hard to miss. He'd said "I" not "we." Instead of broaching the subject right away, I gave him a bit of grief, as people do with close friends.

"Hot AC, huh? You've always been a rock jock. Must be getting old, man."

He laughed. "Nah, there's just the one rocker left. And it's, you know, all Foghat and BTO."

I shrugged. "I like BTO."

"Rock radio's dead, brother."

Feigning a scowl, I said, "You know, I should kill you for saying that."

"It's true."

"So you're going all Joan Osborne and Jewel on me?"

Again, he laughed. He looked like he needed it. "Jewel? Man, how long has it been since you've been on the air?"

I propped my helmet up on the bike. The Actor pulled a long strand of sugar-coated candy from his vest and put one end in his mouth.

"Radio? Too long," I said. "And not long enough."

The Actor stared down like he was strangely interested in his own feet. He said, "Where's Anza?"

Dan's smile fell, and he sighed, nodding to the house. "Time for me to take a break anyhow," he said. "Why don't you guys come inside?"

The Actor poked me in the kidneys, and when I turned, his eyes were dancing around—a quick glance at Dan, a look at the house, back at the street. He spoke to me in a low voice. "Why do we have to go inside? Why can't we talk out here, Raz?"

"What difference does it make?"

"You said we need to be, you know, on the road. Let's get to it!"

Dan closed up the van and walked toward his front door. When I went to follow, the Actor, again, jammed a finger into my side.

"What, man?" I whispered.

"I don't like it here."

"These are called 'the suburbs,'" I said. "You'll live."

Inside, we sat down on Dan's couch as he rummaged through a cooler full of ice in the kitchen. His fridge was empty and open. A gray rag hung off the door.

The Actor scanned the room, looking like he'd mistakenly bitten into a lemon. I looked over at the table in the dining room and saw a collection of pizza boxes and empty Chinese food containers.

Dan returned and handed a dark bottle with a blue label to the Actor, who took it with a grunt.

"Thanks."

My old friend looked at me, an eyebrow cocked, and I nodded. He handed me a bottle and went back into the kitchen to get another.

When he returned, he sat down in a folding chair that he'd pulled out from amongst discarded boxes.

"Where's that amazing Barcalounger you had, man?" I asked. "Best chair in the world."

"When did you start drinking again?" he asked, ignoring my question and trying to smile.

I took a sip. "Temporary sobriety. It didn't take."

"You okay with that?"

"Yeah, I'm good."

He smiled, and his eyes closed for a moment. "Oh, you were always good with it."

"Until I wasn't," I said and reached over to clink his bottle. "I know, but I got a new plan with it."

"This should be good," Dan said, grinning. He looked at the Actor, but the smaller man wouldn't meet his gaze. "Let's hear it."

I feigned a sad face. "Not if you're going to mock my journey."

"Fuck your journey," he said. "I just don't want to be the one pulling you off people and getting clubbed in the process."

"One time."

"Five times," he said and laughed. "Maybe six."

I shrugged. "Might be seven." I took another sip and looked at the bottle, but before I could speak again, the Actor cut me off.

"Where's Anza?"

Dan stared at his own bottle for a moment. He then stood up and looked out the window of his living room.

"She left a few months ago," he said. "She's still, you know…"

"Illegal?" the Actor asked.

Dan shrugged. "All she was doing was filing paperwork, and she was nearly there. She just can't be here to, um, get here. Legally."

"You guys are okay?" I asked.

My friend slumped back into his chair, took another hit from his beer, and shrugged again.

The Actor asked, "Where did she go?"

"Back home," Dan said. "But to the east coast. She's in Cozumel. Teaching again, I think."

"You think?"

He tugged at the blue label. "Things haven't been so rosy the past little while. You know"—he looked at me—"since she got back from that thing with you."

"I’m sorry, Sideshow."

"What happened out there, Raz? I mean I know you went out there to save Cassie's life and all," he said, then his voice softened. "Sorry, man. I know she meant the world to you."

I nodded, my vision going a little out of focus. My wife had been dying in the hospital, far too young. When the doctors gave up, I'd gone to the crossroads, and my deal with the Devil meant finding an old lamp that could cure her.

It hadn't worked out that way. I'd only survived it because of the Actor, Uncle Jerry, and Dan's wife.

"When Anza got back, it was going to be perfect," Dan said. "We were hitting a cool stride, then even better, I got the new gig. Better dough, better appearance fees, endorsements. But she was different. Distant."

"It got that bad? All of a sudden?"

"Not right away, and I mean, she had to leave for the paperwork stuff…" he said, waving his hand in slow circles, staring out the window. He took a sip from his bottle. "She's coming back."

I looked over at the Actor, and he mouthed to me, Let's go. I shook my head once. My friend was really hurting.

"Anza started having dreams. Nightmares," Dan said. "She would never tell me about them, but it seemed every other night I'd get up to hit the head and find her out here sleeping on the couch."

The Actor sighed, but when he spoke, the edge of his voice was so sharp, I flinched. "It's because you're hideous man! Disgusting to look at," he said, and I shot him a scowl. "It's true."

"He's right." Dan looked at the Actor and nodded slowly. "So you can still see too? Anza told me about it when she got back. How some people, um, can look different."

It clicked. He was talking about the hell affiliated who were everywhere—not necessarily full-on baddies but people who were at various levels of service to the Downstairs. Sure, some knew it, like when I was sent on my task to the lamp. Others were, say, a porter at a hotel owned by shell companies owned by one of the two factions in hell: the Devil or Hell Inc.

The latter was the new blood, trying to unseat the old man. They'd only been around a half century, or so I was told. Mostly lawyers and accountants and corporate brand managers, etc. They wanted to run the Downstairs like a business and were fighting the Devil for control.

Those who were directly contracted with hell had a special "sight"—they could see those who were both contracted or merely affiliated. That was what it was like for me and my friends when I set out to save Cassie's life. Even those low-level affiliates looked like they were five-years dead—rotting skin, sunken eyes, blackened teeth.

I said, "But after it was all over, the contract was up. I didn't see 'them' anymore." I turned to the Actor. "Did that happen to you? Did you keep 'seeing' people like that?"

"No, went back to normal," he said and sipped his beer. "Until, you know… recently."

Dan looked at me, squinting. "Well, she never lost it, it seems. Some hangover from your little adventure." He set his bottle on the floor and crossed his arms. "She got distant, you know. Who could blame her? Every time she looked at me—"

"Gross," the Actor said. "Fleshy, nasty."

"Hold on, but—" I said then realized it. "Your new radio gig?"

Dan nodded. "Network is probably owned by someone down there."

I said, "Why didn't you just quit?"

"That's what I said!" He looked at his beer and took a sip so quick, I couldn't imagine there'd been anything in it. "But she said—she was always the smarter of the two of us—she said, 'But, Dan, this is good for us. Jus' needing to work some things out.' But within a few weeks, she was out the door."

My heart hurt—for one, to see one of my best friends so wrecked and to know that it was because of me, and two, Anza had helped me and was still paying for that nearly a year later. I felt sick.

"I can help her," I said.

"What can you do, Razzie? You're chaos incarnate."

I leaned forward and stared at my friend. "Sometimes, a little chaos is just what the world needs."

Chapter Eight

Sally stood outside the drab gray building and let out a long, wheezy breath.

The bus terminal looked almost exactly as it had when first constructed decades earlier. Against the backdrop of an array of Dallas's gleaming multistory structures, it appeared to shrink into itself, as if its slightly askew walls were a silent but earnest apology for simply being there.

Outside on a concrete bench, a man lay motionless, looking head-to-toe the exact same color of dirty gray as the bench—his shoes, socks, beard, skin, wool cap.

As the gunslinger slowly passed him, she wondered if he was even alive.

"If you're looking for a place to sit down," the sun-scorched old man said, eyes still closed, "my face ain't taken." He smiled then opened his eyes to a gleaming long-barrel pistol about six inches from his nose. "I… apologize."

Sally, who hadn't even broken stride, holstered the weapon and kept walking.

Inside was dark, damp, and echoing with the shuffling of paper and thin-soled shoes. A woman poking at her cell phone manned the dull steel counter. In front of her were a series of stanchions, each with a red rope, one strewn to the next. The effect was to create a cordon for wannabe passengers who would line up orderly, like cattle heading to slaughter. Or Memphis. Or Indianapolis. Or Seattle.

"Can I help you?" The woman looked up as Sally walked past the maze, straight to the front. There was no one else waiting.

"I'm seeking transport out east," Sally said and forced a small smile. The woman looked her up and down—cowboy hat, leather vest, chaps, long mane tied into a braid that looked more like rope than hair.

"I thought circus people took the train," the woman said, grinning, slowly putting her phone down. She leaned forward onto her elbows and looked down. "Are ya wearing spurs?"

Sally looked down, tapping at her own mobile. The red dot had been moving but now was stopped in Atlanta. "I need to head east."

"Where's your horse, cowgirl?" the woman asked and smiled. She tapped the counter. "I'm only kiddin' ya. I wish I could pull that outfit off, but I think every time I stood up, I'd end up peeing a little bit."

"I don't—"

"Just because," the woman said, her voice a bit lower, "ever since the kid, the last one, my bladder wall, ha, it ain't much of a wall anymore. More like the little fence they put around the playground at the mall. Toddlers can kick those right over."

"Ma'am…" Sally said then struggled to come up with the next word.

"I suppose, in some way, he did!" The woman burst into a pleasant cigarette-stained laugh. "All right then, lemme see."

Sally flinched as the woman grabbed her cell phone with one hand and pulled on a pair of reading glasses with the other.

"You going to Atlanta?" she asked, looking over the top of her glasses at Sally's device.

"No, I doubt they're… I need to head east."

"Hon, we don't got a bus that just goes east now," the woman said, chuckling. "You gotta pick a city." She handed back the phone and didn't seem to notice Sally snatch it from her hand. Nor did she notice that her customer's other hand was hovering precariously close to her hip.

"I'm sorta following that dot," Sally said, feeling her face redden.

"Well, Red Dot ain't any destination we send our coaches to, now! You ever been to Mobile? You know they had the very first Mardis Gras, not New Orleans like everybody thinks and like New Orleans likes to tell everybody?"

"Uh-huh."

"Nope," she said, raising her hands. "Mobile, Alabama. Funny 'cause the only thing left there that's French is the fries and the kissin'!"

Sally shifted her weight. She saw a man and woman with a small child come up behind her, notice the red rope maze, then retreat back to its beginning to wind through its path.

The woman whispered again, "Wait a minute. You're tracking somebody else's phone, ain't ya?"

"Yes."

"Is it a man?"

"Uh, yes."

Counter Woman crossed her arms. "He your boyfriend? Run off with another girl, maybe took all the cash in the house, gonna blow it on booze at some beachside bar?"

"Not… really," Sally said. "He's an egomaniacal B-level actor who's been conscripted to assimilate into the inner workings of a hell-affiliated social media empire to help fortify their campaign of world domination."

The woman blinked. "Was she a younger girl? Don't worry about it, sweetie. It never lasts," she said and sat back, tapping away at her computer. "You just gotta decide if you want him back, truth be told."

"I'm going to shoot him dead."

Shaking her head slowly, the woman pulled a piece of drying gum from the top of her monitor and popped it into her mouth. "Well, I expect he's got it coming," she said. "Most of them do. My daddy used to say 'some people just need shootin'.' Course, turns out somebody thought that about Daddy too." She plopped a ticket down on the counter and tapped it with a fingernail.

Briefly Sally's eyes locked on the tiny plastic jewel in the middle of the woman's nail polish.

"Now, this here's a ticket to Atlanta," she said. "They got World of Coke there. You get a free one at the end of the tour, any flavor you want."

Sally slowly grabbed the ticket then went to pull out her billfold and realized the little money she did have was still on the bike. Her eyes went wide, and again, her face flushed.

"Don't worry about all that, hon," the woman said, slipping her glasses off again. "I'm shift supervisor, so I gave you the heartache discount." She dropped her voice so the couple with the kid waiting in line couldn't hear. "Uh, that's a one-hundy percent discount."

Sally tipped her hat and smiled. "Much obliged."

"We ladies got to stick together." The woman smiled and offered a small wave. "Good luck." Her eyes briefly fell on the family that began to trot forward then a quick glance back at Sally. She frowned when she caught sight of the cowgirl's twin holsters on either hip. "Uh, are those…?" she started to say, but Sally just kept walking, staring down at the ticket.

"Ah hell," the woman said to herself. "Bastard probably got it coming."

Chapter Nine

Hood sighed, looking around his R&D room at the eager faces, each like some pimpled-faced baby bird looking to be fed by their momma.

Daily, a nasty mass of civilians would ebb and flow through the halls of the social media empire's main headquarters. However, that room—and several others—were never on the visitors' tour.

A handful of programmers poked at their keyboards.

One chewed a pencil so intently, he burrowed into the graphite. He looked up and smiled a gray-black grin. "Mr. Hood, sir!" he said, and the rest of his colleagues sat up a little straighter.

Someone near a whiteboard got up and became very interested in some code.

Yes, this, this was the brain center, the engine of his empire where the magic happened.

"How is it going in here, my little babies?" Hood asked and forced a smile to his lips. "Pushing for max MX?"

"Yes, yes," the pencil-toothed employee said and, unfortunately, smiled again. He caught the confused look on his boss's face. "Barclay, sir. Samuel Barclay."

Hood frowned. "Barclay. Is that Jewish?"

"Uh, Scottish, I think."

"Hmm. No drinking on the job, Barclay."

"What?" Barclay asked, still smiling, and blinked a few times. "No, no, sir. I don't—"

"Don't care," he said and lowered his voice. "No sign of the whereabouts of our employee-to-be, then?"

Barclay looked at his colleagues, who each had their eyes down, buried in their work. He shook his head, biting his lip.

"No matter," Hood said. "In three days' time, he will be compelled to arrive on our doorstep. He's under contract. Nothing can stop that."

"Yes, sir."

"Preparations have been made to update the interface, then? We'll need to integrate him immediately."

"Yes, sir," Barclay said then offered a twitching smile. "It's ready and waiting."

"Good, good," Hood said, stroking his long chin. "In the meantime, let me see your new behavioral algorithms."

The two walked over to a monitor that took up an entire wall.

"You're going to love this." Barclay swelled, beaming with pride. "This will cause misery on a global scale, ramp up the MX like nothing we've ever seen!"

"Really?" Hood crossed his arms. "More than those infectious pop nuggets our ginger guitar player churns out?"

"Oh yes." Barclay looked up at the massive liquid crystal display that appeared to prolapse under the weight of the hurricane of data. "Even better than Ed Sheeran, yes, sir."

Hood smiled to himself.

"Uh, you wanted to see more of the Level Four beta algorithms?" Barclay asked then added, "Sir?"

The CEO only nodded.

"Let's look at the B-category today," Barclay said. "We've got twelve hundred thirty-six B algorithms being tested, but let's look at the three most promising ones already in play," Barclay said, motioning Hood up to the center monitor opposite the whiteboard. "You can see where pilot users are being worked by the algorithm, and here"—he pointed to a secondary screen, just below—"this is how we're tracking their individual misery index, which of course, contributes to the whole."

"I know how it works," Hood grumbled. "I wrote the original code!"

Barclay swallowed his smile. "Yes, yes, sir! Of course, sir. We all know that." He swept a hand back toward the screen. "So, as you can, this one… it seems those on Betrayal version Beta 4.792 are responding well to the manipulation."

"How well?"

Barclay swallowed. "Which, by that, I mean they are increasingly miserable. We can, as you know, track that by assessing the mood of a user's postings. And, and, and, of course, their buying habits, whether in our marketplace or elsewhere online. Purchases for things like wine, whiskey, and chocolate turtles—comfort foods—spike at every new iteration of the algorithm."

Hood leaned in and scanned the numbers on the screen. He looked at one name, Tricia Watson of Dayton, Ohio, and saw a recent posting about how she and her husband were currently in a trial separation. On the site's messaging app, she'd revealed to a girlfriend that she'd stumbled upon a correspondence between her husband and an "old friend" recently.

A digital dotted line marched like virtual ants, linking the correspondence to a picture of a man's semi-erect penis.

Later that night, a second message—replete with uncharacteristic spelling errors—revealed that Tricia Watson of Dayton, Ohio, was thinking about sleeping with a coworker in her company's warehouse.

Another marching dotted line, this one strobing in green, pointed to a series of articles that had been pushed to the newsfeed of Tricia Watson of Dayton, Ohio, by the Betrayal algorithm. They all bore the same theme.

The first was an advice column, someone confessing how "Infidelity Saved My Marriage!"

The last one was a posting on Reddit entitled, "Sometimes, Ladies Just Need a Little Vitamin D."

Hood smiled. "Excellent. How long until you're out of beta?"

A couple of people at their computers cleared their throats. Barclay's eyes twitched, and he turned up his smile another hundred watts.

"Well, sure, we could take it out of beta now, but I feel it's… not yet ready. Our hit-miss rate not, you know, quite hitting the mark."

Hood eyeballed the screens to the left and right of the main one. In real time, the feed for Tricia Watson of Dayton, Ohio, showed she was currently trolling through a series of paid ads for breast enhancements.

Barclay stole a look at his watch then raised his hand in the air with a swiping motion. The heading on the next screen read Bitter 4.121.

"Oh, this is a favorite," the technician said. "We're able to determine individual prejudices, easy enough, and we pour digital petrol on the fires of individual users."

"Hmm."

A few more swipes to the lower quadrant brought up dozens of tiny feed boxes. Barclay pinched and spread his fingers to make boxes smaller and larger. "With Bitter, if we've got, say"—pinch, spread—"John Rogers of Maitland, Florida, who doesn't like the Chinese, he'll see posts and news items about, uh, a prominent breakfast cereal company purchased by Beijing. Articles from dodgy groups about dangerous China-made products flooding the US market."

"I get it." Hood nodded. "Ad for Jackie Chan movies and the like."

"No, no," Barclay said, shaking his head with a small smile. "Everyone loves Jackie Chan."

"Hmm," Hood said. "Agreed. He's like Charlie Chaplin and Bruce Lee rolled up and covered in ice cream sprinkles." Hood eyeballed his employee. "One of ours?"

"Oh, hell no. One of them."

"Them them?" Scowling, Hood crooked his arms and flapped his fingertips.

Barclay nodded, frowning.

"How many of our users are on this beta here?" Hood asked, squinting at the monitor. "Barren 4.82."

"Well," Barclay said, pointing to a vertical screen on an opposite wall. "This is a list of names, the top fifty or so, and next to them tracks how the algorithm is doing over time." Hood squinted, reading the tiny numbers, percentages of MX up and down. "The users on our social media platform are tracked, not just what they post, but where they go next. That's measured… on this column here."

"So, Barren 4.82 is working?"

"Oh yes," Barclay said. "Once we're able to identify those who are having trouble conceiving. The primary function of the algorithm is to drip feed them friends' posts of baby pics. Videos too. You can see there's a sweet spot around thirty-two percent."

"Thirty-two percent?"

"Right, so if just under one third of all the posts they see show happy couples cooing to their babies—baby in bath, baby taking first steps, baby spitting up naners—"

"Naners?"

"Bananas."

Hood made a rumbling noise. "Don't ever say 'naners' to me again. Ever."

Barclay nodded and continued. "The new programming correlates to a whopping four hundred forty-two percent increase in their individual MX!"

Hood put a curled hand to his mouth, trying to hide a smile. "Very good," he said, his mouth a flat line. "I want to see it at six hundred percent by the end of the week."

"But—"

"No buts!"

"Except baby butts!" The woman who'd been at the whiteboard put a fist in the air then slowly lowered it. "Just, you know, little chubby, dimpled, so cute. I mean…"

Hood scowled and headed for a door opposite where he'd come in. "How long before we can take some of these out of beta?"

A sigh from the technician. "Well, there are certain indicators that we've hit the mark."

Hood pressed his palm against a rectangular plate, which lit up briefly, appearing to show the bones inside his hand. Then the door slid open, revealing a very tiny room—an elevator for one.

"Indicators. Such as?"

"Well, like for any of our lifestyle algorithms," Barclay said with a shrug. "It's when any users start making purchases from Goop."

"Excellent!" Hood stepped into the elevator. Before the doors closed, he looked at the group, all dressed in their white lab coats, staring at him with wide eyes.

As the doors closed, he said, "Work harder. I'm going to see the big head later tonight, and I want to dazzle him. Hood out."

Chapter Ten

When I got nervous, I sweat. Not like a glistening perspiration or dewy kisses across my skin. More akin to some Midwestern engineer on a contract in Afghanistan, after my employer and government refused to pay the ransom, and my Taliban captors were sharpening blades and readying the video cameras. That kind of sweat.

"Señor, have you been swimming?" asked a man walking his dog as he passed us.

"High fever, a wicked case of crabs," the Actor said.

"I don't have crabs!" I shot back.

Standing in the shaded area of a Brownsville, Texas Mexican restaurant, we were searching for a way to get across the border. While inside minutes earlier, I'd confessed to the Actor that I didn't actually have a passport.

"How do you not have a passport?"

"I had one," I said. "When I was like ten or something, but it's not like I do a whole lot of international travel, man."

"Obviously."

"Sor-ry for not being a semifamous Hollywood half talent who gets flown around the world to get overpaid in exotic locations."

He frowned. "What do you mean semifamous?"

Inside, we'd noticed one person eating alone, a heavy guy wearing a dirty ball cap with the words "Muther Trucker" across its front. Once the Actor had gotten his two insanely large burritos, we'd waited outside for the big guy to leave.

If we were going to get down to Cozumel to find Anza, we couldn't go by plane with my aforementioned domesticated status. We had Sally's bike and needed that for the trip across Mexico but couldn't ride that over the border.

While we waited outside, the Actor chewed one tabby cat–sized burrito. The other, he'd stuffed into his pocket. "You know," the Actor said, mouth full of food. "If we could just track down that loser Uncle Jerry. He could fly us down."

Yeah, I hadn't told him our friend was dead. And in truth, I didn't want to. Not yet.

Despite the Actor's hard, crusty exterior, I knew he had a soft spot for Uncle Jerry. The old pilot had probably been one of the few who'd always been nice to the guy. Sure they squabbled, but they'd always done so like friends, or the Actor's version of friends.

Finally, the Muther Trucker guy slipped out of the restaurant. We'd spotted the big rig in the parking lot and, without many alternatives, decided that was an option.

"Hey, man," I said, trying to stop my voice from shaking. "Uh, which way you heading?"

It took a moment for the guy to realize I was talking to him. He cut his eyes toward me but kept walking. We followed.

"You going south?"

"No," he said, noticing a bit of meat on his shirt. He thumbed it and stuffed it in his mouth.

"Ah, well," I said, lowering my voice. "Can you go south? We're sort of looking for a lift."

He kept walking, so we trailed behind him.

Before I could speak again, he said, "I don't want to hear it."

"Okay, well… you see, my friend has a lot of money. He's a semi… er… he's a rather famous Actor, and he's willing to pay someone to give us a ride. Just across, you know, the border."

"Why don't you just walk? There's a line. You can see it—"

"Well, that's the trouble, see? My house burned down in a, um, a flood. So, all my stuff went with it."

"Explains why you're dressed like that, I suppose."

Nice. "And that includes my passport. So, rather than having to go through all that paperwork and all…"

He reached his cab and shuffled through his pockets. Finally, he came out with a set of keys. He had a lot of keys. "I should report you to the cops," he said and looked at us. "How stupid do you think I am?"

"Did I mention my friend has a lot of money?"

The guy wiped his face with the back of his hairy hand, shook his head, popped his door open, and hopped in the cab without a second glance.

"Nice," the Actor said.

"What? You were no help!"

"You don't start with 'can you help us commit a felony?' for Chrissakes. You gotta butter a guy up and come at him sideways."

"The dude was well buttered with all that taco grease. If you don't like the way I work, you do it."

The rig fired up, the engine growling to life. We watched as he expertly backed up the truck, coming within a foot of our motorcycle. He never slowed.

"Shit," I said as the guy pulled away.

Then the brake lights came on. I looked at the Actor then looked back at the truck.

Muther Trucker was staring at us in the long, vertical passenger-side mirror. He made no motion, just wore a blank expression.

I looked around and quickly walked up to the window, which lowered as I approached.

Stepping up onto the runner, I opened my mouth to try again, but he interrupted me. "I'll meet you two a few blocks down. There's a store there called 'The Good Life.'"

"Okay."

"And when you get there," he said and dropped the truck into gear, "buy a coffin."

* * *

"You think so little of me," I said, staring down at the long wooden box. The best part was that it had that 'new coffin smell' of freshly cut timber. But it all went downhill from there. "It's not even painted. No tiny pillow for my head. I'll probably get splinters."

The Actor frowned. "You're supposed to be dead, Raz! Who cares about splinters?"

The driver had told us his name was Simon, but obviously that was an alias for our covert operation. He was slowly backing his big rig down the small alleyway next to the store.

It was stupid, but I couldn't help feeling slighted.

"I just thought, you know, we were friends, man. This is what you would bury me in?"

"You're not being buried!" he whispered through his teeth. "You're being smuggled across the Mexican border in the back of a truck."

The lights of the truck glowed red as the vehicle came to a stop.

Simon had said our best chance of getting across would be for me to pose as remains returning to a loved one south of the border.

"I can't imagine anyone's going to buy that," I'd said.

"No one's going to look in the coffin," the truck driver said, his voice flat. "Despite being federales, a lot of these guys are pretty religious. Looking at a dead body gives them even more heebie-jeebies than normal folks."

I got the feeling Simon had done this before. "What am I supposed to do if they open it up?"

The Actor said, "Don't smile at them."

"You're supposed to be dead. Don't move and look dead." Simon turned to the Actor. "You got my money?"

The Actor had purchased a small urn after he'd gone to the bank down the street. Inside, he'd stuffed a series of twenties, tens, and fives to make it look as full as possible. Even with the small denominations, it had to be thousands of dollars.

He handed over the urn, and Simon popped it open, looked inside, and capped it again. He headed back up to the cab without another word.

A few minutes later, we were on the move again.

So, the interior of the coffin was dark. That shouldn't come as news to anyone, certainly, but it was really, really dark, certainly no place for the living. They should be reserved for the recently dead and the sort who worried about wooden stakes being shoved through their old-timey waistcoats.

I must have been there for the better part of an hour. It felt like longer. Every five or ten minutes, the big rig's engine would roar, and we would move a few more feet. My head swam from the diesel fumes, which made me nauseous. And it was hot. And humid.

I thought about Cassie, my wife, who, despite her illness, had always been unwaveringly positive. I wondered what she would say to me if she saw me then, lying in a cheap coffin, pretending to be dead in the back of a stranger's eighteen-wheeler to sneak across the Mexican border.

"You shouldn't be so negative. You can make any situation better," she says to me. "There are good things in life. You should celebrate them."

"I like being cranky," I say, looking at her over the picnic blanket we'd laid in our backyard. Going any farther from our property tires her out. "And I don't see so much good in the world, I guess."

"There's your wife," she says, lying back on the blanket, "on a warm, sunny day in a summer dress."

"Yeah. Yeah, that's not so bad."

"Or there's your wife on a warm, sunny day without a summer dress."

I smile. "I think you've laid in the potato salad."

She throws something small and purple at me.

I let it hit me. "Don't do that, Cassie," I say in mock horror. "I don't really trust radishes."

"That's the silliest thing you've said all day," she says with a half smile. "And there's a long list."

"Are they tiny onions? Oversized garlic? They trouble me."

She leans forward, kisses me on the neck, and puts her head in my lap, smiling up at the sun. "Sometimes, when you're sad inside, you just need to get happy on the outside and, I don't know, let it sink in."

"'Kay," I say. "What outside part on me would you like to make happy first? I have a suggestion. Can I offer you a suggestion? It's a good suggestion—at least good for me, unless you've just eaten a handful of radishes, of course."

She turns over, puts her elbows on my thighs, and kisses me. "Lips are always a good place to start, Razzie," she says and stares into my eyes.

The world around us falls away, and I feel better.

"What happens when I'm sad, and you're not around?" I reach for her, and she fades from me, disappearing in my grasp.

She says, "Lips are always a good place to start. Use your lips."

* * *

Simon dropped his rig into low gear, moving his feet on the floor like he was slowly stomping on ants. The Actor could just see over the dashboard and could feel his heart rabbiting. He took a deep breath and blew it out his nose.

"Don't act so nervous," the truck driver said.

"I am an actor, of course."

A grunt.

The Actor said, "Maybe I won't tell you how to drive, and you don't tell me how to act."

Another grunt.

At the check point, the driver nodded a hello to the border guard and handed over his manifest.

The man in the black baseball cap and dark shades flipped through the paperwork. "Says you just crossed south to north two hours ago." The guard looked up at the cab. "You forget something back at the truck stop?"

"Yeah," Simon said with a big grin. "Your mom had asked me to wake her before I left. Slipped my mind."

"Christ," the Actor mumbled. "It isn't enough to be subjected to the wafting bouquet of sweat and dollar-store aftershave, I have to listen to momma jokes too? This ain't worth it."

The border guard scrunched up his face. "Who's that?"

"Just giving my pal a lift to see some family. No biggie."

They were instructed to hand over their passports and did so.

The guard looked between the documents and each man, looking at the Actor twice. A question momentarily formed on his lips but never quite bubbled to the surface. Dropping back on one foot from the side of the cab, he looked at the long rectangular cargo container. "You pick anything up that I need to know about?"

"Not really," Simon said, removing his cap for a moment and scratching his head. "Just a body."

The Actor made a small noise.

The guard asked, "A body?"

"Dead body."

"What… what is that all about?" Before the driver could answer, the guard added, "You can't take a body across the border. Where's your paperwork for it?"

"Don't really have any," Simon said in a stage whisper. "I was hoping we could all just keep it amongst ourselves."

"That… that is highly irregular, señor. I don't think—"

"Listen," Simon said. "His brother died up in Houston looking for work. Beat up and left in a ditch by some big ropers who were looking for a laugh, I guess."

The Actor looked at the guard then at Simon then back to the guard.

He put on a glum face, and his eyes watered. He half turned away then slowly nodded… secretly hoping the motion would make a tear fall.

The border guard said, "But… how am I supposed to okay—"

"You see"—Simon leaned forward, his voice lower—"he wasn't technically supposed to be there." When the guard didn't get it, he added, "In the country. So any investigation…" The truck driver let the words hang in the air.

"I see," the guard said, and his face fell.

Simon said, "You got it. We're just trying to get the boy back to his momma, is all."

The Actor called out, affecting a slight accent, "Oh, mi madre!"

The guard leaned into the window slightly and spoke low to the grieving brother. "¿No quieres ver pagar al asesino de tu hermano?"

The Actor shook his head slightly. Fucking tear, fall! He shrugged and repeated through sobs, "Mi madre… mi madre…"

The guard nodded sadly and pulled back out of the cab.

He looked toward the small building then back at the two men in the cab. Slowly, he walked toward where another guard was talking to a family in a station wagon filled with clothing.

"Shit," Simon mumbled.

The Actor whispered, "Why did you tell him there's a body back there?"

"Because if he'd checked and I hadn't, we would've been cooked. The best lie is merely a version of the truth that suits."

"Poetic. Who said that, Robert Frost?"

Eyes still on the guards, the truck driver said, "My divorce lawyer."

They watched out the cab window as the station wagon pulled away and the two guards moved toward each other. Then the man they'd spoken to turned back, locked eyes with the Actor just over the dash, and sighed.

He waved them forward, and when they got to the gate, he handed back the manifest.

Nodding to someone behind the glass, he said to the two men, "Ve con Dios."

Once he'd stepped back from the cab, Simon let out a huge breath and dropped the truck into gear, and they began rolling forward.

The Actor shivered. "Jesus, you're good. Nice, Simon."

"Thought you were going to cry for a moment. That was amaz—"

They then heard a banging on the side of their truck, sending both of their hearts into their throats.

The guard returned, put a foot up on the step at the cab's door, and frowned.

"Pull over into that lot there."

Simon shrugged. "I thought we were cool."

"You were," he said and spoke briefly into a radio on his shoulder. He nodded to the Actor. "That was before his dead brother started whistling."

* * *

It was odd because a few moments before, it had seemed like the truck was raring up in full, um, raring mode. For the first time in the half hour inside the box inside the bigger box, I'd heard the rig drop into second gear. Then there was a banging outside, and it all stopped.

I stopped whistling. “Using my lips” had made me feel better. I didn’t feel better anymore.

After that, the truck crept along and turned, then stopped again. Did we make it through? Are we in Mexico?

I sighed, thinking about getting out and breathing fresh air again.

For the last fifteen minutes, I'd been fighting a gas bubble trying to escape my lower regions, but locked in a coffin, sweating and roasting, I didn't want to subject myself to that for the next fifty miles.

Waiting, sweating, I listened, and for a few minutes there was nothing. Then there were voices. Do they sound angry or is that my overactive and delirious imagination?

I heard the grating of metal on metal, and my chest felt like it would burst. The back door to the truck was opening.

* * *

Simon was protesting. "Come on, you would have heard all the metal tubing in here rubbing against itself. Sounds a lot like whistling or babies crying or old ladies nagging."

"Obviously, you have very active tubing, señor," the guard said. "But I heard whistling."

"It can't be," Simon said, laughing. "It's the tubing!"

"Then your tubing sounds like a Beatles song," the federale said and hopped up into the rear of the truck. He caught sight of the long wooden box. "Señor, you must not like your brother very much to put him into such a coffin."

Simon put a hand up to the Actor. "He comes from a poor family, sir. That's why his brother—"

"His brother, his brother," the man said then looked at the Actor. "¿Es este un juego que estás intentando?"

The Actor's mouth fell open, but no words came out. At that moment, his heart felt like it had moved, blocking all sound and breath. He bent forward and covered his face.

"Why isn't he answering me?"

Simon smiled and raised his hands calmly. "I can explain."

The guard bent down on one knee and gripped the Actor's shoulder. "¿Que esta pasando aqui?"

The Actor looked up and mumbled, "Mi madre." He was trying not to vomit.

"Ha, do you even know any other Español?" the man asked and was again met with a blank stare.

The Actor dug into his brain trying to find another word. Cerveza? El baño? However, asking for a beer and the toilet didn't feel like the appropriate response. He opened his mouth and trusted his instincts. However, his instincts were shitting themselves, and again, nothing came out.

"Señor, you will have to come w—"

"Sir," Simon said. "Have some compassion, please."

"Enough of this fool—"

"He can't answer you…" Simon spread his arms wide, cleared his throat, then added: "Because he can't hear you."

The guard stood again and looked from the Actor to the truck driver. "What does that mean, he can't hear me?"

"Our friend here is deaf. Sordo, si? He lost his ability to hear as a small child and now lives in a world of silence."

The Actor's eyes grew large, and again, he tried to come up with some response to help his quick-thinking partner. He drew a blank and went for his go-to, burying his face in his hands. He wailed, "Mi madre."

The guard lifted an eyebrow.

"How is it he knows this word then? If he's deaf."

"As I said, sir, he lost his hearing as a child. That is the only phrase… he ever learned."

The man in the black baseball cap slowly pulled off his sunglasses, and when the Actor looked up, he swore it looked like the guy had briefly rubbed his eyes.

"Okay, both of you," he said and pointed at the coffin. "Up in here now."

The Actor looked toward Simon, who did a complex hand motion then pointed up into the truck. The small man gave a theatrical "Oh!" face then accepted a boost from the big man.

The two of them scrunched up next to the border guard, fitting into a small space unable to properly accommodate three people, especially when one of those people was as big as two people.

"Open it," the man in black said, and the Actor hesitated.

Simon pointed to the coffin and made an opening motion with his hand. The Actor looked at the coffin then back at the man in black. He shook his head. The truck driver frowned and made the motion again. Again he shook his head.

The Actor knew the moment the police officer saw a very live Raz in the coffin, they were all going straight to jail, and maybe not an American one. A Mexican jail. He'd seen films about Mexican jails, and the thought filled him with dread. The Actor eyeballed the path behind the truck and saw a line of cars for a quarter mile. He wondered if he could outrun the Mexican authorities, make a break for it.

The truck driver put a hand on his shoulder and squeezed a little too hard. Again, he pointed at the coffin.

The Actor sucked in a deep breath, looking to buy another moment. Then he crossed himself. In the dim light of the truck's interior, he opened the coffin. A strange, thin white mist rose from inside.

The boarder guard said, "Mi madre." He made the motion of taking a step back, but in the confined space, he didn't actually retreat.

The Actor almost turned at the sound of the man's voice then caught himself. Fuck, I'm supposed to be deaf. Just keep going. He stepped forward and reached for the casket.

"Did you see that?" the guard asked the fat man in overalls. "It was like his skin… like a spirit lifted from his body."

Simon grunted and said, "It's dusty in here, I expect." Then he thought up a better response. "Of course, the dead should never be disturbed from their rest." The truck driver swallowed hard and added, "He looks… so peaceful."

However, that was not how the other two men would have described it. The man in the coffin looked sweaty and a bit dirty and wore an expression that seemed to convey the corpse was about to vomit something large and meaty. Raz lay with one eye open, his face twisted in a grimace, his teeth partially bared.

If someone had said to the mortician, "I want my dear brother to look like a mad badger one second before it realized it was about to be run over by a minivan full of soccer hooligans," it appeared as Raz did now.

The guard crossed himself. "Why does he… look like that?"

The Actor sighed, but his face was a mix of fear, panic, and rage. Thankfully he had his back turned toward the others, so the only one who could see his expression was Raz with his one open eye.

"Ah," Simon said. "He didn't die well, sir. What with the measles and all."

"Measles?"

"Yeah, poor man. Got it working at some berry farm, they reckon."

"Jesus."

"But we all thought it was either that," Simon said and removed his hat, putting it on his chest, "or the syphilis that got him. That's why his, uh, face is twisted like that. Very painful. Makes you insane too. They say that's what drove Hitler mad, you know."

The guard stared then looked at the truck driver. "I thought you said he was attacked, beaten to death."

"Such an unfair world," the truck driver said. "However, one of his attackers is now in the hospital, so, payback."

The guard couldn't help but allow himself a small smile. "So, your amigo, he fought back?"

"Oh, he tried," Simon said. "But it seems the thug might have picked up scabies from ol' Jose here."

"Scabies?"

"As I said, sir, the boy had a tough go of it."

"Wait, this doesn't explain the whistling I heard," the guard said, momentarily broken from his light trance. "How is it—"

A ripping sound erupted from the corpse, and the Actor reeled back. He shouted, "Mi madre!"

The smell hit the other two men, and all three leapt from the back of the truck.

Standing on the hot pavement, steam rising from the blacktop, the border guard's face slowly slackened. He looked at the Actor then quickly spun away. He stared at the sky for a moment, muttered something under his breath, then said, "Fine. Go. Take this man's scabies-measles brother and get going."

The guard watched as the two men closed up the truck, solemnly walked up to the cab, got in, and slowly drove away. As the big rig waited for the gate to open, he looked around. He then crossed himself and went to the next vehicle—a minivan with a small dent in its fender.

Chapter Eleven

After the truck started up again, we were on the road for about another fifteen minutes.

The sound of the highway beneath the wheels of the truck was actually a bit soothing, and moving at speed, it was marginally cooler in the back of the rig.

We stopped at the first sign of a town, called El Galaneño, and once again, the door opened.

I had already kicked open the lid of the coffin and was struggling to get out. By the time I did get free, I had splinters in both hands.

When I dropped outside next to Simon, dust rose up around me like a ghost.

"Where's the Actor?"

The truck driver threw a nod to his left. "Hamburger stand."

"Hamburger?" I asked, stretched, and tried to crack my back. "We just ate, and he's got a damn monster burrito in his pocket."

He grunted.

As the trucker pulled out a ramp, I eyed Sally's motorcycle. It would be much harder to get out than it had been to get in. The bike didn't have a reverse gear, so I would have to slide back. Obviously, given the grade of the ramp, I would fall off at the bottom.

I hopped back inside.

As I slid the skull key in, I turned to him. "Hey, man, you're really fast on your feet."

Grunt, grunt.

"Seriously," I said, straddling the bike. "I heard you with the cop. You had an answer for everything. Weird answers, but they just… worked."

He shrugged. "I used to be a pretty good attorney. Long time ago. Another life."

"And you left a six-figure job for truck driving?"

"I make decent dough driving a truck. I'm my own boss and work my own schedule. I don't have to deal with scumbags," he said and took a few steps back, watching me ease the bike to the lip of the cabin. "Well, not usually."

Once my back tire hit the ramp, I shot out and braced for my inevitable fall. But when I hit the dusty blacktop, the bike suddenly swerved into an arch, skidded, then stopped. I hadn't fallen off. In fact, I was facing south, pointing toward our destination.

Somewhere along the ramp, the bike had started up. On its own.

"You're pretty good on that thing," Simon said and let out a low whistle.

Shrugging, I just shook my head and smiled. Must have been my instincts, reflexes taking over in a brief moment of low-boil danger. I didn't say it, but I'd even impressed myself.

The Actor came out with a couple of bottles of soda and a tiny pink backpack with a cartoon on its face that looked like a character called Dora. He took a swig, recapped his bottle, and stuffed it inside.

We said our goodbyes to Simon and watched him drive away.

I said, "Let's go find Anza."

* * *

Without needing to fill up, we never had to pull in for gas. The only times we did stop were when the Actor started punching me in the back. Once the punching started bruising, I would pull over, and we would walk around to feel our legs again. My friend would spend most of that time reflecting on how all the time on the back of the bike would mean he wouldn't likely ever have children. I didn't say it, but I felt that would be better for humanity in general.

Halfway to Cozumel, we hit a T in the road. The sun had nearly clocked out and was slowly dipping below the horizon, so I pointed to a convenience store that was strapped to what was left of a motel. The sign said Vacancy.

With no restaurants or cafes in sight, we grabbed a couple of bags of chips and some sodas, and the Actor dropped them into his little Dora backpack.

Hanging next to the register on little metal pegs all down the counter were devices that ranged from useless to pointless. What they all had in common was that the heat had warped their cardboard and cheap plastic packaging over the years, or in some cases, I was sure, decades.

Hanging there, waiting for someone to find this or that trinket useful, all those devices without a home hit me with a bone-deep sadness. The only thing that lightened it hung on one of the drooping hooks—a cartoon depiction of a crack-addled clown presenting something called a "Laff Bag," a small gray-purple sack emblazoned with the faded words Ha! Ha! Ha!

My mind raced trying to work out what could be in the bag. However, all the options I came up were more horrible than funny.

"I need a vacation," I said.

"The vacation suite is booked," a woman behind the counter croaked, and I nearly jumped out of my skin. I hadn't seen her there. She'd been hidden by fifty years of unwanted trinkets.

When we asked about a room, she went to a wall behind the counter with a row of six hooks.

She grabbed one of the five keys hanging there and threw it down. "Sixteen hundred."

The Actor said, "Dollars? Christ, whaddya think you're running the Ritz here?"

I reached into my friend's pocket for a couple of the bills he'd stuffed in there and came out with a thick wad of napkins. Then I realized it wasn't all napkins. "Gross, you still have this burrito? It's twelve hours old, man."

He snatched it back and stuffed it into his black hoodie. "Still good. Beans never go bad."

The woman at the counter said, "That is not true." She sighed. "Eighty-five. Dollars."

When the Actor started to protest, I flicked his ear. He snapped one hand up to the side of his head. With the other, he dug into his pocket, pulled out a couple fifties, and threw them on the counter.

She looked at him sideways as she punched some numbers into an ancient till. When the drawer popped open, she handed over his change and a key looped to an orange slice of plastic with a three on it.

"It must pay well," she said with a tiny grin, "to kill all of your family."

"What?" I asked.

"That kind of greed, lust for power, and now, you have nothing but your crown."

The Actor raised his eyebrows and nodded as he stuffed the bills away. "They didn't actually let me keep the crown. I think they're doing a Princess Diaries remake."

The woman pulled out a small rectangle of paper and a weathered leather sack from her apron. She dropped some tobacco into the crease and began twisting it in her fingers.

"You were still my favorite, though."

"Oh?" He brightened. "Thanks for that."

"But," she added, "I liked you better in the train movie."

I told her thanks, and we walked back outside, leaving the lights of the small store behind. It was crazy dark outside. A single light burned brightly on a very tall telephone pole by the street. Next to the store on one side was a small, low home with stucco walls.

There appeared to be no one home, but after my eyes adjusted for a few seconds, I could see a light flickering inside.

The roof looked like the mop-top hair of some eight-year-old boy who'd only had bowl cuts his entire life—grass or thatch, if there was a difference. On one edge of the roof, poking out of the straw, was a small gray satellite dish.

The Actor's feet shuffled across the gravel lot. I turned and followed him around the other side of the store.

There were two floors of rooms, three on top, three on the bottom. There were no lights on that side of the building, and we both strained to see the room numbers. The Actor headed for the door that was adorned with a three, which had lost one of its screws and hung upside down.

Glancing over at a set of concrete stairs, I put my hand on his shoulder and nodded to the second floor.

"What?"

"You've never spent the night in a dodgy motel, have you?"

He bristled. "I'm famous, Raz. My kind of people don't have to sleep in dodgy motels." Then he nodded slowly. "But there was a time… a long while ago."

"Well, I've spent a lot of time in crappy motels."

"Sure, a young man's gotta make a living."

I lifted my hand into a pre-flick gesture, and he covered his ears, moving toward the stairs.

As we climbed, I explained, "I'm sure this is a fine place, but in a flop like this, you always check in to one room and sleep in another."

"Get out. Really?"

"Yeah, there aren't a lot of people around. It only takes some asshole to roll in here, take a look at that row of keys, and realize some dolt is snoozing in room three. Then you get rolled."

"Rolled?" he asked, reaching the second floor.

"Yeah, you wake up the next day, and your wallet's gone. Or your kidney."

He tried the first door, room four, but the door was locked. "I don't think the kidney thing is a thing."

"It is a thing!"

"Urban legend," the Actor said and tried the knob on the next room. He opened the door and peered in. "Smells like cigarettes."

Inside, a dark figure in the bed sat up with a start and the pulled covers up, bundling the fabric in front of them. A man's thin voice shouted, "Stay away from my kidney!"

"Sorry!" I said and pulled the door closed again.

We moved to the last door on the floor, room six.

The Actor slowly tried the door, and it opened. We waited on the threshold for a few moments then went inside, closing the door behind us. When I clicked on the light, I saw, thankfully, there were two single beds.

My friend threw his little Dora backpack on the bed closest to the window and headed for the bathroom.

Locking the room’s door, I called out, "Don't do anything in there that'll make us have to find another room, 'kay?"

He snorted and closed the bathroom door.

I threw my wallet onto the nightstand next to the other bed then thought better of it. I tucked it under the mattress.

The television looked like something out of the nineties, large and bulky. Still, it was locked down with a small silver keyhole at the bottom. I wondered how the owners thought a mere mortal could lift the TV out of the room even if it weren't locked down.

"Must've brought this thing through the window, on a crane."

"Huh?" I heard a voice through the bathroom door then a long grunt. It would be a while before I would want to go in there.

"Nothing."

I flicked through the television channels. They carried the major US networks and a few in Spanish. Nothing on. I clicked it off again and tried the clock radio. The only thing that came out of the small speaker was a series of numbers.

"Seventeen, twenty-four, thirty-five, ninety-six, seventy-seven…"

I remembered hearing the very same thing on the radio the last time I'd been in Mexico. I still had no idea what they were for. Spinning the small dial, I found a station playing some old rock from the seventies.

"That'll do."

The bed was made out of rusty springs and broken dreams. Still, after a very long day on Sally's motorcycle, it was an improvement.

In the single drawer of the nightstand were a small collection of dog-eared novels—Agatha Christie, Brad Meltzer, Lee Child, and a couple with Spanish titles I didn't recognize. I slid it closed again.

The Actor emerged from the bathroom wearing a thin yellow robe.

"That reminds me of the last time we were on a little adventure."

He frowned. "That one was purchased from a shop in Melbourne. Plush and fluffy and warm. This one feels like I've knocked down an old woman and stolen her housecoat."

"At least it's not pink."

"It was red," the Actor said and plopped down on his bed. "With far fewer shit stains, as far as I remember."

More than anything, I wanted to sleep, but I'd avoided the conversation long enough and felt I had to clear the air. First, we needed to get an idea about what the next day would look like. "We've got about twelve hours before we reach Cozumel," I said. "Once we find Anza, we'll work out what to do about your contract."

He shifted for a few moments under his covers. "You think she'll be happy to see us?"

"I hope so. I mean, we're old friends, right?"

"Except that your little adventure may have cost her her marriage," he said. "She might not want to see hide nor hair of you, brother."

I hadn't thought of that. "Hey, I wanted to mention something."

The Actor groaned. "I always hate when someone says they're going to say something. It's never anything good."

"Just listen. You know how we were talking about Uncle Jerry a bit earlier?"

"Yeah?"

"Well," I said and tried to find the right words. I didn't, so I just blurted it out. "He's dead."

The Actor sat up in his bed. "What? What's that supposed to mean?"

"It, um, I mean… I thought that was pretty clear."

"No, Raz," he said. "What… I mean, how do you know that?"

"Before Enrique threatened my life, he told me that he'd killed Uncle Jerry. Something over his plane, I expect."

He sighed. "Or just, you know, just being Uncle Jerry." He was quiet for a few minutes then added, "Fucker was always trouble anyhow. Finally caught up to him, I guess."

I looked over and tried to get a read on the Actor's face but got nothing. "I'm sorry, man," I said. "I should have said something earlier."

"Do you know how?"

I shook my head. "But if Enrique was involved, it wouldn't have been, you know, pleasant."

"Jesus, thanks for that."

I didn't know what else to say. He just stared across the room for a long while, and I closed my eyes, trying to drift off. I briefly came out of my doze when he clicked off his light, and I watched as he shuffled low under his covers. It was hard to tell in the dark, but it looked like his shoulders were shaking slightly.

We both slept, tired from the road.

Hours later, when I saw the dawn just begin to peek through the blinds, I realized I hadn't really slept much at all. I then spent the next half hour drifting in and out of sleep.

It was only when I heard the roar of motorcycles outside that I came fully awake.

Chapter Twelve

"Who the fuck is that?"

The Actor stood next to me as we peered out a slit in the stained curtains. Outside, there were about a dozen motorcycles, all parked in the store's lot. They looked big, mean, and powerful. So did the guys getting off of them. We watched as they came together in a haphazard circle, chatting away and pointing in various directions.

"Maybe, you know, they're on vacation or something. A holiday," the Actor said, his voice shaking. "Going to see the pyramids or something."

When one of the men pulled off his helmet and goggles, my heart skipped a beat. I recognized him. "Shit, that's the guy from the rest stop."

The Actor leaned forward, pressing his nose against the glass. "No."

"Yeah, I recognize that shitty goatee. I bet his skinny buddy is in that group too."

He pulled back from the window. Where he'd leaned in, there was a tiny clear spot on the glass. "Then… who are all those other guys?"

I shrugged and looked back into our room. The lights were off, thankfully. The sun wasn't yet fully up, and if they had been on, our room would have been target number one.

The Actor said, "Why are they here? Did you say something that pissed them off at the rest stop?"

"Me?"

We watched a few moments more, and the guy with the goatee walked over to Sally's motorcycle. He rubbed his chin for a moment then did something no man or woman should ever do. He sat on our bike.

"These are bad people," the Actor said.

Of course, we had stolen the motorcycle from Sally, but we’d been running for our lives from a homicidal devil-contracted gunslinger. Totally okay.

Below, the other bikers circled around Goatee. Eight large men, two big women, and one that was just too hard to tell because of their wide-brimmed oil-black hat.

"It seems very impractical to be riding a motorcycle in that hat. No protection and the thing would fly off—"

Laughter bubbled up from below as Goatee clapped his hands together and gripped the handlebars of our motorcycle.

"You should go down there," the Actor said, standing there, still in the threadbare yellow bathrobe. "That's totally uncool. Stake your claim. Be a man."

"What about you?"

"I'll be up here packing so we can get back on the road."

"Packing? Everything you've got is inside a Dora the Explorer backpack. What packing?"

"Look," the Actor said and pressed his nose against the glass again.

The group was walking into the convenience store below. I wasn't sure if the woman at the desk would give us up easily, but it would take just one look at the keys hanging behind her to know we were in one of two rooms.

"We gotta get out of here," I said.

"And go where? We can't run out there!"

"Well, we can't stay here!" I said and turned toward the back wall of the room and hurried over.

Out the window was a clear path. The only thing I could see from there was the neighboring house with the thatch roof and satellite dish. Below was hard-packed dirt. Dust had risen and was creating eddies in the wind.

The Actor turned from his perch at the front window.

"I have an idea," I said. "Grab all those blankets."

He did as I said, and I wrenched the window open. It took a few tries because time and grit had nearly welded the thing shut. I pushed harder as it caught halfway up, and it finally came open with a long screech.

"Can you be quiet?"

I turned and saw a massive pile of blankets shaking angrily, and I flattened myself against the wall. Then I realized the Actor was underneath it.

He dropped them on the floor and reappeared. Then he looked out the window and down. "Christ, that's got to be fifteen, twenty feet!"

I smiled and said, "Watch."

Bundling up all the blankets, I pressed them out the window and eyed my target below.

"Wait, you want us to jump?"

Grunting, I told him to help me, and we began pushing the mass farther and farther out the window.

He said, "Raz, no way! We'll break our legs."

"You got a better idea? Besides, you're hell contracted. It won't kill you."

"I can still break my legs!"

"That's fine. If you go down first, I can just land on top of you after you hit the blankets."

The Actor started to protest, but then we heard one of the doors below bang against its hinges. The bikers had found room three.

We heard angry shouting below.

"Fuck it," I said, and holding the blankets expertly above a spot just below us, I found my mark, aimed, and let the blankets go.

They flitted down for a moment, then caught by the wind, they all blew, fluttering, somewhere behind the motel and out of sight.

I said, "Huh."

The Actor looked down and saw only the hard-packed dirt below. He scowled. "Any other ideas?"

I heard footfalls on the stairs. "Goddamn it. Look for a weapon or something."

"A weapon? We're in a shitty Mexican motel, not an armory."

I raced back toward the bed and grabbed the lamp, but it didn't move. "Bolted to the desk."

The end table was also secured to the floor and, impressively, even the clock radio had a chain on the back of it I couldn't break.

The Actor's eyes followed me as I went to the front of the room. Down the hall, there were a succession of bang, bang, bangs and more shouting.

"Shit, they're coming," I muttered and backed away from the door.

Then my friend pulled something out of his pocket and looked back outside at the house next door. "Wait, I can create a distraction," he said and leaned up on his tiptoes to get a better view of the home with the thatched room.

I came over, looking over my shoulder as I did. "What? What do you—"

"If I can knock that satellite dish over, it'll come down with a crash. They'll follow the noise."

We were out of options, so I shook my head quickly then nodded.

The Actor arched his arm back, taking a few quick practice throws.

"Hurry up, man!" I said. He ignored me, closing one eye and concentrating. "Are you a good shot, even?"

He laughed. "I got spear-chucking training for my show. In fact, I killed the dragon prince with one shot of a pointy stick from atop my castle."

My eyes back on the door, I said, "You live in a very weird world, man."

The Actor took a half step back then counted down, cocking his arm each time. "Three… two…"

Next door, we heard someone cry out, "Don't take my kidney!"

"Three!"

The Actor put all his strength into the throw, and he missed the dish entirely.

* * *

Colin, a short man with a trim mustache, shouted from a room on the bottom floor, "They ain't in here!"

The man in the oil-black hat glanced around at his crew searching the rooms. One came out with a handful of paperbacks under his arm.

"Check with the others upstairs," he barked. "The bike's here, they're here."

A tall man sidled up next to him and shook his head, then shrugged.

Someone above shouted about kidneys. A moment later, there was a crash of glass.

* * *

I had flattened myself against the bathroom door, armed with a plastic back scrubber with sad little bristles that had seen far better days. Looking at the door across the room, I raised the scrubber above my head, waiting to strike—or scrub the small of some attacker's back.

"I thought you were a good shot," I said as the Actor simply stared across the side lot at the tiny home, now with a broken window.

"It… the wind. It got away from me."

"For fuc—"

"Look!" The Actor stepped closer to the window. Down below, leather-clad bikers were streaming into the sprawling home with the thatched roof.

We stared for a second longer, and I saw our chance.

"Let's go."

"What?" The Actor asked, slinking into the darkness again. "Go out there?"

I ran for the door and flung it open with the Actor close behind me. We glanced into the room next door, where our neighbor was cowering under a pile of blankets on the floor.

The Actor whispered, "He's fine. Go, if we're going to go!"

We raced down the stairs, catching sight of the three doors on bottom floor. They'd each been kicked in and were hanging off their hinges. In the lot, a dozen black-and-silver motorcycles waited for their riders to return.

The Actor beelined for Sally's motorcycle.

I began to follow but then looked at the front door of the store and made a quick turn, my mouth as dry as the dust under my feet. Looking inside, I saw no trace of the old woman who I'd last seen smoking her rolled-up cigarette. "No," I whispered. "Jesus." Walking toward the counter, I heard the Actor call for me but ignored him. "Hello?"

There was no answer.

I couldn't see blood anywhere and, for a moment, held out hope that she hadn't been hurt. "Are you okay? It's… um… room three. I just want—"

"Si, si," a voice came from under the counter. Slowly the woman peeked above the register. "Men are looking for you!"

"I know," I said and nearly cried with joy. "I just wanted to be sure, you know, you were all right."

"Loco," she said then held up the receiver of a telephone and pointed to it. "Go, go. Policía, they are coming."

"Okay!" I shouted, and just as I turned to run, I saw the package with clown Ha! Ha! Ha! and succumbed to a sudden urge to punch it. It tumbled to the floor. I hesitated for a moment then grabbed it and stuffed it in my coat and ran back out. "I'm sorry about the trouble!"

I tore across the lot, then out of the corner of my eye, I saw him. He was straight out of a spaghetti western—black leather boots, long leather duster, black hat with, weirdly, one side folded up to the center, which made it look like he'd slept in it, and when he'd woken up, it had stayed that way. His pants were black, too, but I was unsure if those were also leather. Black leather pants, at least in my mind, were more rock star than cowboy. What was very cowboy, albeit not in a very nice way, was how he'd chambered a shell and was now leveling a shotgun at me. I ducked, running toward the bike.

Boom!

The sound was unearthly, loud and roaring, and it echoed across the lot as my vision filled with dust and sand from the burst of earth near my feet.

The motorcycle cowboy—the second I'd met in just the past twenty-four hours—cocked the shotgun again and tracked me as I sprinted. When I was just feet away from the bike, I saw him readying to fire.

Fear overtook me, and I stopped and sank to my knees in a ball. It was a terrible move since I was such an easy target, but panic had robbed me of reason. I could run no farther. Again, I heard the Boom! of the shotgun blast and braced for the pain, but it didn't come. I looked up through the smoke and dust, not quite believing what I was looking at.

Standing between me and the cowboy in black was the Actor, still wearing the flimsy motel robe, except now it was slightly tattered and burnt.

"Motherfucker!" my friend shouted. "That hurt!"

The cowboy cracked open his rifle, dumped out the old shells, and began loading new ones, casually, like he was picking dirt from under his nails.

The Actor grabbed my elbow and pushed me toward the bike. "Let's get the hell out of here."

My feet found their will again, and I jumped on, firing up the engine as the Actor climbed up behind me. As I dropped it into gear, I could see black-clad bikers pour out of the small home with the thatched roof. One was eating a huge, cold burrito, picking glass pieces out of it.

"Move!" the Actor yelled, and the shotgun erupted again. The Actor flinched and punched me on the shoulder. "Go, go, go!"

I turned onto the blacktop, raced to the T in the road, and hung left. If we were going to run, we might as well run in the direction we needed to go. As I banked, I could see the gang fire up their own bikes. The gunman in the black cowboy hat just watched as we peeled away.

We were back on the 180, and it would be a good half day of riding until we got to Cozumel. As long as we could keep our distance from the bikers, we would outrun them because we would never have to stop for gas. However, I wasn't sure if that would be enough to shake them.

We needed a detour.

I looked into the mirror just above my left hand, and there they were, a huddled mass of black and chrome. "Let's find a route to head west!" I shouted as we both struggled to get our helmets on.

"What?"

I hadn’t flicked on the helmet mic, so I slowed for a moment to cut down on the wind noise and shouted again. He tapped my right shoulder. I took that as a "yes" for the moment.

In my mirror, I could see the Actor fiddling with his phone. When I looked at the other mirror, I saw the sea of black behind us moving closer. Dammit!

He tapped again and pointed ahead to a side road swept with dust and grit. I'd ridden motorcycles for years and was pretty good but had never owned anything quite so big. If there were a lot of turns and twists on a shaky surface, I could easily dump us both.

I felt a pounding on my shoulder then saw a stubby finger again pointing at a single-lane road off to our right.

Fiddling under the helmet, I keyed the mic. "Not sure if I can keep this thing upright going this fast on a road like that!"

My stomach twisted as I looked into the mirror. They were close enough I could see their expressions. While some had full dark face masks, a few others had those metal skull caps that looked like kaiser helmets from World War I that left their faces exposed. Their eyes were covered with goggles.

At the very back was the man in the black hat, who was riding as casually as if he were some dentist taking his expensive motorcycle out for a weekend ride.

I could see Goatee yelling, pushing them to go faster. He had a wild, horrible smile on his face and drove with one hand. The other held a shotgun tucked under his arm. I could only watch in the mirror, trading glances between the road and the scene behind us.

The wordless yelling briefly stopped, and I saw him make a strange face, then he began to chew. The wide smile was back. Apparently, he'd gotten a bug.

Blechy.

The Actor pointed to another route. Ahead, the 1500 highway. He told me to bank right onto that then pick up the 1450 and hang a left there.

"How long?"

"About ten minutes!"

We were coming up on a more populated area, which meant I was weaving between cars and trucks as we went. I was getting a better feel for Sally's motorcycle but had to anticipate my turns farther ahead than I was used to. If any car or truck quickly pulled into a lane in front of us, I would end up in the back of it.

We took the curving on-ramp to highway 1500, and a quick look in my mirror told me another turn like that would put those guys right on top of us. Then our luck got worse. Traffic was slowing ahead, and I could see the yellow flashing of construction vehicles. In about a mile, it was a sea of red brake lights. Our pursuers were no more than a hundred yards behind us. Within the next minute, we would be at a full stop in the traffic.

"Fuck it," I said and leaned to the right. Instantly, the bike began to rattle and jerk as we hit the gravel of the shoulder. "Hold on!"

I knew I should have slowed, but that just wasn't an option anymore. So, I twisted the accelerator, and the bike bucked slightly but held. Cars whipped past us with a shoom-shoom-shoom sound that made my stomach twist. All it would take was someone to toss out a cigarette or coffee cup or massive cold burrito, and we would crash, no question.

It was almost impossible to see in the mirror with the bike shaking so violently, but I could actually hear their bikes over mine. Like a swarm of angry bees the size of compact cars, they buzzed behind us, getting closer and closer.

"Go faster!" The Actor's voice fried the speaker in my helmet.

"I'm trying!"

Ahead I saw the turnoff for the 1450. I was unsure what we would find there but knew whatever was behind us was death, so I pushed the bike a little more. I had to grip the handlebars tight because they were fighting me at every moment, trying to rip from my grasp.

Taking the exit ramp, I saw a sharp left curve. At that speed, we would never make it.

Behind us, a shotgun blast rang out, and again the Actor flinched. Then another, and he jerked again.

"Can… you… go… faster?"

I'd hoped we would hit a straightaway soon, but first I would have to slow to get around the curve. I eased off the accelerator. However, the bike did not slow. The growling of motorcycles reflected off the concrete barriers on either side of us as we barreled faster and faster toward the sharp curve.

"Slow down!" the Actor yelled, but it was too late. We were going to smash into the concrete side and go over the edge.

Desperate, I leaned hard to the left, but the bike was already moving, and it was just me going with it.

"Hold on tight!"

At the turn, we banked so hard my knee briefly hit the concrete, and the bike actually went up onto the curved siding as we slingshotted around the turn. Then back on a brief straightaway, we leveled out.

A peek in the mirror told me that we'd gained another fifty yards on them as they slowed slightly for the turn.

"Jesus fucking Christ, who are you, Evil Knievel?" the Actor shouted and laughed at the same time.

The 1450 would be just after the next curve, but I didn't feel I had any skill to pull the turn off twice. Then I realized I hadn't made that turn. We barreled again faster and faster to the curve, and all I could do was hold on and pray.

I muttered to the bike, "Come on, baby. Let's see you do that again."

The machine trilled in the strangest way, and I leaned. We hit the curve, nearly horizontal, went up on the barrier, and we were riding the fucking wall.

A moment later, blue sky returned ahead of me, and we were staring down the highway.

"You did it!" the Actor shouted and pounded my shoulder.

On the straightway, I looked back and could see the gang once again gaining speed. No question, those guys were flooring it, so I threw whatever caution I had left to the wind and did the same. I opened our throttle, maxing the accelerator, and we screamed down the motorway. The whistling wind sounded like the flat line of a dead man in the hospital.

Looking down at the speedometer, I realized we'd pegged the bike at one hundred and twenty miles an hour.

A quick check of the mirror, and my heart sank. It still wasn't fast enough. Despite the ground we'd made up in the turn, they were closing the gap, getting closer by the second.

The roadway ahead had a few trucks and cars, which I found easy to weave through. I was getting a much better feel for the bike, but it was almost turning on instinct.

"Faster, Raz!"

But the bike couldn't go any faster. I had the throttle all the way open, and still the mass of black and chrome behind us was gaining. Once again, I could hear the buzzing of their motorcycles. They were too close.

Moments later, the tall, skinny guy had caught up and was leveling his shotgun low. This time, he would go for the tire, and we would spin out. At that speed, it’d be all over.

I crouched down, getting closer to the bike, trying to cut the wind resistance, but it didn't help. We weren't going faster.

Weaving and dodging, I felt like I had to do so little to keep the bike from crashing. It was almost as if the machine had a mind of its own.

I whispered to it, "Come on, now. Give us a bit more. Let's go, baby."

Nothing. The bike was at top speed, whirring and vibrating, doing its best, but it wasn't going any faster.

I chanced a look back over my shoulder and could see Goatee with his big stupid grin coming up on our left side. Within a minute, he would be right on top of us, and a shotgun blast would take off my head.

Again, I pleaded with the bike, "Go, go. Faster, faster."

We dodged another truck then a minivan and another truck but didn't accelerate.

I tried once more. "Go, bike! Fast, bike!" Then I remembered how earlier it had trilled like the whinny of a horse. I thought, What the hell?

I shouted, "Giddyap!"

Below us, an unholy roar rose from the bike, and its front wheel lifted off the ground. The force of a thunder crack rattled my chest, and it was like I'd been dropped into a fighter jet. The motorcycle moved at an impossible speed, weaving and dodging between cars.

The speedometer below us spun like a clock that had busted its springs.

Ahead, I only saw a blur of cars and trucks, and soon after, I couldn't even see that anymore.

Above, clouds shot past like they were being sucked away by some giant vacuum in the sky. The sound around me should have been terrifying, but instead it felt exhilarating, a howl of wind that seemed to rise into a symphony.

Through the blur, I caught sight of two trucks side by side up ahead, and before I could even scream, the bike had lifted its front wheel and gone up the back of a VW, lifting us in the air, and we leapt over the truck blockage, landing twenty yards in front of it.

I reached back to get ahold of the Actor, who was gripping onto my shirt so hard I thought his fingers would go through.

I shouted, "Whoa, whoa, whoa!"

The bike slowed back to a still-suicidal speed of one hundred twenty miles an hour. Behind us, the gang was nowhere to be seen. My heart sang, and I patted the gas tank of the metal beast beneath us.

"Good girl," I said, and it trilled beneath my fingers.

The Actor popped his visor, leaned close to my ear, and shouted over the wind, "Where the hell did you learn to ride like that?"

I laughed, and it was the first real joy I'd felt in such a long, long time. I looked at the road ahead. It would be another ten or twelve hours to Cozumel. Or maybe not.

Looking down, I shouted, "This is the greatest bike of all time!"

Beneath me, I felt the machine roar, its front wheel briefly lifting off the pavement. Drunk with happiness, I held my hand above its gas tank.

Laughing, I said, "I dub thee Bucephalus, the greatest horse that ever lived!"

"What did you just call me?" the Actor shouted, his curly hair nearly going straight in the wind.

Turning my head slightly, I pushed up my own visor and called back, "You wanna do that again?"

"Hell yeah," he said then gripped his thighs tighter on the seat. He flipped his visor back down and wrapped his fingers into the seat strap. "Do it!"

Leaning in close to the bike, I looked ahead. I held the bars tight and said, "All right, Boo, let's go find Anza."

The bike beneath me gunned for a moment, readying itself.

"Giddyap."

And we shot off like we'd been launched from a rocket pad, destined for the outer solar system.

Chapter Thirteen

The waitress stood at the rail, looked up at the cartoon frog adorning the wall behind the bar—empty beer glass in hand, stupid sombrero half on its head, eyes googly—and she frowned. "Is stupid frog."

The bartender laughed and looked at the waitress's drink chit, which had popped up once she'd slid her white card in the register's slot. "Bucket of beers and seven shots?"

The waitress nodded and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear.

He looked at the small rectangle of paper as he stuffed it behind the saturated rubber mat. Three other chits poked up from there as well, but he liked the waitress, so he went to make her drinks first. He frowned at the ticket. "What kind of shots?"

"They didn't say which shots they are wanting. Just shots."

"Uh-huh," he said in a particular way that she thought sounded Californian. It wasn't unusual to hear American accents in Cozumel. They just usually came from tourists.

The bartender lined up seven tiny cups on a serving tray, grabbed a bottle from the rail without a label, and poured the brown liquid from its spout.

She found the mirror and looked at the table that had just ordered. Laughing, joking. She was fine with that. That was what places like this were for. What they weren't for was the one local man with the mullet and handlebar mustache.

She grabbed the bucket and reached for her serving tray. "This is not my tray."

"Come on, if—"

"Is so hard to do this one thing I am asking, all the time, from you?" She looked at him with a smile that stopped at her eyes. "You are at risk of losing ten pesos off your nightly tip out."

The man behind the bar rubbed his bald head and laughed. He went over, grabbed the heavy silver tray, and returned to the waitress station. He then transferred the shots from the original tray to hers by putting his fingers in each of the drinks, clinking them together, and lifting them to the heavy platter.

"Gracias," she said and gave him a proper smile.

As she walked way, he licked his fingers and said, "You know that's like fifty cents, yeah?"

Without turning around, she gave a little wiggle of her hips, which was his favorite thanks of all.

Her grin faded when she reached the table.

"So tomorrow, then?" one of the men asked, his voice slurring slightly. "We got people asking."

Another turned to the head man and said, "Mine too… if this is what we're talking about, Silvio."

Silvio, the man with the mullet, shook his head slowly, casually, but his eyes cut hard to both men. "This is not what we're talking about. No business here," he said. "Back at the ranch is business. This"—he spread his muscular arms—"is drinking."

The too-loud laughter made the waitress flinch as she dropped the bucket of beer at the center of the table.

Everyone at the table reached forward for their bottles except Silvio.

She then went around the table, putting the shot glasses in front of each of them. When she got to the man with the mullet, she saw him staring. She dropped his shot, some of it sloshing out of the tiny glass.

"What are you doing?" he growled playfully, staring at her pretty face. "Señorita, I believe you had your thumb in my drink."

The waitress ignored him and asked if the group needed anything else. All eyes at the table went to Silvio. When no one answered her, she turned to leave.

Silvio reached out, gripped her arm, and was met with a scowl. "Well." He lifted the shot with his other hand and downed it in a single gulp. "I could use another one of these… but maybe you can dip another part of your body in it for me."

Again, the table erupted with laughter. She tugged on her arm to go, but he held on.

She turned to him and frowned. "We're closing. Finish your drink and clear out."

"Closing?" Silvio asked. "The sun is still shining. The birds are—"

"We're closing," she said, chewing her words as she looked around the table, "to you."

A man with a scraggly beard grinned. "But we're just having some fun. You are kicking us out?"

She looked at the man who'd just spoken. "Not all of you." Then, looking back at the man still holding her arm, she said, "Just him."

"I come in here all the time. Still you don't like me?" Silvio asked, shaking her arm in a playful way that she didn't find playful.

"What's to like?" she asked and lifted her chin.

He stood slowly. Again she tried to free her arm, but he held on. Leaning in close, he smiled too wide.

"You should watch who you speak to in such ways. You have no idea who you're talking to."

She leaned back. "I know exactly the sort of man I am talking to. And I think—"

"No one cares what you think!" he shouted in her face then felt a tap on his shoulder. He spun around to face the slightly paunchy and red-faced Raz staring at him.

"Why don't you leave the lady alone?" Raz stood there with a wide grin on his face that he really didn't feel.

Silvio's mustache twitched, and he got to his feet. "Stay out of it! Go back to your piña colada, pendejo. This doesn't concern you."

"It does," Raz said, widening his stance. "She's a friend of mine."

"Good, then I can give you what she has coming." He then arched back and smashed Raz's nose, who went down like a flan forgotten in the oven. Turning back, he began to speak, "Now—"

But was hit square in the jaw with an unusually heavy silver serving platter. He went down hard, right on top of Raz.

The entire table stood up, shouting, and within seconds, three large bouncers were at the table pulling the men from the bar. One of the drinkers grabbed his friend from on top of Raz, and they were quickly ushered out the door.

The waitress walked over to Raz, knelt down, and brushed the hair from his face.

He blinked, looked up, and smiled. "Hi, Anza."

When she patted him on the chest, her strange expression turned stranger as a mechanical voice burst from his pocket. "Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha!"

Raz smiled and said, "So that's what it does."

* * *

The three of us together again.

We sat outside at a table on the front deck of the restaurant. Anza watched a ship in the harbor as fat white tourists disembarked and waddled down the path.

"Dan said you were teaching down here," I said. "That didn't work out?"

"Teaching is not paying as well as waiting tables," she said bitterly. "I don't like working in a restaurant with stupid frilly outfit, but more money, so. I prefer to doing the teaching."

"What would you teach?"

She shrugged. "English."

"It's probably better you wait tables then," I said and smiled. "Think of the damage you could do."

She took the small red straw she'd been twisting with her fingers and threw it at me. Anza then cleared her throat, stole a glance at the Actor, and finally asked the question all over her face. "So, what did he do, this one?"

"Killed his entire family and became king. King of Hollywood. Sort of."

Anza turned and gawked, pointing at the Actor. "No, I am not meaning on his silly show!"

I joined her in staring at the Actor because obviously it was making him terribly uncomfortable. He took a gulp of his Mai Tai, his face briefly buried in lime wedge, drink umbrella, and mint sprig.

I said, "I thought you liked his show. When I first met you—"

"I did like his show," she said. "But then he is killing his brothers and sisters and even those who are not relating to him!"

"Yes," the Actor said through his mint. "Even those not relating to me."

"Dat was very bad of you," she said, waggling her finger. "I thought you were gooder than that." Before he could protest, she continued. "But, but… now I see your face, and I see something has happened. Why is this? What have you done?"

Over the next few minutes, the Actor explained how he'd tried to pull out of his downward spiral in Hollywood by making his deal with the Devil, how he'd been duped, naturally, and was being hunted.

"By an eighteenth-century gunslinger," he finished.

"Nineteenth," I said.

"Is always confusing," Anza said, nodding. "Because the number in front is not matching the other one."

"Right, exactly," I said. "But on the bright side, we did steal Sally's motorcycle, and it never needs a fill-up. You can just ride and ride and ride, and it might be kind of alive."

"I am missing the bright side of this story," Anza said and frowned.

"The bit about the gas. Also, we might have a redneck motorcycle gang chasing us."

Anza stared openmouthed for a moment then burst into laughter. The Actor and I looked at each other then couldn't help but join her. Tears streamed down her face.

"Nobody gets in trouble like you guys do," she said after a minute, still chuckling. "It is nice to see your faces."

"Aw, thanks."

"Except not so much his because it's all fleshy and nasty and Devil farked."

The Actor grimaced. "Devil farked?"

Anza shrugged and gave him a sweet smile.

I'd waited too long to tell the Actor about Uncle Jerry and wouldn't make the same mistake twice, but first, I had a question. "Dan said even after the contract you were under—mine—was over, you still could see the hell affiliated. Why is that? You're not under contract or anything, are you?"

"No, no. Absolutely not," Anza said. "Because this is stupid to do." She glared at the Actor playfully. "I don't know why is like that. Is good in some ways. I know who the bad guys are, like that fark head with the stupid hair and big mustache."

The Actor winced. "So 'fark' is your new swear word? That will get old fast."

She shushed him then continued. "But there are now so many hell businesses that even not-so-bad people, they work for them, and I just see… you know, ruined faces."

"Like Dan?"

Her eyes watered for a moment, then she nodded and brushed a hand across her face.

"Is that why you came here? To get away?" the Actor asked, probably happy we weren't talking about him anymore.

She shook her head. "No, no. I am here for the same reason you are."

We both looked at each other and shrugged.

"Uncle Jerry," she said and frowned.

"So you know?" I asked.

"Of course, I know, Raz. It took some asking around, but yes I found out."

Again, my chest ached, and I rubbed a spot between my man boobs. "He was a crazy bastard, but I'll miss him."

"He was goddamn crazy," the Actor said and smiled sadly.

"Hey," Anza said and slapped the table slightly. "You know I don't like that. No cursing around me, please."

The Actor held up his hands in surrender. He knew better, and I got the feeling he'd said that just to get a rise out of her.

"So, we wanted to ask—"

"Wait, wait, wait," Anza said and stood up. "Why are you was-ing Uncle Jerry? He 'was the crazy guy' and all of that."

I blinked. "I'm not entirely sure what you're asking."

The Actor said, "Yeah, it's amazing your English still hasn't improved, impressive actually."

"You are speaking about Uncle Jerry like he was before and not now," she said, her hands slightly shaking.

"Anza," I said, realizing she did not know. "Uncle Jerry is dead."

Her hand went to her mouth, and she slowly shook her head. She sat back down and bounced a dainty fist on her lips. "When is this happening?"

I explained to her how Enrique, the non-Honduran drug dealer in Atlanta, had hit me with the news when he'd demanded I pay him or die months earlier. "I've been on the run ever since," I said.

"Who is not after you guys? Drug dealers, biker gangs, a nineteenth-century gunperson."

"Eighteenth," the Actor said.

"Is not a thing. How is it you don't knowing your numbers?"

The Actor smiled at her. "I would pay a thousand dollars to watch you play Jeopardy." He sipped his drink and smacked his lips. "Yes, we're being chased by so many. We're very popular."

"And you are very wrong," Anza said with a small smile. "Uncle Jerry is not dead."

"What?" both me and the Actor nearly shouted.

"No, is not dead," she said then looked down. "He is… worse than dead."

My mouth went dry. "Wha… worse than dead?"

She nodded slowly then burst into a big smile. "No, is not worse than dead!" She laughed. "I have always wanted to say that though—is worse than dead. That is pretty fun to say!"

"You can be so strange," the Actor said.

"But still," Anza said. "Is not good. He is being forced to pilot planes from Mexico to other parts of Central America for one of the cartels." She jutted her chin toward the door. "Silvio runs it. When Uncle Jerry is not flying, he is chained up and locked in a room."

"Oh my god," I said and got a stern look from Anza, but she let it slide. "Where?"

She shook her head. "Here. Cozumel. That's why I am here. That's why you are both here, no?"

"Sort of."

"Right," she said and lowered her voice. "I found out he was basically taken into white slavery, which apparently is worse than regular slavery or something."

"Same thing," I said.

"Well," she said and smiled. "Now that you are both here, we can all work together." She reached over the table, stretched out, and grabbed both of our hands. "Again."

The Actor chewed on a piece of pineapple. "Work together to do what?"

She shrugged. "Break him out, of course."

Chapter Fourteen

Uncle Jerry had stared at the web in the window for most of the day.

The sun had slowly traversed the far hills, although he couldn't see the far hills because the curtains were always drawn. He was thankful for that in the midafternoons when it got so sweltering hot in the room, it was hard to breathe. But he did miss the sunrise, and the sunsets.

For the past… six months? A year? He couldn't remember—he hadn't seen a clock or calendar. Silvio wouldn't allow it.

Silvio's son, Pablo, thankfully, was nothing like his cruel father. The little boy brought Uncle Jerry his daily meal and once sneaked him an old transistor radio. But in the past few days, the music had been replaced by a woman's voice reading a series of numbers.

He hadn't minded entirely. At night, he would listen to the woman and imagine what she looked like. In his mind, she was sipping a fancy cocktail, wore a red dress, and had big hair like they used to have in the eighties.

Why did she spend her days reading numbers? She could be an actress! He would then chastise himself and remember, as a twenty-first-century man and all, she could also be the CEO of a billion-dollar, multinational company. With daddy issues and an affinity for grisly old men in their sixties.

Last night, he'd named her Darla, but he felt Darla was tiring of him, tired of repeating the massive sequence of numbers. He had, however, already made another friend.

"There you are," he croaked, squinting at the sun coming through the crack in the blackout curtains.

The fat spider had slipped between the gap and was looking to take refuge in the web up in the far corner of his room.

"Sun's bright, huh?" he said. "Gotta get clear of the birds, or you'll end up swallowed by a swallow!" He wondered if that was why the birds might have been called that.

The spider stopped halfway up the wall, briefly frozen. After a full minute, it started its move again and slipped under the web, traversed its length, and settled into the deep pocket of the corner.

"Hot, too, huh? That your summer home, then?"

He'd never cared for spiders very much. They were creepy things and looked like they were always plotting something. He never quite knew if they were staring at him, and he'd read something once about how they had incredible hearing. They'd make perfect spies. If, of course, you taught them English.

But Jerry was pretty sure that would be very, very hard to do.

When the creature had first visited months earlier, it had given him a serious case of the willies. For weeks, Jerry'd had nightmares about waking up wrapped in a silken cocoon with the spider sitting on his chest, deciding which part to munch on first. But after a while, they'd become friends.

Slowly, Jerry sat up, pulled off his thin sheet, which was spotted with sweat, and went to pour a glass of water from the pitcher. Halfway to the small, broken table, he stopped short, the chain strapped to his ankle snapping taut. It had wrapped around the leg of the bed overnight. He kicked it a few times to get its full length. It only gave him a few more feet, but it was enough to reach the table.

When he lifted the pitcher and tipped it for a drink, a fine white grit slid into the glass.

Then he remembered. He'd finished the water the night before. Uncle Jerry licked his lips and looked toward the door.

He held the plastic jug up in the air toward the spider. "You got a free hand? Maybe you can get me a refill." Jerry laughed. "Come on, you got eight, right?"

The spider tucked itself deeper into the corner.

"Hopefully, little Pablo will be here in a little while," he said cheerfully. "Boy loves his Legos. All he seems to want to talk about is those little bricks. When he comes, maybe he'll have another paperback for me. I've read that other one so many times. I guess, I could give it anoth—" He looked down at the thin paper pages stripped and ripped up and tossed on the floor. He remembered kicking what was left of the cover under the bed yesterday. Or was that last week? "Ah, it had a shit ending anyhow."

Jerry looked back to the bed but couldn't bring himself to get in it again just yet. Instead, he walked toward the curtain and only stopped when the chain went rigid. He couldn't quite reach the window and tried to peek through the gap, maybe catch a quick glance of the countryside. All he saw was the blazing sun.

"Looks like it's a nice day," he said and looked up at his tiny friend.

In his mind, strangely, he thought he saw the spider shake its head.

Then he heard a clattering at the front door. Jerry sighed and looked up at the spider. "Yeah, you're probably right."

Chapter Fifteen

Anza peeked into the window of the apartment, looked from left to right, then went to the door.

Reaching into the small purse slung over her shoulder, she dug around for a moment then held her tiny fist out and looked at me. I stared for a moment then held an open hand under hers, and she dropped five tiny white objects that looked like big teeth. I gawked at them.

Slipping her key into the door, she nodded toward us. "Is gum. Chiclet, sugar-free, so good for your tooths."

"Good," I said. "I have been worried about my tooths."

"I don't need no more dragon breath from you two," she said and waved toward me and the Actor. "And be quiet. My roommate is in his room, sleeping."

I handed two pieces to my friend.

"Why do I get two and you get three?" He chewed like a beaver trying to free up splinters.

"Wait," I said as the door slid open. "You live with a guy?"

"Shh!"

We went inside, and she closed the door quietly on its jamb. The Actor and I went over to a two-seater couch and waited as she brought us all glasses and a bottle of water.

The home was small, hot but nice. The windows had cracks, but the thin curtains hid most of those scars. There were two other comfy chairs in the room, and between all the seats was a low coffee table.

It was here where Anza put down a large map. "Okay," she said, pouring the water. "We are here, where I have marked with a heart."

"Cute," the Actor said.

"Uncle Jerry, he is…" She traced her finger across several blue lines, some red lines, and a couple of black ones. "Somewhere in this area."

"You live with a guy?" I repeated.

"But," she said, her voice barely above a whisper, "it is like some gate neighborhood, not a very nice one, though. Except for the big house. That is like some Beverly Hills mansion with everything. Hot tub, pool—two pools—and a three-car garage."

The Actor leaned back, still chewing obnoxiously. "I've been to much better places. A director I know—"

"Keep your voice down!" Anza said, and we heard rummaging in the bedroom with the closed door. "You'll wake up Angel."

"You live with a guy named Angel?" I asked, trying to whisper, but my voice was a bit strained. Anza was one of the most straitlaced people I knew—and the only real religious one. Yet there she was living with… a guy.

She waved me off. "Angel is harmless," she said then gave a small smile. "And the most beautiful man I have ever met. But very crabby when he wakes up, works late."

I started to say something, and she shushed me.

"Okay, so all of this area, these are tiny homes. Barely they are homes, more like shacks. There's a bunch of them." She tapped the map with a red fingernail. "Uncle Jerry is being held, shackled, in one of those tiny houses."

"How do you know that?" the Actor asked, chewing more quietly.

"This is what I have been doing down here. Researching, trying to find out, find a way in."

I shrugged and looked at the map. "So how do you get in?"

She sat back. "I think is impossible."

"That will make it harder," the Actor said. "How do you even know he's in there? Maybe they moved him or, you know, worse."

Anza shook her head. "I checked with the drone just last week. You can't see in because the curtains, they are always drawn, but he's in there. I know he's in one of those."

"You have a drone?"

"Yes, had," she said and scowled. "That man with the stupid haircut, Silvio, you saw in the bar, he had one of his men shoot it down. I am very angry about that. It was a nice drone."

"When did you learn how to fly a drone?" the Actor asked, shaking his head.

"Is not hard."

The door to the bedroom creaked, and we all froze. It opened slowly, like something out of a glam horror movie, then the man named Angel came out.

Anza smiled, got up, and gave him a small hug and a peck on the cheek.

Angel looked very hung over. He barely shifted when Anza approached him then shuffled into the kitchen. He was wearing a purple robe and bright-blue slippers. His hair was pinned very close to his head.

Our friend returned to the seat across from us and smiled again. "Angel, these are my two friends," she said and introduced us.

Angel pulled a beer from the fridge and shuffled toward us. He plopped into the other chair and slumped, knees wide. Strangely, his brown face sparkled a little in the light. When I realized he was wearing eyeliner, I guessed the sparkle was from a bit of glitter from the night before.

I didn't find him as "beautiful" as Anza, mind.

"Angel, he is a performer," my friend said, beaming. "There is a club in town, and he sings and does a very good dancing routine."

The Actor nodded. "Oh? What do you sing?"

The roommate took another slug of his beer. "Mostly country-western. Like Tammy Wynette sort of stuff," he said in a surprisingly high voice. "Patsy Cline, that sort of thing."

"Garth Brooks?" the Actor asked.

"Honey." Angel rolled his eyes. He had on one fake eyelash. "Do I look like the sort of girl who would sing Garth Brooks? I have standards."

"Well," I said, trying to be open-minded, "you guys don't have a TV, so maybe we can get a tune later on."

Angel sighed. "No, no. I have to rest my voice," he said and rubbed his crotch, then sniffed his fingers and frowned. "I need a shower." His eyes fell on the Actor. "I recognize you."

"Great." The Actor frowned.

"Listen, I know you got a lot of heat for last season," he said, twirling the beer bottle in his fingers. "But I'm glad you killed all those pricks and bitches. Backstabbers, every last one of them. You have no idea… that elf princess or whatever she was, she was plotting to kill you!"

"I know. I mean, I read the script."

"Darling, don't mess with the fantasy," he said. "Sometimes, it's all we have. I say 'goodbye and good riddance' to all of them."

The Actor beamed and looked at me. "I like this guy."

"Guy?" he said. "Please, I don't assign small-minded patriarchal designations like that." He smiled, showing perfect teeth. "Just call me Angel."

"My humble apologies," the Actor said, with a theatrical bow of his head. "Angel."

"Thank you, my liege." Angel bowed back.

I briefly wished that motorcycle gang might come in and shoot me dead—or Sally, I supposed. She was still out there. Something about the Actor being so pleased with himself made my stomach lurch.

Angel looked down at the map and frowned. "You plotting your big breakout again?"

"Yes, maybe. I mean." Anza brightened. "Now with my friends here, I think we can all do this."

"We?" I said and instantly regretted it.

"It was Angel's drone that got blewed up, Raz," Anza said. "Without that, I would not know how all of this was laid out."

Slowly, Angel got to his feet, went to the kitchen, and dropped the empty bottle in the trash. He grabbed another from the fridge and headed for his room. "Wake me up for the third reel, if you want," he said then looked at the silver watch on his wrist. "Christ, it's barely five o'clock! I need my rest."

"Angel," Anza growled.

"Sorry, babe," he said. "Golly, it's barely five! I'm going to lie back down.” With that, he slipped inside the dark room and slid the door closed.

Anza sipped her water and bent over the map again. Frowning, she leaned back. "It won't be enough just to get Uncle Jerry out. If he's missing, they will just come looking for him."

"So what? Let them look," the Actor said. "We just need to get him out of there!"

From the other room, Angel called out, "Sleeping!"

I whispered, "So, what do we need to do? You want to break him out but not break him out?"

"No," she said and tapped her lip. "We have to kill him."

"What?"

"I mean," Anza said, staring at the map again, "if they think he's dead, then they don't go looking for him."

"What does that matter?" the Actor asked.

She crossed her arms and glared at us. She nodded to the Actor. "You have this Sally Shooter person chasing you, yes?" Then she looked at me. "And Enrique, he is looking to feed you to his dogs, yes?"

We both nodded, and I said, "And kill a squirrel."

"So, of course, you have enough people chasing after you."

"Don't forget the motorcycle gang," the Actor offered.

"Si, yes! We don't need no more people to be chasing. So if everyone think Uncle Jerry is really dead, then nobody chases dead people!"

I heard a rustling in the bedroom, a yank of covers.

"Shhh," I said and smiled at Anza. "Sleeping."

She stuck her tongue out at me. "I am just so excited you two are here," she said, more quietly. Then she turned to the Actor. "Even if you do look like you went down on a belt sander."

"Anza!"

"You know what I mean." She shrugged. "With the face all ruined, it looks like a belt sander went up and down on it."

The Actor eyeballed her. "Uh-huh."

"Okay." I stood up and walked to the fridge. Eyeballing the cerveza, I instead opted for a half-finished bottle of orange juice. "So you've been thinking about this for a while. How do we not kill him so these guys think he's dead?" I poured the juice into a coffee cup and leaned against the cool front door of the refrigerator.

"We could shoot him," the Actor said.

I sipped. "That would take care of the killing part. What about the not killing part?"

He said, "You know, if we got him into a hell contract, he wouldn't die. It would hurt a hell of a lot but no dying."

"Unless he's shot by another hell-contracted agent," I said and took another sip. "I suppose that's why the motorcycle guy with the shotgun just tore up your little yellow nightgown. When Sally puts a slug in you, you're dead."

Anza nodded. "I was going to ask about your nightgown."

"It is not a nightgown." He tugged at its tattered collar. "It's a fleabag motel kimono." He ran his hands down it, his stubby fingers passing over the singed parts.

"It looks like a witch's summer frock," I said and sipped with a smile. "We'll have to get you some other clothes."

"I look like a badass."

"Yeah, but I can see your jockey shorts!"

"Impossible." He crossed his legs. "I always go commando."

"Yeck." Anza raised her hands to her ears. "No more freeball talk. We're not going to shoot Uncle Jerry."

"Drowning?" I offered.

"No."

"Stabbing?" the Actor suggested.

"No."

"Autoerotic asphyxiation?"

"No, no," Anza said, waving a finger. "I don't even have a car."

The Actor grinned. "And I thought you said she was the smart one, Raz."

"He is a pilot. The only time he is let out of that room is when he is piloting. So—" She sipped from her cup. "We crash the plane."

I looked at the Actor and frowned.

Anza turned to me. "Yes, this is the best way, and those stupidos lose their drug-getting plane, so it is a win for us and the peoples of Mexico."

"The peoples?" The Actor stood up, walked over to me, and grabbed my cup. "We don't see you for the best part of a year, and you turn into a fascist commie revolutionary?"

He took a sip, winced, then took another.

Anza turned to us, arm draped over the back of her chair. "There is the autopilot, guys! We get on and have Uncle Jerry make the plane crash itself!" A huge, beautiful smile split her pretty face.

"Okay." I snatched the cup back, draining it. "So how do we get Jerry off before the autopilot smashes it into the side of a hill?"

"Mountain," she said proudly. "From what I found out, the plane takes off from Cozumel and goes over ocean the whole way, but to get to a reserve in Nicaragua, there is a mountain range. Smash, boom, crash!"

"The question still stands."

The bedroom door banged open with, um, a bang. Standing in the entryway was Angel wearing nylon bicycle shorts, a purple bra, and a silky blond wig that fell to his shoulders. "Parachute!" he shouted in a singsong voice.

"No, don't like parachute plan," Anza said, her voice weary. "Is crazy, loco. Uncle Jerry is old. They fall out of showers. He can't parachute."

"I told you," Angel said, stepping forward, eyes locked on Anza. "Before my life on the stage, I spent a whole summer as a tandem instructor. I can just"—he pulled at imaginary straps on his chest—"strap our boy in and ride his back all the way down. We land safely, easy peasy."

"The image"—the Actor reached in the fridge and grabbed the orange juice bottle—"of a drag queen mounted onto Uncle Jerry is one I will never, never be able to get out of my mind."

Angel put a hand on his hip. "You should be so lucky."

"No one is mounting nobody!" Anza shouted, hand in the air again.

"Well, there go my afternoon plans," I said and got a roomful of stares. "Come on, that was funny."

Angel nodded toward me, his eyes still on Anza. "You said he was an entertainer," he said flatly.

"Well, he is unemployed. I don't think he was a very good one."

"Hey!" I said and snatched the juice bottle the Actor had taken from the fridge. He grabbed it back, theatrically licked around the opening, smiled, and took a sip.

Anza stood up and slapped her hand on the counter.

"I thought you were tired, Angel. I don't want you involved in this," she said then turned to us. "No parachute. Most of the flight path to Nicaragua is over water. He flies very low."

"Come on," the Actor said.

"Yes, yes. So, he sets it on a course to smash into a mountain but before… jumps into the water. Then the plane crash, boom, bang into the rock, and Uncle Jerry is safe."

"And drowning," the Actor said. "For the record, I want to say I suggested that first."

"No, not drowning." She smiled, putting her hands to her chest. "That is where we will be. With a boat."

The Actor looked at all of us then shrugged. "You know, that is so crazy, it just might—"

"But this is ridiculous!"

We all laughed.

"That is not how the expression goes, Anza."

The only one not laughing was Angel. "A parachute is a much better idea," he said, turned, and went back into his room. Before he closed the door again, he poked his head out. "You know that juice has my medicine in it."

The Actor froze, the bottle nearly to his lips. "What medicine?"

He gave us a wicked smile then slowly closed the door, peering through the gap.

My short friend looked down, shrugged, said "It tastes nutty," and drained the last of it.

I looked around the room and, for a moment, took in the simplicity of it. That was how normal people lived: a small apartment, a steady job, friends sitting at the living room table, joking and sipping cocktails on weekends.

But that "normal" life, so distant, was not the one I currently led. Again, we were plotting a bit of madness. Some part of me wondered if I could ever get back to normal.

The Actor tossed the empty juice container into the sink. "So, we sneak onto the compound, through the armed guards, find Jerry, and get him to program the plane to crash, then take a boat a few thousand miles down the coastline, avoiding the coast guard of a half dozen nations, and wait for him to fall out of a moving plane."

Anza grinned. "Exactly."

I shook my head. "Why not?"

The Actor asked, "Where's this high-speed boat of yours, Anza?"

"Ah." She took a few steps back into the living room and plopped down into her chair. "That is where this sort of gets complicated."

"How complicated?" he asked.

She shrugged. "No boats."

However, the way she'd just said that triggered a memory of something similar I'd heard the last time I had been in Mexico. I grabbed a beer from the fridge, spun the top off with a thumb, and shot the bottle cap across the room. "I think," I said, "I know a couple guys who can help us."

When I leaned back, brushing an arm against my jacket, a strained mechanical voice spilled out, "Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha!"

Chapter Sixteen

As the elevator car began to rise, Hood put a hand to the wall as his stomach did a mild somersault. The interior of the elevator was dark except for a thin glow of an LED above him. There were four more strips vertical along each wall.

With a small bit of pleasure, he watched as the red lights traveled from top to bottom. He'd had to work with Facilities for a few days to get the right pacing—too slow and it looked like the car just wasn't moving very fast, too fast and it made him nauseous.

He frowned as one of the red LED strips refused to cooperate, a dark, finger-length patch. He tapped it a few times until it came alight in time with the travel indicators on the other walls.

"Hmm."

Finally at the top, the door opened to a large, cavernous space. The dimly lit room was encircled by a long purple leather couch with tiny dots of track lighting so he didn't trip over it.

In the center was the Call Cauldron.

Hood considered hitting the automatic shades, which would slide in with their ominous thunk, thunk, thunk sound, blacking out the windows. Occasionally, there were paparazzi set up on the far perimeter of the compound, pointing cameras and looking to catch the young, reclusive CEO doing something salacious that could sell tabloids or clicks—or almost as good, posed in a way that appeared he was doing something salacious.

However, he was an egomaniac, who was likely responsible for ten percent of those clicks. Few things gave him more pleasure than to see a grainy photo of himself, maybe reaching for something off frame, and all the speculation that the little people would spin out, seeking distraction from their dull and pointless lives.

He's probably got slave girls in there. You can't see 'em because they're forced to kneel, avert their eyes!

I'm betting drugs. Rails of cocaine that look like snakes!

I heard rumors of a pudding hot tub! Probably calling for more butterscotch!

Months earlier, he'd had the extended perimeter security shut down so as not to dissuade the snappers.

The social media boss walked over and got settled into the circular couch. All around it were flat smoked-glass panels nestled into the seat fabric. From above, it might look like a clock face, each dark panel in the position of the twelve numbers.

He tapped panel one next to him, and it slowly rose, revealing a mini fridge. Hood pulled out a diet soda. For the next minute, he decided on how he wanted to appear to Steve Janus, the chairman of Hell Inc., or as he liked to call him, Big Head. Hood tried putting an arm up on the couch with one crossed leg then switched the other direction.

At one point, he put both legs up on the cushions and leaned back against the raised panel. But he felt it made him look too childlike. He was already the youngest member of Steve Janus' inner circle and didn't need to bolster that image.

Another adjustment, he tapped the dark glass again, and a footrest below him sparked twice then shot across the room.

"Dammit!"

In the end, he put both feet on the floor while casually draping an arm over the back of the couch. Now settled, he clapped twice and the cauldron came to life.

In the circular space created by the couch, flames rose to encircle a large black disk.

The word CONNECTING floated in midair just above the flames, trailed by three dots of an ellipsis filling out left to right repeatedly.

After a full minute—during which Hood tried crossing his legs at the ankles but felt that was trying too hard and put them both back on the floor—the large, floating head of Janus appeared in the center.

The huge face was topped by a receding hairline. It also looked displeased. "Why do I only see feet?" the head barked. "Am I talking to shoes? Someone booked me in to talk to shoes? I don't talk to shoes!"

Hood blinked quickly and glanced down, fighting every urge to move his feet.

"What?" the massive holographic head asked someone on his side of the transmission. "I don't know! I'm not a tech person!"

"Sir," Hood said and cleared his throat. "Maybe if you train the camera—"

"Now I can only see a Coke can." The head shuddered and rolled. "I have said clearly in the past, I do not talk to feet or beverages!"

"No, Mr. Janus, sir, it's me. Hood."

"Hood?" Janus asked, screwing up his face. "Are you talking… from a can?"

The Hooded One walked over to the large circular disk, being sure to avoid the flames shooting up at its edges. He ran his hands across the black base, found the camera with his fingertips, and tilted it upward.

He returned to his seat, crossing his feet at the ankles.

"Ah!" Janus's large floating head grinned, showing both layers of teeth. "There you are."

"You pinged me, sir?"

"Yes, I haven't heard about our little acquisition for a while," Janus said, the holographic head throbbing. "How is that going?"

"On track."

"What does that mean, 'on track'? Do you have the little cretin or not?"

Hood shifted in his seat, took a sip of his soda, and leaned forward. "It, well…" He cleared his throat. "It's just taking a little time. We've had an alert that he's been spotted, but there is another… challenge."

"Do you mean problem?" Janus asked, his floating head growing slightly larger. "Are you saying challenge instead of problem?"

The man in the hoodie cleared his throat. "The what when?"

"Challenge! I invented that corporate double-talk!" Janus said. "Came up with it when I was CEO of Baby Gap—"

"Oh, Christ," Hood muttered.

"We had a terrible run. Awful," Janus said, staring off. "Not my doing. Some other flake. Indestructible bibs! So much promise."

"Right."

"But the lead was too heavy, it seems." A hand came up from nowhere and scratched the large forehead. "Stupid babies kept, you know, falling forward into their smashed peas or something. Very strange. Couldn't be avoided despite what the class action suit ruled."

"Courts, am I right?"

"However, those challenges, as I'd brilliantly framed them, were in fact problems." Janus leered with raised eyebrows. "Do we have a problem?"

"Hopefully not," Hood said. "It seems the old man has sent some, uh, cowboy… cowgirl after the Actor."

"The Devil, uh, the 'old man,'" Janus said, two hands doing the air quote thing, "is temporarily out of commission after that business last year at the crossroads. Doing some me time in the seventh dimension for a while, I've heard."

"Then whoever is running the show," Hood said, "they've got this gunslinger chasing him. Sally Scull. The other side is trying to kill the actor before we can get to him."

The head suddenly grew twice its size. "What difference does it make? He'll be compelled to arrive at your door in two days' time!"

"Not if the other side kills him first. We've had run-ins with Sally Scull before. She's good."

"Whatever," Janus said. "Get rid of her."

"Can't. She's part of their admin team," Hood said, sighing. "Can't be killed. At least not without starting a war."

"Then buy her an old saloon or something!"

Hood laughed softly. "Thought of that. We can't seem to get ahold of her. She's kind of… old-timey."

"You run a social network! Can't you, uh, social her? In some way?"

"It doesn't really work that way."

"What does that mean?"

Hood bent his thin lips into a smile and reached down for his Coke. "Well, she's not one of our users. She's a nineteenth-century gunslinger. Not really our demographic."

The head spun in place for a moment. "I thought gunslinging was eighteenth century."

"Either way," Hood said, taking a sip and replacing the can. "One of our low-level peons spotted her motorcycle, so we're now tracking its GPS signal. At the moment, she's moving very quickly across Mexico." The social network boss pulled out his phone and tapped on it a few times. "In fact, unbelievably fast. Hmm. That doesn't seem right."

"What? It… so she has the Actor or not?"

"I think, so far… not."

"Good! Then get someone in there and nab him!"

"Already on it. One of our freelancers—"

"Words, words, words." Janus's massive floating head rolled briefly. "If you want to save your 'friends network' from ruin, you need to get a handle on this. Just do it!"

The holographic head shrank into a singular dot then disappeared with a pop.

The Hooded One sighed and finished off his soda, staring into the shooting flames and the big empty space where the chairman of Hell Inc. had been moments earlier.

One day, I'll be running the whole show, he thought and was warmed by the idea. Or it might have been the flames.

He looked down at his phone after the freelancer he'd tried to tell Janus about, Digger, pinged him. Digger had found the Actor.

Chapter Seventeen

The Greyhound bus was still two hours outside of El Paso, but the couple felt it was quiet enough, dark enough on the bus for a bit of fooling around. The driver had extinguished the lights sometime after Tuscaloosa, but it had taken a while for the passengers to get the hint.

After the old guy behind them finally put down his paperback and switched off the light, the time was right.

"We're going to get caught," the woman said, her voice sounding more hopeful than worried. Her husband tucked the gray blanket behind her shoulder and began fumbling for his belt.

For her part, she had stripped off her black underwear fifty miles back and stuffed them into his pocket. Her skirt was lifted just above her hips.

There wasn't any sort of plan, just a bit of lust fun to pass the time on a remote part of I-20. The anticipation had taken both of them to the brink. It would only take a few minutes.

And the conditions were right. The hum of the old diesel engine would cover any sort of grunts, rude noises, and last-minute refusals. The lights were dimmed. They were ready.

"Mom."

They were not ready.

"What?" the woman said, fumbling with the blanket. Dad barely seemed to notice. "I mean, sweetheart, you said you wanted to look at the stars."

"I know, but—"

"Well, the seat in the back, way at the back, has the best view. You can look up and—"

"Mom, I was looking. I even found the Pleiades when we came over the ridge."

"Stop it!" the woman scolded.

"Stop what?" the girl asked as her mother's hand pushed her father's face toward the glass. Thunk. "Can I sit up there with you guys?"

"No," the man said, and his wife pressed his face harder against the window.

"Do you want to use the binoculars, sweetheart?" Mom asked.

"No." The girl pointed at the aisle seat. "I want to sit up there. There's a woman back here in a cowboy hat talking and acting weird."

"Oh, honey," her mother said. "It's public transportation. You'll have to lower your standards."

"But she's arguing. With her hand!"

"What?"

"She's got her hand up to her face, her finger's in her ear, and she's arguing with it!"

* * *

"Miss Sally," the Advocate said through the tip of the gunslinger's finger. "Please understand that we already approved a suitable vehicle for your task. We are not Hertz, by Devil!"

"Sure, but you do own Hertz, right?"

"We have majority holdings with all of the world's car hires, yes—they do wonders to jack up humankind's misery index. But merely because we own the lot doesn't mean you can just get another like you change your underwear."

"I don't change my underwear."

"Jesus wept," the Advocate said. "Retrieve what you had before making any other requisitions."

Sally eyeballed the young girl arguing with her parents in the aisle ahead.

She'd successfully taken up the rear seat of the motor coach, far from the prying ears and eyes of the normies. It had taken a succession of carefully choreographed scowls to finally get the young girl to leave.

"Fine. I'm following their trail right now. I should have one hell-born motorcycle and one dead actor before too long."

"Tracking? Oooh, that is impressive," the Advocate said. "The skills of the western frontier woman never cease to amaze. However, those skill have yet to put a hole in the head of your target."

She silently gave the finger to her other fingertip, still hearing the tinny voice bleeding from it. She'd never been a phone person because when she'd been living her "normal" life, they hadn't existed.

Hell's version of cell phones, known as FU Mobility, was mainly used for the handlers down in the home office to talk to those on Earth. The process was simple—agents would cup a hand to their head, speak into the palm and listen through the tip of the middle finger.

It was surprisingly clever, which led Sally to believe the technology had been stolen from someone else, probably the Chinese.

"I'll get it done, but there is a wrinkle. He's got help."

"Help?"

"He's picked up some loser friend of his. That's the prick who stole my bike."

"Who is it?"

"There was a stack of unpaid bills on his counter of his horrible little home. His name is Rasputin Frewer."

Sally could hear the Advocate grind his teeth over the line. "He is a particularly annoying festering thorn in the side, but don't shoot him."

"Why not?"

A sigh. "Just stick to your task," the Advocate said. "Time is running out."

"Time for what? Why do y'all want this one guy dead so bad?"

"That's not your concern. Your job is to kill him so we've got the little bastard down here with us. Get it done." With that, he clicked off.

Sally dug into her satchel and took a pull from her flask. A moment later, she chucked a bit of dried meat into her mouth and chewed but didn't enjoy it. Inside her bag, something buzzed.

She pulled out her backup mobile phone—her other was currently strapped between the handlebars of her motorcycle—and tapped on the screen. Hours ago, she'd seen the little dot was in Mexico, so she had switched coaches at the Shreveport station.

Watching the dot for a moment, she smiled. The Actor was on the move again, and he was heading in her direction.

Chapter Eighteen

Uncle Jerry licked his fingertip before turning the page. He stared over the top of the book and watched the young boy in the chair bobbing his tiny leg in and out of the reddening sliver of sunlight pouring into the room.

"I hope my storytelling ain't boring you, lil' man." The old man smiled with cracked lips. "Thought you liked this one, Pablo."

Pablo rested his head on the armrest of the chair, his crown tucked into the crook of his elbow, as he watched the old man, who'd grown skinnier in recent weeks, sitting on the bed and leaning against the wall.

"No comes lo suficiente," Pablo muttered, frowning.

"Uh, well…" Uncle Jerry scratched the scruff on his chin. "I can only read what you bring me. But hell, I can't really understand much of your language anyhow." The old man sat up and leaned forward then started coughing. He bent in half, wheezing, trying to get it to stop because his fits would sometimes scare Pablo. After a few moments, he got it under control.

When he looked up, Pablo was standing in front of him, holding a glass of water.

"Much obliged." Uncle Jerry smiled. He took the glass. The water was warm and had a strange metallic aftertaste, but he was glad for it. Or maybe just glad for the kindness of someone in that place.

"¿Estás bien, Uncle Jerry?"

"Bien… bien… good?" the old man asked. "Yeah, yeah, it's good. Water's best thing for you! You know, your body is made up of ninety-nine percent water. And as far as a I know, one percent bullshit!"

The boy laughed, mainly because his friend did, his brown eyes twinkling.

"That's just adults, though," he said. "Kids are all right. But one day… they do grow into adults."

Pablo smiled, looking down at his hands, getting up from his chair, and sitting down next to Jerry. He kicked his tiny legs, banging his calves softly on the harsh metal edge of the bed.

Uncle Jerry looked back at the book. He had no idea what the title meant, but it showed what he imagined was an Old West scene. A saloon, a woman in a fancy dress playing a piano, and two men nearby playing cards. One man was looking at the woman. The other man was watching the other man.

He'd guessed it was probably some love triangle story, but the tale he "read" from it to little Pablo was about a quest for treasure. The man dressed in black, he explained to the boy, his name was Captain Jack, and he rode a horse named Pearl.

The other man was named Orlando, and the woman in the fancy dress was called Keira, and they were searching for some old hidden pirates' cave full of treasure.

The boy never questioned why there would be a pirate cave out in the Old West. In part because he likely enjoyed listening to Uncle Jerry talk. Also, he knew about as much English as the old man knew Spanish.

"Listen," Uncle Jerry said, scooting back and leaning on the wall again. "Let's read the book again, but you see, there's another version of this very same book." He tapped the faded cover with a big smile on his face.

Pablo looked up and smiled back, nodding slowly.

"You see, it's about a guy named Frodo… that's the one at the table holding the jack and the ace of spades," Uncle Jerry said. "And the other guy is Sam. Sam Wise. You see, they're both something called hobbits."

"Hobbits?" the boy asked, perking up.

"You know hobbits, yeah?" The old man laughed. "Well, that's good. This is one of their stories, very famous. I'm not exactly sure who the woman is here… there weren't a lot of women in the whole running around through the hills stuff. Could be a dude in women's clothing, who know—"

The door flew open, making the two in the room jump.

A large man, reeking of whiskey and cigarettes, hand still on the bent knob, leered at Uncle Jerry. Then his eyes slid to Pablo sitting near Uncle Jerry's feet. "What the hell is this, old man?" the gunman at the door snarled. "Fuck you doing?"

"Reading to Pablo."

"What?" The greasy man laughed. "What the hell for? He doesn't understand you. And," he said, grabbing the little boy by the wrist and wrenching him off the bed, "he's not supposed to be within an arm's length of you. You know that."

"He sat there"—Uncle Jerry closed his book and put it on the bed beside him—"on his own."

"Right. Maybe. Maybe not," the man said. "Too close. Silvio would shit kittens if he knew his boy was anywhere near you."

"Pablo is always safe with me," Uncle Jerry said. He nodded to the door with his chin. "Out there? I'm thinking not so much."

"You're not here to think, old man." The man's eyes were glassy, his stance unsteady. "And it gives me the creeps to see you sitting close to the boy."

Uncle Jerry looked over at Pablo and saw the fear in the boy's eyes. When Pablo looked over at him, he realized Pablo's fear wasn't for himself.

"Hey, little man," Uncle Jerry said and smiled. "Why don't you go play with your Legos?"

"Legos?" The boy's face lit up.

"Yeah, Legos," Uncle Jerry said. "Me and Mr. Fuckwit are going to talk about our favorite authors for a while."

"Shut up!" the man in the door said. He eyeballed the boy as he got closer to the door.

Pablo turned to Uncle Jerry who, once again, smiled and made a gentle shoo shoo motion with his hand. After a long moment, the gunman moved halfway out of the door, and Pablo slipped from the room.

Uncle Jerry looked up and, for the first time, noticed a brown greasy bag in the man's hands. "Is that dinner?"

The man frowned. "It was." He looked down at it then threw it in the corner, far out of Uncle Jerry's reach. "You're flying tomorrow. No more reading. Get some sleep."

The old man eyeballed the corner and thought about saying something but instead lay back and closed his eyes. A moment later, he heard the door close, and he sat up, looking into the corner. Sorrow passed over him as he scanned the room, searching for anything he might use to retrieve whatever was in the greasy sack. He fought hard to not feel sad about it or start bawling.

Maybe the chair? If I could…

Then he heard a slight creak in the next room.

A moment later, Pablo's little face poked around Jerry's door. He smiled when he saw Jerry, put a finger to his lips, and said, "Shhh." On his tiptoes, he went to the corner, retrieved the bag, ran to the old man, and dropped down on the bed next to him. Again, he held a finger to his lips, and he held his other hand, palm up, facing Uncle Jerry.

The old man smiled through a sob and sucked in a deep breath. Then he sat up, patted the bag softly, and said, "Thank you, Pablo."

The boy frowned—but still smiled as he did—and twiddled the fingers of his upright hand. "Qui… qui-et high five," Pablo whispered.

"Si," the old man said. "Quiet high five."

Their palms met silently, then the boy skipped out of the room, leaving the old man to eat his dinner. Or lunch. Or breakfast. Uncle Jerry couldn't remember the last time he'd eaten.

Chapter Nineteen

The Actor wasn't happy, but since it seemed to be his natural disposition, I wasn't worried about his current position. That said, his current position was watching the world slip away, propped up on the motorcycle's luggage and strapped down securely with four bungee cords.

Anza yelled over the wind, "How much farther?"

I shook my head but then saw her pointing over my shoulder to a black rectangle between the handlebars. Tapping it brought the screen to life, displaying a map in the middle of which was a tiny dot capped with a tiny arrowhead, which looked a bit like a dunce hat on a head.

As I had not noticed the phone between the handlebars before she'd pointed it out, the symbol felt entirely appropriate. I plugged in our destination.

Sally's motorcycle was like no bike I'd seen. No logos, no telltale signs of branding. It was a custom build, and it seemed that build had likely been facilitated by some hell-owned West Coast choppers–type of outfit.

I gave Bucephalus a pat on its fuel tank. Beneath my fingers, I swear it felt like it had again whinnied slightly.

"You miss your momma, I bet," I said, smiling. "Don't worry. I won't let anything happen to you. And very likely she'll find us and shoot me dead, and you'll be together again. Good times."

I checked the road ahead but knew that wasn't really necessary. The bike didn't need me to steer it.

Catching a glance in the mirror, I saw the Actor's head lolling left and right. I smiled. It had taken some serious peer pressure to convince him to ride on the very back. Even after that, he'd questioned every step of my plan.

"Airfield?" he had asked. "I thought we were looking for a boat."

"Yeah, my guys with the boat are actually just past the airfield. Not too far from here," I said. "Just about a straight shot after we take the ferry over to the mainland."

"And how do you know them, here in Mexico?" the Actor asked.

"I met them last time. They helped me get across to New Orleans. Twins."

"Twins?" Anza asked excitedly. "I love twins. I wish I had a twin. Do they dress the same and finish each other's sentences?"

"I was only with them for a few hours."

The Actor nodded slowly, his eyes turning to slits. "Great. Super. And how are we getting three people on that motorcycle?"

After I'd given him that answer, it had taken six more beers to convince him to go along with it. Six half beers, that is. Math.

"I think he is sleeping!" Anza yelled in my ear.

"As long as he doesn't fall off!" I shouted back.

"What?"

I'd given Anza my helmet and was wearing a bike helmet I'd borrowed from Angel. It was teal and yellow.

I pushed the throttle a bit more, my mind drifting as I stared at the long, empty black strip with dotted white lines.

"Cassie, what am I doing out here?"

"You're helping your friend. Like he helped you."

I checked my mirror again. The Actor's arm waved as we bounced, like he was a drunken orchestra conductor.

"I don't think he's my friend. He's not anyone's friend."

"Sometimes it's hard to love those who don't love themselves."

"Oh, I don't think anyone loves themselves more than he does. I bet he's one of those people with his own picture all around the house, in fancy frames."

"Don't be snarky. I don't like it when you're snarky."

"Yes, you do. It's part of my charm." I stared back at the winking white lines in the road. "I miss you."

"Then you are doing the right thing."

"How is that?"

"Because you made me a promise you would do good, remember?"

"I remember, babydoll."

"This is a good thing. He needs your help."

"I need you," I said out loud and gulped back a sob.

"Then do good things, and I'll see you soon."

"Soon?" I laughed. "What have you heard?"

But then I didn't hear her voice in my head anymore. Sure, it was just probably me going mad, and I was fine with that. At least she was still with me in some way.

The arrow on the GPS started flashing, telling me I had to turn left. I slowed and searched for a road but saw nothing. After another minute, it flashed red, telling me that I'd missed the turn.

"Dammit."

I slowed way down, put my left foot out and spun back the other way. Turning a motorcycle wasn't terribly easy, and it was a lot harder having not one but two people on the back.

"Well, one-and-a-half," I muttered.

Don't be snarky.

"Sorry."

I eased down the road, watching more closely, then Anza tapped me on the shoulder and pointed. Through some thick reeds, I could just barely pick out a gravel road. Then I realized she wasn't necessarily pointing at the road. In the dark, I saw eyes, several sets of them, glowing red and staring. They were close to the ground and unblinking.

When I got to the turn, I hit gravel, and the eyes moved closer.

"Hello, nice puppies," I mumbled, trying to keep my eye on the road. "Good puppies."

No, I didn't think they were fluffy puppies hiding out on the side of a Mexican highway, tails wagging, waiting to play with passersby. Previously, I'd been told they were likely coyotes, and I didn't think they would likely be the sort to carry around an Acme credit card.

I twisted the accelerator, and we shot off.

After about five minutes of twisting and turning—the world around us pitch-black except for the light of the motorcycle—we were there. I was under no illusion I'd made all those tricky, last-minute turns.

"We're here," I said and cut the engine.

Anza hopped off, stumbled for a moment, and regained her footing. She pulled off her helmet and set it on the bike's seat. Then she helped the Actor, loosening the bungees under his arms.

He fell to the ground with an oof and groaned. "Nice," he said and slowly got to his feet.

"Your friends, they are here?" Anza asked, sidling up next to me.

We were standing in a gravel lot, a line of trees directly ahead. In the lot was a pickup truck. To someone just stumbling upon the place, it would have almost looked abandoned, but I knew better.

"There's a path through the reeds and a beach down below."

We stumbled through, the way lit only by the bright moonlight in the clear, cold sky. The Actor mumbled and grumbled the entire way.

Finally, we got to the water and stopped. It was quiet except for the soft lapping of waves on the shoreline. I saw a small boathouse that was doing an admirable job of falling apart.

Inside was a long metal boat with a massive motor strapped to its back.

All around the beach, though, it looked like a small tank had exploded. Bits of hull and metal sheets were scattered about. Engine blocks had been eviscerated, their innards spread haphazardly across a low stone table.

I saw no sign of the twins.

"Maybe they're out on a job," I said.

"But the boat is there," Anza said, pointing to a long metal frame in the dilapidated shed. "You said they ran peoples up to Texas."

I walked to the shoreline and looked out. If they had a second boat, we might be waiting for hours. Hanging around didn't feel terribly safe, but we had no choice.

"If they're running a small business, surely they'd have more than one boat." The Actor sat on the stone bench and frowned. "Even in Mexico, they must teach these folks the idea of capital." He looked around on the ground, found something that looked like a small bundle of rags, put it on the cold bench, and sat down on top of them.

"We'll wait," I said.

"Out here?" The Actor squirmed slightly. "The temperature drops about ten degrees every five minutes! We'll freeze to death."

"Ah, such a baby," Anza said. "You are alw—"

She stopped so suddenly, I almost jumped. Turning to her, I saw her focusing on the damp horizon, squinting into the darkness.

"What?" I asked.

"It… I can't tell," she said as she came up beside me. She pointed toward the dark ocean, but I couldn't see anything. She moved forward and let me look down the length of her arm.

"I don't…" But then I did.

It didn't look like a boat. Too small.

"What is that? A fish?"

"What fish?" She laughed. "Fish is under the water, Raz, not poking out on top."

"Could be a whale."

The Actor said, "Or a shark. They got that fin that sticks out."

"No whale or shark," she said. "Not out here. Is like… a boat?"

If it were a boat, it was very far off, but that didn't seem to make sense because I could just see moonlight glinting off a sharp angle. Then the creature suddenly grew.

"Oh shit," I said. "Hide! I'm not sure what the hell that is."

We both hightailed it to the other side of the stone bench with the engine parts. The Actor slipped off and crouched next to us. For a minute, we just stared. It looked so strange.

"It can't be a sea creature. It's moving in a straight line. Besides, you said you guys don't have anything that big down this way."

Anza shrugged. "Chupacabra."

"What the fuck is that?" the Actor asked.

"Goat killer, mystical creature," she said casually. "But I think no. We don't have any water goats that it might feed on."

I could just see the whites of the Actor's eyes in the moonlight. "Nothing about what you are saying is helping in any way," he said. "Not even a little bit."

We watched the water thing draw closer and closer.

I whispered, "Wow, it's… big."

"It does look like a whale," the Actor said.

A few moments later, it made a horrific hissing sound, and I had to reach out and grab the Actor, as he'd started to make a beeline for the path.

He growled at me. "We need to get out of here!"

"Wait."

The creature was just off the shoreline and looked twice the length of the pickup in the dirt lot.

Another hissing sound.

Anza worked it out first. "Is not making that sound. It is… beached."

"What?"

The creature made a long creaking sound and slowly tipped nearly on its side. In the bright moonlight, it was dark and hulking. Quickly, I looked over my shoulder to see if it had attracted any goats.

Then it made another strange sound. Clank. Clank, clank, clank.

We held our breaths, listening, our eyes peeking over the top of the stone bench. Then, just barely, I thought I could hear a voice calling out. I stood up but still couldn't see it, so I walked back toward the beach.

Anza asked, "Where are you going?"

"Chupacabra, fucker!" the Actor said. "Get back!"

As I drew closer, I could start to make out its features. Smooth lines, right angles, and at the front it did have two fins on either side, but it wasn't a sea creature.

"It's a sub."

"What?" Anza said from behind the bench.

Clank, clank, clank, clank.

I waded through the water to where it had fallen on its side. That close, I could make out a voice, two of them actually, shouting from inside. It was very hard to hear them inside the hull.

With the flat of my palm, I banged on the outside twice. Again, I held my breath. Clank, clank. Unsure, I hit it again. Clank. One more time, I smacked it with my palm.

Clank, clank, clank, clank, clank, clank.

I heard a yell, dimmed by the hull. "¡Encima¡"

Maybe I misheard it, I thought.

But then both voices repeated the word. "¡Encima!"

I called back to Anza and said, "What does encima mean?"

"It means 'on top.'"

"Oh." I waded farther into the water until I found the top of the small submarine.

It was a crazy custom job with tubing and pipes and weld marks that looked like scars gladiators might show off at after-parties. At the top, I saw a small wheel.

I gripped it and tried to turn.

There was muttering inside, then I heard a voice again.

"Juntos, juntos," it said then more brief muttering. "Together."

I reached up again and turned from my end as, I guessed, they turned from theirs. It felt like it had also been welded shut, but then it slowly, slowly began to turn with an awful scraping sound.

"It's eating Raz!" the Actor shouted from the bench, jumped up, and disappeared down the path.

Finally, as my arms ached, the wheel began to move more quickly, and eventually it stopped spinning. I stood back as the hatch was thrown open, and I looked in.

The twins' faces were red and damp with sweat. A strip of red LED lighting lined the interior. It took me a moment to see the rifle in one of their hands.

I put my hands up but laughed, trying to keep it light. "Hey, guys," I said. "It's me. Remember me?"

One of the twins squinted against the moonlight. "Hey, yeah," he said. "You had that crazy bike that we put on the plane."

"That's the one," I said and lowered my hands.

"Wait!"

The rifle came back up, and so did my arms.

The other twin said, "There's no way you made it in that thing. I thought for sure you were dead."

"I am dead." I sighed. "But you were kind to me, and now that you've died, I've returned so that I may ferry you to the afterlife. This is what I do now, forever."

Their faces instantly drained of blood.

"No, no," I said and put a hand out. "I'm kidding. You're not dead. You're in Mexico."

After the twins got out and pulled their homemade sub farther up the beach, they led us to a tunnel hidden in the reeds.

I hesitated, unsure if we should follow, but Anza plunged in, taking an exaggerated step as she did. I realized why she had a moment too late, when I tripped over the steel lip at the bottom.

Someone called out from below, "Hey, watch out for the sea barrier by the door!"

Nice.

I turned to close the hatch but then thought better of it when I saw the light from inside casting my shadow across the sandy threshold. I left it open.

We followed the twins.

* * *

The Actor looked at the motorcycle sideways.

He'd tried the truck first—locked—and in truth, he wasn't sure bailing on Raz and Anza would be the right move. Not that he was overly concerned for their welfare. They were adults and could take care of themselves, but he did need them if he had any chance of getting his contract back.

He'd had a fleeting thought that he would steal the stolen bike. The key was in the ignition, but despite his likely inability to reach the footpegs, his trepidation seemed to be centered on the bike itself.

Damn thing feels alive.

Looking back at the dark path between the reeds, he sighed. Then a thin river of panic trickled through him. What if they left me behind? Am I alone? Or what if I went to find them and missed them in the dark somehow?

That wasn't going to happen. The Actor crouched low, slunk up to the motorcycle, snagged its key with the tiny bobbing skull, and put it in his tattered yellow robe.

He turned back toward the path.

* * *

Heading down the earthen tunnel, I got a cold shiver, but it wasn't because the temp had dropped. In truth, I didn't really know the twins well. And they were criminals, criminals we were following down a dark, hidden passage dug into the side of a remote beach.

Calling forward, I injected my voice with a coolness I didn't really feel. "Dude, you've got a secret lair!"

In the dim light, I saw the twins laugh and knock fists. A moment later, they disappeared.

There was a short passageway that doglegged to the right then a few steps farther down. A thick steel gate had been slid open for us to enter.

We found the twins stripping off their clothes and changing into dry stuff.

The room was cramped, as I might have expected. It was about the size of a standard living room with a table in the center and lockers running down one side. In the corner sat a small fridge. Where the ceiling met the walls, LED track lighting led to two larger panels at the back. Those were quite bright and lit the place like daylight. In the middle of the room was a bench similar to the stone one outside but made of steel. On the table were maps and several crushed soda cans. A ham radio crackled on the far wall, its volume turned down low.

Trying to take some control of the queer situation, I started with introductions, naming Anza and reminding them of my own, but then stopped. "Uh," I said. "I realized that I don't actually know your names."

Twin Two had his clear eyes fixed on Anza and reached for her hand. "My lovely lady, my name is Ro—"

Before he could finish his sentence, he got a brotherly punch to the back of his head.

"Stupido, you cannot tell people your real name," Twin One said and muttered. He then snatched Anza's hand from his brother. "You can call me Hyde, and he is Jekyll."

Hyde bent down to kiss Anza's hand but only came up with his own. When he looked up, she was crossing her arms.

"I like this one," he said and grinned a gap-toothed smile. His brother apparently agreed, as he wore the exact same expression.

Nodding to the entrance, I said, "Hope it's okay I left the door open. We've got a friend out there. He's bound to see the light."

The boys leaned into each other and exchanged some quick words but finally nodded that it was fine.

"Nice place, yeah?" the man who'd identified himself as Hyde said as he slipped on a thin sweater. His brother grabbed their damp clothes and disappeared for a moment in an even smaller room off to the right.

Anza eyed our exit and leaned back against a concrete wall.

"You guys built this?" I asked, and Hyde nodded. "Did you dig into the sand? How'd you do that?"

"Nah, the sand is pretty hard packed, but it is sand, right? So we just dug out the trench with a digger, put down the foundation, built up the walls, then when it was finished drying, pushed all the sand back."

"Wow," I said.

He was clearly enjoying me geeking out on the place.

"Yeah, took a few weeks, but we got time," Hyde said. "On the other side of that room there, we got a second tunnel that goes all the way down the beach, but it's not really finished."

Jekyll came back into the room wearing a T-shirt and shorts. "We'll get to it," he said in an annoyed voice. "When things slow down."

Anza finally gave them a half smile. "You have a tourist season or something?"

Hyde shrugged. "Nah, but when it gets colder, people don't like to travel so much. And every few months, the American patrol boats sweep across this area, so we have to lay low for a while."

Jekyll smiled. "We've got Xbox. You wanna play a game?"

We declined.

He said, "Suit yourself."

Hyde grabbed four sodas from the small fridge and put them on the table, which seemed like an invitation to sit down. We did.

"So, crazy man, how did you survive that crossing? Did you make it to New Orleans?"

I nodded. "Yeah, if you can believe it."

"I can't believe it!" Jekyll said. "That thing was crazy, loco! I thought for sure you would get blown up."

About a year earlier, the twins had helped me by building a boat out of stuff that shouldn't be turned into a boat. Still, I'd used it to cross the Gulf of Mexico. For the next few minutes, I told them of how that played out, and they were rapt, silent as I did. As I spoke, despite how big they both were, they looked like little kids, just listening to a story.

When I finished, the two of them laughed and laughed for about a minute. Halfway through, we couldn't help it. Both Anza and I joined in.

"So, you are back," Hyde finally said. "And, again, you need something."

"Yes. We need a boat."

"Chingara," Jekyll said. "We already gave you one of our boats!"

"Didn't even charge you for it," Hyde added.

Anza dusted some sand off of her arm. "We have a financier, so we can pay for this one."

The twins regarded her, then one whispered to the other. They both smiled.

"The thing is, beautiful lady," Jekyll said. "We are not exactly a boat shop, no? We are more in the transport business. Dream weavers."

"Oh, I like that," Hyde said. "Yes, we are dream weavers."

"And you take people's life savings for their dreams?" Anza asked.

They took her swipe in stride. "Dreams aren't cheap, and we are the ones taking the risk here."

"Yeah," the other said. "We've got border cops on both sides pointing guns at us. The seas can be rough. Probably sharks out there too."

I looked at Anza then back at the boys. "What's with the sub?"

Hyde beamed. "We are innovators, right? Always have to stay one step ahead of the competition."

"There's a lot of competition out here?"

"Oh, hell yeah," Hyde said. "There's the Widow Riley down the beach about two miles. She's pretty big-time. Fronts it with a small hot sauce-making business, but her real dollars come from tourists."

"Tourists?" I gave them a wry smile.

"Yeah," Jekyll said. "This is what we call our clients. And Spice Lady has big money, so she's got this pricey go-fast boat that can sometimes outrun the coast guard. So, we needed an edge."

"A submarine?" Anza asked.

"It's cool, yeah? But it's a work in progress," Jekyll said and shuffled his feet. "We… actually had been buzzing around the bay there for most of the day because the top hatch sort of got a bit jammed."

I sat forward. "You were trapped in there?"

They looked at each other, crossed their arms. "Only a little bit."

"Oh. So, I saved your lives, then," I said. "When I sprung ya."

"Well… only a little bit."

"Cool," I said. "Is that worth, maybe, one boat?"

They thought for a moment, whispered to each other.

"Sure, one boat."

"Great!" Anza said and smiled.

"Which," Hyde said, "you took from us last year and blew up."

Jekyll grinned. "We're even."

"Okay," Anza said, taking a long sip from her can. "How much for your other boat, then?"

"It's not for sale."

"What?" I asked. "Can we, I dunno, rent it or something?"

"We are not in the boat rental business either," Hyde said. "But you could hire our services for a very large fee, and we can take you where you need to go."

I looked at Anza, who lifted her shoulders and nodded.

"Okay, we can pay you," she said. "But we'll need to leave very soon."

The twins smiled, and Jekyll said, "Eager? I like that in a lady."

"Puh-lease," Anza shot back.

"Where do you need to go?" Hyde asked.

I looked at Anza then back to the boys. "It's off the coast of Honduras, we think. Maybe Nicaragua?"

The boys looked at each other and laughed. One said, "No way!"

The other said, "Do you only do crazy things?"

Anza bristled. "You cannot do this, then?"

"Our boat is fast, si, but what you are talking about, that's not a day trip," Hyde said. "And our boat is not for big ocean runs. It's more of an up-and-back boat."

My heart sank, and for a moment, the world spun around me. It was all too crazy. I knew it was, and reality, it seemed, realized it too and put a stop to it. I leaned forward and rested my forehead on the cool steel table.

I felt Anza's hand squeeze my shoulder as she sat next to me.

"No boat store nearby, I bet," she said, her palm smoothing the middle of my back.

Sitting up again, I caught the boys' expressions as they stared at me. They were sweet kids despite being felons running a criminal enterprise that would get them locked up or shot by two different governments.

Hyde reached out with his big hand and put it on mine gently.

Then Anza cleared her throat. "It does not stop here. There has to be a way," she said, her back straight. "What about the Spice Lady down the beach? Maybe she will sell a boat to us."

In unison, the twins made a pfft! noise.

"No way," Jekyll said. "If she even knew that you two knew about her boat, she would slice you up and mix you into her next batch of sauce."

"You wouldn't be the first," Hyde added.

Anza said, "Fine, then we steal it."

The three of us turned to my friend, eyes wide, saying nothing. She smiled, grabbed her can, and slugged a big gulp, too big, and choked a little. She smiled again.

"Not possible," Jekyll said, speaking slowly. "If it's not out, which it is most of the time, it's roped to a long pier that is well lit, likely has motion detectors, and definitely has two of her armed men guarding it."

"Sometimes three," Hyde said, his arms crossed over his chest. "They like shooting people, I think."

"Correct. Once or twice our boat got too close for their liking and pop, pop, pop. They don't play."

"You couldn't get within a hundred meters without them seeing you."

Anza finished off her soda and squeezed the can, crushing it between her fingers. She arched back like a basketball player, hand over her head, arm curled in the air, eyeballing a small waste can in the corner. "Is good then," she said, tossing the can. It went in with a shunk! "We know some peoples with a tiny submarine."

The twins looked at each other, slowly shaking their heads.

"Two-man sub," Jekyll said.

"Okay," Anza said, her voice rising. "Then I am one man, and one of you drives it!"

"Can't, mira," the other brother said. "The electronics aren't finished. It takes both of us to work it right now. Only thing else we can fit in there are our rifles and a toolbox."

His twin agreed. "You're too big."

We heard a rattle outside the door, someone fiddling with the steel gate. Jekyll grabbed a rifle he'd had on his lap, lifting it toward the entryway. Slowly, the Actor stepped in the room, raising his hands when he saw the rifle.

Anza sucked in a quick breath then pointed at our friend. “What about him?”

Chapter Twenty

“I’ll take Sally’s bike, head to your apartment,” I said. “I’ll get Uncle Jerry. Send us the coordinates when you get there, and we’ll meet up.”

Anza nodded as we watched the twins in the moonlight pulling some big, clunky parts from their sub and dropping them on the tarp laid out over the stone bench. She fished her apartment key out of her pocket and put it in my palm, holding my hand for a moment.

“Razzie, is so dangerous,” she said. Her eyes avoided mine. “Don’t get shot and die.”

“See? That’s why you’re the smart one,” I said. “No getting shot. Check.”

She let go of my hand slowly. “How will you get on plane?”

“I’ll think of something.”

Anza frowned. “I don’t like the sound of that. You…” She grabbed my hand again. “You have a good heart but a wonky head.”

I laughed. “I don’t have a wonky head.”

“You let your emotions run away with your thinking. They have fencing and guns and probably dogs with big snarly teeth.” She looked at me with watery eyes. “What if you get caught?”

“I won’t.”

She gripped my shoulder. “That is not reassuring.”

“Trust me.”

“That only makes it worse. People say ‘trust me’ in movies all the time, then things always go wrong.”

The mouth of the twins’ hidey-hole was closed, and even though they’d led us to it, I could no longer see it. As we walked toward the path in the reeds back to the bike, I looked over at the Actor. His eyes were moving from the twins to the sub to the bench to the beach. He wasn’t blinking.

At the path, I gave Anza a hug, and she squeezed me back.

She looked over her shoulder. “I should be the one—”

“Shush, no,” I said. “You heard them. It has to be the Actor. You won’t fit. Too fat.”

“What? No one said I was fat.”

“I meant p-h-a-t phat, like you are too cool.”

“No one says this anymore,” she said, punching my arm. “No, to break in and steal Uncle Jerry. Should be me.”

I shook my head. “Silvio might recognize you. Don’t worry. I got it.”

“Then go,” she said and handed me a device. “Actor’s phone. I’ll let you know where we are so we can meet up.”

I smiled. “He doesn’t know you took this does he?”

“He is too worried being freaked out,” she said, smiling back. “Is waterproof unless you go diving.”

“Check.”

“Don’t go diving,” she said, gave me a playful push, and started back toward the beach. “Just get Uncle Jerry. He needs you.”

“But,” I said, and she waved, turning away. “How are you going to steal a boat from guys with rifles?”

She spun toward me, raised both hands, palms to the sky, and said, “God will show me a path.”

I frowned because, in truth, I didn’t trust the guy. I’d always felt He was like an absentee father, and I already had one of those.

However, I didn’t say that to Anza.

“Don’t worry,” she said and smiled at me. “I’ll think of something.”

Nodding, I said to my friend, “Why does that sound far more convincing when you say it?”

* * *

“This is humiliating,” the Actor said then grunted as he shifted in the cramped space.

The twins snickered.

The idiot just in front of him was working a series of pedals while the other idiot in front of him steered. The front twin had slapped on some headgear that looked like something a kid playing a virtual reality game might wear, or a lone dude watching 3D porn.

“By the way, you drop ass in here, and I’ll kick you in the head,” the Actor said. “How much farther?”

“Not far,” Jekyll said. “Hey, you were on that show, right? With the swords and the dragons and the skinny girl who was naked all the time?”

The Actor groaned. Jesus, now?

His brother slapped a hand on the side of the minisub then clapped his hands.

“Shit, I knew I knew you, bro!”

“Yes, yes,” the Actor said. “How much farther?”

Hyde turned his head to the left and right for a moment, then nodded to himself. “About a minute. You were great, man. Hated to see your show go off the air.”

“Thanks.”

“Did you have to go to school to learn that fake language?” Jekyll asked, working his pedals.

The Actor sighed. “Yes, sort of,” he said then softened. “It’s a real language now. They’ve got fanboys who learned it. Actually speak it.”

“Okay,” one said. “So, say something like ‘You have beautiful hair. It would look great on my pillow!’”

The other twin laughed and slapped his brother’s back.

“We didn’t have classes,” the Actor said, rubbing a spot on his chest. “They gave me audio files of just my lines. I had no idea what I was saying.”

“But you spoke that fake language, yes?”

The Actor frowned like he’d swallowed day-old boiled okra. “Zadravian. Horrible mix of Slavic and Nordic and the sort of sounds a badger might make if it tried to auto-fellate itself,” he said. “Thankfully, I didn’t have to speak it much.”

“Spanish is a lovely language. It’s rhythmic and sensual. Talking with someone in Spanish is like foreplay.”

“If Spanish is foreplay, Zadravian is like prison rape,” the Actor said.

The two big men laughed as they worked the controls of their homemade sub.

The brief quiet made the Actor think about what he was about to do, and that made his hands start to tremble. He balled them into fists. He spoke, hoping to calm his hammering heart. “So, it’s as easy as unleashing the boat’s line on the dock and just, uh, driving off?”

“Oh, not easy,” Hyde said. “But that should be about the extent of it.”

“And you really think the key will be right there on the boat?”

“Sure,” the other one said. “They got nothing to worry about. No one would be dumb enough to steal it!”

The Actor was beginning to hate the sound of their laughter.

* * *

“You hear something?” the man on the beach asked, trying to light his cigarette as he stared out at the blackness of the ocean.

“Yeah,” the other man said and shifted the strap of his automatic rifle. His partner had an identical one. “You’ve been trying to light that for a half hour.”

“Not a half hour!”

“You should vape. Better for you.”

Finally the lighter came alive, and the first man sucked in that first glorious lungful of smoke. “I don’t want to look like a poser,” he said and stuffed the lighter back in his pocket. Flicking his cigarette, he stared back at the moonlight shimmering over the water. “Thought I heard something.”

* * *

A minute later, the Actor stole a quick peek topside. The twins had been right. It was a big boat. The hull of it extended out beyond the edge of the long wooden dock. From up top, he could almost hop over the side and into the cabin. But he couldn't. Not yet.

"There'll be a rope at the front tied to the dock," one of the twins said. He couldn't tell them apart anymore. Or maybe he could. He was having trouble thinking. His mind was splintering, spiked by adrenaline.

"Okay," he said.

"And one on the stern," the other one said. Hyde? "That's the back of the boat."

"I know!"

"Okay, okay," the man whispered as the other slowly began to lift the hatch again. "Get rid of those, fire up the boat, and head out."

"That easy?"

"No, this is stupid!" he said and smiled. "Good luck."

The Actor slowly rose up, peeking over the lip. He squinted and saw two men with rifles standing on the beach, one with a smoke.

He looked down again, cursed under his breath, and bracing himself with sweaty hands, lifted himself onto the tip of the dock. He turned back to the sub as one of the twins started to reseal the hatch.

"Where will you guys be?"

"Far from here!"

Seconds later, they dipped into the black water and were gone.

The knot on the thick rope at the bow of the boat took at least two minutes to work out. Trying to distract himself, the Actor made a mental note to learn about knots when it was all over.

In the end, he'd only loosened it. But it was enough to free the rest of the long coil of rope. After another minute, he had, bit by bit, lifted it off and freed the nose of the boat. He laid the heavy, damp tangle on the dock just behind him.

One more to go.

Then he froze.

Behind him, he heard a snake slithering and hissing, moving faster and faster toward him, but he was too terrified to turn around. Then he couldn't help it. He looked back. The rope was slipping into the water.

* * *

"Hey, Marco," the cigarette-smoking heavy said, stepping toward the shoreline. "I think I heard a splash."

Marco shook his head. "It's a fucking ocean. It's a collection of splashes!"

Still moving forward, the other turned his head back. "Collection of splashes. Deep, man, deep."

"Where are you going?"

"I'm just looking!"

"The Widow doesn't like us messing with her boat, man," the other said, following. "So, don't mess with it."

"Christ," the first said, tossing his cigarette into the sand. "There's someone up there, man. They… they're up against the side of the boat, but I can see them!"

"No," the other said, coming up beside him. "Who would… where?"

The first man looked down at his still-burning cig on the beach, regretting that he'd thrown it way. Then he looked at the dock, trying to pick out movement in the churning darkness. He pointed.

"It's… shit. I think it's a kid."

* * *

The Actor was starting to feel confident. Already, he'd finished half the job, but the hardest part would be the other rope, no question. However, his training had gotten him that far. In fact, he'd begun to envision that he was like Jack Ryan or Whatever-his-name-is from the Die Hard movies.

I should take my shoes off. Like Bruce Willis.

He crept forward and almost smiled. The two idiots on the beach stared out at the moonlight. They had no idea.

* * *

"What the fuck is he doing?"

"Dunno," the taller man said, moving his rifle from back to front. He hadn't yet gripped it. "How do you know it's a kid?"

"Look," the other said, pointing. "He's fucking wearing his pajamas."

"I think it's… a robe."

"Whatever."

* * *

The Actor wiped his mouth to stop from grinning. He’d never been in an action movie, always playing the quirky neighbor or grumpy shopkeeper. Then there was the train movie, sure. But he’d never played an action hero.

Doing so now, stealing a boat, he knew he had the stuff. And strangely, it was a skill he never knew he had. Covert. Sly. Cunning. I could be an action hero.

* * *

The taller man looked back at the large beach house. The lights were out, and the Widow wouldn’t be happy with them if they came in and woke her with little reason. Still, letting some kid run around on the boat was out of the question.

“Okay,” he said to the man digging around in the sand for his cigarette. “We better shoot him.”

* * *

He lay flat on the dock, creeping toward the other coil of rope.

Then he suddenly lost a measure of confidence. The second one would be far harder to unwrap without being seen. Maybe he should wait until the guys way over on the beach went for dinner or a bathroom break.

That's not what an Action Hero does! Fuck it!

He would take the risk. Then he would tell his agent about it, proof of his mettle, his strength, his untapped talent, and who knew? It could be a whole new career path.

But he would want to be one of those smart action heroes, not just firing guns, but clever, like Indy.

He reached for the rope, but it spit at him, which was weird. The Actor realized someone had just shot the rope.

* * *

"That ain't a kid, man!"

"What?"

"Not a kid." The tall man sprinted for the dock. "Look!"

They both ran toward the boat.

"Definitely not a kid," the other man said. "That's the hairiest ass I've ever seen!"

* * *

Shit, shit, shit, shit!

The guys on the beach, of course, hadn't shot at the rope. They were shooting at him.

He was busted, so he switched modes from action hero to terrified fleeing disposable extra.

No, no. Not an extra! I don't want to die.

He hopped over the side of the boat and landed hard but was quick to his feet, powered by pure white-hot fear. Running along the deck, his own footfalls merely amped up his terror. Thwak, thwak, thwak, thwak, thwak!

"Hey, hey!"

Another shot rang out.

He could hear them on the dock, running fast, as his heart rabbited, and all he wanted to do was breathe, but his lips had locked in place, refusing to cooperate.

In the cabin was the wheel. He just had to fire it up and throw the accelerator, and he would be off. He could still make it.

There was no key.

* * *

The first gunman stopped running and put a hand on the other's chest. "No, no," he said. "Go to the shed and get one of those big lawn bags. The black ones. And chains."

"What for?"

"Because someone might have heard the shot, dumbass!" he said. "He might work for another outfit. Once we kill that man-kid, we gotta sink him in the ocean so no one will find him."

* * *

The Actor panicked, looking for any place that might have the key. Cupholders, the two sideboards, the shelf.

Nothing.

He stole a look outside. The two men on the dock had stopped and were standing just a few feet from the beach. They would be there in seconds.

He spun back to the cabin then looked at the rail. He could go over the boat, swim away, except he couldn't really swim.

"Fuck!" he shouted and spun in a circle. "Fuck, fuck, fuck!"

Then something banged against his leg. It was his robe, something in his pocket.

He pulled out a long, shapeless key strapped to a small black metal skull. When he'd pulled it out of the motorcycle, it had looked all wrong. No ridges, no grooves. It was like a tiny metal sword.

Maybe… maybe he could use it to pick the lock.

Again, outside, he heard the footfalls coming closer. One of the gunmen was heading his way. Just the one, sure, but he had a rifle. It didn't matter if it was one guy or an advancing horde of them. All it would take was one bullet.

The Actor dropped to one knee and jammed the spike-like key into the ignition. He thought if he maybe twisted it around, forced the lock, he might might have a shot. Not likely, but—

Then the key did something he didn't expect. It made a strange, slinking sound then a clunk.

The Actor swallowed and turned it. The boat roared to life.

Chapter Twenty-One

Without the Actor or Anza on the back of the bike, I threw caution to the wind. When I got back on the highway, I only had to say one word to the bike. "Giddyap."

The motorcycle got me back to the ferry for Cozumel in about twenty minutes.

My arms were aching and my legs stiff. I'd simply held on the entire time, trying desperately to anticipate the turns, banks, and straightaways, but mainly, I was holding on for dear life.

When I finally arrived at Anza's place, the sun was peeking up over the horizon.

I quietly slipped Anza's key into the lock. The brass letter A on the key chain ticked against the door a few times. I cracked open the door and crept inside.

The map was still on the table, and clicking on a lamp by the window, I studied it.

An access road ran down the beach, and it looked like that would be my best chance at getting into the compound. There was little use in checking the tiny homes for Uncle Jerry. In at least a half dozen of them, I would be at risk of being seen.

My plan—well, Anza's plan—had been to head to the hangar and look for an opportunity. Somehow, I would have to get on the plane and hide. Once Uncle Jerry was in the air, I could pop out and tell him the plan. Simple.

"It won't work."

I spun around and said, "What?" in a voice I didn't recognize. I knew her roommate was inside. I was being quiet, trying not to wake him, but my nerves had been doing that crackly arc light thing all the way back. On edge.

Angel was standing in his doorway in full-on drag mode with a big head of black hair, silver sequined dress, long fake nails, and a pair of purple boas around his neck.

"You sleep in all that?"

"No," he said and came around to sit on the couch next to me. "I just got home. The club closes at four. We had a few drinks afterward. I just got in and was getting ready for bed."

"Sorry, Angel. I was trying to be quiet."

"That's what I mean. Anza's hide-in-the-plane scenario? You stomp around like an elephant, and they'll hear you," he said. "Or see you."

I went back to the map. "I'll be fine." He watched me trace my finger down the road. I found a spot that would take me within a hundred yards of the hangar.

"So you're going to ride up on that roaring motorcycle and just park it? They'll hear that, too, dumbo!"

I'd thought of that. "I'll just… ask it to be quieter."

"Ask it? It's a motorcycle. It's loud!"

"You have a better idea?"

That drew a big smile from Angel. He said, "I'm good at maps, and I've looked at this more times than I can count." He tapped a blue line with a purple fingernail.

"That's a river."

"Bonehead," he said. "This is a tiny island. There are no rivers. It's a creek."

"Okay."

"We take the bike up here, and you get in and swim…" He paused and looked me up and down. "Or float down to the edge here," he said, tracing his nail down the blue line. "It goes right behind the hangar. You'll be soggy, but you won't be dead."

Not bad, actually, I thought, but I had noticed his use of the collective pronoun.

"Um, 'we'?"

"Of course," he said and stood up. "Like I said, that thing is a roaring beasty machine. You park it anywhere along that access road, and they'll hear it shut down. I can drop you off and keep going, bring it back here." Angel glided to his bedroom door.

I said, "You would do that?"

"Sure," he said. "I'm a little drunk, but I prefer to ride that way. It heightens the buzz." He slipped back into his bedroom and closed the door.

I pulled out the Actor's phone and used it to take a picture of the map. I had tried to memorize the important bits, but I could sometimes get lost coming back from the bathroom at a restaurant. And I certainly didn't want to get lost on a Mexican drug cartel's private estate and have to ask some mean-looking dude with a pointy bang-bang stick for directions.

This is really stupid, isn't it?

Helping your friends is never stupid. But it's not safe, no.

I thought about that for a moment.

He risked everything for me last time. I owe him.

But it's more than that.

Well, you said I gotta be good. Do good things. Then I can be with you again.

No, silly. I mean you're not doing this as payback, and you're not doing it because I told you to. Admit it. There's nothing wrong with loving your friends.

I save that word for you, Cassie. Just thinking her name started my eyes watering.

I miss you, sweetheart.

I miss you, too, but you need to focus so you don't get shot or caught. You don't know how to fly planes, so I can only imagine what sort of services you might provide them.

Is that supposed to make me feel brave? I don't feel very brave.

You don't have to be very brave, Razzie. You just need to be brave enough.

A moment later, Angel burst into the room. He was wearing a leather catsuit with shiny studs with spikes up and down both arms and down the legs and at the wrist wraps. His black gloves were fingerless. On his head was the teal bicycle helmet, which I felt clashed with the intertwining purple boas. However, I kept that wee assessment to myself.

"I'm ready."

"That's your riding outfit?"

"Sure," he said, grinning madly. "But not necessarily motorcycle riding." He did a spin. The gloves weren't the only thing "-less."

"Jesus, do you have any, you know, pants that are more, uh, pant-like?"

"These aren't pants. They're chaps," he said and tightened one of the buckles across his thighs. "They'll do in a pinch."

"That black seat really picks up the sun. It might still be a bit, you know, hot."

"Oh, Raz," he said and strode past me, his chaps over fishnet stockings showing off a well-toned ass that could crack a diamond if one were jammed between its cheeks. He grabbed the handle of the front door. "Promises, promises."

* * *

Anza heard the shots and was fighting back tears when she finally saw the boat rocketing toward her. In truth, she had no idea if the Actor was on the boat or whoever had fired the shots was instead.

There wasn't time. She ran into the water and began swimming out. A massive wave slapped against her as the wake of the boat caught up. Whoever was driving dropped the throttle. Ten seconds later, she was at the back of it, eyeballing the small ladder. She looked up to the cabin.

Dark. Then, in a flurry of fraying yellow material and panic, the Actor ran out, and her heart sang. Extending a hand, he helped her aboard then ran back to the cabin.

She noticed a thick rope trailing from the back of the boat out into the deep darkness beyond. She called out, "Why are there ropes here? What is this?"

Once again, the Actor hit the throttle to get the boat going forward, as far away from the beach house as he could get. Over his shoulder, he shouted, "It's part of a dock! Get rid of it, 'kay?"

* * *

It was the first time I could remember riding bitch.

It had taken more than a minute to get the bike to start up. I didn't think Bucephalus necessarily had anything against drag queens—more like it was exceptionally choosy about who took the reins.

It had chosen me, I suppose, because I'd been kind to it. Strangely, then, it felt like a bit of a betrayal, but with a soft cooing voice, I'd convinced it to fire up and let Angel take control.

Thankfully, the island wasn't terribly large, so my driver knew just about every road by name, even the ones that didn't have names.

"This used to be called Chill Road!" Angel shouted back over the din of the motorcycle. "A stupid name, but sometime last year, some Texas college kids ripped it down to put the sign in their dorm."

As we rode, Angel explained his idea again. His job would be to ride down the road running alongside the compound. The Mexican drag queen dressed in leather and buttless chaps had suggested I roll off the bike when he slowed down near the drop-off spot.

"I ain't rolling off a moving vehicle!"

"Don't be such a pussy," he called back, purple boa flapping in the wind, slapping at my face like it was making fun of me. "I'll slow down."

"No rolling off!"

As we banked, finally taking the road where I was going to sneak over and find the creek, Angel struggled with the bike, which still seemed none too happy another stranger was in control.

In truth, I wasn't really "riding bitch." I'd instead taken the seat where the Actor had ridden when we'd gone to meet up with the twins, meaning it wasn't a seat so much as the small luggage rack on the back of the bike.

I shifted uncomfortably on the metal grating as the bike shimmied, trilled, and wobbled. I reached out and placed a hand on the back of the seat, petting it slightly. I whispered, "It's okay. We're just going to help out a friend. You're doing great."

Strangely, the motorcycle settled down a bit and rode more smoothly. My initial assertion that it was more than just a bike felt right. And with that, I did feel an obligation to treat the creature properly. I patted it again and offered a thank you.

"We're nearly there!" Angel shouted over the wind and sped up.

Instead of answering, I squinted through the dust we'd kicked up. Behind us, I saw a small blue car. Old, beat-up, it looked like its driver was pushing the car to its limits to make it down the road.

I hadn't seen it earlier, but as I'd been focusing on not falling off and dying, I hadn't really been looking.

The roads had been packed with tourists—pedestrians, bicycles, and cars—deeper in town, but outside the town, we'd been on our own for the past ten minutes. Until then.

Angel called back again, "Just beyond that crumbling shed, about a hundred meters, you'll see the creek. Goes right under the fence. That'll take you outside the hangar and…"

But I wasn't listening. The car behind us was speeding up.

* * *

Uncle Jerry was happy to be outside in the morning sun again.

The dirty white van with its thick plastic seat covering rolled and bounced across the dirt road toward the hangar, tossing the aging pilot around like an old shoe in a tumble dryer. Twice, the driver had warned him to sit still.

"If your head breaks that window, Silvio will take it out of your ass!"

Jerry was sure he'd grown at least two lumps on the left side of his head from smacking the glass, but even that hadn't bothered him. Right then, he wasn't locked in a room, chained to an old bed.

Soon, he would be in the sky again—under a watchful eye, sure, but no chains, no one yelling, no derisive scowls, no threats. Just a boy and his plane in the deep blue sky. Maybe one day, he would just keep flying, over the ocean somewhere and do an Amelia Earhart. He could land on a deserted island and drink out of coconuts, make friends with washed-up sporting equipment.

Of course, even that bleak life was not an option. The plane had trackers all over it, and they would eventually find him. No, he had to take the only joy left to him, flying.

As the hangar grew larger, bobbing and swaying in the front window, he heard a low rumble and turned his head. Off in the distance, on the frontage road, he could see two people on a motorcycle just enjoying the day. He sighed.

Something purple flitted in the sun. The rider on the back sat strangely, the wrong direction.

Jerry almost laughed. "That doesn't look comfortable."

Then, about a half mile behind the bike, he saw a small blue car going faster than the old machine should, clawing through the dust.

Those people out there, free, driving and enjoying their day.

That guy on the back won't enjoy it much if he tumbles off and that little blue car uses him like a speed bump.

Then he got the strangest feeling. Something familiar. Before he could identify it, the driver took a sharp turn on the hangar's access road, and his view of the road disappeared.

* * *

Anza felt she was getting the hang of the go-fast boat, especially with the sun now showing her the way. They traced the shoreline, and every other minute, she looked down at the navigation software. The trip all the way around the coastline would take somewhere around seven hours, a long time to go without being seen.

"Maybe we should move away from the shore a little," she said to her friend. "People, they can see us from there."

In the dim early sun, a woman hanging out her wash gave Anza a furtive wave. Anza couldn't help but wave back, trying to smile and look causal.

"I think—" Anza said then stopped. She turned back to see the Actor hunched over a seat, staring out the back. "What are you doing?"

The Actor turned toward her, and his eyes went wide. "Keep an eye on where you're going!"

"I am," she said and spun back.

A large buoy surrounded by an old wooden dock floated just off their bow. She flicked the wheel away from the shore, giving it a wide berth.

They had only been on the water about an hour, but already she was growing tired, anxiety draining her strength. Their plan depended on getting to the drop point out in the middle of the ocean. She was terrified they wouldn't make it in time or that they would be caught by the US authorities or Mexican authorities. Or worse.

She lifted the lever beside the wheel and pushed the boat faster. Watching the Actor in the wraparound mirror, she saw, again, he was facing the back… staring at nothing but blue water, blue sky.

They had decided that if they did get stopped for any reason, they would play off that he was some wealthy Hollywood actor out for a jaunt on his new boat. He did have some low-level notoriety. If nothing else, they could play dumb and turn back before finding a way to reestablish their course to get to Jerry's ditching spot.

She called back, "Maybe you can take over the wheel for a while. My arms are tired!"

"Wait!"

The Actor pulled off the shades he'd found in one of the many compartments around the cabin and stood on the small set of stairs leading to the back deck. Then he stepped out into the sunlight and kneeled on the bench outside to stare out back.

Anza called to him, but he ignored her for the moment. He'd seen something on the water, but then… maybe not.

Are we being followed? "Where… are you?" he muttered. "Just over…"

He scanned the horizon again, and just when he was about to turn away, he saw motion. Not on the water, above it.

Something small and black, but then it grew larger. It was moving fast, and it was heading toward them.

The Actor bolted from the bench and went back into the cabin. He came up beside Anza at the wheel. "Can you make this boat go faster?"

"Yes, but we are dodging and weaving around things out here," she said. "We need to move farther out into the water," she said and turned the wheel. They had to make up time.

She saw the look on the Actor's face. "What is it? What did you see?"

He shook his head, his curly locks banging against his flush cheeks.

She asked again, "What?"

"I don't know!" he growled. "It looks like a large… bat."

"Bat? I don' like bats."

"I don't know it—"

Right then, a high-pitched whine filled the cabin, and they both jumped. Looking out the windows, they searched for its source.

"What is that sound?" Anza whispered.

"I don't know. Bat sounds!"

"That doesn't sound like a bat. I think they go 'squeak-squeak-squeak,' not that sound."

"I said bat, not bird," the Actor whispered back. "Bats don't squeak."

"They do squeaking!"

Then the "bat" drifted into view off the port side of the boat. It was as big as a kitchen table. Black, sleek, with two fins on the back, long wings, and a "head" that looked like a Christmas snow globe. However, the glass on the globe was tinted—within it, an eye turned toward them.

"A robot bat," Anza said, her mouth hanging open. "The machines is finally taking over! Only a matter of time!"

The Actor growled. "It's a fucking drone!"

"That doesn’t look like the one Angel had. That is big!” she said. Then she squinted back out their front windows and turned parallel to the shore again. “Who is drone?"

The dwarf actor took a step toward the fluttering plastic window then crossed to the other side of the cabin, the blood draining from his face. "I don't know 'who is drone,' but they're no friend of ours."

* * *

Angel shouted back, "Are you ready?"

"No, there's a car back here!" I barked over the wind, my eyes battered by the dust.

I could see the rust on the small blue vehicle. One person inside, too dark to see, was hunched over the wheel. The car hit a pothole and shimmied and hopped but didn't lose speed. It looked like the thing might rattle apart before it finally caught up to us.

"I'll speed up, but you'll need to roll off just after the shed!"

"I am not rolling off. You're doing fifty miles an hour!"

The car edged closer then swerved slightly as the driver lost control. For the moment, it had gone sideways, and we sped off.

"Ready?"

"No!" I shouted, eying the car. It then disappeared, swallowed by the dust cloud.

I needed to change the plan. We could hit the gas, rocket down the road, hook back, and maybe we would lose the car. Then I caught sight of the hangar as we passed by.

Its large rollaway door was up, and a small plane was being pulled by a bobcat. A half dozen men wandered around, each with rifles either on their backs or held casually in their arms. The only one without a rifle was a man in tattered blue overalls, his wild gray hair flying in the wind.

"Uncle Jerry," I muttered.

His shoulders were slumped, and his back bent. My heart broke, but I couldn't help my friend if I died. We would have to get down to the end of the road then try again, leaving our pursuer far behind.

I was just about to relay that to my drag queen driver when he shouted, "Go! Go! Go!"

Crazy bastard. We were still going way too fast.

I turned to say, "Not yet," but the words never left my lips. Without spinning around, he'd placed one of his leather-fingerless-gloved hands on my back. Then he pushed.

My world spun, light-dark-light-dark-light-dark, then I felt an explosion of pain in my shoulder as I hit the dirt-and-gravel road. I was getting sick from all the rolling and finally came to a stop, sore all over my body, my legs soaking at the mouth of the creek.

"You crazy fuc—" I started to shout from the ditch but then saw the blue car burst through the dust. I ducked down low, hiding beneath the earthen lip.

Angel had hit the accelerator and was moving fast, but the car was hot on his tail.

Keeping low, I could only watch. As the blue car passed me, I finally got a look at the driver. Sally. Sally was at the wheel.

* * *

"Where did it go?"

"I don't know!"

The Actor pressed his face against the side windows, scanning above. Then he ran to the other side of the cabin and looked there. Nothing.

Anza was about to call to him, but he ran outside onto the back deck, arms out, hands balled into fists, again scanning the skies.

"I don't see it anymore!" he shouted. "It's gone."

"Come here!"

"Wait!" he shouted back. "I'm looking for it. I think it went… toward the shore maybe. It's not—"

"Please, come here!"

Anza's voice was strained, and the panic that had been balled up in the Actor's stomach branched into the rest of his body.

He ran back into the cabin and sidled up next to her. He watched as her eyes darted to the starboard then port, but all he saw were thin strips of beach, the occasional corrugated steel shack, gray puffs of bushes in the sand. None of it looked threatening. Then, he realized something.

"Wait," he said, taking a step back. "Why is there land on both sides of the boat? That… on that side"—he ran back to the plastic windows—"that is supposed to be water. All of that is supposed to be water to the Texas coast."

Anza remained quiet, looked down at the controls, then out the starboard window again. "We are in some sort of inlet, too close to shoreline," she said.

"Get us out!"

She spun the wheel hard, and the boat banked, flinging the Actor to the far side of the cabin. Anza herself was holding onto the captain's chair she'd yet to sit in.

The boat made a wide arc, a U-turn on the water, and the sun passed from one side of their vision to the other.

"Nice," he growled. Then he stood and saw that she'd nearly finished the turn. "Nice!"

But Anza wasn't as cheerful about their scenario. Something scraped the side of the boat, then it briefly lurched to one side.

The Actor tumbled, end over end, and was back on the other side of the cabin. "You're too close, hitting sand!"

She cranked the wheel a little farther, and they headed straight for the strip of beach on the other side.

The Actor stood and gasped at the sight of land out the front windows. "Hey, that—"

Before he could finish his sentence, Anza once again spun the wheel, banking hard to port, and the boat turned at a near-ninety-degree angle.

Behind her, the Actor tumbled and thudded against the opposite side of the cabin.

She let out a sigh of relief. Staring over the bow of the go-fast boat, she saw blue water once again opening up before them.

The Actor stood, growled once more, then hopped into the captain's chair. "Are you trying to kill me?"

She wiped her mouth with a trembling hand. "I cannot kill you. You know all of this, of course. And even if I could, I would not be trying!"

The Actor strode over to the small fridge, pulled out a beer, snapped off the cap with the built-in bottle opener, and tipped it back, taking huge gulps.

Anza scanned the horizon in front of them. Is there a small island ahead? She hadn't seen one when they'd passed before.

The Actor let out a long-held breath, looked at his half-finished bottle, and tossed it over the side.

"Don' throw things in the water."

"It's the ocean!" he said, grabbing another bottle. "That's what it's for!" He took another swig, choked for a moment, then got back in the big chair, and strapped in. He looked out the front windows. "What is that?"

Anza didn't reply.

Just as the island began to take form, the Actor squinted and—

Pfft, pfft, pfft, pfft, pfft!

"Holy shit," the Actor said, trying to lean down, out of the way, but the belts of the captain's chair held him steady. "Who's shooting at us?"

"That other boat!" Anza said, looking back down at the controls. However, neither steering wheel nor hand throttle seemed to hold an answer for what to do next.

"Turn around!"

"We can't keep turning around! That is only more land. The green scope was showing that it was going into a point, nowhere to go."

"Well—"

Pfft, pfft, pfft, pfft, pfft!

"Dammit!" the Actor said and ducked down again. He fiddled with the buckle, his hands shaking, but he couldn't get it unsnapped. "We can't go that way. That boat is firing on us!"

A loud, tinny voice rang out over the whine of the engine. They both listened, but only Anza could understand it. She let out a low, panicked sob.

"I don't speak Mexican!" the Actor said. "What did they say?"

Anza looked to the left and right, then behind. There seemed to be no options. "Is the coast guard," she said. "They know this is a smuggle boat."

"What did they say?"

"We have to shut down the engines," she said and put her face in her hands.

"We can't do that! Can we go around it?"

Pfft, pfft, pfft, pfft, pfft!

The Actor's question answered, he said, "Okay, no going around it. What if we, I don't know, ignore them. Pretend like we didn't hear."

Anza stiffened, and wiping away a tear, she said, "They say if we don't make stopping, they will blow us up."

The Actor opened his mouth then closed it again.

He looked at the beer in the cup holder and finished the entire thing in one gulp. He looked at his hands then back up to Anza manipulating the small green screen map just off the steering column.

The Actor unbuckled the seat belt and hopped down off the chair. He stared at the screen. "What—what do we do?"

Anza looked out over the bow, the gleaming white coast guard boat blocking their way. If they were caught, it could mean prison, or at the very least, they would never make the drop-off point. So, she took the only option left. In the tiny inlet, with their exit blocked, Anza threw the throttle wide open, and the Actor flew to the rear of the cabin.

* * *

I watched the dust settle around me, lying in the watery ditch.

The roar of Sally's motorcycle, with Sally following in some piece-of-shit car, grew quieter and quieter as both vehicles skittered down the road and out of sight.

Briefly, I checked my body for broken bones. Not that I was medically trained, but it seemed if I touched a part that might be at an odd angle and it hurt, I could consider it broken.

Nothing.

I was okay. Except for most of my body throbbing dully after being pushed from the bike, I seemed no worse for wear. The small of my back was registering a grievance, stepping to the front of the complaints line, but I'd suffered little more than a bruised tailbone.

Looking at the fence, I could see the barbed wire that ran all across the top. However, it was rusted in most places, and part of it had fallen away after years of neglect.

The water soaking the bottom half of my body was dark and brackish, but just past my feet, I could see where it was coming from. The small creek that bubbled from the compound was emptying into the sea after passing through a fat, large pipe that went under the gravel road. A grate had captured leaves and sticks and wrappers and old cigarette packages, pushing some of the water into the ditch.

I crawled toward the gap under the fence. To say it smelled bad was an understatement. I wondered how much of the water might be sewage or drainage from the handful of animals wandering the encampment.

"Screw it," I said and slipped beneath the fence, scraping my back on the toothy wire as I did. I tried to slip out the other side but got caught on the fencing, trapped beneath the water.

Part of me wanted to open my eyes and at least get my bearings, but there was sludge, grass, branches, and what I imagined were massive turds, passing my arms and face.

Panic stole the breath I'd taken, and I struggled against the mild current, trying to break free. Unable to, I was losing air and struggling even harder.

I lifted my head above the water and gulped in air, taking in a half swallow of water. I was right—it tasted like I'd just downed a cup of week-old toilet water, and I fought against an instant need to vomit.

Then I thought what might be in my stomach, and I just did.

Surrounded by grime, floating moss, lumps of goo, and a film of my own puke, I stripped off my shirt, giving the fence teeth its lunch. Finally, I broke free, heaving and drawing in deep breaths, on my hands and knees in the creek, the waterline coming up to my chin.

"Well, this is going well."

I took a few moments to feel sorry for myself then drudged up the creek, banging across rocks and slime. Moving against the current, even at its drizzle-bubble pace, was slow going.

For the next ten minutes, I moved forward, cutting up my knees and hands as I did. At one point, I lifted my body above the surface, my board shorts heavy with water, and crouched as I walked along the creek bed. But then I heard some voices rolling across the hillside toward me. They were angry but laughing at the same time. I slipped below the dark water again.

After another few minutes, I caught sight of the side of a large building with steel-gray walls, pockets of rust across it, its large rollaway door still open. The hangar.

I tried to swim a little. My hands and knees screamed at me, elbowing aside the small of my back in the complaints queue.

Then, I saw a face staring at me, wide, judging, cowlike eyes taking me in, and not cowlike so much as just cow. The skinny creature was chewing on some yellowed grass, watching me since, it would seem, it didn't have much else to do.

"Scoot," I said to it in a low whisper. "Scat. Get outta here."

It regarded me with those big dull eyes and let out a long mooooo, which made everything in my body fry with electricity.

But then, it wasn't a barking dog. I knew there were some dogs on the compound. I'd seen them in the drone footage. Sure, they could have been fat angry tabbies, but I couldn't imagine cats would make for very good guard animals. What? You're here to kill the owner? Screw it, go ahead. They're feeding me the cheap stuff anyhow.

Either way, no one hearing a cow moo in a field would go, "Hey, what do you see, girl?"

I asked it, "You trying to get me busted?"

It didn't answer. That was a good thing, I supposed, because if it had, I really wouldn't have been emotionally prepared.

Pushing forward another fifty to a hundred yards, more scrapes and cuts to my skin, I was finally at the side of the hangar. Slowly, I pulled myself out of the creek, kept low, and headed for a door on the side.

I could hear voices growing louder, rolling across the dirt of the makeshift runway.

"You've got nine hours to get there and back," one of the heavily accented men said, obviously to my pilot friend. "You make it back before then, and you'll have a nice steak waiting for you."

That elicited only a grunt from another man.

"If you are late, we will again see how long it takes you to pass out from one of Hector's cattle prods."

This drew laughter from at least three other men. As they cackled, a dizzying electric rage flushed through me like I'd stepped on a bare wire. I wanted to kill all of them, tear the limbs off whichever was closest, then smash the others to death with his bloodied arms.

Breathing through it, I instead took the opportunity to try the side door. It was unlocked. I cracked it open and could see a sliver of light on the other side of the big hangar door. Most of the lit spot was covered by crates and dingy tarps, littered with oily, empty plastic containers.

I slipped inside and closed the door as quietly as I could.

Recalling the drone footage again, I remembered there’d been two buildings side by side. The one farthest from me was slightly larger, all metal. This one looked to be little more than a converted barn. The plane itself must have barely fit inside.

Against the far wall, two men were sitting and playing cards at a small folding table. Each sat on a wooden crate—both holding cards with one hand. In the other, one held a beer. His friend held a cigarette.

When the plane sputtered and fired up, my heart nearly jumped out of my chest to make a beeline for the door.

Then came the sounds of boxes being tossed into the craft's belly. I heard several bang and bounce as they landed, and peering through the small gaps, I could see them tumbling languidly inside.

They were empty. It made sense, I supposed. Uncle Jerry would head out to a destination where they would be filled for him to bring back. I briefly wondered why he didn't get already filled boxes when he landed, but I was unfamiliar with the world of drug cartels. Maybe they had a "bring your own box" policy. Quite environmentally friendly, if that were the case.

Then I caught sight of my friend. His wrinkled blue jumpsuit was torn in countless places, matted with bits of food and dark stains. The stains were mainly concentrated around a number of cuts in the fabric. It didn't take much for me to realize the dark stains had been his blood.

Once again, anger boiled up in me, and I had to breathe it out. Focus! Going batshit with nothing but a pair of soggy tennis shoes and shorts would only get me killed.

I saw the man from the bar earlier hand him a green box the size of a suitcase. Three large straps held the top closed. Anza had told me the guy's name—Silvio.

"You know the drill," Silvio said. "You will give this to the man in the hat."

Uncle Jerry scowled. "They all wear hats."

"Shut up."

Jerry grunted and tucked the case under his arm. Two other men were lifting the ramp back onto the plane as a third cranked a handwheel on its side, closing the thing up.

The plane shook in a brief wobble, the tips of the wings dipping slightly on one side then straightening out.

Silvio briefly cut his eyes to the plane but, unfazed, went back to my friend. "Do not stray from the flight path, or you know—"

Uncle Jerry stared at him with a blank expression.

The man clasped his hands in front my friend's face then made a "kpuuuuhhh" sound, spreading them a part, his fingers twittering like flitting moths—or airplane parts in the sky.

Jerry began walking toward the cockpit door, his head low, his shoulders rounded. The three others headed toward a big black SUV, which had been left running. A man in the front seat got out and opened the door for their head man.

How am I going to get on the goddamn plane?

The vehicle started driving away, heading toward a sprawling home up on the hill.

I looked around and saw what was left of an umbrella stand broken into pieces and covered in dust and rust. I grabbed one of the bits of pipe. One end of it was stained like Jerry's jumpsuit had been.

Running out of time, I looked for a spot on the other side of the hangar. If I could throw the pipe against the wall, the two poker players might go investigate. Then I could slip back out the door and, if it actually worked, bang on the plane, and hope Jerry would quickly let me in.

I scanned the barn. A weathered metal Old Style beer wall hanging looked like my best option. I would aim my bit of umbrella stand at it and clang it off the metal. That should be enough of a distraction. Pulling my arm back, I zeroed in on the bar sign, and took a look at the arc I would need to make it across.

One, two—

"Hey!"

Shit!

I dropped the pipe, and it clanged to the floor at my feet. My heart beat so hard in my throat, it was hard to breathe. I saw the two card players look in my direction.

Outside, I heard my friend's voice. The black truck's reverse lights glowed bleached-bone white as it retreated. A window came down.

"Whoever programmed the flight path got it all wrong," Uncle Jerry said, standing at its passenger-side door. "That ain't anywhere near Esteli."

I watched as one of the men who'd been playing cards got up and grabbed his rifle. His friend looked at his own cards and protested loudly in Spanish.

Back in the truck, the man took a drag from his cigarette, his eyes locked on Jerry, and blew out a plume of smoke. "You are not going to Nicaragua, Uncle Jerry," he said with a sneer. "Different job."

"You've got it set for Coban. I don't even know where that is!"

The man sighed. "Guatemala. But that is no concern of yours. Just follow your path and deliver the case."

The card player was moving toward me, his eyes locked on my position, trying to pull shapes out of the dark. His friend said something else, took a slug of his beer, then looked at the other's cards, which had been facedown on the table.

Uncle Jerry asked, "What am I picking up?"

The man shrugged. "No pickup. Just drop-off." He began rolling up his windows. "Nine hours."

The thug's eyes creeping my direction were glassy and red. He wiped his nose with his wrist quickly and put his hand back onto the stock of the rifle.

I looked toward the door behind me. It was slightly ajar, but if I opened it, light would pour in and give away my position in the dark corner. However, it didn't seem to matter. Three or four more steps and I would give away my position.

The truck sped away, kicking up a belch of dust and rock, and as it did, the man with the rifle put his hand up to block the cloud, swearing as he did.

Behind him at the table, the other guy was still peeking at my stalker's cards. He muttered something, his eyes went wide, then he shouted over, "Fold!"

The gunman spun back and put a fist in the air, shouting and pointing as the other lifted his hands up, expressing his innocence.

I chanced it, taking two steps to the door, threw it open, then quickly pushed it back. I could only hope that, tangled up in their argument, neither had seen the brief burst of light.

Jerry's plane was taxiing down the runway, picking up speed.

Desperate, I looked around for anything I could use to catch up. At the creekside, there was only the cow.

Standing at the side of the hangar, helpless, I watched Jerry's plane grow smaller as the dust around the hangar settled.

The argument between the two men dissolved into more anxious words. Then there was a clank. The gunman had found my hiding place. In a moment, he would fling the door open and look for me.

I'd failed in helping my friend, but for the moment, my only job was to not get peppered by an automatic weapon. Running for the creekside, I heard banging behind me then leapt past the stupid bovine and landed in the creek with a splash. I froze, the waterline up to my nose.

There was no use in swimming quickly down the creek. If the guy walked fifty feet and saw me, I was dead. If I swam away, all splashy and panicky, I was dead.

For the moment, I just pushed up against the bank, kept as low as I could, and waited.

Then the cow next to me let out a stream of urine that looked like it hadn't pissed in days.

Another bang from above. The door had been kicked open, and it continued to bang-bang-bang against the side of the hangar.

The cow lolled its head toward the hangar and let out a low moo again.

"¡Estúpida vaca!"

Then I heard a final bang as the door was, once again, pulled shut. A few seconds later, the shouting restarted, but it wasn't about me or the cow.

I pushed back from the bank as the yellow-orange urine drizzled down the dead grass and mud. Then I looked up and saw my friend's plane lift off, bank right, and slowly get smaller and smaller and smaller.

"Shit," I said. "Sorry, man. I'm so sorry."

I saw the strangest thing. The scene was all dead and dry—yellow, gray, and broken stone, and of course, a bit of cow pee. Then I spotted something totally out of place. It took me a few moments to work out what I was seeing. It didn't belong, certainly, and its bright twisting colors were almost offensive to the dull, drab landscape.

I could only watch as the wind carried, tumbled, and played with it. But for nearly a minute, I just stared, trying to work out what it was.

Then it hit me. I looked up at the plane then back to the ground and the twisting bit of snakelike fabric.

Turning to the cow, who looked as though she might be watching, too, I asked, "What the hell is that?"

The big cow head, with its big cow eyes, slowly swung back toward me. The creature stared as if to say, "Beats me. Weird, huh?"

I had no idea what to make of it, either the cow's expression or the rolling bit of costume crossing the runway.

I said, "It's a boa."

The cow gave me no sign it understood. To be honest, I was in the same boat. I looked back to the runway as the wind, again, picked it up like it was happy to have something new to play with, twisting it around.

"It's a purple feather boa."

Chapter Twenty-Two

"What are they saying?" The Actor stood to peek over the nose of their go-fast boat then ducked back down.

The voice crackling over the radio and the one coming over the loudspeakers ahead of them were both repeating the same phrases over and over again. However, as their boat came within about five hundred yards—and was closing fast—their demands were coming in shorter, louder bursts.

"They want us to stop and drop anchor," Anza said, scanning the waters ahead. She had an unnatural calmness, as if she'd bled her anxiety onto the floor.

The Actor had, in turn, soaked it up.

She continued to search the horizon. She'd seen it again, but something about the way…

Again, their hull was peppered. Pfft, pfft, pfft, pfft, pfft!

"So, why aren't you, you know—" the Actor said, trying to grip the floor with his fingers and toes, facing toward the front of the boat. "Stopping and dropping?"

There!

Once again, she saw the drone, but it was hovering off the side of the Mexican coast guard's big, gleaming craft, three times the size of theirs.

Anza looked at the green screen next to the throttle then put a nail between her teeth. "If we stop," she said, "we cannot save Uncle Jerry inside a prison cell!"

"We can't save him if we're dead either!"

She glanced back over her shoulder. "Yes, also a good point."

The Actor scooted onto his hands and knees and scuttled across the cabin's floor. When he returned next to Anza, he had a beer in both hands.

"How is that helping?"

The Actor's head bobbed as he took huge swigs from the one in his right hand. "I'm going to throw the bottles at them. Buy us some time."

"Half-empty beer bottles do not buy time!"

"At least," he said, swigging from the left one, "if I'm going to some Mexican jail, I'll be half-drunk."

Anza shook her head and muttered low. She again looked at the screen then back at the huge boat getting bigger in their windscreen, close enough to see their expressions.

Several seamen were racing around the bow of the coast guard ship. Arms waving, shouting something Anza couldn't hear, all but the man on the big gun at the front were running to the rear of the boat.

Then, a few seconds later, the man on the gun crossed himself, jumped away, and followed his comrades.

The Actor arched up and looked through the window. He slid back down quickly and took slugs from both beers.

They were within two hundred yards.

"Anza," he said, his voice softer. "We can't ram them. I want to save Uncle Jerry as much as you, but this…" He choked on a sob. "I'm under contract, hell-affiliated, so I'll survive that. It'll hurt like hell, but—"

"We have to save Uncle Jerry!"

He reached out and gently put a hand on her shoe. "You won't survive a crash."

She pushed the throttle.

"You still have Dan," the Actor said. "I saw him. He's wrecked that you're not home." The Actor looked at the battle of emotions on Anza's face. Tears lined her cheeks. "Don't leave him alone."

She growled, something the Actor had never heard her do. Then she punched a tiny fist into the dashboard. "Ow," she said, shaking her hand.

"Don't do this."

Anza got into the captain's chair and strapped herself in. She said, "Fine. Left or right?"

"It… what?"

"Left or right?"

The Actor blinked. "You mean politically?"

"No! I don't be meaning that," she said and cinched the belt tighter. "Left or right?"

Just fifty yards off the bow of the coast guard boat, Anza saw all but the man at the wheel, her opposite, had abandoned their cabin. She was close enough to see he had two hands white-knuckled on the wheel, his dark eyebrows stitched together.

She pushed the boat faster.

"Left or—"

"Yes, left! Left!"

With a flick of her wrist, Anza moved the wheel a half-turn left, and the boat careened and roared. The Actor tumbled, his head hitting the deck twice, until he smashed against the cabin's wall. Out the starboard side, he could see the massive eighty-caliber gun, unmanned and its nose dipped low.

With all his strength, he hurled both bottles through the gap in the window.

As they passed, they saw the captain glaring out the door.

He caught one bottle in the chest. The other smashed, obliterated, on the side of the hull. Still, the man had gone down.

"Yes!" the Actor shouted, but his joy was short-lived.

Pfft, pfft, pfft, pfft, pfft! At the stern of the coast guard boat, another smaller mounted rifle was targeting them.

Anza winced as blood burst from her arm. Hurt, she released the wheel and grabbed her shoulder. The boat keeled. With her good arm, she reached out and grabbed the controls again, but it was too late. The boat's hull made a horrific scraping sound. Anza cranked the wheel hard the other direction, and the boat spun sideways.

The scraping stopped briefly, then there was a thud and more grinding outside.

The Actor leaped toward the captain's chair and hung on as the boat horizontally pinwheeled down the Mexican coastline.

When it finally stopped, they had run aground.

They had rocketed past the cops but were far from safe.

The motors sputtered out as the Actor slowly got to his feet. He stared out the front windows. Ahead, just a few hundred yards, was the Mexican coast guard boat. It was reversing.

"Shit," Anza said through tears.

The Actor grabbed the towel hanging next to the refrigerator and went to tear it in half but couldn't, so he wrapped the entire thing around Anza's bleeding arm. "Are you okay?"

She stared at the boat as it inched toward them. Again, there was a man on the mounted gun. To his left and right were another six men, all pointing rifles at them.

"We have failed Uncle Jerry," she said, her voice rasping.

The Actor was about to speak but then stopped. He saw the tiny drone flying just off their bow. It seemed to be peering inside.

He shouted, "You won! Get the fuck away from us!"

At that, the drone turned and retreated toward the coast guard boat.

Then it did a remarkable thing. Sparks flew from the front of it as it wobbled and churned in the air.

"Ha! They hit their own dron—"

And then the strangest colors filled their vision. Anza's head was low, her eyes closed as she moaned from the pain. Heartbreak had taken her resolve.

"Oh, look," the Actor said. "A rainbow."

"What?"

Anza looked up and saw a beautiful, bizarre array of green, red, purple, and blue light fill the air between the two boats. The coast guard boat's engine dropped low for a moment as everyone saw, indeed, the rainbow of sparks erupt from the drone.

"Look!" Anza shouted.

In the water, incredibly, something that looked like a baby whale lifted to the surface. The people on both boats could only watch as its body broke the surface of the water. Then, impossibly, the dorsal fin flew back on what looked like a large metal hinge. A man's head popped through, looked at the coast guard boat, then back at the Actor and Anza.

He smiled and said, "Run!" Then he looked down into the boat and pumped a fist in the air. "Ramming speed!"

The twin closed the hatch and sealed the sub. A burst of bubbles frothed from the propellers, and it made a beeline for the coast guard boat.

The latter's engines came alive. Water shot from the back of it. At least one of the gunmen on the back of the boat tumbled over a low bar and landed with a splash.

* * *

On the other side of the wire fence of the compound, I yanked hard on my shirt, tearing it, and freed it from the metal teeth.

It was soaked, but then so was I.

I slipped it back on, mistakenly jamming my head through a tear at first, righted it, and pulled the fabric down over my wet body.

I'd failed Uncle Jerry, and I had failed my friends. They would be waiting out on the vast blue desert of the ocean, scanning the skies for the hum of a plane that would never come. Everything on my body hurt—sore muscles from the swim, the cuts on my knees and hands, and the slices across my back where I'd done battle with the jagged fence. But nothing hurt as much as my heart. I had failed all of them.

Starting to make the long, lonely walk back to Anza's apartment, I could only wonder what might have happened to the drag queen. I'd seen his purple boa floating across the runway, so it must have slipped off on our trek up the road.

Up ahead about a hundred yards, next to the dilapidated metal shed, was Bucephalus, Sally's motorcycle.

"What?"

A cold shiver went through me. Did the gunslinger catch up with Angel? No, that doesn't make sense.

If Sally had caught him, there would be a leather catsuited body riddled with holes next to the bike, and of course, no bike. She would have ridden it out of there.

But there it was, black and chrome, gleaming in the sun. When I got within a few feet of it, the motorcycle fired up and revved the engine.

I smiled. "I missed you too." When I looked between the handlebars, I could see that the phone I'd used to map my way was gone.

It didn't matter—getting to the apartment would be an easy few turns. Cozumel wasn't very big. I would have little trouble finding my way back.

However, as I didn't see Angel anywhere, one question burned in my mind. "Where did you go?"

* * *

Uncle Jerry let out a sigh, punched a couple of buttons on the controls, and leaned back in the pilot's seat. Sure, he was still a captive, but at least he was out of that room. At least he wasn't chained to a bed.

"Like some third world lady of the evening," he said and chuckled. It would be about four hours before he had to land, so for the moment, he decided to relish the small gift of pseudofreedom, stretch his legs, maybe walk around the cabin a bit.

He'd often laid in one of the four swivel chairs in the body of the plane, reclining, pretending as though he were headed to the Florida Keys, a rock star on a well-deserved break. He never napped. Over the past months, he'd had more than enough time to sleep.

From the cockpit, it was only open sky, blue as far as he could see except for the wispy, cloudy bits, but he liked those too. A far better view than he'd been given back in the room, where the only sunlight he really saw was a sliver of light on the floor for days at a time.

It was quiet. Calm. Peaceful.

For at least a few hours, he had no worries about the banging of a front door, with who-knew-what demands from whoever would be coming through it.

He hopped from his seat. There was a small galley in the back of the plane. The past few days, he'd had very little to eat and almost no water. There might be food on the plane, maybe some crackers.

"Or those airline peanuts. I think planes are supposed to have those, by law or something," he said.

What he really wanted was a big glass of clear, cold water. There would be bottles of it in the fridge.

He dropped out of the cockpit and shuffled his feet across the carpeted floor of the cabin. Uncle Jerry opened the door to the galley. The fridge was on the left side on the bott—

He froze, staring at what stood before him. A woman, dressed in spiky leather from head to toe, was shaking a tumbler. When she caught sight of him, she dribbled clear liquid into two martini glasses then frowned at him.

"I don't expect," Angel said, in a voice deeper than the pilot expected, "this plane has olives anywhere, does it?"

* * *

Anza leaned hard on the Actor as they stumbled up the dirty beach. He cast a quick glance back at the inlet and saw the coast guard boat shooting twin fins of water from its stern. Men and women scrambled across the deck, some fruitlessly shooting at the water.

There was a loud, low boom, and the big boat shook slightly.

The two of them stepped quickly over a patch of sea grass and headed to a row of small homes with metal roofs.

"We've got to get out of here," the Actor said. "Once they're done playing with the twins, they'll be looking for us."

Anza nodded, breathing heavy. She reached up to her arm and winced a little as she poked through the fabric. "I think it scratched the top," she said and grunted.

For a moment, they caught their breath, and the Actor looked at her bloodied shirt, then quickly turned away.

"I, uh, don't do so well with blood."

"Is not bleeding so much," Anza said, examining her arm. "Hurts though. Oh!" She looked closer. "Is that a hole?"

The Actor bent over and heaved, but nothing came out.

There were a few bursts of sand near the grass. Someone on the coast guard boat was again shooting at them. They ran.

On the other side of the homes, by the street, they scanned around, looking for a way out. Anza pointed to a run-down, late-eighties BMW sitting in a driveway. The dirty, weathered sign on top gave her a bit of hope. They ran to the house with the car and banged on the steel screen door.

After a few moments, a man in a dingy T-shirt and sweatpants came to the door. In his one hand was a plate with a healthy serving of rice and beans, in his other hand a fork. He was wearing a bib, strangely, with a cartoon lobster on it. The lobster had seen better days.

"Si?"

The Actor nodded to his car. "Is that your cab?"

"Cab?"

"Taxi."

The man looked at Anza, caught sight of her shoulder, and frowned. He pointed with the fork. "You need to go to the hospital?"

Anza shook her head. "Cozumel."

He pushed his fork around his plate, contemplating this, and shoveled a big bite into his mouth. "My taxi does not float."

* * *

Angel was sipping his cocktail, sitting in one of the four lounger seats.

Uncle Jerry couldn't sit, his eyes dancing around in his head. "Uh, so wait… who sent you?"

"Well, no one sent me, per se," Angel said and took a sip of the clear liquid. He hadn't found any olives. "But we're here to spring you. We just need to turn around. Land somewhere safe."

Uncle Jerry shook his head. "Can't. I can't deviate from this course, or they'll blow the plane. They told me there's a tracker on this thing and some trigger in the fuel tanks." Uncle Jerry stood at the cockpit door facing the man, his hands casually gripping the lip between the piloting area and the main cabin. "Dunno if I believe them, but I believe them."

"They would blow up their own plane?"

"With me in it, sure," Uncle Jerry said and finally sat on the other lounger. "If they thought I was trying to escape, I could tell the authorities or whatever. Better to, you know, cover their asses."

"Well, Anza and the little guy are waiting for you. For us."

"Little guy?" he asked and laughed. "Oh, Christ! The Actor is with her?"

"I never got his name."

"Good-looking fella? Short temper, usually scowling and complaining."

Angel nodded. "And some guy named Rasputin."

Uncle Jerry wrapped his arms around himself and rocked. He smiled, and for the first time in as long as he could remember, he felt… good. Despite there being no way he could follow through with their plan.

He squeezed his arms tighter around himself and fought back a sob. Grinning ear to ear, he said, "Razzie, too, huh?" His eyes misted. "They tried to spring me."

Sip. "That's the plan."

"Can't do it," Jerry said. He was still smiling.

Angel stood up and sauntered to the front of the plane, looking out at the blue sky and burnt land below. "Okay," he said. "Then we need to come up with another plan."

Uncle Jerry chuckled. "My friends didn't forget me after all."

Angel looked behind the two seats in the cockpit. Then he looked past Uncle Jerry, deeper into the cabin.

"If you stayed on the same path but flew low enough to hit a mountain or something, I think we could still pull this off."

"Right," Uncle Jerry said, slipping past Angel and sitting in the pilot's seat. "Except for that would leave anyone on the plane dead."

"Fine. Then we just need to get off the plane," Angel said. "Where are the parachutes?"

Uncle Jerry laughed.

"Naw, there ain't no parachutes here. If this goes down, they want me underneath it." Still smiling, he sighed and rubbed his haggard face. "Only way I land is if I'm dead. No other choice."

Angel looked back outside, looked down, and looked at Jerry. "Not necessarily."

* * *

Back at Anza's apartment, I felt like an intruder. In part, that was probably because I was going through her stuff, not rifling through undie drawers or anything, but I walked to her room. It was weird. It was like she was dead, and it was my job to pack away an old friend's stuff.

She's not dead.

"I know, baby, but… you know."

No, I don't know.

I smiled. "All this stuff. It kind of reminds me of how you used to decorate our place."

We both did that, not just me. You just stopped caring about that stuff. That townhome you had in Texas looked like a safe house.

"I never got around to settling in," I said and looked at a photograph. Picking it up, I stared at the happy faces of Anza and Dan. Their wedding day. "Where was I in this photo?"

From what I remember, passed out in the bathroom.

"Well, it was a tough time."

No, that was a happy time. The tough time came after that.

"You mean when you got sick," I said, "and died. Yeah, that wasn't so good."

Don't be pitiful. It doesn't suit you. You used to be so much fun.

I sat down on the edge of Anza's bed. It was tidy, just like the rest of her room. It looked like it had never been slept in.

"I don't feel like fun," I said aloud. "I miss you."

I know. But we'll see each other one day. Until then, have a bit of fun.

I smiled and shook my head. I stood up. My legs were still aching from the swim in the creek, and I made a noise like a man twenty years older. Then I turned back and fixed the dent I'd left in the bed.

That was when I noticed the old AC/DC shirt on one of the pillows. One of Dan’s, I was sure of it. A warm bloom grew in my chest when I realized that Anza had slept next to it, the scent of her husband nearby, each night.

However, given the condition of my ruined shirt, I dumped my old one in the small wastepaper basket and slipped this on.

Clicking the light off in her bedroom, I closed the door. A nosy part of me thought to look in Angel's room, as if it might tell me where he'd gone, but I didn't think I was prepared for what I might find in there.

The living room was gloomy except for the sunlight peeking into the kitchen. I shuffled over to the fridge, feeling sorry for myself. Pulling its handle, I grabbed one of the beers in the door.

"Fun," I said.

In truth, I didn't even remember walking to the couch, let alone falling asleep on it, but I came awake quickly when the front door flew open.

"Angel?"

"I've been called worse," the Actor said, walking across the threshold. Behind him, Anza came through and clicked on the light.

I then saw the dark stain on her shirt. "Shit, what happened to you? Wait… why are you guys here? Aren't you supposed to be—"

"We got attacked," the Actor said and grabbed a bottle from the fridge. "Coast guard. The boat is toast. So, back to square one." He frowned at me. "Why are you here? You're supposed to be with Uncle Jerry."

Ignoring his question, I stood and walked toward Anza, then backed away a step. "You're hurt."

"Is okay," she said with a brave face. "Just needing to clean it."

"Come on," I said, leading her to the chair opposite the sofa. "Sit down."

I went into the bathroom and searched for a towel.

"Get the pink one," Anza called to me from the living room.

I opened the cupboard under the sink and almost laughed. "They're all pink!"

"Oh, the dark pink. Angel washed a pair of his frilly red underwear in with the towels, so they are all very much pink. Is not so bad. Is like getting a new set."

I grabbed one of the smaller towels and dampened it in the sink. After ringing it out, I went back into the living room.

The Actor was throwing away a half-drank bottle of beer.

"Jesus, what a waste," I mumbled.

"Raz, please," Anza said, frowning.

"Sorry, sorry."

As I cleaned the wound, she winced a few times, pulling away. After a minute, she took the towel from me and finished the job.

When she handed the rag back, she finally noticed what I was wearing.

“Why are you are wearing Dan’s shirt?”

“It’s a long story,” I said and sighed. The Actor had already laid out on the couch, his eyelids getting heavy.

Finally, Anza looked around. "Wait, new question, more important. Why did you say 'Angel' when we came in? Where is he?"

I told them what had happened.

Chapter Twenty-Three

The Hooded One slid open one of the glossy black cabinets that had been built into the wall of his tower office. Humming along to some music dribbling out of the perfectly placed speakers, he searched for the new recruit's record. He knew what he would find. He'd read it just the day before. It was part of the process.

It was a bit like something he'd read about called "dream shopping," when people went to a car lot in the middle of the night. They would leave their run-down studio apartments, get into their piece-of-shit Hondas, and head out to dream amongst the beautiful array of shiny vehicles, under the bright lights, picking out the ones they would want when they made it. When they had the money to afford luxuries like those.

Inspiration. Hope.

"Fantasy," Hood said, smiling.

He was worth billions. In the aforementioned dream scenario, he would have owned the car lot—and refused to sell to the dreamer in the shitty car, maybe have them arrested for trespassing.

He stared down at the file in his hands, scanning it for the date and time the recruit would finally be in place, doing his job. A glance at the large digital wall display told him that within two days, the Actor would be there, strapped in, and helping crush humanity.

Chapter Twenty-Four

For the next hour, we talked about what we could do next.

After a while, I got up and went to the living room window, pulled back the curtain, and smiled down on the parking lot.

"Hi, gorgeous," I said, and the handlebars of the bike moved toward me. The headlamp, still dark, pointed slightly upward. It had such a strange way about it. It was as if it were a dog sleeping at the foot of the bed, and I'd just said something about going for a walk.

I smiled and said to it, "Soon. We just gotta work out where we're going."

The Actor threw a couch pillow at me. "Who are you talking to?"

Turning from the window, I went to the kitchen in search of coffee. "I'm plotting, scheming. We've got to come up with a new plan."

The Actor pushed off a purple shawl he'd mistaken for a blanket, making a face.

"Don't put that on the floor," Anza said as she stepped from her room, closing the door behind her. "It's Angel's."

"Great." The Actor frowned. "Now I'm going to smell like drag queen."

"Good," she said and headed to the bathroom. "He has very nice smell. You, not so much."

I rifled through the cupboards, looking for a bag or cylindrical can that might have coffee in it, but came up short.

"What now?" she asked, her voice low. Her eyes were on the floor.

"How am I supposed to know?" The Actor took another sip of his beer. There were two half-filled bottles on the table next to him. "We came here for your help. You're the planner—what should we do?"

She looked at her hands, and her lip trembled. "Uncle Jerry, he still is not safe. Angel is missing, maybe getting shooted by that psycho gun lady. We lost the Widow's boat, so she wants to shoot us. You said there were redneck biker people chasing you, so there's that."

We both stared at her. It was hard hearing her so down.

She asked, "Am I missing anything?"

"Yes," the Actor said through gritted teeth. "I still have a contract out there somewhere with my name on it that will enslave me to the lords of hell!"

The next words came out of my mouth with a mind of their own. "Let's have some fun."

Anza shrugged. "Okay."

* * *

"I don't remember getting drunk being this difficult," I said, tapping the bottom of my frozen margarita into my mouth. Anza was battling a drink umbrella. She gave up, pulled it out, and tossed it at the Actor. It hit him in the head and got stuck in his hair.

"He seems to have worked it out," Anza said and laughed. It was a sweet, wonderful sound that made the air light all around us.

"Yeah, but he's had like ten beers!"

"Half beers," she said and laughed again. "What a stupid idea."

"Whatever works," I said.

"If is to cut down on the drinking, I don't think it work."

We looked at the ten beer bottles surrounding the Actor—the waitstaff had refused to take them away because he'd finished none of them. He looked like a chess champion using brown bottles for pieces, contemplating his next move. Obviously, he had been in check the last three beers.

"Okay," Anza said, nodding to the waitress to bring us a few more frozen margaritas. "Plan time."

"Great," I said. "What's your idea?" My heart sped up a bit. That was why we'd come to find Dan's wife. Her English might be suspect, but her reasoning was unmatched.

"First, we have to finding the Devil's lair—" The expression on Anza's face changed. She looked worried then frowned and winced.

"What's wrong? Is it your shoulder?"

"No!" She leaned forward, pounding her fist to her head lightly. She'd realized something. Something terrible.

"What? What is it?"

"Ugh," she said and leaned back in her chair. A tear was falling from her cheek.

"Dammit, Anza, what's wrong?"

"Uggghhh," she moaned then closed her eyes tight. "I gave myself a freezie headache."

My mouth opened and moved, but nothing came out a first. Then I just laughed.

She started again. "Well," she said, eyes still closed, taking deep breaths. "When we get to his lair—"

"I don't think he's got a lair."

"Whatever," she said and slowly opened her eyes, as if waking from a horrible dream, lying in the blazing sun. "Wait, you guys never said where the Actor's devil contract was."

"Ah," I said and grabbed one of the half beers on the table. "That part is a bit, you know, blurry."

"How blurry?"

"Like legally blind blurry?"

Her eyes drooped. "That is not blurry. Is black."

"Not really, it's l—"

Anza shushed me. Then she thought for a moment. "NoCal."

I blinked. Her voice had sounded so strange when she'd said the word. Like she'd gargled with gravel and cast some Harry Potteresque spell.

I looked at her and asked, "What does that mean?"

"Northern California," the voice said.

Dan's wife hadn't spoken. Anza's face looked pained, but this time it wasn't about any freezie headache.

Slowly, I turned my head, but after my creek adventure, I had to half turn my body. A collection of rags and dust in a cowboy hat sat sipping a whiskey. Faced away from us, she was watching me in the mirror at the bar. I began to stand.

"Ah, ah, ah," she said and wiggled the pistol pointed at me under her drinking arm.

"Now, hold on," I said, trying to sound brave.

She cocked the gun.

"I'm listening," I said. "Very attentively. You have my full attention. All attention—"

"Shut up," she said, nodded to the bartender, then laughed. "You do work that mouth of yours. Ah well. Might come in handy later on, if it suits me."

Wow.

In the mirror, I caught Anza's face. Thin lips, teeth bared, she had a look that could kill. "My friend does not perform cunnilingus on cowboys!"

I flinched. Then a slight shiver went through my body.

The gunslinger turned and put her dirty boot up on the seat next to her. She smiled at Anza. "I ain't particular. You'll do just fine."

I started to stand but then she raised her pistol ever so slightly. She hadn't even looked in my direction, her eyes locked on Anza.

I asked, "What do you want?"

She smiled and nodded at my friend. "Well, if—"

"I mean what do you want from us?"

The bartender put another double whiskey in front of her. From his angle, he couldn't see the pistol. It couldn't have been the first time she'd pulled that move before.

"Put it on the pretty lady's tab," she said.

The bartender looked over at Anza, slightly exasperated. She waved him off and nodded. "Is fine, Eduardo."

We waited for a moment as he slipped away to talk to a group of fat tourists dressed in pastels at the end of the bar.

There was something odd about the gunslinger's demeanor—and her face. It was a bit splotchy, red in the eyes, and if I'd thought she was anything but a cold-hearted killer, I would have said she'd been crying a few minutes earlier.

Anza's fists were in little balls. "You must be Sally." The last word came out like she'd cursed.

Sally nodded and tipped her hat. Her eyes never leaving us, she took a sip of her whiskey. "Just so you know, I was the fastest gunslinger alive. For a while."

"Thought that was, I dunno, Wild Bill Hickok or something," I said.

She laughed and spat. "What a pansy. Hair longer than any woman I knew," she said, taking another sip of her drink.

Strangely, I would have thought she would sling it back. In all the old movies, they just downed it in a gulp. She was a sipper. Hmm.

"Nah, none of us gals got the good press because all the papers were owned by men with small cocks."

Anza chuffed. "Typical."

I shot her a look.

Sally gave an appreciative nod to my friend. "I tell you that not in a braggadocio manner, but I mean to say that I am quick on the draw. So even if I drop my pistol back into its holster, I can have it out and put a slug in your skull before you can blink."

"Well," I said, crossing my arms, frowning, and putting on my tough-guy voice. "I am not much of a blinker."

Both Anza and Sally just sort of stared at me, and I felt my cheeks go a bit red.

The gunslinger did, in fact, holster her pistol, stood up slowly, and slid to our table in a surprisingly graceful move. As she sat between me and the Actor, my heart seized.

She caught my expression. "Ah, don't worry," she said, dipping a finger into her drink and licking it. "I don't shoot sleeping men." She smiled at me. "I prefer them to see it coming so they know who delivered their comeuppance unto them."

Anza leaned forward, her expression blank. "You say that the Devil's lair is in NoCal. Northern California? How do you know this?"

"Well, first of all, I certainly didn't say it was no lair."

"Fine, fine," Anza said, trying to steer the conversation. "You say this is where the Actor's hell contract is?"

Sally nodded. "Near San Jose. Got a ranch out that way myself. Won it in a poker game." She took a sip from her glass. "Long time ago now. Real long time ago."

Anza started to speak, but I held a hand up.

"Wait," I said. "Why would you even tell us that? Aren't you supposed to be killing him?"

The sleeping Actor snorted and shifted in his seat. Sally put her hand on the butt of her pistol. I eyeballed the beer bottles in front of us. I could get one in each hand, but as she said, she would be quicker on the draw than me.

"Yes, I will still be killing your friend here," Sally said as if she'd just told us it might be hot today and we should consider wearing something made of cotton. "But I can tell you where those” —she nodded to Anza—"hell contracts are kept. For a price."

Again, I eyeballed two of the bottles closest to me. "What… price?"

Sally was staring at the Actor, as if willing him to open one of his eyes. I looked sideways, catching my friend's attention, and nodded at the beer bottle in front of her.

Anza mouthed at me, What?

Then, more aggressively, I nodded toward the bottle in front of her.

She sighed and looked over at the bar. "Eduardo? Another beer, por favor."

I rolled my eyes.

The Actor shifted in his seat then resumed drooling on the table.

"Okay," I said, steeling myself. "What is it you want?"

"First," she said, slugging her drink—admittedly, that made me smile—"I'll let you buy me another round. Not the rotgut I was ordering. Something expensive."

I looked at her, not blinking. "The sign outside has a fucking frog with a top hat on it. I'm going to wager there ain't a lot of Glenlivet back there."

"Whatever they got," she said and nodded to Anza.

My friend took that as her cue, and she walked to the bar. Once she was out of earshot, the lines in Sally's face deepened. She leaned forward and looked as though she might sprout fangs and sink them into my neck. A tiny bit of pee dribbled out of me.

"W-what? What do you want with me?"

She inched toward me. "I want to know what you did to my bike!"

I pointed outside, my mouth dry. "It's outside! It's just outside."

Sally hit the table with a fist. The beer bottles bounced, and the Actor stirred. Again, Sally's fingers went to the handle of her gun. When he settled, she relaxed again.

"I saw it!" she said, her eyes watering. "I want to know what… you did to it!"

* * *

Outside the bar, Sally and I walked into the hot sun, sweat immediately popping from my skin. That was likely more about walking next to a hell-sent gunslinger assassin than it was about the heat.

In the distance, I heard the low rumble of several bikes, but Sally was only focused on one.

When we got to the space where it was parked, she reached out with a hand. In a surprisingly sweet gesture, she put her fingers on its tank, almost stroking it. When I'd done that earlier, it had nearly raised and met my hand. As she did it, it lay there, a cold chunk of metal.

Sally said, her teeth together, "What'd you do to my Horse?"

"What?" I asked. "It… I didn't do anything. She works perfectly fine. At least she did—"

"No!" Sally hauled back and slapped me across the face.

I fell to a knee.

"She don't respond to me now. What sort of bewitching did you perform to take her from me?"

I started to get up, but with Sally's expression, I decided it might be nice to stay near the ground for a moment. Cooler down there. Heat rising and all that stuff. "I don't know."

"What do you mean you 'don't know'? What kinda lame ass—"

"Listen to me!" I said then slowly did rise to my feet, one eye watching her hand. "I don't know what you're talking about. When we rode her over here, she worked perfectly fine."

Sally reached out to the bike again and let out a small sob.

Curious as to what she was feeling around for, I did the same, and the bike came to life beneath my fingertips.

With her other hand, Sally slapped me, and down I went. Both sides of my face now stung.

"Bedeviller! Spellbinder!"

She raised up for another slap, but that time the bike edged forward and sounded like it actually growled. The gunslinger put the hand to her mouth and looked as though she was going to weep.

I said, "I didn't do anything. I've been nothing but kind to Bucephalus, and if—"

"What did you call my Horse? Moose phallus?"

"No, no!" I said.

She wasn't pointing her pistol at me, but I raised both hands anyhow. Her scowl looked like it was loaded.

"Bucephalus. It was Alexander the Great's horse."

"It was my Horse!"

"Right, yes, what I meant—"

"But now," she said and reached for the motorcycle.

It rolled back out of her reach.

"What sort of man wiles have you performed upon my steed? Answer me!"

"I—I don't even know what those words mean!" I said and slowly, once again, got to my feet. "I just thought, you know, it needed a name. I didn't know it might already have one."

"It does!"

"I'm so sorry, seriously."

I put my hand on its handlebars. The bike rubbed lovingly against my fingertips. I snapped my hand back before Sally could smack me again.

"What do you call it?"

"Its name is Horse."

"Horse? You called your motorcycle… Horse?"

"No, idiot," she said, sniffing. "My horse was called Horse. This here is that noble beast reincarnated into a twenty-first-century machine." She put a hand out then pulled it back. "But it's still my Horse."

"Whatever you want," I said. "I'll call Boo anything you want—"

"Boo? BOO?" Sally roared. "What sort of unnatural relationship do you have with my motorcycle?"

A group of three young women who'd been crossing the parking lot chattering away all turned toward us. They gave me a collection of identical frowns.

One of them said, "Eeew!"

I was getting angry. "Listen, I don't have any sort of… designs on your bike here," I said. "You take her."

The bike trilled, shuddered, then went dead again. I covered my head with both arms. Sally punched me in the stomach. That time, though, I didn't go down. But I really, really wanted to. It hurt like hell.

Sally looked toward the east and sighed. "I help you and your moronic friends find where you are looking to go, but I want my bike back in return." She wore a small, sad smile. "I want my Horse back."

"That… I mean, that would be incredible!" I said, feeling more hopeful than any time in the previous twenty-four hours. That was, two smacks and a punch notwithstanding. "Yes. Agreed."

"Okay, we gotta deal, then," she said and pulled out her two pistols. "First, I'm going to shoot the little guy."

"Wait! What?" I said. "No! No shooting. Shooting is not part of the deal."

She frowned. "You never made that stipulation."

"I—well—I'm making it now," I said. "An addendum to the deal. No shooting, um, the little guy."

"I have a job to do!"

"Well," I said and reached for the motorcycle.

It again came alive under my fingertips.

"I have a motorcycle called Bucephalus."

She pointed her pistols at me.

"And, and, if you want your old Horse back… there can be no shooting. Not me, not Anza, and not the Actor."

Sally growled, spun in a small circle, and growled again. She holstered her pistols. "Fine!" she said just before the shotgun blast hit her chest.

Chapter Twenty-Five

Sally, still smoking from the chest blast, hid behind a Toyota. Since she seemed to have more experience in such matters, I followed her lead. I crouched next to her. A funny thought hit me. The last time I was hiding from bullets behind something, she'd been the one shooting.

The vehicle's back window exploded, raining glass down on the two of us.

"Goddamnit!" Sally shouted and pulled both pistols from her hips.

I stared at the part of her vest that had been shredded by the first shotgun blast. "Are you hurt?"

Sally was scanning her surroundings, but then, as if she'd just heard the question coming to her on a six-second delay, cocked an eyebrow at me. "What did you say?"

Looking closer, I saw no blood. "I said, 'Are you hurt?' Are you okay?"

"What's it to you, bedeviller?"

"You took a blast to the, you know… you were hit!"

Sally looked down at the smoldering part of her shirt. She snuffed it out with her wrist and again looked at me. "Why do you care? We ain't kin, and we ain't friends."

"Yeah," I said. "But you know, I'm not into people around me dying so much. Except bad people, I suppose." I looked down at my hands. "But maybe not those people either. I don't know."

Sally sighed. "I don't have time for no suitors now. Hate to break ya heart."

"What? Gro—I mean… what?"

"Sure, I ain't as pretty as I useda be." Sally squinted at the reflection in the hubcap of a Subaru. She jumped up, fired four shots, two from each pistol, and crouched back down.

I heard a thud on the other side of the Toyota.

"But if you're suddenly taking a fancy—"

"What? No, no fancy!" I said, ducking lower. "There is no fancy taking! Just, you know, you got shot in the damn chest."

"Oh," she said, looking the other direction.

A short graying man in black leathers was reflected off the bumper of a Buick.

"It'll take more than a tickle like that to put me down."

"Good to hear."

"But if a blast hits you, you'll splatter like a rabbit on the railroad," Sally said. "Just so you know."

"Wait, but you'll protect me, right?"

Sally laughed and shook her head. "No." The gunslinger jumped up again, running to the next car, a Fiat, firing her pistols as she did.

I peeked up and saw another motorcycle gang member go down, but three others got shots off, one hitting Sally's shoulder. She ducked, spinning, her long duster coat fanning out like the leaves of a dying desert flower. Rolling once, she was back up with her shoulder to the Fiat.

I shot a fist in the air and smiled. "And the hat stayed on!"

Sally looked over at me and scowled.

Then I heard a groggy voice. "What's going on?"

I turned and saw the Actor, looking unsteady on his feet, standing at the door of the bar. He shifted his gaze toward Sally, who turned from the encroaching black-leather gang and leveled her pistols at the man at the door.

"No, no!" I shouted, hearing the strangest echo to my voice, and for the briefest moment, Sally hesitated and looked at me. Then she scowled and aimed again, but by then, the Actor had gotten a clue and was down on all fours, skittering out of range.

She shouted, "Goddammit!"

From inside the bar, Anza shouted, "I don' like that talk!"

I looked up and saw her carefully peeking around a cement pole.

Sally shouted back, "I don't give a fuck what you like!"

Two more motorcycle gang members were coming around the Fiat as Sally flattened her back against it.

"There's two guys coming around the car!" I shouted to her.

Sally grimaced, gritting her teeth.

"You've got a tall, gangly looking prick with a stupid goatee. Saw that guy before," I said, hiding behind the Toyota, ducking low and peering through the broken window. "And a fat dude with chicken wing stains on his shirt."

"Hey!" Chicken Wing said, turning his head toward me.

Sally popped up and put another stain on his shirt, and he went down.

I felt a small fist smack between my shoulder blades, and I spun around.

"What the fuck'd you hit me for?"

The Actor.

"Why are you helping her?" he asked, his face red and shaking.

"It… because—" I started to say, not entirely sure what the answer was. "I'm not helping her, per se."

"You are helping her." The Actor spoke quickly, little bits of spittle flying from his lower lip. "Helping very per se. Let them finish her!"

Again, I lifted myself and saw at least six of the bikers we'd run from back at the motel heading her way. Near the back, once again, there was the man dressed in black, the messed-up hat pushed up on one side. He was scanning the lot, looking for something, or someone.

"It—" I said, stammering. "It doesn't seem very fair! There's a bunch of them and one of her."

"She's trying to kill me!"

I looked over at Sally and shrugged. "Not at the moment."

Another blast took off a side mirror of a Ford minivan, and the Actor once again punched me in the middle of the back. I turned and saw him crawling toward the bar.

"Where are you going?" I asked.

"Let them all shoot each other," he said, looking at me over his shoulder. "Let's get out of here!"

I went back up on one knee and caught sight of three more bikers surrounding the car Sally was crouched behind. She came up for a moment and fired. The two closest to her dropped low but kept moving forward.

I grabbed the Actor's heel, and he spun around on me, scowling.

"If they put her down, we're next," I said. "They already tried to kill us!"

"All the more reason to get the hell out of here," the Actor said, but then a strange expression crossed his face. I looked over at Sally, and she, too, was suddenly looking around.

Then I heard it—strange, because it was so incongruous to the gunfight in the parking lot—but I listened closely, and sure enough, I was hearing it. Music.

The Actor stopped crawling and flattened against the Toyota again. "What… what is that?"

It sounded like… but no, that didn't make any sense. "It sounds like," I said, scanning the sky. "It sounds like… Wagner."

"What? What is Vagner?"

"Composer," I said, and we both listened to the strings and horns growing and growing in volume.

“Composer?” the Actor said. “Which century?”

“Don’t get started on that again.”

I looked up again, and squinting in the sun, I saw them. An unbelievable vision, but sure enough, there they were. “I believe that's… wait, I recognize that tune. What is that?"

Above us but closing in was something, well, not possible, but there it was.

Someone shouted, "Back off, you bastards!"

The Actor cocked his head up. A strange expression crossed his face.

He muttered, "Uncle Jerry?"

Our old pilot friend was hanging in the air, flying, holding onto what looked like the phone that had been on the bike. Sure enough, it was blasting the charging anthem "Ride of the Valkyries."

"Behold!" he shouted, one fist in the air. "And feel the wrath of light!"

Then I saw how he was "flying." Uncle Jerry was being held by two legs wrapped around his chest. Behind him was, of all things, a collage of black, tiny metal spikes that twinkled in the sun, and electric blue and purple.

Our friend was being carried by, of course, a flying drag queen.

"Who is that?" the Actor asked.

I laughed. "It's Angel. He's being carried by Angel."

"But wait," the Actor said then slid back down the car, staring off. "Angel is… an angel?"

I shrugged and said, "It would account for the wings."

Uncle Jerry and Angel swooped passed us, their shadows passing over our heads.

I heard Uncle Jerry shout, "Hi, guys!"

We both waved.

They banked and arched back toward us, purple strands flowing behind them, and of course, keeping them aloft were the beautiful, flowing wings of an angel.

I glanced over at Sally, who was staring up at the sky, her mouth hanging open. Slowly she raised a pistol toward them, so I grabbed a rock from the parking lot and hurled it at her.

It bounced off the Fiat, and she barely looked at me, just staring into the sky.

"Don't shoot them, asshole!"

She looked toward me slowly, unsure what she was really staring at.

Then, like a licking tongue, a long strand of purple flew out from the right of the flying duo. Then another on their left.

I sat up to see the purple boa grab hold of one shotgun, rip it away from the leather-clad gang member, and snap-toss it into the sea. The other boa, which must have been thirty feet long fully extended, wrapped around the head of the fat chicken wing guy, who'd been staggering to his feet, clutching his bloodied shoulder. He dropped his weapon.

The boa released him and grabbed his shotgun, and it followed the same path the other did.

That was all Sally needed. She was back up, standing with her pistols raised. One shot pierced the arm of a short guy in glasses, and he went down. The tall, lanky dude who'd been near Chicken Wing turned to run and got a bullet in his ass for his troubles.

"Owwww shit!"

Then the blasting started again from the other side, smoke filling the parking lot.

The Actor and I could only watch as Angel and Uncle Jerry dodged and swooped, banked and arched, one end of the purple boa snapping out like a lizard tongue grabbing rifles as if they were dragonflies and tossing them into the ocean, the other knocking the gang members off their feet.

Every time one guy lost his boom stick, there was Sally firing at him. Some took slugs and ran, while others hightailed it away before they had the pleasure, darting into the next lot, where their motorcycles likely waited.

Then I saw the one with the black hat again. That one was different. He was patient, calm, tracking Angel as he rose and dove, knocking guns out of the hands of the motorcycle crew. He lifted his weapon.

The shotgun in Black Hat's hand fired, and I heard a yelp of pain. Angel's left wing was smoking, and he spun for a moment, Uncle Jerry grabbing at the two legs wrapped around his chest. The phone in his hands tumbled and fell to the parking lot below.

For the first time, I noticed a small green suitcase hanging from my friend’s back. It looked secured by a makeshift crisscross of seat belts.

"Watch out for the one in the black hat!" I called out.

Angel swooped back around behind me, twenty-five feet in the air. "Now you tell me!" he yelled. Then he flexed his right arm, and the purple strand shot out and wrapped around the weapon of the guy dressed in black.

The man let go of the shotgun but wrapped both arms around the boa, pulling Angel and Uncle Jerry closer to the earth.

"Bastard's got us snared!" Uncle Jerry shouted.

"Leave Uncle Jerry alone!" Anza shouted.

Black Hat pulled harder, taking lengths of the boa in each pull, but Angel couldn't break away. Uncle Jerry reached into his pockets and started throwing red foil packs at their adversary.

They looked like airline peanuts. That didn't seem like it would stop him, so I did something very stupid. Halfway there, I realized I had started running straight for the dark cowboy, full steam. Sally was still firing at the fleeing gang members, and since Black Hat was unarmed, she seemed uninterested in the land-air battle happening in front of us.

Only when I was about five feet away did the man even realize I was gunning for him. He briefly turned, looked down for his shotgun, but I was there. Leaping at the last minute, wrapping my arms around his, and taking him down to the ground.

I heard a yelp above me, and Jerry dropped, landing in the cab of a Chevy truck.

Finally, Black Hat let go of the boa, and Angel retracted it, tumbling backward in midair as he did.

His leather was sun-baked hot beneath my hands, but I held on.

"Get off me, Rasputin," he said in a deep, gravelly voice with the hint of an accent, then I felt a boot in my stomach.

A moment later, I was launched backward. I flew through the air far too high, floating for a moment, then started to plummet like a rock. It was going to hurt, but just inches from the ground, I felt something grab me.

"Gotcha!"

It was Angel. He'd swooped down, wrapped his legs around my midsection, and was pumping his wings, taking me higher and higher out of reach.

When I looked back down, all of the leather motorcycle crew had mounted their rides and were rocketing away. The man in the black hat was gone. A few seconds later, we dropped lower, banked toward the ocean, a vast, beautiful expanse of blue-green, then turned back toward the restaurant. Angel dropped me a foot off the ground, and I landed, struggling to stay on my feet, but then I ran over to the truck.

Uncle Jerry was inside, lying on his back. And he was laughing.

* * *

Back inside the restaurant, there were smiles, tears, and hugs all around. It seemed impossible, but there we stood. The gang was back together.

"You guys didn't forget about me," Uncle Jerry said, wiping his eyes. He was grinning like a man who'd seen the sun after years in darkness.

Even the Actor seemed in good spirits. "You know, we took a huge risk to save your ass," he said to our pilot friend and got a bear hug for a response. He fought it off with a series of muffled "leggo!" shouts, but he didn't look like he was fighting all that hard.

Anza kissed Uncle Jerry on both cheeks, then she hugged the Actor too. He didn't fight off those ones.

Uncle Jerry looked over at the table next to a fireplace that was filled with empty Corona bottles, most of them broken. At the table were Sally and Angel. They sat on opposite sides, neither taking their eyes off the other.

"What do we do about those two?" Uncle Jerry asked, laughing.

Sally looked up and caught sight of the Actor. She reached for her holster, and a second later, a purple strand shot out and snapped her hand.

"Ow!" the gunslinger said and shook her fingers for a moment, then scowled at the angel.

* * *

Anza ran a finger around the lip of her water glass. She looked at her roommate. "So, you are a real… you know."

Angel was just a standard Mexican drag queen sitting in a tourist bar, his wings retracted. I supposed that might have caused a stir if any other patrons walked in.

"Oh no," he said. "Not really. Just part-time."

I asked, "What does that mean?"

"I've had a slight… falling out with, you know, upstairs," he said and sipped a pink frothed cocktail. "I got in trouble for improperly using my, um, abilities down here. Big no-no."

Anza said, "But you just been using abilities out there with the flying and the ninja purple boas."

"Yes," Angel said and gave us a sad smile. "I can use them to help others, just not myself. That's the rule and one I can't break."

Anza got a faraway look in her eyes. "You never told me this is what you were," she said. "Wait, this is why you offered me a room? Because…" She stopped for a moment. "Okay, I don't know why."

Angel shrugged, took a small sip of his drink, and dabbed the corner of his mouth. "You're special, Anza. You have Sight. You can see the agents of above and below."

At this, Sally grunted.

"Which means you are special," Angel continued. "Me, I'm biding my time until I can get back in good graces with the home office, but having someone around that has Sight, could see trouble when it was coming, that was a net positive."

The Actor slapped his hands on the table, and we all jumped, even Sally.

"Enough happy talk. I'm running out of time!" he said. "We got Uncle Jerry back. It's time to go steal my hell contract."

"What? What hell contract?" Uncle Jerry asked.

I waved a hand. "I'll fill you in. In a nutshell, he's in mortal trouble and needs our help."

Our old friend shot a sideways glance at the Actor. "Boy, you really know how to screw up a nice reunion."

"Stuff it, old man," the Actor said.

There was a strange sound, like the beginning of a rocky avalanche. Then I realized what it was. For the first time since the shoot-out, Sally had spoken. She was laughing.

"Y'all are so damn dumb," Sally said, laughing harder. "I mean, seriously. You have no idea what's going on, do ya?" She looked at us for a moment, waiting. Then her laughter died away. She shook her head and turned to the Actor. "Come on, then. Give us a yarn, Actor," she said. "Tell us about the night you, ha, sold yer soul to the Devil."

The Actor blinked then rose from his chair, standing in front of the two tables like he'd just taken the stage in some Shakespeare-in-the-bar production. He paced back and forth for a moment, running his hand through his mop of hair. "It was night," he said, staring off. "The air was hot and sticky."

Anza choked on her drink. "I don' wanna hear no porn story."

"Let him finish," I said.

The Actor cocked an eyebrow at me, nodding. "I'd been desperate to claw my way back into the light," he said. "There had been rumors that my character was about to be cut—a death scene in a dark cave that would have my princely hero go out like a prison bitch."

Angel muttered something under his breath, which everyone ignored.

He continued, "I wasn't going to go down without a fight. That is, not the cave fight, I would lose that because it's in the script. Also, because what chance would my character have against turgid, hairy goat-beasts?"

"What is turgid?" Anza asked, but she was quickly shushed.

"In early seasons, I was feted as the dwarf hero. That half-man who would be king," he said. "But then we went through a half dozen showrunners and landed on a woman who I may have, at some point, kind of screwed over. In a manner of speaking."

Uncle Jerry laughed. "I bet."

"Unfairly, I had gained a reputation as someone hard to work with," the Actor said, eyeballing the group. "And so my prospects after the show were low despite my immense popularity online. Social media. Not quite Taylor Swift but higher than even that slimy Christian Bale. The youth of the world loved me, millions of followers!"

The Actor told us how he'd made overtures to other shows about possibly jumping ship for a role more prominent, but then his producers caught wind of it, sealing his fate.

"I was desperate," he said. "And alone. Funny, that. You'd think as a Hollywood star on one of the biggest programs in the world, I'd have the pick of my friends. I had hangers-on, sure. But I knew I'd be standing, holding the empty bag, once I'd died in the cave buggering."

So the Actor went through all the options he could imagine, but each time, his head came back to one thought. What I had done, or tried to do, to save my wife.

"I went down to the crossroads, just like you," he said, staring at me with damp eyes. "Desperate, I was. Obviously."

Shaking my head, I said, "You couldn't have asked for help?"

"From who?"

I raised my arms. "Us, man. Your friends."

The thought seemed to startle him. He started to speak, stammered, then finally said, "But what could you do? You're just common folk."

"Funny," Uncle Jerry said, taking a swig of his bottle. "And they say you're hard to work with."

The Actor continued, talking about how he'd gotten a cheap motel in town and had started down to the crossroads two days in a row but then chickened out and turned back.

"On the third day, I drank up enough courage and set out. The hiatus on the show was nearly up, so I'd have to be back in London. The walk was hot, man. I don't ever remember being that hot… I suppose that's because, you know, I was heading to the Devil's den or something."

"Nah," I said. "That's Mississippi in August. Crazy hot."

The Actor nodded. "It was all dust and dirt and old, dead crops. I only saw one other person out there, a woman who was walking away from where I was headed."

"Oh?" I asked.

"Yeah, big lady wearing several layers of clothes, yet she wasn't sweating a drop."

I smiled. "I remember her. She jiggled my balls."

"She… what?"

Waving him off, I said, "It doesn't matter. She warn you about Randall?"

"Who's Randall?"

"Doesn't matter," I said but couldn't help but just smile. That all seemed like such a long, long time ago.

"So, I get there, and at first, I don't even know if I'm at the right spot. All there is is a big ol' stump and one solitary tree. Just a few dead branches, no leaves. I sat down on the stump, and in that blazing sun, I guess I fell asleep."

He continued to walk back and forth, delivering his monologue. "I was startled by a brisk wind. Evening had fallen, and I was so red from the sun, I looked like a burn victim." The Actor walked between the two tables, and we all turned, waiting. "Then I realized I hadn't woken because of the wind so much. There was someone there."

He paused, dramatically. "The Devil himself stood before me, just like in the books. Tiny horns, pointy tail… even had a pitchfork. He was redder than I was."

I was the one to break the silence. "Uh, are you sure? That's not how I remember the guy. Looked pretty, you know, humany to me."

Uncle Jerry said, "He had tiny horns and a tiny tail? Are you joking? That sounds like a joke."

The Actor fixed him with a grim expression. "Take a look at me, man. Does this scenario look like a joke?"

The group mumbled, and I encouraged him to finish the story.

According to our friend, after a short negotiation with the Dark Lord, he had signed the contract there and then.

"King of Hollywood," he said, and a small smile crept to his lips. "It sounded so good, but looking back, it seems it would help to be less euphemistic and maybe more, um, specific about your desires."

"Lawyer gobbledygook," Anza said. "You should have had me read it."

"None of you were there!" the Actor shouted then calmed again. "I was alone and did what I thought was… what I needed, but in the end, it didn't work out that way."

It was Sally's turn to laugh. "Because you wasn't dealing with no Devil."

I said, "It was probably Randall."

"Who's Randall?" Uncle Jerry asked.

I frowned and shook my head.

The Actor fixed Sally with a hard stare. "I saw him. This was… I mean, this was the Devil in all his glory!"

Again, Sally just chuckled. "Horns and tail? Are you joking?" She grabbed one of the unfinished beers on the table and took a slug. "The Devil is, as they say, out of pocket for now." She turned toward me with a half nod. "Because of this one over here."

"Me?" I asked.

"Well, you and your lady," Sally said. "Right now, the downstairs is being run by a proxy. A real fat dude. Lawyer."

I growled slightly, even surprising me. "I remember him. What a prick."

Sally nodded. "But what you saw wasn't no Devil. It was the other guys. You got duped. In fact, in that sense, you got yerself double-duped."

"Wait," I said, leaning toward the gunslinger. "Hell Inc.?"

"Right. They been hanging out at the crossroads, picking up stragglers until the old man returns to stake his claim," she said and looked down her nose at the Actor. "Man, they just put on a show to get you signed up, and you bought it hook, line, and sinker."

Angel spoke for the first time in a long while. "I think you saw what you wanted to see. Little plastic horns and a dime-store pitchfork, and you were ready to sign on the dotted line."

"That can't be," the Actor said, his voice barely above a whisper. Then he looked over at Sally. "Then why are you helping them?"

"Helping them?" Sally asked. "I work for the real masters of hell, not those wannabe usurpers. It's my job to put you down so Hell Inc. can't use ya. Those guys don't want you dead, amigo. They want you to be their spirit animal or something."

I shook my head. "We're not going to let that happen," I said. "How do we find whatever strip mall or corporate warehouse where Hell Inc. might be keeping his contract?"

Again, Sally chuckled. "It ain't any kinda warehouse," she said, looking smug. "More like a fortress. Big ol' tower, high as the eye can see. I think they might even have a moat."

"A moat?" Anza asked. "Who has moat?"

"I had a moat in Season three," the Actor said, shrugging. "I miss my moat."

"I hear it also has a mediation room, a virtual reality bar, and a damn fine cafeteria. There's yoga on Tuesdays and Thursdays."

We all just stared at Sally.

Uncle Jerry said, "Fine, fine. Where is this yoga fortress we gotta break into?"

Sally chuckled. "It ain't really a fortress."

Anza asked softly, "What is it?"

"Think about it," Sally said. "This is the earthbound HQ of Hell Inc. Their one goal is to get the MX, the misery index, as high as they can so they can take over the downstairs. Create gobs and gobs of anxiety. Strife, depression, disillusionment. Basically to create the most despair possible for the human race. Where do you think it is?"

It had been there in front of us the whole time, right there in front of the world, and no one saw it. The one place that destroyed families, broke up marriages, and fostered more anguish, gloom, grief, and sadness than every other entity on the planet.

"FriendBook," I said. "The head offices of FriendBook."

Sally just smiled and tipped her hat to me.

Chapter Twenty-Six

The six of us stood outside the bar.

Looking over at our old pilot, I saw that he was carrying the green case. Pointing at it, I said, “Whassat?”

He smiled. “Just some personal effects from my Mexican vacation.”

Angel had already made it clear he didn't want to be within ten feet of Sally, so we would have to split up into two groups. Sally, though, still wasn't entirely convinced she wanted any part of it.

Anza leaned up against the peeling stucco wall. With the gaze of a dazed cartoon frog leering down on her, she fixed the gunslinger with one of her glares. "Think of Boo."

"Jes—can you please stop calling my Horse that godawful name?" The gunslinger's eyes flickered toward the tiny woman being ogled by the giant dead eyes above her. "Is that outta bounds by your reckoning?"

"No," Anza said, frowning. "But you are toeing the line!"

Sally rubbed her mouth for a moment, and hand to God, it sounded like she might have a bit of scruff. She said, "Anza, I am a curser, no lie. And I feel that if this transaction is to move forward, I will have the need to express myself, and yet I am an animal in a godda—uh, gilded cage!"

The Actor was smiling far too wide for my comfort. I didn't think he was aware that only ten minutes earlier, Sally had been dead set on shooting him dead at the first chance. She still might have been.

"Cocksucker is fine exclamation, Sals," he said. "Can be used as a noun and adjective."

Sally only grunted.

Uncle Jerry put a hand out and leaned on a cement balustrade in the restaurant's entryway. "You might also consider dickhead, asshole, son of a bitch, and the c-word."

Shifting from foot to foot, Sally adjusted her hat for a moment. "What is… the c-word?"

We all looked at each other, lifting our hands as if someone had dropped a plate of scorpions on the ground in front of us.

The Actor broke the silence. "Given my recent role in an inexplicably British fantasy period piece, I can also suggest bollocks, bugger, wanker, and—a favorite of mine—twat."

"Jews got some good ones, less R17, except for fakakta, which means 'fucked up.' But you got putz, schmuck, schvantz, and petzl. Strangely, those all mean penis," Jerry said, affecting a professorial tone, crossing his arms. "But those folks are the ones who invented the bris, which is, truth be told, a penis party."

Not wanting to miss the fun, Angel chimed in, "If you want to go multilingual, pendjo and verga are pretty sweet. Coño is quite good, too, but you're back in c-word territory."

For a moment, Sally only looked at her hands, then she turned away.

We got quiet, waiting.

When she spun back around, she sniffed loudly and dragged a hand across her eyes. Then, pulling of her hat, she said, "Now, I ain't going soft or nothing… but I will say you lot bequeathing me this treasure of language, for a curser like myself, is one of the nicest things anyone has ever did for me."

My mouth hung open for a moment. "Uh, no problem."

"At this moment," she said, her voice trembling slightly, and returned her hat to her head with a smile, "I am a rich woman."

Anza was over it. "Okay, enough of the twatting and wanking and the fisting—"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa!" the Actor shouted, putting his hands over his ears. "That just sounds all kinds of wrong coming out of your mouth right now."

"But so I am saying," Anza growled, waving a finger, "back to point—if you want to get your motorhorse back, which currently, as you have seen, has pledged its loyalty to Rasputin, then you are going to help us getting into the FriendBook."

Like a thunderclap, Sally's anger snapped back. "Really?" she asked through her teeth.

"Yes, if you wanting motorhorse back," Anza said, her hands on her hips. "Or it will forever be Raz's faithful companion, Boo."

Sally leaned forward, her eyes blazing at my friend. She was met with a blank expression. "Fine."

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Outside of Villahermosa, Sally banged on my shoulder to let me know she wanted to make a pit stop. I'd shaken her off a few times, looking to get to Northern California around the same time the others did.

The four of them had gone a separate way after Uncle Jerry said he knew where to find a plane.

We pulled into a gas station with only one working pump, but of course, we didn't need gas and never would. Despite my hesitations, it was good to get off Boo for a moment because my legs were turning to jelly, and I needed a Coke and a pee.

When I came back out with my soda, Sally was fiddling with her hell-issued cell phone. As I walked up, she looked up and resettled it back into its holder between the handlebars.

"We're making good time," she said. "That leg woulda taken anyone else like twelve hours. We did it in four!"

I'd long given up on trying to steer Bucephalus as it weaved around cars, trucks, and RVs like they were standing still. I wished there was, at least, something else on the radio. But still, I only got the strange numbers station.

"You know," I said. "The selection on the radio dial leaves a lot to be desired."

"Ah," she said, slugging a beer she'd gotten from the station. "Music'll rot your brains, boy."

"Nobody thinks that."

"I do."

I paused, then, "Nobody but you thinks that."

Sally laughed, shrugged, and not for the first time, she looked back the way we'd come, staring hard at the horizon. When she noticed I was watching her, she rubbed her eyes, flipped me a stony smile, and pointed to the bike.

"At this rate, we'll beat your friends to our destination," she said as I swung my leg over the seat. "But I dunno… their plan to break back into that drug man's ranch that they just broke your friend out of? I expect if they do show up to meet us, they'll be dead."

I turned to contradict her thoughts on their chances but only saw the gunslinger standing next to the bike, once again, staring off to the east, back the way we'd come.

"What are you staring at?"

Sally turned to me with a half smile, about to say something, but stopped. She pulled her hat off for a moment, scratched the top of her head, and put it back in place.

"Sally?" I asked.

Slowly, she walked up the length of the motorcycle, the tips of her fingers running over its curves, across the gas tank, and up to the headlight. She softly patted it with her calloused fingers.

"Don't worry," I said. "When we get up there, and the Actor's all sorted out, I'll… find a way for your, uh, Horse to come around. I'll figure something out."

She shook her head and looked lovingly at the mechanical beast beneath me.

"Well," she said. "I suppose you got a right to know the truth."

"Man, I don't like the sound of that."

Again, she stared back to where we'd come from. "This here ain't my Horse, not really," she said and sniffed. "Ah, he is now but, you know, not originally."

"Ah," I said. "You stole Bucephalus."

She squinted at me, deep frown lines cut into her face, but before the words in her head made it to her mouth, she sighed then chuckled softly, shaking her head.

That time, I looked back, staring at the horizon. "Why are you telling me this?"

"Because," she said, leaning down to bang dirt off her knees then standing upright again. "The feller I acquired this lovely creature from, he's the one you saw in the lot."

I looked down, thinking. "You mean the guy trying to nab the Actor? The one with the screwed-up hat?"

"He's an Aussie putz named Digger," she said with a small smile. "Freelancer. He'll be looking for a reward by bringing your friend to Hell Inc. HQ, which is a funny thing when you think about how that's where we're headed anyhow."

"He may have realized that." I looked down the road. "Then why is he still following us?"

"Horse ain't like any other machine in the universe. One of a kind," she said, grinning at the machine like it was her child. "He's coming for his bike."

* * *

"That there's the hangar," Uncle Jerry said.

The Actor sighed. "Really? We can see that. What are all the other buildings?"

The old pilot pointed off into the fading light as they stood on a hill just outside the sprawling compound. In the distance, there were a handful of small, twinkling lights. He said, "Back there, there's a couple cheaply built adobes. That's where some of the low-level workers here live. The place I had wasn't much better, but I had a bed and a toilet, so I guess no complaints."

Anza looked at him, her soft eyes glistening. "That must have been awful."

"Sometimes, yeah. But not always. When the young boy would bring me a paperback, it wasn't so bad. I'd sit and read to him sometimes."

Angel said, "I thought you didn't know Spanish."

"I don't," Uncle Jerry said and laughed softly. "So I just made up stories. Pablo doesn't really know English either, but he'd just sit and listen for as long as I would talk to him. Or until his daddy sent for him."

"Daddy? You mean Silvio?"

"Yeah," the old man said. "He lives in the big house there, the only real nice place on the property. He runs the whole show down here."

"And he's got his kid there?"

Uncle Jerry shrugged. "Better than an absentee father, I reckon."

The Actor said, "Really? You think it's better to have your kid on a sprawling drug estate with guys toting AK-47s everywhere you look?"

"Every kid should have a papa around," Uncle Jerry said. "Even if he ain't the best, I suppose."

Anza pointed at the hangar. "So is plane down in the hangar, yes?"

"Yes," Uncle Jerry said. "That's where they parked the runner that I flew before it got smashed, then in the metal building there's Silvio's. Not as nice as Enrique's, mind you, but it's better than most small planes you'll see."

"Who's Enrique?" Angel asked.

The Actor said, "He's another drug lord, up in Atlanta. But he's not Honduran, as he'd tell you."

"Bakersfield," Anza said and smiled.

"Wait," Angel said. "You make a habit of stealing planes from drug kingpins?"

"No, no," Uncle Jerry said. "We threatened to expose him for being a fraud and not from Honduras, basically blackmail, and then he sorta lent us his plane."

Angel looked at them one at a time. "You know this isn't how normal people go about their day, right?"

Uncle Jerry laughed. "Ah, keeps it interesting."

"So, we need to get Silvio's plane," Anza said, "meet up with Razzie in California."

It was the Actor's turn to point at the hangar. "There'll be guards down there, right? Guys with guns looking for a reason, any reason, to shoot someone!"

"Usually, there're two guys. Don't know their names, but they pretty much play cards all day and drink," Uncle Jerry said. "Well, they do also go out to smoke, now and again."

"So, two guards that might go on smoke break," Anza said. "Hold on—what about cameras and motion detectors?"

"Oh, they got 'em, sure."

The Actor rubbed at a spot on his elbow. "What? You didn't mention those! How are we supposed to—"

"Most of them don't work, as far as I know," Uncle Jerry said, smiling. "Sun baked 'em or whatever. But I heard one of the guards talking about it once. They don't need all that electronic security."

"Why?" Angel asked.

"Because who'd be dumb enough to sneak onto the local drug lord's property?"

"Right," the Actor said.

Anza said, "Okay, we wait, maybe for the smoke break, then get into the hangar and take plane and go very fast."

Uncle Jerry scratched his chin. "There is a slight problem there. The main hangar is open, but the one with Silvio's plane," he said, pointing to the slightly smaller structure snuggled up against the large one, "that's all locked up with electronics that do work. We need a key to get in."

"Jesus," the Actor said, and Anza shot him a hard look. He raised his hands in apology.

"So where is key?"

Uncle Jerry pointed back to the main house. "Silvio will be in there, so the key is also in there."

"Okay," Anza said, standing. "Angel, you keep an eye on the guards. Maybe you can see how often they go for smoke break. And then we time it."

"What are you guys going to do?"

Anza sighed. "We've got to break into the drug man's home and steal the key."

* * *

I was beginning to feel like panic had become my natural state of being. Scanning the tiny gas station, I searched for trouble. The old man I'd seen at the counter looked like he'd probably fallen asleep again. There were a few shacks in the distance and the occasional long-haul truck on the road, but I saw no danger, at least not yet.

Sitting on a large rock at the side of the desert highway, Sally looked up at the sun, wiping the sweat off her face.

For a brief moment, I considered taking off and leaving her to the bike's original owner, that Digger guy. But there was no question, since he had a bead on his ride, he would track me. And keep tracking until he got it back. Then he would probably run me over with it a few times.

I walked over, one eye on the road behind us, trying to swallow my fear and just listen.

"When you're dyin'," she said and let out a long breath, "you do say the damndest things to whatever god or devil might be listening, trying to reverse your fortune."

I nodded and felt tears fight their way to my eyes. "Or when someone you love is dying," I said then rubbed my face, suddenly very self-conscious. "You make promises, bargains, anything."

She stared at me for a long moment then blinked and nodded once. "I ain't never had the pleasure," she said, smiling. "Despite having been married a fair bit."

Despite myself, I laughed. "A fair bit?"

"Six times, I reckon," she said. "Maybe seven by the time I'd hit my fiftieth birthday."

"Holy shit. You must have made divorce lawyers very happy."

"Only divorced the first one. The others," she said, smiling. "No need for lawyers after that."

That, of course, came as no surprise. "Got it."

"The last fella was mean as a snake, he was," she said and rubbed her hands on her thighs. "He was good in bed, though." Her eyes went distant as she spoke. "But I was a woman of some means by then, and he was meaning to take what I had. So I found myself running. I was in a cave when my old man caught up to me."

"What'd you do?"

"Nothing I could do. I had my shooters with me and a few rifles, but he was smart in all sortsa ways that were cowardly and despicable. Instead coming in and taking his chances, he filled the mouth of the cave with timber, dead leaves." She sighed. "Straw-lit fire and the smoke, ah hell, either I was going to suffocate or have to run through flames to live, only to get shot once I did."

Sally stood and looked back down the road for nearly a minute then continued. "As a child, I'd been part of some settlers, the Old Three Hundred, and there'd been church on Sundays, so I knew about praying. Did a lot of praying over those days on the run from the husband, but after all that, I just ended up in a cave." She lifted her head and grinned at me. "So, I tried the other guys."

I nodded, unsure what to say.

"I told the Devil, 'Just let me live, and I'll do what you say.' Even cut into my palm and made a blood oath." She held up her hand, where I saw a crescent-moon-shaped scar. "The cave filled with this wind, like a hurricane, blew the flames out of the cave. When I stumbled out, the branches were all burnt up, just dust. I saw my betrothed out there, burst like a piece of meat forgotten in the fire."

Sally stood, looked over her shoulder, and started back to the motorcycle. "That was, oh, just shy of 1870, I reckon," she said. "The let-me-live part of that bargain meant just that. I just live, on and on. The other part means that I'm what they called, in my time, a type of regulator. The Devil's regulator."

"Like an assassin," I said. "Or a ninja."

She frowned. "Not like a ninja. Their food gives me gas somethin' wicked."

"Right, not really—"

"So, my job is to kill for a living," she said, hopping onto the back of Bucephalus. "Only two times have I not completed my task. One is your actor friend, but that will soon be rectified."

"Not if we get the contract back," I said, pointing a finger at her face.

"The other was when I'd come up against a regulator for the other side. Hell Inc."

"Oh?"

"People call him Digger, but I don't know what his real name is," she said. "I was told it was because of his hat, one side smushed up to his head. Didn't really explain it, but I didn't care to ask. I was supposed to kill him, but you know, the other side is very modern in all sorts of ways. Full of corporate lawyers and CEOs and tax accountants and vegans. Got all these fancy gadgets that the old man don't. And when I took one look at ol' Horse here, I knew he belonged with me. So, that's what I did."

"You stole Digger's motorcycle."

"Ha," she said. "Seems that was the deal he made with his side when he traded his soul. Got 'em the best machine there ever was on two wheels. I kept off his radar for many, many years. Side roads everywhere, never the interstates." She then looked at me, her face darkening. "Until you stole it. Ridin' through cities like you had no cares in the world. It was only a matter of time before someone from their side spotted it."

I squinted at the horizon, where far in the distance, I could see at least two riders kicking up a maelstrom of dust and smoke.

She said, "Come on, let's ride. Digger wants it back, and now that he's likely given up chasing your friend, he and his crew will be keen to make that happen."

Pointing at the bike, I said, "But we can outrun them, all of them!"

"Not if they're coming from all directions, which is a tactic of his," she said then patted me on the shoulder as I got on the bike and fired it up. "Head west. We'll go as far as we can, but be ready for a showdown."

"What if I'm not?"

"Don't matter," she said over the roar of the engine. "That's life, boy. The showdown comes whether you're ready to draw or not."

* * *

Keeping low, the three of them walked the edge of the property until they were next to the big ranch house. The fence hadn't been properly maintained and was easy to get through.

From there, they'd spent a few minutes watching Angel stumble in the dark toward the side of the hangar. Despite whispered protests from the others, he'd refused to take off the heels.

In the driveway in front of them, there was a large black SUV. The two-car garage had, in fact, two cars in it, one Jaguar and the other was sporty and flashy, which none of them could really place.

The Actor whistled. "What is that, a McLaren? Ferrari?"

"Is fast car. Who cares?"

Uncle Jerry nodded. "Purple, though. Who drives a purple car?"

"Yeah, not my first choice," the Actor said, nodding.

"None of this matters!" Anza said, waving her hand in front of their faces. "But the garage door is open, so we can get in."

"Oh," the Actor said. "Right. Good point. He must have just gotten home from terrorizing the locals."

"Or a snack run," Uncle Jerry said, smiling. "Little Pablo likes his ice cream before bed."

They skulked down closer to the garage, keeping an eye out for any wandering men with large rifles. Seeing none, they came up beside the large black vehicle, and Uncle Jerry put his hand on its hood.

He mouthed the word, Warm.

Anza nodded and looked around. It was as good a time as any. Crouched low, she dashed across the driveway and slipped into the garage.

From beside the SUV, the other two just watched, mouths hanging open. Then, not to be outdone, they followed, eyes darting left and right to make sure they weren't seen. The three of them squatted between the two fancy cars.

"Okay," Anza said, smiling as the other two came up next to her, breathing heavily. She spotted a rack with hooks next to the door leading into the house and dashed there next.

Uncle Jerry and the Actor whispered feverishly, waving her back.

For a few seconds, she scanned the key rack then returned. She dumped all the keys she could grab on the ground between the two cars.

"Is any of these the key we are needing?"

The Actor looked down. There was the key for the SUV, another for the Jaguar. The third was a fob at the end of a leather strap. He smiled, reading the word.

"McLaren," he said. "I was right."

Uncle Jerry said, "Nice spotting. You know your cars, man."

"Well, in my line of work—"

"Shh!" Anza said. "Is any of these the one we need?"

Uncle Jerry looked down at the keys then at his hands. Then he looked at his friends.

"Ah, no," he said. "It'll be inside."

The Actor sighed. "Shit. Fuck. Shit-fuck."

"Would he have it in an office or in his bedroom or where?"

"It will be…" Uncle Jerry said, speaking slowly. "Wherever Silvio is. He'll have it with him."

The Actor groaned, but Anza waved him off.

"So we wait until he falls asleep, sneak in, then pull it out of his pocket. Is no big deal."

Uncle Jerry looked out into the night, sighed, and shook his head. "It won't be in his pocket," he said. "It will be wherever he is."

Anza caught the expression on his face. "What does that mean?"

"The key is biometric," the old pilot said. "It's his, you know, bio. We've got to get that to open the electronic door to the hangar."

"What does bio mean?"

"Biography," the Actor said. "We'll need to read his biography into a small microphone next to the hangar door—"

"No, no!" Uncle Jerry growled. "It's biometric. So it's coded to his thumb print. We need to steal that."

"How do you steal a thumb print?"

Uncle Jerry shifted from foot to foot. "Well, it's on his, you know… thumb."

Chapter Twenty-Eight

"This is batshit," the Actor said, looking down at the useless pile of keys.

Anza put her arms out, braced one hand on the Jag, and made a small fist with the other. She said, "I am not… I don't understand. We need his thumb?"

"Right," the old pilot said. "I expect he won't give it up freely, so you know, we'll have to…"

The Actor filled in the blank. "Take it?"

Anza shook her head. "We are not taking the man's thumb! That is loco!"

Uncle Jerry slowly shook his head then raised his shoulders. "It's how we get into the hangar. The biometrics are coded to thumb prints." He pointed at the black SUV. "His."

Anza slumped back against the sports car and closed her eyes.

"What if, instead of cutting the finger off," the Actor said in a voice that sounded like he may have used it in a made-for-TV movie, "we find a wine glass, or whiskey glass, and scan that for a print, then we project that print onto the biometric pad? Then, presto, the door unlocks."

The one woman of their tiny group cracked her eyes open, eyebrows knitting in the middle. "How do we do that?"

"I don't know!" the Actor said. "I just came up with the idea. You're the big planner, so plan it."

"It's a dumb idea," Uncle Jerry said.

"It's not dumb!"

Anza said in a low voice, "How is it to scan fingerprint on the glass? How do you do that?"

"I dunno," the dwarf said then pulled out his iPhone. "It's gotta be an app, right?"

"No," Uncle Jerry said. "I think that's only in movies. We need his thumb. Maybe we just wait until he's in bed, tie him down, and take it then."

A growl came from Anza. "This is a no-digit-cutting operation!"

"You got any better ideas? Razzie's already headed out with that homicidal cowgirl, and the only way we're getting out there any time in the next few hours is sitting in that hangar down there," Uncle Jerry said. "Now, I can fly 'er, but I can't do it without sitting in the pilot's chair. And that ain't gonna happen by hopin'."

"This is… so bad! I don't even—"

Before Anza could finish her sentence, the garage door began to come down.

"Shit!" the Actor called out as they all scrambled to their feet.

But despite all of them making a quick sprint for it, the door was moving too fast. When the door came down—on an automatic timer—Uncle Jerry and Anza stood and could only stare at it.

From the other side, they heard, "Hello?"

The pilot looked around and noticed they were short one person. He tapped softly on the door and whispered, "Actor? You got out?"

It was quiet for a moment, and the two of them exchanged wide-eyed glances.

"Uh," the muffled voice said. "Ran under the door. First time it paid being, you know, this short. I guess."

Anza closed her eyes. "This is now worse." At that moment, the automatic door light above them ticked out, and they were plunged into darkness. "And, is now worser."

"Hey," the Actor said, his voice strained. "I don't wanna be out here by myself. Lemme in!"

Uncle Jerry thumped the door, which made Anza yelp then shush him. He said, "How the hell we supposed to do that?"

Outside, the Actor was quickly chattering about finding keypads or interior buttons, but it all turned into a panicked drone as the old man felt Anza take his hand in the dark.

A sob caught in his throat, and he felt himself nod. "I gotta go get a thumb, don't I?"

Anza made a soft noise. After a long pause, she said, "We need to get into hangar, yes?"

"Yes."

Another pause, then, "Yes."

With the Actor still chattering outside, they shuffled toward where they'd seen the door to the house before everything went dark. Uncle Jerry stumbled over something and caught himself before he fell but not before they heard some sporting equipment fall from a metal shelf.

They could only wait as they listened to a ball languidly bounce deeper into the garage. Put-put-put-put-putputputputput…

Then silence again.

Outside, the Actor, too, had become quiet.

The old pilot reached for the door and turned the knob. As he leaned forward to push it, he felt Anza put a hand on his shoulder and give it a squeeze.

A bright thin line spilled into the dark room, and it looked like a prison searchlight. Anza squeezed a little harder then muttered a soft sorry. They moved forward, pushing the door open on its hinges, which were, at the moment, silent.

In front of them was a sort of mudroom but long and thin. A washing machine and dryer lay to their immediate left. A basket of laundry sat on top of the machines. Through the plastic mesh, Anza could just make out the bright colors of a little boy's clothing.

She swallowed back a small cry. Uncle Jerry, without turning, put a hand on top of hers and gave it a squeeze of his own.

They moved from the garage into the long hallway, and the air turned from muggy to dry and cold in an instant. In the distance, the sounds of a television. Uncle Jerry stood for a moment as he turned to close the door. Then he thought better of it and left it open.

If Silvio saw it, it could raise the alarm—would he think he'd left it open? But if they needed to run, their best bet may be firing up one of the sports cars and smashing through the garage.

His heart turned cold at the thought of his ramshackle plan. They'd left the keys on the concrete floor between the two cars.

Then Anza caught his eye and held up the key fob for the Jaguar with a small smile. A funny thought came to the old man's mind. He really would have preferred the McLaren.

He started moving forward again, and Anza tugged on his elbow, her face soft but her eyes wild. She mouthed the word kitchen.

Right. The kitchen. Because if they were planning on a little thumb stealing, they were going to need a knife. This new thought made his stomach twist. Could I cut off a man's thumb to help save my friend?

Then he thought about being held prisoner by the man, the beatings and the long days when the food never came. And he thought, Just in case, maybe we need the whole hand.

As they crept forward, they could see, just beyond a set of hooks at the end of the hallway were rows upon rows of silvery pots and pans and cooking implements hanging from a rack in the ceiling. They swayed slightly, twinkling from a light source coming from deeper in the house.

At least, the kitchen was dark.

In unison, they took a deep, calming breath, but then each of them suddenly held it. A tall shadow lay across the doorway.

They froze. Anza looked back to the pitch-black garage, trying, in her mind's eye, to remember its layout. But they couldn't run back, get in the car, fire it up, and get out of there if the man standing in the hallway was carrying a gun. Maybe he wouldn't be.

No. Hearing an intruder in the night, of course he would. Hell, he was a drug lord. The guy probably slept with one.

Uncle Jerry started to move forward again, clenching both fists, but Anza tugged him back slightly. She pointed to the garage, pumping her eyebrows. Let's get out!

But the old man had come that far. They were in this thing. It was now or never. He steeled himself to step forward, but before he could take a step, the shadow moved closer, so Uncle Jerry planted both of his feet, readying himself, raising his arms, hands balled into fists, and waited.

Once he saw the head, he could club the guy with a fist. Maybe he would go down with one hit. That way, they wouldn't have to creep around the house. That was how it was going to happen. It was good. The shadow moved forward, but when the head did, in fact, come around the corner, it was about two feet too low.

He flinched and looked down.

"Uncle Jerry?" Pablo whispered. "¿Qué estás haciendo aquí?"

Both adults froze, waiting for some sound from the other room, but so far, it was just the television.

The boy came fully into the doorway, his tiny body casting a long shadow from the light of the living room. Anza put her hand to her mouth, stifling a small cry as she saw the scared little boy standing there in his Spiderman pj's.

With nothing to lose, Uncle Jerry waved the boy closer. He took a step forward then hesitated and stepped back. He turned to where the sound of the television was coming from. If he called out, it would be over.

"Pablo, mi amigo," Uncle Jerry said softly. "Pablo, Pablo."

The boy turned his body toward the light, but then swiveled his head toward the old man. A flurry of emotions ran over his face, then he wore a small, sad expression. Pablo said, "¿Libro?"

Uncle Jerry stood for a moment, trying to work out what he was saying. Is it a warning? Is he asking for ice cream?

Again, the boy said, "¿Libro?" Then he shrugged his tiny shoulders, hugging himself at his waist. He looked around sheepishly and shrugged again. "Libro. Uh, book?"

"Book?" Uncle Jerry whispered. "No, no, Pablo. Maybe later, yes?"

The boy nodded, disappointed, but his was a small face that seemed all too used to disappointment, so he shrugged it off and began to step closer.

Then, for the first time, he caught sight of Anza, and his eyes got very large. He took two steps back, his little legs bracing, feet pointing in different directions.

Uncle Jerry slowly raised his wrinkled fingers and said, "Friend. She's an amigo of mine, Pablo. Amigo."

"No," the boy said, slowly shaking his head.

"Yes, yes," Uncle Jerry said, speaking faster now. He reached back and gave Anza a slight push. Then he quickly flashed her a glance.

It was dark, and she could see only the whites of the man's eyes, but it was clear enough. Run!

The boy said, "No amigo."

The old man's arms tingled as ice began coursing through his veins. But before he could once again protest, the boy held up a finger and pointed.

"No amigo," he whispered. "Girl, no amigo. Amiga." Then the boy's face broke into a brilliant, beautiful expression.

Uncle Jerry nodded, his mouth watering, and there was a slight taste of blood where he was sure he'd bitten his tongue. "Yes," he said, nodding again. "Yes, amiga."

The boy smiled again, apparently wanting something in return. Again, he said, "Libro now?"

A warmth passed over Uncle Jerry, and strangely, in that moment, there was nothing more in the world he wanted to do than read the boy a book. Or that was, tell the boy a story while reading a book he couldn't understand.

Slowly, the man shook his head and said, "No, no. Go play, por favour."

"No play," the boy said, sounding dejected.

"Yes play," Uncle Jerry said. "Go play… Legos. You like Legos, yes?"

"Legos?" The boy's eyes went big. "Legos is okay?"

"Si, si." He nodded. "Go play Legos."

The boy sighed then shrugged. He looked toward the light in the living room, as if considering something for a moment, then smiled a devilish smile and said, "Okay."

With that, he turned, walked through the darkened kitchen, and disappeared deeper into the house.

Uncle Jerry turned toward Anza and, without a word, gave her a big bear hug. Both of them were already covered in sweat. She patted the man on the chest with her hand, their breaths now coming out in heaves.

"Boy loves his Legos, man," he said, and she laughed without a sound.

Then they started toward the darkened kitchen.

* * *

Sally had been right. The moment we got back on the highway, the two bikers who'd been coming up the road hit the gas to catch up. I recognized one of them from back at the restaurant, the chubby one I'd called Chicken Wing.

In my mirror, he was grinning wildly, stopping every now and then to spit out bugs. There was a line of dried blood just below the food stains I'd seen earlier.

I felt a few heavy taps on my shoulder and nodded, twisting the accelerator. Bucephalus growled, and we easily left the two guys in our dust. It made complete sense to me why Sally would have ripped off the amazing machine. Of course, it also made complete sense that the person she'd stolen it from would want it back.

Ahead, Digger and three others were blocking the highway, rifles and shotguns pointed our way.

"Shit!"

To our left was all scrub and desert, uneven terrain. I felt that the bike could maneuver that but doubted either of us could hold on and would be thrown to the ground.

"This has definitely gone fakakta!" Sally shouted in my ear. "Go through 'em!"

I shouted back, "They've got shotguns! We'd be peppered before we broke through!"

"Well, you would be!" she shouted, and I could hear the smile in her voice. "You're like one of them human shields to me."

It may have been better to spin around and head the other way, find another route to head west. But like Sally had warned—they'd come from all sides. I knew back there were at least two more of Digger's bikers headed our way.

Then, about a hundred yards from where they were blocking the road, I noticed a trail that cut between two steep hills.

Sucking in a deep breath, I shouted, "Hold on!" leaned down onto my right knee, and banked the bike down the trail.

Behind me, I heard shotgun blasts filling the air. The sounds of them ringing off the canyon sides made my head spin. My mirrors were shaking because of the uneven ground, so for a quick second, I had to turn my head back to see them. Four of them were coming our way, with the other two no doubt close behind.

But I'd looked away too long, and when I turned back, in front of me was a massive boulder. We glanced off of it, hard, and the bike bucked in the air, then I felt Bucephalus take over, gunning its engine, which steadied the wobble.

Sally had one hand on the seat and one on her pistol, firing behind her.

Once we straightened out, the bike revved so high that when it hit the rock and grit below, we launched forward and it took every ounce of my strength to hold on. I yelled against the pain but was able to pull my feet back down on the pegs.

Sally, however, was gone.

I had a thought I wasn’t proud of. It was shitty, but if I could find a way out quickly, I would have a clear shot to California without her.

* * *

Uncle Jerry and Anza stood in the darkened kitchen, letting their eyes adjust. It was hard because, with the bright light of the living room pouring across the hallway, it made it nearly impossible to see in the dark.

After searching the counter for a large sharp knife—or even a small sharp knife—they came up empty-handed and began quietly rifling through drawers.

They found more utensils, plastic lids, then an entire stash of cutlery. There were forks, spoons, and table knives but no real knives. That was, nothing to cut off an incapacitated man's thumb.

As they searched, the strangest feeling came over Anza. It took a moment to put her finger on it, but when she realized what it was, she stiffened, and her jaw clamped down so hard it hurt. They were being watched. She thumped Uncle Jerry on the leg, and he swung back, catching her expression. He froze.

Tracing her eyes around the room, she looked back into the darkened garage. Nothing there, or if anyone was, she would never see them. The dining room on the far side of the kitchen was dark and quiet and perfectly arranged as if it were a museum to the modern home. Places were set for six, napkins folded into shell shapes, perfectly aligned silverware on either side. Each chair was pushed in at the exact same distance as the next.

The only light was glimmering off a candelabra in the center of the table.

"Pablo?" someone called out, and both of them crouched low. Anza looked at her hands and saw she was shaking. She gripped them together as if worried the rattling bones in her hands would give them away.

Again came the voice from the room with the television. "Pablo?"

They waited a full minute, not moving. They heard a slight chuckle then one a little louder. Silvio was again lost in whatever show he was watching.

Uncle Jerry let out a long exhale, and a dribble of sweat rolled off his chin onto the floor.

Anza finally saw the pair of eyes staring at them. She stood back to her full height, leaned forward, and squinted toward the window. Outside, a set of hedges behind him, the Actor gave them a small wave. She rolled her eyes and put her hand to her heart, pressing it with a tiny fist for a moment. Then she tapped Uncle Jerry and pointed toward the window.

When he saw their friend, his face lit, and he gave their man outside a thumbs-up. The Actor shook his head slowly with a very tiny smile on his lips. He returned an exaggerated version of the same gesture.

Anza pointed behind them, to where the light was coming from, and back at the Actor. With two fingers on her left hand, she pointed at her own eyes. Then with her right, at the man at the window then back toward the light.

He nodded. Got it.

Uncle Jerry had been checking the cupboards under the island, searching for a knife rack. He expected to see one of those wooden things people bought late at night when they'd had a lot to drink. They used to have one commercial where they could cut a can and then cut a tomato.

But who would cut a goddamn can with a knife? A goddamn can!

"Whoops, sorry," he muttered to Anza, who nearly jumped.

She mouthed, What?

He then shook his head quickly, bits of sweat shooting off his matted hair.

She continued to search the cupboards below, which was difficult because moving the would-be-clanging metal was a definite no-no. If there was a block of knives behind a double-boiler, they would never see it.

What was that called again? Something Japanese. The can-and-tomato cutting knives.

Then another thought came to mind. Sure, the fuckhead dope dealer was a fuckhead dope dealer, but if he were any kinda good daddy, he wouldn't have the knives within reach of little Pablo. They wouldn't be in drawers or down below the island where a little boy could get to them. He stood up and found the highest cupboard, just to the left of the large metal fridge that could double as a meat locker.

Behind him, Anza twisted slightly and put her hand on the fridge to stand.

She looked back at the perfect dining room, and something small moved in her chest. She wanted that. Not the dining set. Okay, sure, she wanted the dining set, but more importantly, she wanted what would sit around the dining set.

More than ever, she realized she missed her husband, Dan. When their mission was all over, it was time to go home. She had to get over his new position—and new complexion—because, more than anything, she knew what she wanted. A family with Dan.

The very tiny smile was on her lips when she casually looked to the window. Anza cocked her head because, being that the Actor was supposed to be all clandestine and secret-like, there was no way he should be jumping up and down, waving his arms. He would totally get seen that way.

Behind her, she heard Uncle Jerry open another cupboard door. Then he whispered, "Bingo."

That was when the light clicked on.

Silvio was standing, not in the hallway that had been bathed in light but on the other side, and he was pointing a pistol at them.

He said slowly, "Get away from my Ginsu."

Uncle Jerry snapped his fingers and said, "Shit. Yep, that was it. Ginsu."

The drug lord took a small step forward, just to the edge of the kitchen tile, and began to chuckle.

"I don't know how you did it, Uncle Jerry," he said. "But you are not, as reported, dead and spread across three miles of a Central American mountain."

"Uh, I was. That happened," the old man said. "I got… better."

Silvio could only laugh. "You are the craziest fucking person I have ever known. And I have known some serious crazies. Got better!" He laughed harder, half bending at the waist with the pistol still trained on them. "Thank god you're in the kitchen," he said, still laughing.

"Why?"

"Because." He lifted the gun higher, putting his finger on the trigger. "I'm going to spread you all over the Mexican tile, easier to clean up. And from that, you will not get better."

Twack-twack-twack!

Two heads swiveled toward the front window, where the Actor was pounding with an open palm. He raised his hand, finger pointed at the drug dealer, thumb in the air. Silvio hesitated but then twisted and shot toward the glass.

He missed. A lamp near the window exploded.

Anza had never shifted her gaze to the window, never taken her eyes off the prick with the stupid hair and stupid mustache holding the stupid gun, and the moment he turned, she gripped the refrigerator door handle she'd been holding, yanked it open hard, the bottles clanging as they violently shifted in their shelves, and the heavy metal door first collided with the pistol then with the man holding it.

The gun went flying across the room, knocking over the metal candelabra.

Silvio was down on the ground, half out of it and moaning slightly.

Quickly, Uncle Jerry reached for the biggest knife he could find. Anza looked to the window and saw the Actor holding up a small rectangular cube the size of a cigarette box and pointing back to the garage.

He squeezed it, and the garage door began to lift.

"Quickly!" she shouted. "Get his thumb!"

Silvio's eyes went wide, and he growled, leaping back to his feet and running into the next room. The dining room.

"The gun is in there!" Anza shouted and pulled on Uncle Jerry to leave. Both turned and sprinted out of the kitchen and down the long hallway.

Out on the driveway, Uncle Jerry spun back to find Anza was missing. The very next moment, Anza came running from the black void of the garage, holding up a set of keys.

Pointing at the SUV, she shouted, "Get in!"

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Sally was on her knees, swaying slightly but refusing to fall down.

Digger stood over her, holding the shotgun by its muzzle. He muttered something under his breath, laughed, and hit her again with the butt of the weapon. She hadn't even put her hands up to block the blow. Nor had she gone for her pistols, which were both still in their holsters, their tips drawing small circles in the dirt and sand every time she swayed.

"Where's he gone, mate?" the man in the strange cowboy hat asked, the weapon in his hand making low sweeps in front of her. He grinned when he saw her eyes flicker down toward her pistols. "Ah, please do. I don't have any orders to put slugs in you but will do so gladly. Just gimme a reason."

Sally spit blood onto his black shirt. "I know you," she said, breathing unevenly. "You don't need any reason. You're a cruel putz, you know that?"

Again, Digger laughed, then he waggled a finger on the hand that was still wrapped around the shotgun. "Ah, come on, then. Home office don't like it when we put each other down willy-nilly—neither of them. We get targets, we take 'em out. But open war—"

"I don't care," Sally said, chuckling, "about any of Hell Inc.'s so-called rules. Rules are just permission for one group to do what they want to another, written down with tiny numbers and clauses and subclauses. But in the end, it's just a recipe someone pulled outta thin air to cook up a big ol' fuck-you pie."

Digger brought the shotgun's wooden butt down on Sally's head, but it only skimmed the side of it. She winced when it hit her shoulder, but she never lost the small smile on her lips.

"Where's he gone?"

"How would I know? We left the little twerp back in Cozumel," she said, spitting out something tiny and yellow. "Could be anywhere by now."

Digger looked to the men around him, five of them, scrunched up his face, and let out a throaty breath. "The Actor?" he asked. "I don't give two shits about him. That dumbass is going exactly where Hood wants him to!" Digger kicked dirt into Sally's face. "Where'd Rasputin take my bike?"

"Little shit took off," she said, spitting out grit. "Why don't you let me go, and I'll go find 'em for ya?"

The man in the scrunched black hat laughed and kicked another boot of dirt at her.

Digger leaned in close, and from where I was, high up above them, behind an outcropping of rock, I only caught a few of their words.

Sure, I should have left. I didn't even like Sally, if for no other reason than she was trying to kill my friend. By anyone's standards, someone trying to make a friend dead made them an enemy. However, I'd lived my life going on gut instincts. Usually, it really, really screwed me up. Sometimes, it payed off. I hoped this time it was the rarer outcome, the latter of those two.

And in a way, it did pay off because what Digger was saying to the bleeding gunslinger was, if nothing else… very curious.

This is what I heard:

"You and I both know, war in hell is coming," Digger said. Even at a low volume, his husky voice bounced around the canyon. However, as the words reflected off the stone walls, it made them harder to make out clearly. "…and the old man failed! The chairman wants him before all hell breaks loose." Digger stood back up again then turned slowly. He raised his shotgun to Sally's head. "Tell me where he went, and you'll live."

Sally shook him off and squared her shoulders. "You ain't gonna let me live."

With a shrug, the man in the black hat cocked his shotgun and nodded. "You're right. I'm under contract, so that means my bullets can put you down."

"Sally!" I screamed from the top of the rock face, sitting on Bucephalus, which roared to life. Then I held on as the bike drove straight down the side of the stone wall, its front tire lifting just as we slammed into the ground, and rocketed straight for her.

Over the gunfire, I heard Digger shout, "Don't kill him!" as the bike and I headed straight for Sally, who spun up to one knee, reached out with her right hand, grabbed the luggage rack as we passed, and flung herself onto the seat behind me, facing the other direction.

As the bike took a forty-five-degree cut into the opposite wall, I looked at both of my mirrors and saw that she had a pistol in each hand and was firing at the group below us.

Digger had managed to leap behind his own motorcycle, shots exploding off it in small sparks.

The others around him were down, bleeding to death or already dead.

"Go, go, go!" she shouted.

"Way ahead of you!"

At that point, I was merely holding onto the bike as we tore a path deeper into the canyon.

We rode at an impossible speed for at least a full minute, then we hit a dead end, and I stopped the bike. In front of us, it looked like a small camp encircled by high stone wall with a small shack, a long bar to tie up horses, and a firepit.

I pointed to what looked like the shortest escape route. "Boo can go up the wall, so hold on—"

"No," Sally said. "No, we need to finish this here, or he won't stop coming." With a groan, she hopped off and hobbled to a spot next to the small shack. She pulled out her pistols and got down on one knee.

Amid the high walls of the canyon enclosure, every sound came back to me like a scolding, everything said, everything done, like each choice, no matter how insignificant, was being received, evaluated, and shot back.

Sally checked her pistols, banging the grit out of their muzzles.

"You going to kill him?" I asked.

She let out a sigh then shook her head, her eyes focused on her work.

"Why not?"

"Can't do that, Razzie," she said, her voice weary. "Neither of us got much stake in either side winning or losing despite any evidence to the contrary, given our allegiances. That said, I expect he ain't interested in starting a war that too many folks are itching to start."

I'd heard some of it earlier when Sally was getting a beatdown. "Both factions poised for a fight," I said. "Hell versus Hell Inc. Some final, explosive Michael Bay–style showdown."

She nodded. "There's already a squabble, a move here, a play there, but not yet all-out war. But it's coming, and both sides are keen to get you, Rasputin, in their posse."

"Wait. What did you say?" I took a step closer, but she ignored me. When I finally got the nerve to push her, she cut me off.

"He's coming, so you best be ready. Probably just a minute away now."

I'd already heard the guttural rattle of his motorcycle's engine heading our way. We had more pressing matters.

"Your friend, Digger," I said. "Where's he from?"

"He ain't my friend."

"That wasn't really the question." My voice flapped back to me, thin and unsure. "He's got an accent."

Staring down the barrel of one pistol, appearing satisfied, then looking down the next, she cast only a fleeting glance in my direction. Holstering her weapons, she stood again. Then she chuckled softly. "Everyone's got an accent, even if you can't hear it," she said. "But if you could, you'd know something about where they been. And maybe what lengths they would go to to get to where they wanna be." She walked past me. "Told ya before. He's Aussie."

The run-down shack made from stones and rotten wood was not much bigger than a suburban garage. A few feet away from it, the firepit was a simple circular collection of darkly stained stones stacked about three high all around.

"What is this place?" I asked.

Sally wiped her eyes with her wrist, smearing blood and sweat around her face. "It'll be one of Digger's bolt-holes. He's got 'em all over."

"Huh. He could put this place up on Airbnb," I said a bit distantly. "It's even got a nice little firepit."

"Well."

"Sure, I mean, no electricity or Wi-Fi… but a cozy little shack and a nice fire at night."

Sally growled. "I don't mean 'well' like 'well, that's a dumb idea.' I mean it ain't a firepit. It's a well, you know, to get water. Except 'round here, they're all dried up by now."

That time when her voice flapped back to me off the canyon walls, it came back louder than when she'd spoken. I replayed what she'd said in my mind, which gave me an idea.

I turned to the gunslinger. "Really?"

* * *

Despite the imminent danger, despite the stakes—something he knew far better than any of the others—Angel found himself actually growing bored. And standing in platform heels on the side of the hangar was starting to make his back ache. He reached back and pressed his fists into the divot just above the butt of his leotard, drawing his elbows back and forth for a moment.

Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't. Sometimes he would hear a few cracks between his shoulder blades. Other times it just highlighted how sore his back really was. When he caught sight of himself in a shadow, he had to laugh. On the ground, the dark figure flapped its wings, unable to take flight.

"Well, that's a bit on the nose," he whispered to himself.

That time, though, no satisfying cracks up his spine.

The initial adrenaline drained away, he was tired of just standing and waiting. Sure, if he were discovered hiding out and watching, the two men playing cards in the hangar would definitely take great delight in alleviating all that boredom, and not in a way he expected to live through.

All these gormless shitheads seem to do is cheat at cards, crank terrible rock music, drink, and smoke like they're trying to get cancer… tonight!

Once again, he looked up to the big house on the hill. For the past ten or fifteen minutes, he'd mostly seen darkness. For a while, he'd wondered if Anza and her friends had gotten cold feet, taken off, fled.

There had been some pale-blue flickering in one window at the front of the house, but for the most part, nothing happening up there. That was what it had looked like since he'd taken to standing in the dark next to the hangar. It didn't look like that anymore.

* * *

"Where the hell did you learn to drive, Anza?" the Actor yelled, bouncing around the back seat of the black SUV. Uncle Jerry was fighting with his seat belt, trying to get it to click into the buckle, but mostly holding onto it for dear life, trying not to get thrown out a window.

"I taught myself to drive!" Anza called back.

"Well…" the Actor said, then made an umft! noise as he briefly hit the low ceiling and thumped back onto the seat. "You had a shitty teacher!"

"Not helping!"

On the road leading from the house down to the hangar—not the semi-paved one that ran down to the runway, but another that traced the fence line to the back of the building—they hit another massive bump, that one the size of an animal lying in the road.

"Did you just hit a cow?" Uncle Jerry asked after he landed and bounced hard on his seat. "Did you hit a sleeping cow? We don't hit cows! They are innocent bovine creatures of nature!"

"Is no c-c-" she said, trying to regain control of the truck, "cow! Cows sleep standing up!"

Uncle Jerry's eyes rolled briefly, and he gripped the seat belt tighter with his right hand as the left still tried to get it into the safety buckle. "I th-think that's horses."

The Actor shouted from the floorboards behind them, "You hit a horse?"

"Hold on!" Anza shouted and cranked the wheel to the left hard, then quickly to the right again. They were a mere thirty seconds from the hangar at that speed.

The Actor got back on the seat slowly and, holding on the best he could, looked out the passenger-side window, catching sight of the hangar. The massive rollaway door holding the boss man's plane looked like the teeth of a sleeping dragon, clamped shut.

* * *

As the hulking SUV came barreling down the dirt road, kicking up a cloud behind it, Angel could only stare—and occasionally flinch when the thing looked like it had lost control, bumping and banging its way down the hill—with his mouth hanging open.

He peered around the corner at the two Mexican gangsters, their arguing over a hand nearly drowned out by some horrible seventies arena rock echoing down the runway. Somewhere in the back of his mind, an old memory brought up the name of the band, Black Sabbath.

Panicked, he looked back at the vehicle carrying Anza and her friends. They were getting closer—maybe twenty seconds away. The moment they pulled up behind the hangar, skidding to a stop, the men with guns would hear it and investigate if Silvio had come down to check on them.

Angel prayed. That was actually uncommon for him despite his "part-time" duties. Very little was required of him, and praying wasn't actually one of those things. Right then, he felt it was. However, it was not the sort of bedtime prayer favored by doe-eyed children kneeling by their bedsides.

Come on, I need some help here. Come on, anything!

No reply came.

Dammit, you leave us here with nothing! The other side… they've got one faction with billion-dollar corporations, broadcast networks. and private jets! The other one is run by a fallen god! They've even got phone service! What do we have?

No reply came.

Nothing! That's what we get! Fucking nothing! It's not fair!

Angel's attention was momentarily snapped away as the lights of the SUV danced and spun impossibly, the vehicle moving at a breathtaking speed down the hill. He could only watch as it tipped up on its left side, just on two wheels—

No, no, no!

—then fell right again, briefly out of control, then back onto the road, wobbling and bumping as it went.

Angel closed his eyes. A series of admonitions against his side fought into his brain. The anger made his hands shake, but then he blew it away, calmed his mind, and he was left with just the one word. Please.

No reply came. But then something did. And it was nothing he could have imagined.

Angel laughed. "Mysterious ways, indeed," he said, still chuckling. "All right, then." And he walked toward the runway and into the light.

* * *

"Slow down!" the Actor screamed from the back of the truck, but Anza was way ahead of him. She had begun by pumping the brakes, but that hadn't worked, so she grabbed the top of the wheel, lifted herself up, and was standing on the brake pedal with both feet.

The SUV jumped, bucked, then began to sliiiiiide sideways. At any moment, the wheels would catch, and they would roll lengthwise, as if they were in a tumble dryer, each thrown out a window and likely crushed by the massive vehicle.

But then it stopped.

The dust that had risen around them slowly fell like a dirty evening drizzle.

Anza fell back into her seat, both hands maintaining their death grip on the steering wheel. She looked up and saw the hangar just thirty feet away.

In the back, the Actor was hugging a headrest with both arms, eyes screwed shut, muttering wordlessly.

Click!

"Got it!" Uncle Jerry shouted triumphantly as he finally snapped the seat belt into place.

For a few seconds, none of them moved. Then Anza looked over her shoulder and saw, in the dim light of the house, Silvio running down the hill. In his hand glinted the silver pistol that had briefly rested on an expensive dinner plate in the man's dining room.

Anza shouted, "Go!"

The Actor pulled the latch on the door and kicked it open. He met Anza at the front bumper, standing between the headlights. They looked to see Uncle Jerry struggling to get free.

Yanking open the door, the Actor leaned forward—"Move your hand!"—and punched his thumb at the release button, but it wouldn't give. He growled at his friend, "What did you do?"

"I was trying to lock the damn thing, and—"

"It is lock," Anza said. "Unlock it!"

Struggling with the harness, the Actor said, "It… damn thing… it won't give."

As her two friends grunted and strained, Anza slowly turned, hearing something… familiar. The two men fighting with the seat belt briefly stopped and watched her, struck by the expression on her face.

Uncle Jerry asked, "What is it?"

"It… do you hear that?" she asked.

The Actor looked around, searching for the gunmen. "What? Do you mean… the music?"

She nodded.

"Who cares?" the Actor asked but could tell, for some reason, that she did. "It's… wait a minute. I can't remember the name of it."

"I know it," Uncle Jerry said. "It's Dire Straits."

The Actor snapped his fingers. "Right. Eighties tune. 'Money for Nothing.' What difference does that make?"

"Don't know," she said. "But it's Angel's song." She turned toward them and met their blank stares. Anza said softly, "He would play it over and over and over again in his room." She got a strange smile on her face. "His drag show song. Is the song he dance to."

* * *

Miguel, who was the better card player—at least in his opinion—was trying to explain how, when a player had multiple wild cards, yes, of course they could have five of a kind, and that beat all the other hands—including yet another royal flush just produced by Alejandro, which just wasn't possible, in his opinion.

But Alejandro stopped him midsentence, staring out the hangar into the darkness. He pointed. The two men slowly stood, rifles slung across their backs, and walked a few steps away from the card table, waving the cigarette smoke away with their hands.

A mirage? A dream?

"She is… beautiful!"

As Mark Knopfler tore into the earsplitting opening guitar lick, Alejandro nodded and said, "What a woman. Who can dance like that?"

The two gangsters stared, transfixed by Angel, who was—for the first time in his life—putting on an actual runway show. High kicks, a wiggle here, a tousle of hair there.

Every step the two men took forward, the beautiful, sexy woman would seem to move farther down the runway, deeper into the darkness, away from the hangar.

Miguel turned to his companion. "Maybe it is a gift."

"Gift?" Alejandro muttered, transfixed.

"Yes, from Silvio. We work hard…" the man said, eyes never leaving the woman, who'd just dropped into a split, then closed her legs, lifting her back up again. He'd never seen such powerful thighs on a woman.

Oh, what I could do with that.

Miguel continued. "So, this is the boss man's gift to us?"

Alejandro smiled with a black gap where an incisor used to be. "It would be rude… to not take it, then."

They stepped toward the woman, who moved away with each stride they took, matching their pace.

"Oh," Miguel said. "I do like a tease."

* * *

"We've got to go!" Anza growled over the blaring music coming from the runway.

"It won't… budge!"

Uncle Jerry sighed. "Leave me," he said. "Go on without me."

The Actor said, "Shut up."

Anza squinted, looking at the runway, and couldn't believe what she was seeing. "Angel?"

"Help me with this!" the man struggling with the restraint called out.

She spun back to him, but before reaching to help with the belt, she caught sight of something in the inner pocket of Uncle Jerry's jacket. "What is that?"

"What is what?" the old man asked then traced the end of her finger to his pocket. He pulled out a long knife. "Oh. The Ginsu."

The Actor took a half step back when he saw the blade flash. "Holy shit, how did that not gut you coming down the hill?"

"Dunno," Uncle Jerry said and put the sharp, polished steel to the belt. In a single swipe, the fabric split like boiled pasta. "Cans, tomatoes, and seat belts!" he said and raised his hands triumphantly.

"I think he hit his head," the Actor said.

"No," Anza said and raced to the rear of the hangar. "He always like that."

* * *

The two men drunkenly stepped forward as the woman pulled them deeper and deeper into the darkness, dancing and swaying as she did. It felt like a spider pulling them into her web. And they really, really wanted to be in her web.

Then there was shouting, faint and distant.

Miguel looked up toward the house and saw him. "Hey, it's Silvio," he said then grinned wildly. "He has come to play with our present!"

* * *

"You must have some idea!" Anza said.

Uncle Jerry shook his head so violently he nearly fell over. "I don't. Like I said, it can only be opened with the biometric thingamabob." He pointed in the direction of the house. "That's why we needed to have his thumb!"

"We don't have any thumbs," Anza said.

"I've got, you know, two," the Actor said.

She was about to scold him for such a stupid answer. Instead, each of them tried briefly, but the small black pad only turned red each time they did.

Growling, the Actor kicked the door then kicked it again, harder, but it didn't budge.

Uncle Jerry scanned the back of the hangar. "No windows."

Anza's eyes lit up. "Is there door that link between the two hangars? We could—"

The pilot waved his hands. "No, no door. Totally secure."

Again, the Actor kicked at the door. He then punched it and cradled his hand, wincing. He kicked it again.

Azna said softly, "That is not helping."

The Actor turned away then put his heel into it, stomping it over and over and over again.

"Stop it," she said. "We cannot get in. What are we going to do?"

But the Actor didn't stop. His sore fist cradled to his chest, he kept stomping and stomping, but the door wouldn't budge.

Uncle Jerry had had enough of it. He yelled, "Stop it, already! Did you hear the lady? We can't get in!"

Then there was a clicking sound. The panel next to the door, red a moment ago, turned green.

The Actor stopped kicking and turned, taking a few steps back and standing with his friends. "It… worked?"

Slowly, the door creaked open. The Actor moved toward it, but Anza held him back, frowning, and shook her head.

Behind the door would be another man, a guard with a rifle, and despite all of its admirable properties, the Ginsu would not cut through flying bullets.

Someone asked in a small voice, "Uncle Jerry?"

The Actor could only stare into the door's gap. "Does everyone call you that?"

Again someone called out, their voice shaking slightly, "U-Uncle Jerry?"

The old man smiled and laughed. "Yes. Si. It's Uncle Jerry and his amiga."

The door inched open a little more, and a small boy's face poked through. When he saw Uncle Jerry, he threw it open the rest of the way and, with a big smile on his face, waved him in.

The three of them entered the hangar, which was mostly filled by a medium-sized jet. Not as fancy as what they'd taken around the world a year ago but beautiful and sleek.

Anza and the Actor ran to the front of the craft, up its short staircase, and inside.

Pablo took Uncle Jerry by the hand and led him to the back of the hangar. In there was mostly replacement parts and barrels and containers full of various fluids. On the far wall, a massive tank held fuel for the plane. But at the back, incongruous to all the grime and steel, was a burst of color, which Pablo led his friend to.

The boy reached the table and smiled. "Lego," he said and beamed. "Este es mi Legos."

Uncle Jerry nodded and patted the boy on the shoulder, watching him push a couple blocks together. The boy was making a castle, a fortress that boasted a playground filled with tiny, blocky children. A tiny dog was on the slide, and nearby, of course, was an ice cream stand.

The old pilot smiled.

Off to the left of the table, the man then saw it. On the floor was a hatch, flung open, with a short ladder into the darkness below. That was how the boy got in. That was where Pablo played with his Legos, in the safety of the locked hangar.

"Nice," Uncle Jerry said. "Your old man has a getaway passage to his plane, huh?"

The boy scrunched up his face then shrugged.

The man said, "These are some great Legos, man. Wish I could stay and play with you." Then he saw the semi-clear bricks around the castle. A moat. He sighed. "But I gotta go help a friend. You be safe, now. Okay?"

The boy nodded. Uncle Jerry hugged him around the shoulder, and the boy smiled but wouldn't turn to face him. That was a child who was used to people leaving and never coming back.

At the wall, Uncle Jerry punched the top button of a two-button casing, and the hangar door began to lift. "Adios, Pablo."

Still, the boy would not look, but his tiny face smiled. "Goodbye, Uncle Jerry."

* * *

As Digger approached the rocky enclosure, his engine droned low so that when he entered, he was moving slowly, calculating. At the mouth, he stopped his bike, kicked out the stand, and turned it off.

To his right was the hell bike, gleaming and beautiful.

"Just take your property and git," Sally called out from inside the shack. Digger looked up and saw both of her pistols sticking out of the window. "He don't like me anymore anyhow, and I'm done with all this running around."

The man in the scrunched hat had traded his shotgun for a rifle. At his hips, he wore two sets of gun belts. Both were stained in blood. "Right," he said. "I take one step toward the bike, and you give me air conditioning. I ain't a fool, Sally Skull."

The woman in the shack growled. "I got no reason to shoot ya. Take it, and be on your way. I'd be happy to see the back of ya."

Digger lifted his rifle toward the shack, aiming somewhere between the two pistols. "Yeah but you once had a contract you never fulfilled," he said. "You looking to make good on it?"

"That's all changed now, and you know it," she called back, her voice banging off the stone walls. "Taking out drones is one thing. Taking out players without an order—"

"Could kick it all off," Digger said and slowly relaxed his grip on the rifle. "Where's the kid?"

"Don't worry about him," she called back. "Took care of him. He won't be bothering either of us anymore."

Digger walked to his old bike, one eye still on Sally. Reaching out to it, his face glowed like a lover. However, under his fingertips, the bike stayed cold. He looked down and frowned. "Where the hell's the key?"

"You're its master. You don't need the damn key!"

Again, he reached out to the bike, stroking its handlebars, across its tank. The bike sat silently.

He sighed. "Like you said, it's imprinted on him." He raised his rifle to the shack once again. "Where's the key?"

Sally grumbled for a moment then said, "How should I know? Rasputin's been riding the damn thing."

Digger looked around then took a few steps toward the shack. "Tell him to come out!" He smiled. "I won't shoot him."

"He ain't in here," Sally called back. "Down the well."

Digger looked toward the stone circle about fifteen feet from the shack. Slowly he approached it and heard a strange laughter bubbling out of it, echoing off the walls. "What the hell happened to him?"

"He saved my ass from you, so I couldn't really kill him," she said, her pistols trained on Digger. "If he ain't dead, he ain't in a good way."

"Right," Digger said, peering down into the darkness. "So, why is he laughing?"

That was my chance, so I leaned out from behind the shack and called out, "Here, Boo, quick!"

The motorcycle roared to life and rocketed right toward me. The man in black had only a moment to turn and raise the rifle, but before he could get off a shot, the motorcycle smashed into him, sending Digger down into the dark hole.

Bucephalus skidded to a halt next to me, and I patted its headlight. It quivered beneath my hand.

Sally kicked open the rickety wooden door, guns still raised. She looked over at me and gave me a grin, some dried blood caked to her face. She took a few steps toward the well but jumped back after a couple of rifle rounds burst out of it.

Laughing, she called down, "Digger looks to be in a giant hole. I think they call that irony." Holstering both pistols, she turned to me. "Come on, Raz. Time to skedaddle."

I hopped on the bike and came around the corner, giving the well a wide birth. She dusted off her pants again and started to get on the back.

"Are you just going to leave him to die?"

She said, "Nah, he ain't gonna die. He's one of Hell Inc.'s folks. Only thing that'd kill him would be the hellfire I got tucked into each of my bullets."

I turned, and she gripped each of her pistols with a wide grin, revealing another missing yellow tooth.

“He’ll live, but I expect he’ll get mighty bored down that well."

Digger called up, "You're really just going to leave me to rot down here? Why don't you just shoot me and get it over with?"

"Like you said," she yelled back, "we don't need the tussle that would ensue."

The laughing started again below, but that time, it wasn't from the cheap Mexican novelty toy I'd tossed down there two minutes earlier. That time, it was Digger.

He said, "Sally, you really think a war isn't coming?"

The gunslinger waved a hand in the air toward him and turned to me. "Let's go, Raz," she said, and I eased the bike forward. "We got time to make up."

I smiled. "That won't be problem."

* * *

Anza had strapped herself into the cockpit next to Uncle Jerry, who had the headset on his ears and was punching knobs and twisting dials and pulling various levers in front of him, getting the plane ready to take off. The massive bay door had finally opened, and they were moving away from the hangar, slowly picking up speed.

The Actor was already setting himself up in one of the four seats in cabin. From the front, they could hear him rummaging around, searching for the mini fridge.

Out on the runway, Anza saw it and mumbled, "Angel's out there."

With the pretense of putting on a runway show on the runway gone, Angel was sprinting deeper into the darkness. Despite moving fast on the platform heels, the two gunmen were too close. However, seeing their boss's plane picking up speed, the men stopped their pursuit and turned to the aircraft.

"No!" came the yell from the nearby field. "No, don't shoot my plane, you idiots!"

Miguel and Alejandro turned to their leader, who was coming out of the scrub brush and onto the dirt tarmac. He was chasing the plane, calling out to the men as it passed them.

"But they are taking it!" shouted Miguel.

Silvio shouted, "Get the girl!"

Uncle Jerry was leaning into the controls when Anza put a hand on his shoulder. She pointed ahead, just about one hundred feet, to where they saw sparkle and purple and black leather.

"We can't leave him," Anza said.

"We're not." Uncle Jerry looked out the window to his right then left. "We can get close before those guys with the AKs do. We can drop the ramp."

Then shots rang out, and sparks flew up from the dirt runway, bullets obliterating small rocks. Through their cockpit window, they saw Angel shirk away from where they were firing, banking a hard left, away from them.

"Damn!" Uncle Jerry said and looked to see if he could steer over that way. "Open the door. Maybe he can make a run for it."

Anza did as he'd instructed, moving one large lever to the right, yanking hard on another, lifting the entryway open. She left its stairs locked in place and stared out the open door ahead.

Moving that slowly, they were running out of runway.

She heard a burst of fire and put a hand to her chest, as she could only watch Angel in the distance, running for his life after saving theirs, moving farther and farther away.

"Maybe he can run away," she said. "Get into the bush—"

"They won't let him get that far," Uncle Jerry called back.

Anza shouted to Angel but only got gunfire in return as several sparks burst in the open doorway. Outside, she heard a deep voice. "Stop shooting at my plane!"

She'd flung herself away from the door and was lying on her back in the cabin, trying to see into the darkness.

"Why doesn't he fly? He is an angel, yes? Why doesn't he fly?"

The Actor slowly walked up to the open doorway, his hands in the pockets of the tattered yellow robe. "Part-time angel. You heard him. He can't help himself, he can only…"

"What?"

A strange expression passed over the dwarf's face. He looked outside and ahead, just a few hundred feet of runway left, and looked at Anza. Then he jumped from the aircraft.

"What are you doing?"

The Actor hit the ground hard and rolled. Quickly, he got to his feet, a little unsteady, and did something Anza couldn't believe. He began running toward the two gunmen chasing after Angel.

"The Actor is outside," Anza said, leaping into the cockpit. "He jumped outside!"

"Now we've got to save both of them. Why would he do that?"

They watched, helpless, as their friend ran as fast as his legs would take him. He then began waving his arms and shouting. From behind, they heard Silvio firing his pistol at the Actor, sending hiccups of dirt flying around his feet.

The two Mexican gunmen turned at the sounds of the shots behind them and caught sight of the Actor. They turned and lifted the rifles to their shoulders. Angel stopped, put a fist to his mouth, and shouted something that neither of them could hear.

Silvio screamed into the night, "Don't shoot at him, pendejos! You'll hit me!"

"But you were just shooting at him!" called Alejandro across the dark expanse of runway. "What about hitting us?"

"I am a better shot!"

Miguel turned to his friend and mumbled, "He is not a better shot."

"Get the girl!" shouted Silvio, still running, his pistol raised. "Let me kill the fat little boy."

The Actor stopped and turned. "Who are you calling fat?"

Silvio fired a shot, which missed him entirely, and the Actor stood his ground. He clenched his fists as if he were going to throw punches while the drug lord threw bullets.

"What is he doing?" Uncle Jerry asked, rummaging under the seat, searching for a weapon. "What drug dealer doesn't have an extra Uzi lying around or something? There's nothing on this damn plane!"

Outside, the Actor remained still but could hear the two men behind him once again pick up pursuit, chasing Angel into the darkness. No matter how good he was at running in heels—the guy could probably run a marathon in them—this was a sprint. They would catch him.

Silvio slowed to a walk and fired a shot that smashed into the Actor's shoulder. The small man flinched and cried out but stood his ground.

"Tough little man!" The drug boss laughed and spun in place. "Let's see if you can withstand one dead center in your pretty-boy face." He lifted the pistol and aimed again.

Passing the deadly scene, heading to the end of the runway, Uncle Jerry called out for the Actor to run, but either the man couldn't hear him or was just ignoring his friend. "Why doesn't he run? He needs to run!" The old pilot looked ahead then at the controls and punched the dash. "Why doesn't he run?"

Anza looked to the far side of the runway and saw that the two gunmen were slowing their pursuit. Ahead, it looked as though Angel had made it deep into some brush and was nowhere to be seen.

She asked, "Can you turn plane around? Lift off the other direction?"

"Uh, I've never done that, but, yeah, I suppose."

The pilot banked hard to the right then made a large loop, darkness filling their windscreen.

The two gunmen who'd been chasing Angel also turned and lifted their rifles, training the Actor's head in their sights. The man between Silvio and his henchmen squeezed his eyes shut. Silvio laughed, shaking his head, then lifted his pistol once again.

Uncle Jerry was heading back the way they'd come and caught sight of his friend in the crosshairs. "No!" he shouted. "What good is any sort of angel if they can't even save themselves!"

"They can't," Anza said, looking into the dark sky. "They can only save others."

The Actor waited for the shots to ring out but instead heard a strange thwap-thwap-thwap then the clatter of metal. He cracked open an eye and saw Silvio had been lifted up and flung into the nearby creek. His gleaming silver handgun lay on the runway.

The Actor spun to see the other two staggering to their feet after being thrown down the runway onto a small hill covered in dead grass.

"About fucking time," the Actor said and lifted his arms.

Angel swooped down unevenly and grabbed both of the man's hands, rocketing for the plane. The Actor began to laugh, but when he realized the speed they were heading toward the open cabin door, his smile turned into an open-mouthed frown.

"Too fast, too fast, too fa—" he said but then felt his world spin as Angel twisted them into a two-person missile, which landed very hard inside the cabin. "Motherfucker, that hurt!"

Angel was still on top of him, breathing heavily, as he lay on his back. "That was very brave."

The Actor nodded. "Can you get off me?"

The other man patted the Actor on the head and gave him a kiss on the lips.

"Dude!" the Actor said then shrugged. "Whatever."

Anza shouted, "Get us out of here, Uncle Jerry!"

"Check and double-check," the pilot called back.

The plane picked up speed as the three outside found their footing and began running back toward them. Silvio was screaming at his men.

Angel looked around, his wings retracted, and crawled into a seat. He tried buckling himself in, but his arms were heavy, weak.

One of the men outside had gotten close enough to fire again, his shots clanging but not pelting the cabin walls.

"They're shooting out the landing gear!" Angel shouted then coughed.

As if on cue, one side of the plane lurched and drooped. The sound filling the cabin was like the roar of a thousand lions, and Uncle Jerry struggled to control the plane.

"Hold on!"

The Actor strapped into his own seat, his fingers clawing into the armrests, and said, "Like he needs to tell us that!" He then took a long look at Angel. "What's wrong with you?"

The engine whine grew louder, and they moved faster and faster, but their pilot struggled to keep the plane level. They were listing too far to the right, the damaged landing gear pulling them askew.

Anza was trying to strap herself into the copilot's seat but was struggling to hold on. "Can I do anything?"

Uncle Jerry surveyed his controls then shook his head. He scanned what was left of the runway in front of him.

"We'll… have enough speed, I think… I hope," he said, his hair matted with sweat as he fought the wheel. "But we need to be more level. I can't hit the gas at this angle."

"Maybe"—Anza searched in front of them—"Maybe there is ramp."

Uncle Jerry couldn't help but laugh. "Ramp? No, there's no—" He didn't see a ramp, but he did need to get the right side of the craft higher, just slightly. "Oh, shit," he said. "I'm gonna go to hell for this." He then turned the plane toward the runway’s edge.

Outside, it was relatively quiet. Darkness and dust and dying grass. Lovely, beautiful, tasty dying grass.

From inside the cabin, there was a massive thump! Briefly the plane hopped up on its right side, and for an instant, they were level again. It was all the time Uncle Jerry needed.

He pushed the accelerator all the way forward, the engines screaming, and they rocketed toward the fence line faster and faster.

"Oh, shit!" he shouted as if saying a prayer, and at the very last moment, just before the wire and rotting wood of the barricade, they lifted off. There was a shearing sound as the damaged landing gear got caught up in the fence and torn away, but they were free of it, safely in the air.

The Actor cheered from the cabin as their pilot made a wide arc over the ocean, got a little altitude, and turned west for the opposite coast.

Anza gave him a big hug but pulled back—"Yucky"—from Uncle Jerry's sweat-soaked body. Then she hugged him again. Sitting back in the copilot's seat, she smiled as she finally strapped herself in. "Uh, I thought we don't go and hitting cows. Innocent bovine creatures of nature, yes?"

Uncle Jerry shook his head. "It was a coyote."

"Uh-huh," she said. "That was a big, big coyote."

"Yeah, with utters," he said. "Nature's a crazy bitch, huh?"

Then Anza turned to Angel, and the smile fell from her face.

Chapter Thirty

Anza hovered over Angel, two damp towels in her hands, unsure where to put them first. Finally, she pushed them both at the river of blood coming from the drag queen's belly.

The Actor stood by, his mouth moving faster than the words coming out. "How… how did that happen?"

Angel waved his hand at him. "Oh, you see… those guys? They had guns."

Anza's lips quivering as she tried to stop the flow of blood.

"What can we do? Can we get you to a hospital?" the Actor asked, his eyes moving from injury to injury. "Wait, how is this happening? I mean, I'm under contract, too, so when he shot me, it stung but not… this."

"No," the man in the perfectly coiffed black wig said, shaking his head. "Different boss, different rules. I'm a part-timer, so I’m not afforded any of that sort of…" He paused and, given his appearance, smiled at the irony of the word. "Glamour."

"This can't be right!" the Actor shouted. "There's no way this is right! Or just! Or good!"

Angel smiled with blood-stained teeth. "He has a plan, as with everything. I can only play my part."

Anza sobbed. "Your part is to dying? No, no, no."

He started coughing, blood dribbling down his lips.

The Actor reached out and wiped some away with his sleeve. "This can't be happening," the dwarf mumbled.

Down on one knee, Anza pulled a strand of hair from her face. "Tell us what to do. How can we save you?"

Angel laughed. "Oh, sweet Anza," he said. "I am Saved."

"No, no," Anza said. "Not that kind of saved. The other kind where you don't die because I don't want to lose a friend!"

He lifted a hand and put it gently on her cheek. "You won't lose me," he said. "I will never be very far from you. You are very special, Anza. Be good."

She shook her head, watching Angel's eyes fade. But then she realized it hadn’t just been his eyes. A moment later, all that was left were the two damp, bloody towels. Angel was gone.

* * *

The final leg to California had taken just a few hours. I'd even gotten used to the blur in front of me to the point of almost being lulled to sleep.

After racing to get to FriendBook's headquarters, it was actually exhausting to sit and just wait. Sally and I just stared, watching the whirring little devices.

It was midafternoon in the middle of summer, but in northern California, that didn't mean it was warm. The sun was still pretty high in the sky, but clouds were floating up from the south after teasing the arid lower half of the state.

"They are curious creatures," the gunslinger said, her hands behind her head as we lay on the small grassy hill. We were both waiting, facing the gleaming building in front of us about two hundred yards in the distance.

I watched one of the motorized disks plod along the well-trodden grass, making its quick trip over the hill. All of the devices looked exactly the same—puck-shaped objects with wheels we couldn't see, little blue lights bouncing up and down every time they hit a bump or rock or fat bug, however, on several occasions, the bugs were no longer visible once the machines passed over with a disquieting sucking sound.

We'd parked Bucephalus a half mile up the road underneath a canopy of trees. At the time, Sally had said, "Good thinking. Yeah, don't want nobody spotting it."

"Oh yeah," I'd said. "Actually, I was just putting her in the shade so she doesn't get too hot in the sun."

The motorcycle trilled at my words. Sally had frowned and given me one of her variety of grunts.

As we sat facing the FriendBook HQ, she began to snore again. I looked over as we leaned against the rise in a grassy hill, facing the gleaming building that seemed to grow straight out of the ground, to see she'd pulled the cowboy hat over her eyes.

Staring again into the sky, I searched for their plane.

When Anza had called minutes earlier, she'd told me they would be flying from the west.

"Uncle Jerry says we are harder to spot with the ocean. We are flying very low to avoid the radars."

"Too fucking low!" came a shout over the phone.

"The Actor says hi."

"I did not say that!"

"You sure you guys are off the radar?" I asked. "I mean, I would think the Pacific seaboard would be looking out for low-flying planes."

Anza said, "Is drug plane, so Uncle Jerry says there is lotta gizmos that keep us from being seen. Very next-tech stuff!"

We'd seen that in our previous adventure. Having commandeered the jet of the "urban entrepreneur" in Atlanta who liked to avoid detection, we'd come across an entire system, updated across the dark web, that gave us secret locations to land.

As far as anyone knew, commercial airlines didn't have that stuff. Hell, the US Air Force might not even have it yet.

It was strange. The bonfires of some of humankind's greatest technological advances were started by kindling paid-for and provided-by the darker parts of human nature. Hell, if it weren't for the billion-dollar porn industry, our webcam tech would still be circa 1994.

Anza had also told me about her friend.

That hit me with a sadness I couldn’t handle right then, so I tucked it in a box and put it up on a shelf. Although, in deference to Angel, the box had a purple ribbon on it.

"I can still feel him, though," she had said. "He'll always be with me, I think."

According to their GPS, they were set to arrive any minute.

For the moment, I simply stared and marveled at the tiny, circular machines whirring across the flattened grass, bump-bump-bump, over the hill and back again into the belly of the building.

Standing to stretch my legs, I took three or four paces before I heard a hammer being drawn back on its pistol.

"No shooting," I said without turning around. "I just want to take a quick walk over the hill."

"Sorry, habit," she said. "Why you walking away?"

"I wanna see where those weird little machines are going."

As she tipped her head up, her hat slipped a few inches down her face, so I could just see her eyes. "Thought you said there was cameras all 'round here."

"Sure, but—" I pointed to the edge of the building's moat and guard shack. "They're mainly focused on what looks like a twenty-foot perimeter."

"Oh? How do you reckon that?"

"Uh, you can tell by the way they swivel."

After a few moments, I got another grunt, and Sally pulled her hat back up.

Slowly, I started back toward the hill and mumbled to myself, "'You can tell by the way they swivel'? Thank god she's an eighteenth-century philistine or—"

"Nineteenth," Sally said from beneath her hat. "And if you get us busted, the next thing to swivel will be your head at the end of a long rope."

"Yes, ma'am," I said and sped up toward the hill. "You have… very impressive hearing."

Ahead of me were two of the big pucks jostling and bumping along, and at that distance, I could hear their little motorized electric engines propelling them forward with a whine that hiccupped every time they bounced.

I stepped on their matted-down path. Behind me, I heard another approaching, managing the bumps, its happy little blue light bobbing up and down like the old watch-the-bouncing-ball sing-along videos.

In front of me, I saw two others slip over the other side and disappear. A moment later, another came over the hill, moving much faster than the ones before. I stopped for a moment, eyeballing it, but it buzzed past with a cheery little whrrr.

"It's lighter now," I mumbled.

I turned to look back at Sally. Her chest was moving up and down, and beneath the sounds of the big motorized pucks, I could hear her snoring louder.

I braced myself for what the other side of the hill might reveal. But really, how bad could it be? What I did finally see was… unimaginable. Sick and twisted. I put my hand to my mouth so I wouldn't cry out in horror.

"What is it?" Sally asked.

"Dah fuck!" I said, nearly jumping out of my socks. "Jesus, how'd you sneak up on me so fast?"

She smiled. "I'm wily."

"Right," I said and put my hand on my chest to stop my heart from coming out of my rib cage. Then I half jumped again when the rolling machine behind me bumped into my foot. It stopped, moved a few inches back, made a perpendicular slide to the left, and moved forward over the hill.

Sally said, "You're a jittery thing, ain't ya?" She pointed to the swollen creek. "What are they doing?"

Once again, focused on the horror, the crime those little "innocent" robots were carrying out, I could barely speak the word. "Littering."

We both watched as the tiny pucks made their way to the creek's edge, rose on tiny, spindly legs, each with a wheel at its end, tipped, and dumped their contents into the creek. Dust, paper scraps, apple peels, bits of wire, all of it going into the bubbling water.

"Ah," she said. "They ain't doing no harm."

"They are dumping crap into the beautiful stream," I said and turned back to the big building with its gleaming tower. I shook my fist and shouted, "Fucking monsters!”

Sally's hand came out of nowhere, slapping my upside the head.

"Ow!"

"You trying to get busted, you idgit?" she asked and pointed a finger in my face. "Don't yell at the building lest somebody comes out here and then you get a bullet in ya brain!"

"Ah, I doubt they've got armed guards."

"That bullet," Sally said, "will not be from them."

I nodded and gave her a salute.

We both watched as the little whirring demons of filth made their way back and forth to the creekside.

Sally asked, "What the hell are they?"

I shook my head. "Something like a Roomba, I think."

"What the hell's that?"

"Motorized vacuum cleaner. But they're not like any Roombas I've ever seen," I said, spitting the words. "They are evil Roombas."

"Whatever," she said. "I think I hear the plane. Let's get back to the tree line."

I turned to follow her, but then, in a fit of inspiration, I grabbed a rock and threw it at one of the approaching Roombas. I muttered, "Fuckers."

The rock bounced within a foot of the motorized over-sized puck, but when it did bounce, the robot vacuum it had nearly hit stopped. It then lifted up on its eight spindly legs and turned its blue light toward me.

The blue light turned red.

Chapter Thirty-One

"What ya go and spook it for?" Sally asked, huffing and puffing as she ran up the tiny hill behind me. In truth, I didn't really have an answer.

How was I supposed to know the Killer Roombas would go into battle mode?

At the top, I turned to see if we'd lost them. We hadn't.

"Jesus," I said. "They look like an army of black ants. On spider legs."

"Keep runnin'," she said then saw me standing there. "We get far enough, huh, they'll lose in'erest."

For a moment, I could only stare. There were dozens of them advancing on us, but it wasn't just the number. It was the way they kept perfectly level despite the terrain beneath them, their spindly legs adjusting in height as they marched quickly toward us.

"Shit!"

I turned and saw Sally bent over, breathing heavily, standing in front of the bend in the creek ahead of us. Unless we wanted to cross the water and get soaked, we were heading into the trees. At least the terrain would slow them down. I hoped.

Then Sally took off into a run again but not into the woods.

"Dadblamit, this water is cold," she said, splashing, soaked up to her chest.

Aw, fuck. "Why—come on, why don't we head the other way? Into the trees."

She called back, "Because I don't know if those whirly stones back there might have bigger mechanical cousins out there making reams of paper outta protected foliage or something!"

She had a point.

I wasn't afraid of water except for when it went above my head, but getting wet while I still had my clothes on just felt all kinds of wrong. But there was no time to slip off my sneakers and jeans, so I followed.

On the opposite bank, Sally plunked to one knee, rolled into a squat, then sat. If there were Olympic competitions for sitting down, she would have gotten a 9.7.

Behind me, I could hear the whirring and grinding growing louder, which only pushed me to get it over with.

I splashed and sloshed and kicked up enough water to drown a blue whale, but after a half minute, I was at the other side. My legs were spent, jeans soaked, but when I tried to go down on one knee and turn it into a sit, like Sally, I miscalculated. Instead, it was more like I belly flopped onto the muddy bank.

"One way to do it," she mumbled, dumping water from her cowboy boot.

In my head, I saw three judges holding up threes and fours—except the Canadian judge, who'd given my landing a seven because she felt bad for me.

I flipped over on my back as the sound of the approaching machines strangely turned into a mid-pitched whine that sounded more like an engine than anything else.

* * *

"How big a problem is only having half-landing gear?" Anza asked, her face still splotchy and red, as she stared down at the gleaming white building with its giant tower in the middle. "Is crash-level problem?"

Uncle Jerry rubbed his eyes. "Well, no. And, um, yes."

"Useless answer," the Actor said, his speech slurred. Next to him was a small pile of empty travel bottles.

"Okay," their pilot said. "So, we can land without the right landing gear, but one way or another, it's gonna be a crash."

"I don't want to crash," the Actor said, eyes closed again. "Can I vote for 'not crashing'?"

Uncle Jerry checked the altitude gauge, which if he had to admit it, was of course unnecessary. He could see the ground below him just as well as the rest of them.

Once it read "zero," they would be down. He just wasn't sure what state the plane might be in when that happened.

"It might be better if we didn't have any landing gear," he suggested. "Then we could just belly flop onto a field and glide, theoretically."

"Can you releasing it?" Anza asked, pressing her face against the window next to her, trying to look down.

"No, there ain't no release. Bolted to the frame."

Anza stood up and went into the cabin. Her eyes passed over the chair where Angel had once been sitting. The two damp, bloodied rags held his place. She clenched her fists to focus.

The Actor tipped a tiny green bottle into his mouth and dramatically tapped it with a free finger. Next to his feet were tiny brown bottles, tiny clear bottles, and a few tiny blue ones.

From the cockpit threshold, Anza asked him, "Is there something you can do?"

"Sure," the Actor said. "I think I've got enough left to make us all a Long Island iced tea." He frowned for a moment. "But I think I got sick on teas once."

Anza growled then turned back to the pilot.

Uncle Jerry banked the plane hard, and Anza had to throw a hand up to keep her balance.

The Actor flipped out of his seat and fell to the floor. "Hey," he said. "Looks like a brown one rolled under the cabinet!"

Anza jumped back into the copilot's seat and looked down. "You have a plan?"

"I have a plan."

"Is a good plan?"

Uncle Jerry's eyebrows looked like they were briefly considering a battle. He sighed, banked the plane the other direction, then nodded and shook his head at the same time. "I sort of have a plan."

Down below, Anza saw something that brought a weak smile to her face, at least at first. "Raz is down there! With Shooter Sally."

Uncle Jerry grinned and held up his hand to get a high five, but his copilot didn't give him one. He leaned forward to get a better look. "What the hell are they doing?"

"Running," Anza said. " I think."

"From what?"

"It… they are hunted by hockey pucks."

* * *

It was stupid, but I began to smile at the thought of those homicidal next-gen robots being trumped by something as simple as a little water.

They kept coming. The dozen or so at the waterline were each extending tiny attachments that looked like forks with only two tines.

"That must be the bit they plug into the wall to recharge," I said, still grinning. "Neat."

Then I saw sparks fly from one of the plugs, reaching toward us like long, thin blue-white fingers.

Sally grunted again. She did that a lot, it seemed. "Yeah, neat."

"But the water—wait…" I said when something came to mind that I should have thought of before. "Why do we think they'll stop at the water?"

"Game always does," she said, slowly catching her breath. "Mostly. Bears won't, mind you. Wolves'll chase ya. The alpha'll send out a few dogs to test the waters. But you know, deer, squirrels, rabid badgers, they all shore up."

"Okay," I said as my smile faded. "So why do we think these machines are more like rabid badgers than bears?"

She shrugged. "I'm hopin' 'cause I'm done running," she said and pulled out her pistols, aiming both at the mechanical death cleaners.

I suddenly felt very naked. "Uh, you got another one of those?"

"No," she said, not taking her eyes off the advancing robot army. They were within fifteen feet of the opposite bank. "Even if I did, I wouldn'ta given it to ya. You'd more likely shoot off a toe than hit one of them varmints."

I winced. "Did you just say varmints, Yosemite Sam?"

"That ain't my name!"

I used my butt to scooch back behind her.

We could only watch as they got closer, their electric engines roaring at us. It was uncanny. There must have been fifty or sixty of them. Once they got to the creek's edge, they did indeed, stop.

"Ha!"

Briefly.

The first one put one of its metallic chopstick legs into the water then another. It whirred and spun, its red light at the front disappearing around back then returning again.

That was when they all started to advance.

"Oh, shit!"

Sally cocked both pistols, working out which ones she would target first. Me, I searched around for the best path out of there because the only way we were living was to keep running.

However, the gunslinger was done running. This was her Alamo. And as much as I did not like her—since she'd tried for days to kill me and my friend, so points against her for that—I wasn't enough of a dick to leave her to die.

I found a couple of stones as big as my hands, grabbed them, and turned to face the oncoming horde. "Here we go!"

But just as we were ready to start our volley, the deadly dustbusters just twenty feet away with sparky prongs extended, they suddenly stopped, twisted slightly, turned, and began to flee.

"Ah! Ah-ha!" Sally said, punching the air. "See, I told ya—" Her eyes got as big as the stones I was holding for a moment as she looked upstream.

Before I could ask why, I slowly turned and saw it, something that wasn't supposed to be there. But it was coming, and like the robots, we needed to get the fuck out of the way.

As Sally struggled to her feet, holstering her pistols as she did, I reached out and offered a hand. With a frown, she took my arm, lifting herself from the ground, and we both ran as fast as we could in the opposite direction the robots had taken.

I took only a moment to glance back and said, huffing as I ran, "Does he really think he can land that on a creek?"

* * *

"Do you really think you can land this on a creek?" the Actor shouted, standing woozily in the doorway of the cockpit, his eyes as big as river rocks.

"Don't have much choice," Uncle Jerry said as his hands flew across the controls. "We ain't got but one landing gear, and if we put that down on a hard surface, we'll go end over end and smash to bits."

Anza was struggling to get into the life jacket she found under her seat. "So, this is safer?"

"Well, it's, uh, different," their pilot said. "And different from a guaranteed crash is the best we got at the moment."

The Actor leapt back to his own seat and strapped in. Then he grabbed all the pillows he could find, at least those within reach, and piled them on top of his lap.

Uncle Jerry yelled, "Hold on to your favorite part of ya!"

The Actor scrunched his eyes together as the cabin rocked with an earth-shattering crash. They bounced, briefly turned sideways, bounced again, and the entire cabin filled with the sounds of scraping, like two giant steel claws scratching their way down a chalkboard the size of Mount Rushmore.

There was a bang and an explosion of metal off to one side of the plane.

The man covered in pillows said, "There goes the left wing."

Then another bounce, slam, and the scraping started again. Another burst of twisted metal flew past the windows.

"There goes the right wing," the Actor said, pushed a hand out between the pillows, and tossed a tiny empty bottle somewhere behind him.

None could be sure if they were still rocketing forward because of the momentum of the craft or if they had been caught up in the swollen creek's current.

Strapped into the copilot seat, Anza pressed both palms to her ears and shouted over the din, "When do it stop?"

Then, as if the plane heard her, it bucked, tipped up on its nose, hung in the air for what felt like a lifetime, and came crashing back down. It rolled once or twice and came to stop.

They were quiet for a moment. Then the only sound was Uncle Jerry giggling.

The Actor stood up, went to the door of the aircraft, and popped it open. Outside, they could see a grassy field.

He said, "Please be sure your seats and tray tables are in the upright and locked position before exiting the aircraft." Then he took one step and disappeared from sight. There was a thud, some light cursing, and he called back, "There's a drop when you step out, FYI."

Anza laughed and wiped tears from her eyes. She clicked away her restraint and hugged Uncle Jerry. "I think he did that on purpose."

"Always the performer," he said and hugged her back. "Let's go find Razzie."

Chapter Thirty-Two

Anza eyeballed the front lobby of the impressive, if horrifying, building in front of them.

The massive headquarters of FriendBook appeared to be circular, looking more like the exterior of a giant twenty-second-century US football stadium.

"Looks like a big donut," Uncle Jerry said, leaning back to take in the structure from top to bottom. "With a bit ol' spike in the middle of it."

"That ain't a spike," the gunslinger said. "That's Hood's tower. He runs the joint."

"Uh-huh," Anza said, frowning as she looked again at the small Welcome Center booth. Beyond that high-tech shack—which appeared to have been designed to look not high-tech—lay a walking bridge, the span of which was, indeed, over water. A moat.

"Some guy named Hood runs this place?"

"Uncle Jerry, some folks would say he runs more than that," Sally said. "Got his little clammy fingers in all sortsa pies, if you know what I mean."

The old pilot looked at the woman dressed head to toe in cowboy gear. He said, "I have an unpleasant image in my mind but not likely the one you intended."

"So, how are we doing to get inside?"

"What?" the gunslinger asked, raising her bushy eyebrows. "I ain't stepping anywhere in there unless I hafta, like when I kill the Actor."

"Can we put this killing on hold, please?" Anza asked.

"I've given you that," Sally said. "But I got obligations. Clock strikes five and he's still under contract, he gets two slugs. One in the chest, one in the melon."

Anza pointed at her. "Not until then," she said. "But even then, don't shoot him. He's a friend."

"I ain't got no friends."

Uncle Jerry said, "You might if you stopped shooting people."

"Okay, okay." Anza waved her hands in front of them like she was trying to wash all their words away. "So how do me and the Actor get in the donut building?"

Sally pointed to the Welcome Center. "From what I know of it, you gotta be on the list, and they let you through."

Anza asked, "Will they let us in if we are not on their list?"

"Not my problem," Sally said, pointing her finger at the Actor like a gun and dropping her thumb. "I got other plans." Then she looked down to the building's moat.

Once they'd regrouped, hugs all around—except Sally, of course—Anza said it was best to once again split up. Better chance of getting inside.

Anza traced Sally's gaze and caught sight of her other two friends as they crept along the flattened grassy trail used earlier by the weird little robots. In the distance, Raz looked up and threw her a wave. She cut her eyes to the tiny building next to the bridge and fought the urge to wave back.

Two minutes later, Anza and Uncle Jerry were standing before FriendBook's Welcome Center. The Actor had thought it looked like one of those pillboxes the Germans fired from in Saving Private Ryan.

"Hello in there. We are hoping you can helping us," Anza said.

The smoked glass slid open. The pair of attendees inside wore too-large smiles, each of them tickling unseen keyboards beneath a white counter. Behind them, a gleaming three-spouted espresso machine was steaming slightly.

They looked at their screens, and one said, "I'm Ruby. This is Jimmy. Hello."

"Hel—"

"We don't see any bookings for you, Anza Stinnett," said Jimmy. Neither had asked for their IDs.

"Nor you… Lou Stool," said the one called Ruby.

Anza started to speak, her teeth gritted, "How did you—"

The young woman held up her hand and spun the screen toward them.

"Ah, sure," Anza said. "You are doing facial match through our FriendBook pages."

The male attendant frowned as he read his screen. "Mr. Stool, your profile is slated to be turned into an in memoriam page. Are you not dead?"

"Ah well, actually, no," Uncle Jerry said. "I expect the word got out that I was dead, but that was mainly because a big-shot drug dealer in Atlanta was mad I stole his plane and started the rumor before he turned me over to his cartel bosses in Mexico."

The two young people stared, smiles long gone, mouths hanging open.

"Uh," Uncle Jerry said. "Probably more than you needed to know."

The female attendant ran her hands over her keyboard. "Well, we don't make a habit of, um, allowing dead people into the facility, even on a guest pass."

"Well, it is so funny that you are saying this thing right now," Anza said, forcing a smile. "Because this is why we have come to your facility. To show that, in fact, Unc—Lou is not dead."

The news was met with a pair of frowns.

Ruby said, "Have you brought identification and two utility bills with your current address?"

"Hell, no," Uncle Jerry said.

"By that he means, heck yes!" Anza said, smile still plastered to her face.

After a moment, Jimmy shrugged, went back to a printer next to the espresso machine, and returned with two laminates, each at the end of a looped black nylon cord.

The two attendants pointed toward the bridge path.

Anza and Jerry put the loops over their heads and stared down at their pictures as they walked away.

"I need to update this one day," he said. His picture had a black band through the middle of it. "This is back from when I was a roadie for Uriah Heep."

She didn't really hear him as she stared at her profile picture of her and Dan smiling. That had been a better, simpler time.

Anza and Jerry walked to the gate at the edge of the bridge and waited for it to retract. After a moment, the light flashed, and the gate slid away.

"Where are we going now?" Uncle Jerry asked, casting a look back to the two in the booth, who were both furiously typing and glancing over at them.

Anza shrugged. "We are looking for a contract, so the place to start will be wherever the personnel records are."

Uncle Jerry grabbed the photo around Anza's neck and stared at it. "You guys make a sweet couple," he said and noticed some dampness in his friend's eyes. "Don't worry, you'll see him again. It'll soon be time to go home."

Anza just nodded.

"Personnel records?" Uncle Jerry said, as if he were on a ten-second delay. "You make that sound easy."

"No," Anza said, picking up her pace. "It never is."

* * *

"Maybe I'll wait back here and guard the entrance," the Actor said as I slowly crawled deeper into the squat, damp tunnel.

"Guard? What are you guarding?"

"You know, if those things come back."

I looked under my arm to see him silhouetted behind me, down on his hands and knees. The cement passageway was about as wide as a hotel lobby's front bay window, allowing the evil Roombas to pass in and out two or three at a time, but they didn't need a lot of headroom.

The space was about as high as my waist, so the best way forward was to crawl.

Behind the Actor, I could see two of them bumping along into the distance and another was coming up behind him. Thankfully, they were in their blue-light state, not threatening, so they had little interest in either of us.

"They're everywhere, man."

I said, "Just don't throw anything at them. Come on, don't be such a pussy."

There was something rather humiliating about crawling as a grown person. As a habit, once people passed the age of, like, one, there were far better ways to go about moving around the room—or through a dank tunnel into the belly of a multibillion-dollar high-tech social media empire's headquarters. As a grown-up, crawling felt like some defeated admission that things hadn't gone the way I'd intended them to—or I just needed to get to the toilet to throw up.

It was very slow going.

To add insult to injury, a fuzzy-tailed squirrel pranced past me, chasing after one of the Roombas. I wondered if it smelled like nuts. Not the squirrel, the mechanized, homicidal vacuum cleaner.

I slowed as I watched the creature run in that zigzaggy pattern that they always seemed, without fail, to run in. I wasn't sure if it was a defense thing to see predators coming from all angles or if they were just really scatterbrained and distracted by everything else around them: "Hey a robot. Look at that cool leaf, but the robot. Is that a shiny bug? Hey, a robot…"

Despite myself, I started chuckling. Being deliriously tired probably had a lot to do with it.

"What… are you laughing at?" the Actor asked, a few feet behind me.

"Oh, it's just a stupid squir—"

Zzztt!

The squirrel stopped in its tracks like it had just realized it had left the iron on at home. Then it fell on its side.

"That's weird," I said.

From a wide grate that ran the horizontal length of the tunnel, a brilliant blue-white light filled my eyes as two rows of gas flames shot up in a roar. Then, as quickly as it had come to life, it was gone. And so was the squirrel—except for the smell.

"What was that light?" the Actor asked, his words coming fast. "What's that smell?"

"Uh, I think it's burnt squirrel."

"What? What does that mean?"

I said, "It means, we need to think carefully, or it'll soon smell like burnt actor and burnt deejay."

"You haven't been on the radio in years," the man behind me said. "I don't think you qualify as a deejay anymore."

"Shut up or there might be slightly bruised actor in here instead," I said, pointing ahead. "If you catch the light right, it looks like there's a fat metal lip that runs across the tunnel."

"The squirrel stepped on it and barbecue rodent."

"Right," I said. "The flames were triggered once the squirrel stood on it, so I think we need to cross it without touching the metal."

I briefly wondered what it was about squirrels that made so many in the world want to kill them.

The Actor lifted his head, looking down the passageway's length to get a better view. He shook his head. "The goddamn grates are all up and down the tunnel, like crosswalks," he said. "And that metal bit's about three feet wide." He collapsed with a sigh. "No way to go through without touching it."

I looked down the tunnel from back the way we came and had a thought. "Maybe there's one way."

Chapter Thirty-Three

The Evil Roomba's whirring and grinding was, well, more whirry and grindy as I lay across the top of it.

"Don't drag your feet!" the Actor called from behind me. He sounded closer than he had a moment ago.

"I'm not!"

"You are!"

"It's—" I said, shifting and struggling to get my balance. "Like a toddler giving you a piggyback. Hard to hold on."

The Actor laughed. "You need to strengthen your core. More sit-ups."

"Funny guy," I said and grunted as I tried to shift my body forward a bit more without hitting the floor. "Ummmpff." I sucked in a breath as I tried to move my shoulders without tipping the device struggling beneath my weight. A shadow passed near me, which made me flinch, and I nearly fell from my unsteady ride.

I looked up. "Hey," I said. "How are you going faster than I am?"

I watched as the Actor bobbed past me—he was the perfect size for a robot vacuum ride. His feet hung off the back while he gripped with his fingertips, chin resting on the front edge.

Casually, he turned his moppy curls toward me. "It's not a race, and we don't have far to go," he said then tossed something, bits of something, ahead of him. I watched as he reached into his pocket, dug around, pulled out a bit of lint and paper, and threw them ahead.

It was far to ride while barely holding onto a robot not made for riding. It looked about the length of a football field, but with my eyes adjusted, I could see the opening ahead.

"Hey, there's a spooky hallway at the end of the spooky crawl space," I said, my voice ringing off the thick concrete walls as I dug into my jacket for my wallet. "We can probably walk from there." No use in dillydallying, I found an old receipt I'd stuffed next to some bills in my wallet, crumpled it, and tossed it ahead of my Roomba.

It sped up. The tiny metallic feet clicked and clattered along, chasing the bit of paper until it could suck it up with a satisfying fwoomp!

Finding another receipt—can't imagine needing that one either—I repeated the move, and again, the Roomba happily sped up to snort that bit too.

I was just one Roomba-length behind the Actor.

Hearing my robot's spiky legs chink-chink-chinking alongside him, he spun his head toward me. "What are you doing?"

"Nothing," I said and found an old Applebee's coupon that would expire in the next week. I crumpled and threw it. I didn’t even like chicken-fried steak, no biggie. "Just, you know, low on time, so…"

"Fucker, this isn't a race," he said, scowled, then dug deeper into his pockets.

My Roomba lurched forward, chink-chink-chink-chink, and I was once again ahead of my friend by at least a foot or two. Looking down, we passed by another one of the metal death strips. One touch and we would both be fried instantly.

However, neither of us were paying much attention to that.

Having found nothing in his pockets, the Actor had taken it next-level. I knew that because a) one of his feet hanging over the back of his machine was bare and under one arm was a shoe, and b) the sock that had been on that foot landed about three feet ahead of his Roomba.

Its blue light glowed a little brighter at the sight of the new prey, and it sped to its next meal.

"You can't use clothes!"

"Shut up," the Actor called over as he began to pass me again. "I can use anything I want."

In the next minute, we would be clear of the concrete overhang—and the death strips—and able to climb off the robots and stand properly. I had about a minute to pass the Actor and reclaim my lead.

For me, socks weren't an option because I'd sort of stopped wearing them a while back and never got back into the habit, as it were. I drew out an old gum wrapper from my pocket, crumpled it up, and threw it ahead.

My robot once again sped up, but I saw that ahead of me, the competition had removed yet another shoe, sock balled up, but he didn't get a solid throw away since there was no chance to arch it with the low ceiling.

"Ha-ha!"

"Shit!" the Actor called out, still ahead of me, his big move thwarted.

We were less than thirty feet from the opening, both machines churning along, however the pace of his slowed slightly as it seemed to briefly choke on the sock like a Persian hacking away on a furball, which let my machine close the gap.

I was just a length back—just the one—but was running out of stuff to throw ahead. I dug into my pocket and found my old house key. "Score! I don't need that anymore!" I shouted and tossed it.

Tink-tink-tink… chink-chink-chink-chink.

I was even with the Actor and moving faster. He growled and dug in his pocket, pulling something small and shiny out. He frowned, put it back, then began unlacing his shoe.

Just ten or fifteen seconds away from being clear of the low ceiling, I ran my hands all down my body, searching. For a brief second, my fingers snagged on the buttons of my coat. Buttons.

I yanked one off and tossed it ahead just as he threw the lace. Both machines sped up, grinding their motors in a hulking, brooding race to the finish.

Tink! I tossed another button. Then snapped off a few more. Tink! Tink!

His second lace already chewed up, the Actor threw his shoe.

"Jesus, you're going to need that!" I shouted. He pulled ahead.

"Ha, ha!" he shouted. "Victory will be mine!"

I had to laugh but shouted back, "Fallen arches will be yours, asshole!" then proceeded to snatch off buttons and labels and loose threads like I was pulling a horde of stinging bees from my body and throwing their carcasses ahead.

However, despite the flurry of bits and plastic and material flying from my fingers, he was too far ahead and crossed the threshold before I could.

"Yes!" he shouted then slid off of his Roomba, fists in the air. His victory was short-lived as the Roomba passed over his body—"Ow!"—briefly running its sucker over his forehead, then continued on.

A moment later, I climbed off my machine, my jacket hanging open. Swaying slightly, I couldn't help but giggle a little, tired and delirious, as I tied my coat's cloth belt around me. Shit. I coulda thrown this. "When we leave," I said, "we're having a rematch."

"Fuck no," the Actor said, stumbling to his feet.

"What? You're afraid of those stupid things?"

"No," he said. "I won fair and square. No do-overs."

"Whatever," I said. "Looks like we crawled underneath the moat. This is some kind of service entrance, probably where they used to do deliveries back when they were building the place."

On either side of me, the walls were dark brick that needed a good scrubbing. Damp in there, black mold had begun to stain the walls from floor to ceiling in menacing stalagmites, the ones that went from bottom to top.

See, high school education pays off!

We hadn't stepped forward yet. The hall ahead of us wasn't a concern because it wasn't terribly long, but the red glow at its end was another story.

Just above us was some wooden latticework that really didn't look strong enough to hold up the structure if it fell. I scanned it as we finally moved forward, trying to see if there were any hidden buzz saw blades or an array of spikes that might fall down if we tried to pass.

The Actor bristled. "It's got a very… Temple of the Doom vibe going on."

"Right?"

"Especially the eerie red glow down there."

"You're not helping."

As we walked, the motorized vacuums whirled past us, up and down the dark hallway, seemingly oblivious to our presence.

It was strange. From the first scan of the hallway, it only appeared about fifty feet long. But it took at least two minutes to get just halfway.

"Place gives me the creeps," my friend said.

Two more minutes, and we looked around the large space we'd been dumped into. It was a hexagonal room and, like the hub of a wheel, had spokes where other tunnels like the one we'd just left branched out. From where we stood, I counted at least five.

In the middle was a cement column as wide as a small house. About ten feet from the bottom, it beveled, its base slightly larger in circumference than the rest of the tower. It wasn't just some massive architectural podium. It was a chamber.

The Actor let out a sigh. "I don't like this."

Growling, I smacked the back of my hand across his shoulder.

"What?"

I said, "Don't say shit like that! I've already got serious King Kamehameha willies, man! Don't go spouting horror-film lines in the middle of this shit!"

He looked for a second like he was going to protest but then blinked slowly and shrugged. "Sorry. Professional habit."

We stepped forward and both looked up at the column, a tower, in front of us, our necks craning back to see the top. Circling the cement tower was a spiral staircase.

"What do you think that's for?" the Actor asked, pointing.

"It's a fucking staircase. What do you think it's for?"

He shook his head and curled his fingers into a tiny, bloodless fist. "Right, where the hell does that go?" he asked but then caught my expression as I smiled like an idiot and levelled a finger at me. "Don't say 'they go up.' I know they go up."

I frowned. "Jerk. It's a good line. Either way, which way should we go?"

"There are six other passages like this one, we could try all of those."

I shook my head. "The guys won't have that much time. They start snooping around and they either find it fast or they get thrown out."

"Okay," he said. "What about that creepy, blood-red glowy bit coming from the other side of this column?"

"Uh, nah," I said. "We should try these other tunnels."

"Why?"

"I dunno." I spun toward him, throwing my arms in the air. "Because you got me thinking horror films now, and heading toward the creepy red glowy stuff is always the wrong place to go!"

The Actor looked as if my fear only emboldened him, like it was some sort of dare. His face split into a grin that would have gotten him banned from public gatherings. "Where's your sense of adventure?"

I shot him a snarl. "It's being beaten to death by my sense of reason and my will to live."

He cocked an eyebrow and dimmed his smile only slightly. "Let's give 'er a look."

I started walking slowly, counterclockwise around the tower then realized the Actor was at my heels. "No, no," I said, almost whispering. "You go the other way. Around the other side."

"What? No!"

"Yes," I said. "We shouldn't walk too close together, too easy a target."

"Target?" The smile was gone. "For what?"

I waved my fingers the other direction, and slowly he started to inch the other way. Of course, I didn't know what might be on the other side. But whatever it was, I wasn't going to be the Actor's shield if anything snarly or toothy or clawy was waiting for us.

As I walked around the tower, I again looked up, trying to pull something out of the distance above. I just saw the winding staircase wrapped around the fat column. Even squinting didn't help bring it into proper focus, so I looked ahead again.

Ahead of me, the wash of crimson light covered the wall to my right, radiating from the tower's base. "This place must spend millions on red lights," I said just to hear my own voice.

"Who are you talking to?" the Actor called from his side of the column.

"Nobody, shh."

The Actor reached our destination ahead of me. Always a competition with that guy.

He said, "It's just… a door."

I came around and stood beside him.

The steel entryway in front of us had no handle. It was split vertically by a seam, which made it look very familiar.

"I think it's an elevator door," I said.

The Actor put his face closer to it. "Why do all the edges glow red?"

He was right. In front of us, the double doors were wrapped in a thin red rectangle, but it wasn't some LED setup to simply make it look futuristic.

"The light… is coming from the other side," I said.

The Actor stepped away and trembled for a moment then slapped me with the back of his hand. "Now who's doing the horror-movie talking! Don't do that! I'm already creeped the fuck out!"

"Look."

He moved his head to where I was pointing and read the single word. "Marge."

"What does Marge mean?" I asked. "You think it's an acronym for something?"

"No. And don't start coming up with what it might be if it were."

"I wasn't."

"You were," he said then went back to examining the door. "I can see it in your beady little eyes."

"Whatever," I mumbled. "Not beady. They're my mother's eyes."

"Then your mother had beady eyes." He hopped down on all fours, examined the bottom of the door, then came up again. The Actor took a few paces back, looked at the top, then down both sides. "There's no way in. There must be a remote or something."

I pointed. "What about that black panel there?"

He looked over, moved his head around for a moment, then finally saw it. Square in shape, it was the only other marking on the otherwise smooth surface of the concrete tower.

"Oh," he said. "Yeah, I'm a bit color blind, so…"

"You're not."

"Yes, I am. It's even in my Twitter bio."

"Yeah," I said. "But I thought that was some social statement to make people think you're not a dick."

He sighed. "Can we just focus on the panel? It's probably like a handprint reader."

"Don't tell that to Uncle Jerry," I said. "He's still got his Ginsu."

We both stared at it for a moment until my curiosity got the better of me. I reached out and put my palm on the black glass. It briefly lit up, a horizontal line—red, naturally—passing from top to bottom like a grocery checkout scanner. Nothing.

He turned to me. "Did you think it would open for any handprint? It'll be coded. Probably to the CEO, that Hood guy."

"Or," I said, squinting at it, "something else. Something darker."

"Would you cut it out?"

"Fine, fine." I nodded. "You try."

"No way."

"Why not?" I asked. "Come on, you give it a shot. If you don't, I'll tell the other guys you were too scared to."

He clenched his fists and scowled. "You are such an infant. Fine." The Actor extended his hand slowly as I watched. Then he pulled it back and wiped it on his pants a few times. "What? It's warm in here. I'm sweaty."

"Uh-huh."

He moved his hand toward the black panel. With a deep breath, he laid it on the dark glass, and again, it lit up, and the line scanned his print. Nothing.

"Damn," he said, pulled back, let a small breath burst from his lips, and jammed his hands into the pockets of his tattered yellow robe.

Then, slowly, he pulled one back out, dangling something shiny from his fingertips. In his hand, he held the key to Sally's motorcycle with its tiny key chain and tiny skull. He looked at me, and I shrugged.

His handle trembled, making the dangly bit of silver in his fingertips softly jingle. Holding it to the panel, it did the strangest thing. The knifelike key reformed itself before our very eyes, going through a complicated series of configurations—solid, silver circles and stars and tiny broken pyramids, then more complicated, faster and faster.

All the time, the red line passed up and down, scanning.

It got faster and faster, changing at such a rate, it was impossible to see each iteration, until it finally stopped on a bizarre, asymmetrical design that looked like something a mechanical dog might cough out after trying to swallow a Brillo pad, a discarded cell phone, and a handful of bottle caps. The door slid open.

We were both washed in a brilliant burst of red light. Holding my hand out in front of my eyes, I tried to block the glare of the glowing red tubes embedded in the walls.

In the middle of a room that looked incongruously like a homey reading nook was an elderly woman wearing wraparound sunglasses, reading a magazine.

I said, "You must be Marge."

* * *

Uncle Jerry and Anza passed over the threshold of FriendBook's headquarters. As they did, a massive blast of wind hit them from above and below.

"What in the hell?" the old pilot said, high stepping over the three louvers in the tiny grate at their feet.

A young man with a headset, dressed in a tight white T-shirt and yoga pants, looked up from a tablet computer in his hand. He smiled. "That's to keep the flying critters out," he said, walking over to them slowly.

Anza hooded her eyes, giving nothing away.

"We try to cut down on pesticides and poisons as much as we can."

"I see," Anza said, her expression flat.

"Eventually all those toxins end up in you and me," he said and laughed lightly. "You know, we poison a bug, a lizard eats the bug, a chicken eats the lizard, we eat the chicken. All that poison builds up in our organs."

"Probably why everybody's going sterile," Uncle Jerry said, nodding.

"What chicken eats lizards?"

Uncle Jerry took a step toward the man with the headset. "Heya, I came here to change my status since I can't do that online."

The man knit his eyebrows together.

"Why can't you change your status online? It was designed—"

Uncle Jerry said, "Well, because I'm locked out of the account."

"Why?"

"Because my current status is listed as 'deceased.'"

The man nodded gravely and said, "I'm sorry for your loss."

The old pilot started to say something, forgot entirely what it was, then came up with another way to come at the problem.

Anza put her hand between them and said, "Where are the chickens that eat lizards?"

The man pointed at Anza with a quirky smile. "What is she talking about?"

"So, since you've got me listed as dead, y'all don't allow me to update that," Uncle Jerry said. "To, uh, not dead. How do I change that to, um, alive or whatever? Single, maybe?"

"It's complicated."

"No, no," Uncle Jerry said, putting his hands on his hips. "Wasn't a fan of that status, not at all. It makes me sound sexually confused."

The man blinked. "No, sir, I was saying the process can be a bit compl—"

"Last thing I am is sexually confused. I'm very confused in all matter of things," Uncle Jerry continued, unstoppable, "but not when it comes to sex."

"I'm sorry," Headset said, shaking his head slowly. "I'm not explaining myself very well."

"You can start with the lizard-eating chickens!" Anza said, pointing a finger in the young man's face.

The man put his hands out, tugged on the tiny microphone near his mouth, and said, "Let me see if I can find someone who can answer your questions." He flashed a quick glance at Anza. "Some of your questions."

"All right," Uncle Jerry said, hands still on his hips despite him desperately wanting to move them since it made his shoulders sore, but he felt he was projecting real power and didn't want to let up.

The man turned and tapped furiously on his tablet. As he walked, he called out over his shoulder, "There's a smoothie bar just in there." He offered a wavering smile. "I recommend the beetroot-lemon zest one."

Anza and Uncle Jerry turned, walking toward the adjoining area, larger than the first. Along the walls, large depictions of fruits and vegetables on massive, square white backgrounds hung around the room.

"I am not drinking beet smoothie," she said, talking low.

"Wouldn't worry about it." Uncle Jerry strode next to her, hands still on hips. "They probably test 'em out on the chickens."

* * *

Marge, a very fit woman of about seventy, looked as though she were hanging out at the beach. One-piece bathing suit, aforementioned sunglasses, open-toed sandals, and what I could only describe as an extremely next-gen hat.

We stood in the door, our mouths hanging open.

I let my eyes wander the crimson-stained room, trying not to stare at the old lady, but could only make out hard lines and curves. When my mind tried to piece together what I was actually looking at, hidden beneath the explosion of red light, it didn't compute. "What—"

She held up a finger for a moment, and we waited.

After twenty seconds, she gave a slight chuckle and put the magazine down. Then she smiled, gave her shoulders a slight wiggle, and said, "Well, boys?"

Again, we were left speechless.

Her left hand moved to some squarish-looking thing to her left, and the bright-red light dampened, settling into a warm amber glow.

In the basement of the massive, high-tech, billion-dollar superstructure was what appeared to be a sitting room with someone's nana. Among the hard lines and shapes I'd seen earlier were a small table with one chair. Atop it was a tea service, one cup. On one wall was a long bookshelf next to an antique Victorian settee. In front of it was a massive and expensive-looking afghan rug.

On the other side of the room was another sitting area with a plush love seat, doilies over its armrests. A blanket lay folded on one cushion. On the floor was a set of pink dumbbells crossed at their bars. A huge wooden cabinet sat on the far side of it. It was a Philco radio, like from the nineteen thirties, vintage, immaculate, and gorgeous.

She tried her question another way. "What do you think?"

I pointed at the radio. "It's a model 10391? Maybe a 42-1226?"

The woman looked over at it and waved her hand once. "Pshaw, it's an old radio. Doesn't get any reception down here, but he gives me any music I want to hear. For free," she said and smiled.

Slowly, we both looked back to her as she stared at us, waiting for an answer to a question neither of us understood.

The Actor squinted for a moment. "You look familiar. I can't place it."

The woman rolled her eyes at us, extending her arms, looking from one to the other. Finally, she said, "Well, does my skin look soft and supple?"

"Uh," I said because, at that point, it was the only thing that would come out. Then, I managed, "Are you okay? Are you being held here against your will?"

She frowned. "Heavens no."

I whispered, "Are they listening? Blink once if you're in trouble."

The woman sighed and closed her eyes, shaking her head.

"Was that a blink? I couldn't tel—"

"No!" She tried again. "How does my skin look?"

"It… it looks fine. Did they hurt you?"

She regarded her own body. "The brochure says the red light is supposed to help with fine lines and wrinkles while regenerating collagen and elastin, whatever that is. Also reduces cellulite, fades age spots, and gets rid of stretch marks."

"Uh, well, from what I can see…" I was lost, grabbing at words like they were flitting butterflies. "It took care of any stretch marks, so—"

"Didn't really have any stretch marks before. No kids, you see, so juries out," she said. "Ah, no harm. Wasn't my money. Hood gives me anything I want. I just ask for it, and I get it."

I looked around the room, taking it in. The books on the shelf ranged from classics to pop garbage. Next to the love seat was a handcrafted shoe rack filled with a variety of slippers.

I said, "Except company. They keep you isolated."

"No," she said and crossed her arms. "I keep me isolated. I hate people and do just fine without them, thank you very much."

The Actor finally found his voice. "The sign on the door says Marge. So, are you… Marge?"

"In the flesh," she said and chuckled. "As it were."

Finally, I noticed something about the hat. It wasn't a hat. It looked like an overturned spaghetti colander with twisted multicolored wires streaming from it.

She saw my gaze, grinned wickedly, and flicked it with a finger. It clanged as she did. "Got me hardwired in through the headgear." She stood slowly from the recliner and went to the table. As she did, a huge coupling holding the other end of the wires moved along the ceiling in a latticework of metal tracks. She sat down, took a quick sip, and winced.

She then muttered something about the tea, but I heard none of it. My eyes were locked on the trail of wires coming out from her headgear. There had to be dozens, hundreds of them, white lights passing up and down their glass fibers, some slow and languid like bubbles in a tub and others racing like lightning bugs in a hurricane. At a casual glance, it almost looked like she had a long, long mane of electric hair.

I looked toward the Actor, who was staring down at his hands, eyes wide and unblinking. As he wandered, lost in his own world, I turned back to Marge.

"Why are you here? What is"—I waved at the headgear and toward the wall where the glowing wires fed—"all of this?"

She set down her cup and placed her hands in her lap. "Hood's social media empire has the world's most advanced artificial intelligence, rivaled by none, but in the end, it's not all hardware and ones and zeroes. To be able to coddle, control, and manipulate not just millions but billions of its users," she said, standing and crossing the small room toward the bookcase filled with hardbacks, "I mean, a personal construct for each and every one—school teachers, all-star athletes, world leaders, factory workers, plush-doll fanatics… a solipsist, virtual world for all of them, there just isn't that kind of processing power in the world."

She selected a thick, dusty book and walked toward her lounger. I caught a glimpse of the cover and saw that it had been written by James Joyce.

I took a half step back.

Once she settled in again, she crossed her legs and propped the book up on her knees. Her fingernail tapped the metallic interface on her head. "Only the human mind has that kind of processing power. So," she said, opened her book, licked a fingertip, and flipped a page, "that's what I am."

I said, "You are the AI?"

Smiling, she held up a finger-gun and dropped her thumb. "Got it in one, Rasputin," she said. "In my lesser duties, part of my brain controls this building's functions—the environment, security, custodial maintenance."

I looked around the room, trying to look casual, searching for something that might help us. I said, "Oh, so you're the one sending the cleaning robots out to dump shit in the creek. I think that's a felony."

Marge sighed. "Just temporary. Our ring of hellfire down here is out. Usually, the busy bots just dump in there, and it burns up everything, except latex, it turns out."

"Latex burns?"

"No, apparently," she said. "Seems latex is the only thing that doesn't. Last week there was the biannual solstice party, these young people, whew! Any dark room they could find. Sometimes not dark. Or even a room. Couches, desks, tables."

"Been there," the Actor said, swaying slightly. "Done all that."

"Latex was finally cleaned out, but it needs a restart. We've got hellfire on requisition."

I shook my head. "You can put an order in for hellfire?"

Marge smiled wickedly. "Anything I ask, I get. Anything."

"So you're this place’s housekeeper?" the Actor asked and laughed.

"Oh, I see everything," she said. "I even know there's a loser on the seventh floor who spends his lunch hours photocopying his junk. Don't know what he does with all that paper after he's done, but—hold on—I've just suspended his photocopy privileges. Investigation to follow."

"You've given up your freedom in the world," I said, "to stop office losers from copying their junk?"

"Oh no. So much more." She sat up and began to grin in a way that made me shiver. "You see, my main function is to control what they call the User Experience. Nerds call that the UX. But really, that's just an inside joke, you see. Play on words, or letters, as it were. It's something, I believe, you recently became familiar with."

"The MX," I said, my teeth grinding. "Misery index. You work for Hell Inc. Do you know what that means?"

"What that means, my dear widower," she said and grinned wider, "is that for billions of people, I interface with the network to craft the most addictive bond between user and FriendBook… and without them knowing it, I create the most miserable experience possible. A communion the sad, dreadful people of this world cannot get enough of."

My hands were shaking, and I clasped them together to make them stop. "Why? Why would you do that?"

"As I said, I loathe people," she said. "Either through genetic hardwiring—you should have met my father—or life experience or too much sodium, who knows? I abhor the human race more than anyone. Aside, of course, from psychopaths, despots, and early-childhood educators." She glanced down at her book briefly, turning a page.

However, as she did, I noticed her hand tremble just slightly. She added, "No one despises the human race more than me," then pointed to the Actor. "Except him."

"What?"

My mind echoed what he'd just said.

"Right now, I am the spirit of FriendBook," she said, looking around the room slowly. She then clapped her book closed, making us both jump. Her eyes burned into the Actor. "In about twenty-four minutes? You're next."

The door behind us closed.

Chapter Thirty-Four

The Actor spun and hammered on the door with his fists, sending a clanking throughout the room. I looked over at Marge as a smirk pulled at her face.

"You're trapping us in here?" I asked.

She grabbed her magazine again and casually flipped through it, ignoring my question. I turned to watch the Actor searching the door for gaps, his fingers probing, seeking some way to escape.

"You can't get out." She sighed, licked a finger, and turned another page. "I control the door. I control it all."

I took a step forward, and as I did, a pair of panels opened up in the ceiling, and two large gun turrets dropped, spun once, then pointed at me. She hadn't even looked up from her pages.

Desperate, I tried another tactic. "What kind of life is this? You run a building with your mind? How is that—"

"Are you joking?" she asked and finally looked up. "This isn't even one tenth of one percent of what my mind is doing." Her fierce grin returned. "I know that right now a man named Scott Barbero in Colorado is livestreaming on our site as he skies down a mountain. I've just put an error code on the screen, so his attention has been drawn to that and not the tree coming up."

"You're joking."

"Never," she said. "I'm tracking the governor of New Jersey's fetish for Taiwanese ladyboys. I've inserted small, vertical gun ads into the profile landing page of a gas station attendant in Kansas City along with articles about employees robbing their employers and getting off scot-free."

The Actor slowly backed up until he was, once again, standing next to me, eyes still trained on the door, his mouth hanging open slightly. I put a hand on his shoulder. He didn't seem to notice.

"There's a building super in Minneapolis trying to get rid of a tenant who's on rent control, so his newsfeed is… giving him ideas," she said and smiled even wider.

I shook my head. "Why? Why would you do all of this?"

"Because I like it!" she said and nearly rose off her lounger. "That kind of power? This world hurt me every chance it could, at every turn! Now, I'm returning the favor!" Her eyes blazed and watered. Her cheeks flushed. Then she calmed and tapped the cap on her head. "Also, they've wired into my pleasure center. With each… success, I get a jolt, and, baby, there ain't nothing in the world like it."

"You… are not a good person," I said, unable to come up with much better.

She laughed and nodded to the wall, which transformed into a floor-to-ceiling video image. A dark-haired woman was staring at us, squinting, scanning, looking through us. There were tears in her eyes that had not yet fallen.

"This is a woman in Melbourne," she said and frowned. "Australia."

"I know where Melbourne is," I said.

"Her husband is out. He told her that he's out bowling with the guys but"—Marge flipped the screen—"it looks as though the missus noticed his FriendBook page was still open. Normally it should lock up, but strange thing, magically it remained open."

"Magic," I said, frowning.

"It remained open with the message pane displayed front and center," Marge said, briefly showing us an exchange, then flipped the image back to the dark-haired woman, her lips trembling. "She's about to read how an old friend from high school and her husband have been exchanging pleasantries. Tonight, they're having dinner then—let me quote—'who knows from there?'" Marge chuckled to herself. "I always find leaving it to the imagination is so much better than anything else I could compose."

"Wait," I said and pointed at the screen, where the woman was crying. "You wrote the message?"

Marge's eyes were fixed as she watched the woman. With each of the woman's tears, she shuddered and moaned slightly.

"That means nothing," I said. "He'll come home, and she'll confront him, and the truth will come out. End of story."

Marge shook her head. "Oh no. No, no," she said. "Watch."

The woman peeled away from the screen and left the room. Moments later, her face appeared again, the room behind her darkened. The woman's image shook as she feverishly typed with her thumbs.

"She's on her phone now," Marge said and stretched like a cat. "There's a man at her work—ten years her junior—who's been flirting with her. Oh, she's been coy up to this point, enjoying the attention. But she hadn't planned on doing anything until about a minute ago. All it took was… a little push."

My voice was shaking. "So this is what you do? Just prey on people's weaknesses?"

"I reveal them for their true selves!" Marge said so loud it almost came out as a roar. "For weeks, months, I've put ads for lingerie on her feed, dieting, pictures of young women in the prime of their lives, perfect bodies if photoshopped." She crossed her arms and looked like she was hugging herself. "I groomed her, killing her self-esteem! And then a friend request from a young workmate, and all the pieces were finally in place."

"A request you sent?"

She shrugged. "Naturally. I sent one to both of them, from each other." Marge stood again and slowly approached me. "You see, this is a win-win scenario. Here, I get everything I could ever want. After I burned through all the people who wronged me in the past, shredding their little lives, I took bigger and bigger challenges. But in the end, it's the small moments. I get the joy of spreading a little misery, which makes me warm and tingly."

"And for Hell Inc., their MX goes up."

"See? Win-win."

"Ha," I said. "So you've broken up this marriage, maybe. One down, two billion to go?"

Marge crossed her arms in front of me. "I've shown you this one." She flicked a wrist, and the screen filled up with tiny squares from the middle of the wall, growing like panicked bubbles, so many I couldn't even count. "We have tens of thousands, millions, of these little schemes in play right now."

The Actor looked at the wall, his mouth open. He was staring at his fate, just minutes away, for the moment, lost to the world.

I'd seen something in her expression, though, so I took a gamble. "So, you lose all of this in just minutes?"

She shrugged and trotted back to her lounger, picking up her magazine, then putting it back down just as quickly. "Seems my time is done," she said. "My contract will be liquidated, and I suppose, I go back to my old dreary life. But with the knowledge of a job well done, and I've been promised I'll never have to worry about money ever again," she said. "So there is that."

I crossed my arms. "Oh, but… all of this. Won't you miss it?"

"I'll find something else to do."

"Yeah, but not with this kind of power. You can change the world in here—mold it as you see fit."

She looked around the room and slowly nodded.

"What if," I said slowly, "we could find a way where you could stay?"

Marge laughed then slowly shook her head. She tried to laugh again, but it came out halting, thin. "What could you do?" she asked, not looking at us.

"Well," I said and took a half step forward. The turrets above us did not move. "The Actor's contract becomes valid in, what, twenty-two minutes?"

"There about, yes."

"What if, um, we made it invalid?"

Again, Marge shook her head, but her hands moved quickly, grabbing the magazine again then dropping it. "As if you could! How would you possibly do that?"

"Well, you are know-all and see-all, right? Where is the contract now?"

She scoffed. "In Hood's office up in the tower with all of his hell contracts. But it won't do you any good."

"Why?" I asked and took another step closer. "You control the security."

"So?"

"The two of us could walk right in there and destroy the contract," I said slowly. "That would leave them… without a replacement. They would have to keep you on."

She opened her mouth for a moment, but nothing came out. Then she waved a hand in the air. "They would find someone else."

"Sure," I said. "But how long would that take? Weeks? Months? Years?"

Finally, she looked at me. She then glanced over at the Actor. "It has taken this long to find another suitable candidate… but how do I know you'll do this?"

"Because that's why we're here," I said. "He doesn't want it."

She looked at the Actor with a scowl, one eyebrow cocked. "Is that true?"

Staring at the woman on the screen, tears streaming down her face but smiling as she typed, the Actor nodded.

Marge glared at us for what seemed like an eternity.

The light tendrils going to her brain flashed, snapped, and crackled. Then she said quietly, "Hood controls the elevator, so you'll have to take the spiral stairs."

The turrets retracted, and the door behind us slid open.

"You've got less than twenty minutes until the contract takes effect," she said, glaring at us hard. "I didn't think this was possible… but I do know I don't want this to end. Still, if you don't destroy that contract in time, I must be the spirit of FriendBook." She smiled sweetly. "So, if you run out of time, I will have my tidy robots kill you both."

"What?"

"Nineteen minutes," she said and went back to her magazine. The silent dark-haired woman on the screen trading messages with her young coworker laughed softly, wiped away a tear, and put a hand to her mouth.

* * *

Anza looked at her cell phone again. Still no return text from the Actor. Then she looked at the icons at the top of the screen. No service. That was frustrating. So was the smoothie barista, who'd cheerily introduced himself as Hunter.

"I do not like kale," she said for at least the third time. "It making me burp."

"That's good," Hunter said, casually wiping his fingertips on a blue smock. "Burping is healthy. It releases toxins."

"I don't think that is true."

"Sure it is!"

She walked back to the table with a simple banana smoothie—which seemed to break Hunter's heart. Uncle Jerry, already half-finished with his drink, had gotten something with soy milk, almonds, whey, and boysenberries.

Disconcertingly, it was called "Purple Nut Butter."

The moment her butt hit the chair, a young man appeared next to the table, seemingly out of nowhere. There were quiet titters in the room, some of the employees smiling and pointing, briefly catching snippets of the man on their mobile phones.

"Hello, I'm Mr. Hood," he said. "I'm so glad you could join us." He turned to the old man first. "I understand you're here to correct a clerical error in your profile."

Uncle Jerry crossed his arms. "I ain't dead."

"Can you prove that?" Hood asked, grinning. He looked down at the guest pass, which identified the man across from him as Lou Stool. "Somehow, I don't think that is your name."

"Ah, that."

"We must be special," Anza said, taking a sip of her smoothie and frowning. "Do you personally fix all of your users’ clerical errors?"

Pointing at his badge, Uncle Jerry said, "It's really a bit of a play on words, you see—"

"Oh, it was hard to miss you," Hood said. "Especially since you arrived with such, um, flair. We do have a guest parking lot, but the closest landing strip is about ten miles south of here. Not in, as it were, the nearby creek."

Uncle Jerry said, "Ah, good story there—"

"But that is not my concern," Hood said. "My concern… is the company you keep."

They both stared at the man, unblinking.

"It's funny," Hood said, sipping his own orange smoothie with small lizard-like tongue movements. "For years, marketers would pay thousands, millions, of dollars to learn about you, me, and anyone they could." He stood and stretched, looking up to the giant menu on the wall. "What do you like? What did you buy today? What might you want to buy tomorrow? What turns you on?" He laughed. "Which Disney princess are you most like?"

Uncle Jerry shook his head. "I never do those. Just a way to hijack your personal info."

Hood nodded. "Of course it is."

"I was Jasmine," Anza said to Uncle Jerry with a small grin.

"Huh," Uncle Jerry said. "I got Ariel!"

"The mermaid?"

"Yeah!"

Anza leaned forward and grabbed her friend's hand. "I think that's perfect."

"Anyway!" Hood said and slid into the third barstool at the table, uninvited. "All of you just freely hand that info over. Where you go, who you talk to, who you don't want to talk to, who you used to date, who you slept with on your friends list—"

"You cannot know that!" Anza said, scowling.

"It's not hard. We've got trillions of data points, so we can predict relationships," Hood said then raised his eyes to the two of them. "And how certain relationships affect people more than others. Which, to the point, is why I am here."

Anza reached over and grabbed Hood's smoothie, put her finger in it, and tasted it. She grimaced. "So, why are you here?"

Hood was at a loss for words for a moment then recovered. "Follow me," he said.

They glanced at each other and did.

"You have a friend who, within the next half hour, will become a very, very important part of the very fabric of our work here."

They both stopped in their tracks.

"Yes, yes," Hood said, smiling. "Now, you're here, but he is not."

He doesn't know! Anza thought and couldn't help but smile.

"Why is that?" Hood asked.

"On vacation," Uncle Jerry said. "Few weeks down in Cabo."

Hood shook his head. "No matter, very soon we’ll be able to compel him to come easy enough. It's within the contract he signed."

The CEO of FriendBook passed through a double door that had opened when he'd approached it. Cautiously, Anza and Uncle Jerry followed him inside.

"Then why are we here?" she asked.

"Because, like I said, we can analyze data-points and take everything we know about our users to determine what they've done and what they might do or, more importantly, who might influence those decisions."

The door behind them slid closed with a whisper.

"And our analysis, with the help of the proprietary AI running this place, has determined that you are both a danger to our greater plan."

Anza stopped again and looked back at the door they'd walked through. A light on a panel next to it flipped from green to red.

"A danger?" Uncle Jerry asked, his voice wavering. "How might that be?"

"Well," Hood said. "We know that the Actor will do what we need him to. In fact, once he's plugged in, he'll want to. Once we realized what a fine candidate he was, we began grooming him over the past few years."

Hood continued walking down a long hallway with no doors. "We helped sever the few ties he had, fed him stories about the success of his contemporaries," he said, a smile in his voice. "We even poisoned his own sister against him."

Anza nearly tripped. "I… I didn't know he had a sister."

"We would have taken him last year." Hood sighed. "We'd stoked his bitterness toward everyone he knew and didn't know, fed his feelings of inadequacy, and molded him to eschew any personal relationships."

At the next corridor, Hood turned. His mouth was a thin line. "That was until you three came along! He was perfect!" Hood stepped closer to Anza, looking down his nose at her. "You… damaged that. It makes no sense. How did you get him to help Rasputin on that stupid quest of his?"

For a moment, Anza bit her lip, thinking. The truth was, the Actor had been compelled to help, a clause in Rasputin’s contract with the Devil. Strangely, it seemed Hood and Hell Inc. didn't know that. She kept that to herself. "Maybe he is not as bad as you think," Anza said, thumping a finger into Hood's chest.

The man lifted up on his toes for a moment then closed his eyes and took a cleansing breath. "No matter. Old news, the damage repaired," he said. "But I'm not taking any chances."

"What?" Uncle Jerry asked, his eyes darting around the hallway. "What does that mean?"

Hood turned to Anza with a horrible grin. "Your profile says you like Star Wars?"

She nodded.

"Then, I think you'll get a big kick out of this."

* * *

"Oh Jesus," the Actor said, sucking in huge gulps of air, bent over at the waist. "I am so out of shape."

I looked down.

"We're barely even halfway there, man," I said, only ten steps ahead of him. It felt like my heart and lungs were fighting a battle to the death in my rib cage. Ignoring the searing in my chest, I pushed higher and higher.

Then, I heard a voice. Something was calling me. Is it urging me forward, willing me to help save my friend's eternal soul?

I listened closely, and the small, powerful voice said to me, "What the fuck are you two doing up there?"

Ah. Recognized it now.

Night was beginning to fall, but when I squinted, I could see Sally down below. She'd raised her pistols, pointing them at both of us.

"The contract… is up… there," I called back, spitting the words out between breaths.

Climbing higher still, with one eye on the gunslinger—and her guns—I saw Sally pull out her mobile phone, her face briefly lighting up.

"Fourteen minutes!" she yelled back. "Then I shoot him."

The Actor found his second wind and shot past me. "Move, move, move!" he shouted, and I pumped my burning thighs behind him.

I then heard another voice. I recognized it as well, but that one was just for me.

You can do it, my love.

"Ugh," I whispered, choking on my breaths. "Everything hurts."

Remember, you have to do good things so we can be together again. This is good. You can do this, my Razzie.

I nodded, unable to answer, put my hands on my knees, and pushed them like pistons. Round and round and round, I was moving faster, the only things in my vision were the metal rungs in front of me and the bottoms of the Actor's shoes. Then I nearly collided with him.

"What are you do—"

"We're here," he said, breathing heavily.

The entryway was shuttered, no way to get in. The Actor fished into the pocket of his robe again and pulled out the key with the tiny skull. After a series of configurations, it stopped. The door slid open.

"Man," he said, looking at it. "This opens everything. It's like some kind of…" Catching his breath, he stared at the tiny skull hanging from its tiny ring. "Super key."

"How did you get in here?" someone inside the room asked. "No matter. It's almost time."

The room was circular and looked far larger on the inside than what the exterior suggested.

When we crossed the threshold, the door slid closed behind us.

It was funny. I had spent years as a radio disk jockey and hundreds of hours in bars doing remote broadcasts, calling the great unwashed down for cheap beer and happy hour tapas. Most of the clubs were dark, with only the dance floor lit. That room looked a lot like them.

My eyes adjusting to the light, I could see dark leather seating areas along several of the walls. LED track lighting even traced the interior of the room in long blue cords.

In the middle was a long, circular couch.

More leather there, high backs, it looked like I could hold hipster board meetings in the place, or seances.

"Take a seat, you two," the person commanded.

The marked difference, I supposed, if I were to compare that room to any other similar room I'd seen, was the giant, floating holographic head in the middle.

Never saw one of those before.

"Rasputin Frewer," the floating head said with an unpleasant smile. It looked like his teeth could swallow me whole. "Hell Inc. owes you a measure of thanks."

"Great," I said, anger swirling through my body. "You must be the prick who runs Hell Inc."

"Steve Janus," the giant head said with a bow that actually spun it a full three-sixty, top to bottom. It grinned at me again when it stopped. "The old man has been on, shall we say, an extended vacation since your little run-in with him. Funny, that."

I turned and whispered to the Actor. He gave me a nod and moved toward one of the walls, disappearing in the darkness.

"What are you doing? Don't play around over there. We've got import—"

"So," I said to the giant floating head. "Does that thanks come with some sort of payment or promise of a favor?"

The head snapped back to me. "I don't think the sort of favors we have available," he said with a sneer, "are anything you would enjoy."

I sat down on the circular sofa. "Why do you even bother? You can't win, Janus. Haven't you seen that?"

"Win? Win?" He laughed. "I don't need to win. This isn't a win-lose game, Raz. With the Devil out of the picture, at least for now, my organization, the de facto leaders of the underworld, will thrive."

"Ha!" I said, watching the Actor move around the edge of the room. He stopped and began pulling out dark glass sliding shelves. "Thriving in a losing game? What does that look like?"

The head spun in a circle then rolled. Tiny flames shot up around it, encircling it in flickering light. "Not winning? Have you looked around your world, mortal?" he asked. "Has humanity ever been so fruitful yet so miserable? On the brink of war at any moment, your kind soothing their weary minds with drugs, most of which we make by the way. Starvation, modern-day slavery—hell, we've even invented some new diseases for a bit of fun."

“No way.” I shook my head. “The coronavirus was you? The dead aren’t miserable, so how does that help?”

“You know nothing of the dead.” He smiled wickedly. “But it wasn’t about killing anyone. It was the beautiful, beautiful way that you all turned on each other. Greedy college kids who wouldn’t dare miss the parties, coughing spats on subways, full-on, knock-down-drag-out battles in the toilet paper aisle!” The big head hooded his eyes and shivered. “It was beautiful.”

"It can't be that easy," I said, watching the Actor dip deeper into a cabinet.

Janus's head grew, and his teeth looked like they belonged on an ocean creature that had never seen sunlight. "Look around you," he said.

"Still, you're on the losing team," I said and shrugged.

The head grew even larger, the flames licking at its virtual chin. "We can fix elections, downvote positive ideas, and set up virtual homes for like-minded sociopaths of all races and religions to foster their hate—and all of it away from prying eyes until it spills over like boiling oil," he said and sighed. "By then, there's little anyone can do to stop it."

The head appeared to look up to the ceiling. I realized then that it was a projection and that Janus was sitting somewhere else, casting his image there. His grin grew, and the guy actually trembled, shivering with delight.

"And in seven minutes, your friend will help take us to the next level, as the new spirit of FriendBook!" Janus caught himself then stared into the darkness behind me. "Where the hell is h—"

"Why him, though?"

The head lifted its eyebrows and nodded slowly. "Your friend did most of the work for us. We just finished the job." Janus sighed. "We've been losing our young users. We're becoming old news, so we needed someone the kids love. And he will do… such damage!"

"No, I won't!" the Actor called out from the darkness of the room.

"Oh, oh yes you will," the head said, again searching the darkness for my friend. "You'll want to! But if you hesitate, we can mete out punishment—pain and torture like you can't imagine—old fire and brimstone, one of the few things we took from the old man. It's intellectual property theft, sure, but we are a hell-bound organization," he said and shrugged. "What can they expect?"

The head looked at me then blinked slowly. "Stuff like this." The massive head was replaced by a sea of naked bodies, each being torn apart by demons with claws and bloodied teeth. Fires ripped through their remains, eliciting screams, then their bodies reconstituted, and the process began all over again.

"Holy shit," I said.

"Shit is right," the head said, giggling. "Holy? Not so much. And if your friend does not want to comply—five minutes from now—we will convince him. It's in his contract."

"Ah-ha!" the Actor said, running the length of the room, leaping over the couch, and holding up several bound papers. "Not if I tear this up!"

"You found it!" I cried with joy.

The Actor turned to me, nodding furiously.

The head lolled back and forth, as if killing time. He said, "Go ahead. Tear it up."

Smiling, the Actor gripped his contract, the one that detailed the terms of enslavement for his very soul, and pulled hard, but it didn't rip. He tried again—it would not tear. "Ah!" my friend shouted and leapt forward, pushing the contract into the gas flames. It would not burn.

The giant head looked down, so close to the Actor's head, it looked like he was about to lick his soon-to-be pet.

"There is nothing on earth that can destroy it," the head said. "Accept it."

"It… wait…" my friend said, his voice far away.

"Come on!" I shouted, and I ran for the door, but the moment I did, we were met with thudding sounds on the other side of it. When I pulled it open, I saw a wall of vacuum robots stacking in front of us—more coming behind them, at least three deep—each with their red lights burning, sparks shooting from their tiny electric prongs.

I heard the burst of laughter behind me.

"Where would you go?" the head asked. "Let's wait out these last few minutes together, shall w—" The head suddenly looked off to its left, muttering to someone off camera.

I turned to the Actor, my mind racing. "I have an idea," I whispered, but he wouldn't look at me. The expression on his face was slack, empty. "But we've got to get out of this room."

He said nothing, so I jumped up and ran to the windows.

"Ah, sorry, OSHA regulations prevent the windows from opening higher than the fifth floor," the head said as it fit a Bluetooth device into his ear. "Why don't you just sit on the couch. I believe there's a small fridge there… free sodas!" he said and popped his eyebrows.

I leapt back to the Actor's side and looked at the door. It was the only way we were getting out of there. But with fifty evil Roombas blocking it?

The head put its hand over the tiny microphone at his mouth. "I took the liberty of liquidating Marge's contract a moment ago since it seems she was becoming a troublesome employee. The facility is under emergency control for the next few moments. Mine."

"We've got to break through that door," I whispered to the Actor.

He looked at me, put a hand on the side of my face, and slowly shook his head. "It's over, man. I'm sorry. I don't think he's going to let you leave this place either."

"It's not over! When you've got friends, it's never over!"

The Actor mumbled, "You got a friend with a battering ram?"

"Oh," the head said, looking over. "Speaking of your friends, I've been informed Mr. Hood has the young lady and that dreadful old man. Listen, he's about to kill them—I wanted to bring it up on video, but naturally, he's in a dark area. Don't need recordings like that getting out." The head tapped on the tiny mic, and I could hear his booming voice, outside the room on a speaker system. "Hood? If you can hear me, I'm nearly wrapped up here. It's been a very good day, so why don't we meet at Spago's, eight o'clock for a celebration dinner?"

"Hey!" The Actor had triggered an idea in my mind, and I shouted at the head. "I want to get a message to our friends."

"No, no," the head said. "They'll be dead soon. You can talk to them then, unless some demon is pouring hot lava down your throat, of course."

I gulped.

I tried again. "Wait! You said you owed me a favor."

"I did not."

"Fine," I said. "You said your side owed me a thanks, at least, so let me say goodbye, and you and me, we're square. Even."

The head smiled. "You've got chit with one of the most powerful fundamental forces of the universe… and you want to use it to say goodbye?"

I shrugged. "They're my friends."

He sighed and stared up at the ceiling again. "So be it. What's the message?"

* * *

The compactor's top doors slid open. Heavy and greasy, the hydraulic controls squealed as some bit of computer or discarded metal table scraped across the side of the chamber below.

Uncle Jerry looked down. "That don't look too comfortable."

Anza shook her head slowly, locked onto her friend's face instead of what was waiting for them below. "I miss Dan," she said softly. "I should never have left home."

"Well, call me selfish," Uncle Jerry said and put a hand on her shoulder. "I'm glad you're here with me." His smile faltered, then he stammered. "I mean, I don't mean that I'm glad you're about to be crushed to death with me, you know. Far from it, I mean—"

"I know what you mean," she said and rose up on her tiptoes to kiss his cheek.

Hood returned and waved his hands at the muscular, blue-clad guards holding Anza and Uncle Jerry. He looked down then turned back to the far wall. Lifting a red cover, he made a waving motion with his hand.

The two guards stared for a moment.

Hood rolled his eyes. "Throw them in!"

They fought against the men as they edged closer and closer to the lip of the compactor below.

Then the booming voice returned. "Hood, if you've not destroyed them, their friend wants to pass along a message. Let's do this and be done."

The CEO of FriendBook growled and put up one hand, flat. There was no way to communicate from outside the building so he could key back with an emphatic "No!" Instead, he just waited for it to be over. He had things to do.

The voice continued. "Raz says… you are two of the best friends he's ever had." Then just off mic, they heard, "Hell, is it all going to be this sappy?" Louder again, it said, "He says he's sorry he put all of you on this path a year ago… but doesn't regret a moment of it. Except… the bit where you're all going to die now. But you will forever be his friends. Are you finished, please? Last thing, wrap it up." The booming voice cleared its throat. "Finally, he says, just remember, when the going gets tough, the tough… what does that even mean? Fine, fine! When the going gets tough, the tough gear up."

Anza and Uncle Jerry looked at each other, tears streaming down their cheeks. Some of those tears were because they were about to die, but most were because their friend, who was obviously facing the same fate, wanted to tell them, in his way, that he loved them.

Still… it was an odd thing to say.

"Gear up?" the old pilot asked her.

Anza shrugged but smiled sweetly.

There was another loud crackle over the booming loud speaker. The voice cleared its throat and, at first speaking off mic, said, "Yes, yes. Doesn't make any more sense. I've got it, I've got it! He says, just remember, when the going gets tough, the tough…. giddy up."

* * *

A mile away from the compound, hidden by a thicket of forest by the road, an engine roared to life.

* * *

Hood waited for a moment, listening to see if there was any more to the message. There wasn't.

"Okay, throw them in."

Anza and Jerry again struggled against the two men pushing them forward, but it was no use. They were too strong. Seconds later, both fell into the compactor, landing hard. The hydraulic gears began working again, and the sky slowly disappeared.

* * *

"Two minutes now," the floating head said, humming to itself.

I stood up and motioned for the Actor to follow me.

He shook his head. "What are you doing?"

Grabbing his arm, I pulled him toward the side of the door. Outside, the whirring of robots hummed like the sound of thousands of angry hornets.

"Why are we standing here?" he asked, eyes blazing.

"It's best we stand out of the way."

A fraction of a second later, the door burst open. Shards of wood and metal and bits of robotic vacuum sprayed across the room. The air was instantly filled with smoke, a roar of engine, and the smell of oil, grit, and fuel—but not the sort we would find anywhere on earth.

"Hey, Boo," I said and smiled at the motorcycle, which spun and faced the door. The Actor was staring, wild-eyed, and I grabbed him, pushing him toward the bike. "Get on!"

"What are you doing?" The floating head grew larger, turning a slight tinge of red. He then laughed, again looking up toward the ceiling. It was clear, somewhere on his end, there was a clock he'd been watching. "There's no point! There's nothing you can do to destroy the contract. Accept that. The deal is done!"

"Move, Bucephalus, ground floor!" I shouted as I felt the Actor's grip slacken behind me. With one hand on the handlebars, I reached around to steady him. "Hold on, man."

The motorcycle shot forward, rocketing through the detritus of evil mechanized vacuums it had created moments earlier. But they weren't all smashed or disabled—dozens of them, up on their spindly legs, raced toward us.

The bike arched and dodged as we went round and round and round down the spiral staircase.

"I don't feel so good!" the Actor yelled over the bike's engine.

I felt one of the robots reach for me, its metal leg scraping across my arm. "Motherfucker!" I screamed and realized it wasn't trying to get at me. They were after the Actor.

My mind spun as we continued to circle the tower, moving farther down. "If we can get to the ground—" I said but then saw sparks flying and heard the gunfire.

I looked down to the left. On the hill, Sally was running forward, guns in the air, shooting at us. Just minutes to go, she had also targeted my friend.

"Sally, don't!" I screamed as the motorcycle went around and around and around.

"I'm sorry!" she shouted, and even at that distance, I could see the expression on her face. She meant it. "Can't let him live. Time's 'bout up."

She fired again, and I heard the bullet whiz past the back of my skull, barely missing the Actor.

"I have an idea!" I shouted back. "Give us a chance!"

A bullet ricocheted off the handlebars. I felt the Actor begin to pull away from me slightly, heard him groan and weaken. When I turned, I could see two of the evil Roombas had a grip on him, their remaining metal legs dragging behind us, shooting sparks in the air.

We lurched as another leaped onto the rack at the back of the bike, wrapping four of its legs around the Actor, pulling hard. My fingers tightened on his jacket, but they were weakening, bone white with the strain.

Another hail of bullets, one of them grazing the Actor's arm, spraying blood across my thigh.

"Sally, please!" I shouted, tears blurring my vision. If I can just get to the bottom…

The firing stopped, albeit briefly, and even that far away, I saw something on Sally's face change, then she started to shoot again.

I felt the Actor hitch and, in the mirror, saw sparks burst from the side of the clutching machine that held him from behind. It exploded. When I turned, I saw bullets flying, smashing into another one of the metal creatures, and it flew off, smoking as it fell to the ground.

The Actor looked at me with a dazed expression, a tiny smile at his lips. He looked down at the contract in his hand and again started trying to tear it up. "It's no use!" he shouted to me.

"Hold on!" I called back.

We were seconds from the ground, and I looked over and saw Sally firing wildly, knocking the evil Roombas away from us. Finally, we were out of their grip, several of them leaping off and running toward Sally.

A moment later, we hit the ground with a thud and skidded to a stop.

The door to the red room was open. On the lounger was a magazine stained with red-black goo that had spread, dripping onto the floor.

Getting off the bike, I mumbled, "When they liquefy a contract…"

The Actor slid off the bike, and I ran inside the room. I thought if I could destroy the headgear it would at least buy us some time, but when I ran into the room, the turrets returned, taking aim and stopping me in my tracks.

I turned toward the Actor and saw that the smoldering robot, which had fallen, was damaged but not destroyed. Its red light grew brighter as it stalked toward the Actor, who backed up toward the circular wall.

I shouted to him and started to move to help, but when I did, the turrets fired a line of bullets, blocking my path. Above the door, I saw a large digital clock.

It was flashing all zeros. Time was up, and we had lost.

He was frozen, eyes wide, back against the wall.

I shouted, "Run! Run, man!"

He looked at me, mouth hanging open, and slowly shook his head.

Where would he run to?

I heard more shots ringing out, but I could hear the weapon firing it. Sally had reached the landing, just above us. The damaged robot extended its metal prong, shooting a bolt of electricity into the Actor's chest.

He buckled, and his eyes went white.

"Oh god, oh god," he muttered.

I knew what he was seeing. The visions of hell we'd been shown at the top of the tower. Or worse. "Oh god, oh—"

I took another step forward and shouted again for him to run, but the turrets fired once more, that time closer. Smoke and cement dust rose in front of me, and I watched him through the haze.

Two more of the robot arms reached out and lifted him off the ground.

Behind me, the lounger shifted, and the headgear came to life, white rivers of light flowing to it, preparing for its next mind.

When I turned back to the Actor, held aloft by spindly legs, his head lolled to one side, and he got a strange expression on his face. Doomed to his unspeakable fate, he smiled.

Outside, I heard an old man yell.

Then there was a brief shadow as Uncle Jerry swooped in—swooped?—being carried by wings that weren't his own. He pulled back his arm and thrust it forward, driving it into the evil Roomba and, incredibly, splitting it down the center. He shouted, "Ginsu!" and raised his hand in the air, then disappeared out of sight.

The Actor lay on the ground, a foot away from where he'd been a moment ago. Slowly he got to his knees. Then, just behind where he was kneeling, his contract still clutched in his damp, bloodied fingers… I saw something.

In the reflection of some black paneling, Sally was fighting off charging robots, but something was also in the air, swooping and diving. Uncle Jerry was being carried by—Angel! He's alive!

Again, my old friend shouted, "Ginsu and Ginsu to you too!"

But I could see more of the robots entering the area, coming from all directions, red lights bobbing along as they marched toward us.

"Sally!" I shouted and saw her dark reflection turn to me. "Shoot the Actor!"

"Wha…?" my friend asked, his eyes drooping.

"What?" she shouted back.

No time to explain, I shouted again, "Shoot him! Do it now! We're out of time!"

He looked at me, slowly shook his head, and said softly, "Razzie…"

Then came the hail of bullets, Sally growling as she did, and the Actor was flung back, the bullets flying around him. Some passed through his body. The ones that didn't landed directly in the ring at the edge of room.

These ain't everyday bullets. Each has a wee bit of hellfire in 'em!

When those hellfire bullets hit the ring, it burst with light, flames jutting ten feet into the air. The Actor had collapsed next to it, bleeding and shaking, and he looked at me, shrinking away from the intense heat.

"Into the fire!" I shouted. "Throw the contract into the hellfire!"

He turned, lifted his small hand soaked with blood, and flipped his contract out of his fingers. The papers briefly rose in the updraft of intense heat, hit the flames, and turned to ash.

The room around me darkened, pitch-black. I looked up at the turrets, which hung slack, their ends drooping toward the ground.

The Actor stared at me as a pool of blood grew beneath him.

I ran out of the room and shouted, "Angel, quick! We need you. He's dying!" Kneeling by my friend, I put my hand on his. With the other, I pulled some of his moppy hair out of his face.

He weakly spit out some blood. "This is better."

"No, man—"

"It's okay," he said. "I've seen… trust me, this is better." He closed his eyes.

I screamed and again shouted, "Angel, we need you!"

The Actor stopped breathing.

Above me, the lights dimmed, and I heard the snapping of what sounded like a flag. Then I realized it was angel wings.

A figure ran up beside me, kneeled down, and placed its hand on the Actor's chest. It was Anza. "Stay with us," she whispered, her dark eyes clear and fierce. "Stay with us, my friend."

The Actor lay still, and she closed her eyes, her lips moving. I knew what she was doing and felt a small measure of shame. Of all the troubles I'd faced recently, there hadn't been one time—

The Actor sucked in a breath.

"Dude!" I shouted.

Then another. He opened his eyes slowly and smiled.

We pulled the Actor to the side of the tower and propped him up in a sitting position. He coughed a few times, spit out some blood, then he looked at me. "This was your idea?"

"Well," I said, trying not to cry. "We were desperate. We needed Sally's hell bullets to reignite the fire ring."

"So, why didn't you just tell her to shoot the ring?"

I looked up to see Sally and Uncle Jerry on the ledge, looking down at us. Both of them were laughing, smiling.

"Woulda taken too much to explain," I said. "But yeah, that probably would have been better. I was panicking—my best friend was in trouble."

He chuckled. "That's some fucked-up logic. Don't ever try to save me again," he said and cleared his throat.

My motorcycle rolled up to us, its engine giving us a quick growl. I nodded. We weren't safe anywhere near the building. Time to go. But before that…

I turned to Anza, who was again standing. Her wings, yes wings, had not yet retracted. She grinned like a madwoman, trying to look casual about what had just happened.

"So," I said. "You're an angel."

"Cool, huh?" she said. "But now I'm going to have to tailor all of my clothes!"

I laughed and gave her a quick hug. Then I loaded the Actor onto the back of Bucephalus and got on myself.

"Hold on," I said as I gunned the motorcycle, and he gripped my sides as Bucephalus went straight up the wall.

Even over the roar of the bike, I could hear him say softly, "Best friend."

Chapter Thirty-Five

Boo took me and the Actor down to where we'd originally parked then went back for Anza, Uncle Jerry, and Sally. Anza was all smiles holding onto the handlebars. Sally was riding behind her, and our pilot friend on the carrier, kicking his feet out like a little kid. When they stopped, they all got off slowly.

Anza smiled. "I never have been riding a motorcycle myself before!"

"Well, to be fair," I said and hugged her, "Boo does most of the driving."

Sally raised her pistols at me. "You ever call her that again, and I will shoot ya."

I put my hands up and smiled. I looked around, searching—then up.

Uncle Jerry came around the bike and looked at Anza. "So, spill it."

"What?" she asked with a big, beautiful smile. Then she said, "I don't know. Maybe it was something that Angel was passing onto me when he died," she said then frowned. "Or maybe it was something I had in me. I don't know any of the rules. A rule book would be good."

"Who needs it, lady? You've got wings!" Uncle Jerry said and looked at her back. "I wouldn't arm wrestle with her when they come out. She's got a hell of a wallop. She punched through three-inch iron like it was nuthin'."

"Right," I said, staring at her, shaking my head.

"Which reminds me," Uncle Jerry said, pulling out his knife. "I think the guys that make this knife need a new commercial. Cuts through tomatoes, tin cans, and—"

"Evil vacuuming robots!" the Actor finished for him.

"Right!" Uncle Jerry said and wrapped his arms around the other man, briefly lifting him off the ground.

* * *

It took a few trips back and forth, but we arrived at a ranch property about fifty miles away from the FriendBook headquarters. Sally said she had several of the properties up and down the state, which she used during her downtime.

While not exactly a friend, Sally no longer had any reason to pursue the Actor, so they shared a beer while they talked by the fire. When he was half-finished with his, she pointed at the hearth. At her insistence, he threw it, and it exploded on the hot stone, the remaining beer sizzling.

I brought him another and patted him on the shoulder.

He was planning on leaving Hollywood behind. It hadn't been a tough decision.

"They're assholes," he said, words slurring slightly. "That's not even where the industry is going anyhow." He burped. "China. They're the fastest-growing entertainment market. I'm headed there, get in on the ground floor."

Uncle Jerry said, "Well, you've got the advantage."

The Actor turned to him. "Really? Is that a short joke, Uncle Jerry?"

"Nah," the old man said. "I mean you're very talented, man."

The Actor spun from the fire and looked at him, lifted his beer in a toast, and turned back.

Uncle Jerry turned to me with a big, devilish grin.

"You know, I'm told it's all about status… in the land of the rising sun," the Actor said.

"That is Japan," Anza said, shaking her head.

"Whatever," the Actor said. "But when I'm over there, I'll need to do a lot of traveling. Having your own pilot, that's gotta be a thing, right?"

"Right," Uncle Jerry said, nursing his own beer. He shrugged. "What the hell? I got nothin' better to do right now."

Sally didn't do much talking but let us know she was between jobs, so would be happy to take a load off for a while and we were welcome to stay at the ranch, but that welcome would be short-lived. Very gracious of her despite Bucephalus having taken to me and there seeming to be no way to change its mind. If it had a mind.

I looked over at Dan's wife.

"What?" she asked.

I shrugged. "Did you know? I mean, did you know that, you know, you were an angel?"

She laughed. "Part-time, I suppose," she said. "And no, this I did not know. I think maybe Angel had been… helping me."

Uncle Jerry crossed his arms. "I think they call that grooming."

I winced. "No, I don't think they call it that, totally different thing," I said. "So, this is you now? That mean you can't hang out with us sinners anymore?"

"Pah," she said, waving a hand. "Angel was a drag queen most of the time. Only a little bit of time, I would say, was he doing the other thing. He had a real life but…" She stared out the window into the darkness. "When someone was in trouble, I think then he helped. I like that idea."

"So, you're going home?"

She nodded. "Yes. I am thinking I should have never left. But I got… you know… spooked."

Uncle Jerry laughed. "Didn't you say that Dan was all hell-affiliated now?"

"Just his job," she said, holding a finger up. "But he will be getting a new one, yes."

"For now, though," I said, "you've got a devil and an angel living under the same roof."

"Part-time," the old pilot corrected me and sipped his beer.

Anza smiled. "From the start," she said and shrugged, "it has always been a mixed marriage."

"Ha," I said. "I think you guys give a whole new meaning to that term."

"What about you, Razzie? Where do you go from here?"

I stood to look out the window. Such beautiful, peaceful country. I could use some time to rest. What I needed, in the end, was more than a hundred thousand dollars to pay off Enrique so I didn't wake up dead one day. "I dunno," I said. "Maybe I'll go back into Radio."

The Actor scoffed. "Radio's dead."

"Maybe I'll go to Hollywood, see if I can break in, then."

He turned to me. "You do that and you're dead to me."

Then, the joy in me faded as reality came crashing back. I said, “I’ve got to go back into hiding. I still owe Enrique $173,217. Plus whatever interest he’s tacked on. I don’t—”

“Ah, well,” my pilot friend said, tapping his lower lip with a thumb. “I may be able to help you on that point. When me and Angel ditched the plane, I decided I’d earned a little bit for, ah, services rendered.”

“What does that mean?” Anza asked.

“Back at your place, I stashed a green case I’d been given to take to some guy down in Nicaragua or Guatemala. Some -gua or -ala place. It’s stuffed full of dough, so it’ll be just like paying that prick back with their own money.”

I nodded. “Win-win?”

“Something like that, yeah,” Uncle Jerry said. “So, Razzie… whaddya gonna do?”

"What about…" Sally said, her words easing out in a long, whiskey-fueled drawl, "you help me with my motorcycle for a spell? I can pay you. I got plenty of dough."

I turned toward Sally and nearly bust out laughing. "What? You want me to be your driver?"

She spun in her armchair, throwing a leg over the armrest. Pushing the tip of her hat up with one finger, she smiled. "Yeah. I hear tell that having your own driver is a type of… status symbol," she said. "From what I heard."

Laughing, I shook my head at the thought of me being a chauffeur to a woman who was contracted by Satan to hunt people down and fill them full of bullets, hellfire bullets.

I said: "Sure."

THE END

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Hell inc.

Chapter One

The wind gust hit me like a drunk stepfather, and I fell forward.

On all fours and exhausted, I struggled to keep from collapsing into the pools of rain in the long, shallow trenches time had clawed out of the dirt road beneath me.

The hidden beasts beyond the clouds were still tossing their electric balls to one another like some threat. I knew somewhere in my head it was just lightning, however, they now seemed content to limit their play to the part of the sky behind the dark man.

Naturally I couldn’t see his face, which was probably the point. Asshole probably thought it made him look cool or something, all backlit and spooky.

And I dunno… it kinda did.

Craning my neck up to look at him, I tried to pull his face, an expression, out of the darkness but didn’t try too hard. His was a face you weren’t supposed to see unless everything went real bad. Thankfully, when the sky flashed, all I could make out was the brim of his hat.

He may have spoken by that point. I don’t remember.

“Either way,” I answered. “I don’t…” I collapsed into a coughing fit. He waited until I was done, mainly because it seemed like he enjoyed watching me experience this very basic discomfort.

Maybe it reminded him of old times or early days. The simple pleasures.

Because it doesn’t seem like the Devil on Day One was all about burning souls for all eternity and all that. First morning on the job, he probably drummed up a couple hay-fever attacks, maybe someone got popcorn stuck in their teeth with no floss handy, a couple of light bruisings.

I lifted myself back off the road.

The only things that moved were his hands as they slowly manipulated the top of his walking stick. Where the stick met the road, there was some meshing or a bumper that stopped it from digging too deep into the Mississippi mud.

Then, I tried again: “I don’t know how it… works.”

Pitiful as it was, this made him laugh—an awful sound that trailed off into the sky, folding itself into a roll of thunder. This made the damp, dead grass tremble, and for a brief moment individual blades shed fat drops of rain; the ground on either side of the road appeared to burst with starlight.

Then, dark again.

“Seriously, man—” I said.

“Of course, you know how it works,” he said. “That’s why you came.” Silent for a moment, I could feel his eyes on me, taking me in. “What’s your name, boy?”

“I dunno… I thought you’d know that.”

With a twitch of his hand, he lifted his walking stick, and through the torrent of rain, I felt a dull throb of pain where my neck met my skull. It rose like a fever and then washed over me.

“Don’t fuck with me,” he said flatly, as if he’d just ordered a cheese sandwich or something. “Me, I know your real name. The names you had before you were born to this shithole, that is. Hell, y’all don’t even know that much. What do they call you ’round here, is what I was asking. What is your name?”

“Raz,” I said. ”My mother called me Rasputin. Named after some—”

“Shut up. Don’t care.”

“Got it.”

“Raz,” he said, a smile in his voice. “Ha! That is one fucked-up name you got. Goes well with your fucked-up life, I suppose. And your fucked-up wife.”

My fists turned to balls, and this time I looked up at him, caught his eyes. I wanted to hit him. But I knew better. At least, I knew now was not the time. Not when I needed something from the prick.

That aside, who throws a punch at the Devil?

That seemed like a lose-lose scenario to me, so I kept my knuckles buried deep into the Mississippi muck.

The dark man let out a big breath of air, like he’d been holding it for a long while. It stank like he’d been licking a dog’s ass half the day, then ate a corndog found in the back of a refrigerator three months past its sell-by date and washed it down with some warm Clamato.

Couldn’t hit the guy, but I could at least rag on him. If only in my mind.

“Okay, so, me I’m not an accountant or anything,” he said, his words tumbling down onto my head, “but… I don’t have to be. Got a fuckload of accountants. Christ, we’re up to our collective assholes in accountants, truth be told. And lawyers. And more recently, corporate ‘brand ambassadors.’”

By the way, no joke, the Dark Lord of the Underworld, Satan himself, actually used air quotes with his long fingers when he said that last bit.

“Whatever,” I said. “Like I care about your overcrowding issues. Just tell me: What do I have to do?”

The stick went up again, but he didn’t strike me. Instead he said: “If you’d just— Damn it, your kind does not listen! That’s your big problem. Everything’s about you, you, and you.”

My arms were weakening, so I locked them to prevent myself from collapsing, but I couldn’t hold my head up any longer. Dropping it, my chin hit my chest, and I closed my eyes and listened as the rain poured down my face.

“Gotta check what it’s worth,” he said. “What you’re puttin’ up here—barter, right? That’s the plan?”

He stood up to leave, and I snapped my head to where he’d been sitting earlier. He was gone from the stump.

“Right,” I said. “Yes, that’s the plan.”

“You’ll know,” he said, standing next to me now. “We’ll have one of our people reach out.”

I nodded, then nodded harder so he was sure. “Yes, yes. Whatever, yes!”

He chuckled, the laugh dry and heartless. “You don’t even know the deal yet, but you’re already saying yes to some accord?”

“Yes, yes,” I said, spitting out water and snot. Raising my head, I still couldn’t see his face. My eyes wide, I said again: “Yes.”

He took a few steps, but I couldn’t tell which direction.

“Don’t work that way, Raz. Wish it did, but there are rules,” he said. “But let’s say you and me, we’ve got a tentative agreement. You gotta sign off on the final still.”

My chest began heaving. I was sobbing. “Yes! Christ, yes! I’ll do it.”

For the first time, I saw a part of his face. Just his mouth, really. He smiled wide. “Not yet. But real, real soon. It will all come together real soon.”

I yelled with what little strength I had left. “You… but you promise to do your part? That’s how it works, right?”

“Sure, of course. As long as you meet the terms. Need to run the numbers, and then—”

“Just save her,” I screamed at the smug prick. “It’s eating her up from the inside, and you fucking probably put it there in the first place.”

“You lookin’ to blame someone for your wife dying, you gotta look up, not down, little brother. Not my thing, Raz.”

Leaning on an elbow, I cocked my finger and pointed at him. “This is exactly your thing!”

“There are concentric circles, sure, but… nah. I don’t get into that line of work. Me, I’m more of a global mover.”

He was gone again, slipping away from my sight, my outstretched hand just hanging out there in the rain. A moment later, I felt his breath on my neck.

“Listen, you know what they say about pointing fingers?” he said, grabbing mine with a hand that was both ice cold and warm. His other hand, bone white, appeared in front of my face.

With that hand he merely pointed at my forehead as if it were a gun, then pulled back his thumb, cocking the hammer. “When you point a finger at somethin’, you got three pointing back… and one at God.”

The rain stopped as if a spigot had been twisted shut. There was a final low rumble off in the sky somewhere, but the lightning was gone.

Then everything turned black as a deep, deep hole in every direction.

Finally collapsing, wet gravel dug into my cheek but before I passed out, his voice drifting toward me one last time.

“My people… they’ll reach out sometime tomorrow. Then the clock will be ticking, Raz. You better get your rest.”

And with that, I was seconds away from passing out in the middle of a lonely, rain-soaked dirt highway in bumfuck Mississippi.

Some “Crossroads.”

Not that it mattered. I had already proven them wrong! They said she couldn’t be saved.

They said “say goodbye to her” and things like “it’s just her time.”

They said there was nothing that could be done, and they were wrong.

Wrong!

At least… shit.

I damn well hope they were wrong.

Upon brief reflection, as I passed out shivering and coughing, it occurred to me that I may not have thoroughly considered the totality of my actions before green-lighting my plan.

I had just made a deal with the Devil to save my dying wife.

Me.

Damn.

Chapter Two

The next morning, I woke up slowly, frying under the Mississippi sun and caked with Mississippi dirt.

Given the circumstances—that is, if evolutionary forces had been aligned in my favor—one might have guessed that, sensing imminent danger, I’d have instantly sprung up, crouching like a tiger dragon, ready to test my fight-or-flight instincts.

But no.

I’d fallen asleep, lying facedown on a muddy highway in rural Mississippi, and my mind was slowly drifting back into my skull as if I had no cares in the world.

As if there was nothing that should concern me. Nothing at all.

Like the fact that I was lying facedown on a muddy highway in rural Mississippi.

Ultimately, it wasn’t the sun beating down hard that finally woke me. A deplorably early riser, the sun had already been up for hours.

I wasn’t even stirred by the binaural hum in my left ear, which turned out to be two small black flies that had found a dark place to express their forbidden love.

And it wasn’t the choking dust, which had risen up again after the sun had burnt away last night’s rain. That put the humidity somewhere around what you might expect to find if you tested the gap between the plastic seat and the taint of a 350-pound NASCAR fan during the final lap of the Daytona 500.

No, what actually pulled me from sleep’s embrace was the sensation that my balls were being jiggled.

And it seemed, for the first time in months, I wasn’t the jiggler.

It took me a full ten seconds to finally process all this, but when I did, my body instinctively flipped over.

“What the fu—?”

Then I was on my feet, unsteady and momentarily blinded by the sun.

I ached everywhere but managed to swing my arms in the air, hoping whoever had been digging in the front pockets of my shorts would feel the wrath of my fists.

They did not, in fact, feel my fists’ wrath.

I stood there, eyes like slits, swinging my arms like an angry drunken orchestra conductor.

A gravelly voice tumbled toward me. “Aww, you ain’t dead.”

“What?” I said. “No!”

“Shit, I thought you was dead.”

Cracking one eye a little farther open and shielding my vision with a dirty hand, I saw an old woman, heavy and sweating, baking in the sun where she stood. Thick, bulky clothes despite the punishing heat.

She looked disappointed.

“Gross,” I said. “Weirdo. You normally go around jiggling the balls of seemingly dead men?”

She didn’t answer.

Stumbling a few steps out of the road, I found the stump the Dark Man had been sitting on the night before.

“I know this is a bit of a flash judgment on my part,” I said to her as she continued staring at me, “but if that’s your thing—ball-jiggling dead guys—you’ve got some deep-seated, emotional fucked-upness that you should probably address with a trained professional.”

She didn’t answer.

I plunked down onto the stump, and my sore legs briefly loved me as if for the first time. For a man of thirty-two, it didn’t seem like I should feel this old yet.

Could be that the previous night’s accommodations had been rather lacking.

Could be that many of my thirty-two were “hard-livin’ years” as George Jones had once put it. Or maybe that was George Thorogood. Possibly George Michael.

“I thought you was dead,” she said again. She started walking away, slowly and wobbly, in a way only old women can.

“You already established that little fun fact, ma’am.”

“Was looking to see if you had anything… worth having.”

“Wait,” I said, letting out a deep breath. “You were robbing me?”

Nice. That’d make it the second time in twenty-four hours.

“I thought you was dead.”

“That… you know, every time you say those particular words, my thoughts turn a little more violent. I’m not normally, but… you know—”

“You don’t got nothing anyhow worth taking,” she said, still wobbling away, but she hadn’t yet traveled more than a few feet. It must have taken her weeks to make it down the road to get to my balls.

“But you thought digging through my pockets, stealing from me, would be a good way to kick off your morning, huh?”

“Well, I thought you wa—” She cleared her throat. I stood up from the stump to follow her. She was slow, but my best guess was she at least knew the way back toward town. She continued: “You seemed like you wouldn’t miss whatever somebody else might find.”

The old woman ambled down the middle of the dirt highway. The sun at our backs, I matched her pace but still clung toward the edge of the road.

“I’m just trying to get a feel for the locals,” I said, my voice frayed at the edges. “So when you find a guy facedown, instead of, I don’t know, calling the police or a doctor… you fine folks jiggle the man’s balls.”

The buzzing in my ear had suddenly reached a crescendo, and realizing there were two insects having sex in my skull, I violently shook my head back and forth, trying to forcibly evict them from their love nest.

Not the wisest choice. This became clear when I found myself flat on my back, down on the dirt highway again.

Thankfully, in the torrent, the bug lovers had quickly checked out. For a brief moment, I felt a little cheap and used.

I made it back up to my feet, slower this time. The old woman was now about thirty yards ahead of me.

Crazy old bat can move when she wants to, damn.

When I finally caught back up to her, the effort it took drained any last bit of anger from me. We walked silently for a few minutes.

I thought about the previous night. As much as I could say that it seemed like a dream, I knew it was real enough. Having exhausted every effort to save my Carissa, as she’d saved me time and time again, I found I’d had no options left.

In fact, that very scenario had been explained to me in detailed medical terms. But still, when it came to my wife, that wasn’t good enough. So I’d ended up at the famed Crossroads to make a deal with the Devil.

And it seemed a deal had been struck.

Or a tentative deal.

My part, which was easily established, was wagering my soul. Whatever. Frankly, without Carissa, it didn’t seem worth very much anyhow.

The deal—or “accord” as he’d called it, all fancy-like—still wasn’t clear. He’d said something about his people getting back to me. Odd.

So in essence, I was only vaguely sure that I’d put my everlasting soul on the line, hoping to save my wife from her deadly disease.

Sure, it was selfish, in part. I just didn’t see the point of being here if she wasn’t around. As I said, she’d saved my life countless times—nearly every precious day we’d had together.

And she was—if you pardon the mushiness and potential irony, given my present circumstances—my soul mate.

If she were gone, I was essentially dead anyhow. It had taken me years to finally realize a humiliating fact about myself: I’m no good on my own.

Seriously.

If it had been me on that deserted island instead of Tom Hanks, I would have died within twenty-four hours. And fuck Wilson because a) he didn’t have any hands or anything, so he was no help at all, and b) he was a critical and bitchy little leather asshole. Total downer.

I freely admit the shortcoming, but at least realize my own Achilles heel. Most people never do.

And now the only partner I wanted in the whole world was dying in a hospital bed as I trudged along, frying in the late morning sun, next to an old woman who moments earlier was trying to rob my not-dead body.

Things were not going terribly well.

“How far is it back to town?”

The old woman sighed. “What town you trying to get to?”

“I don’t know… any town.”

Then she stopped and slowly turned toward me. Staring intently for a moment, she then twisted her head back to where I’d been lying, where she’d found me not dead. She looked back at me. “What the hell was you doin’ out here, then? You fall out your car?”

“I don’t own a goddamn car, haven’t for… It doesn’t matter.”

Walking again, she said, “And you say I got the deep-seated, emotional fucked-upness. I ain’t the one who falls asleep on dirt highways.”

“That’s not… those aren’t my usual accommodations. I passed out,” I said. “It was… You wouldn’t understand.”

“Oh, nah, dumb ol’ woman like me wouldn’t get you and yo’r big thinkin’ ways,” she said, all syrup and sass.

“I don’t mean it like that. It’s just… it’s kind of unbelievable.”

The old woman chuckled, deep and throaty. “Oh, I understand all right. Didn’t realize it at first. Don’t get so many out here no mo’,” she said and pointed a thumb back over her shoulder. “You thought you was at the Crossroads down here to make a deal with Lucifer hisself, right?”

My mouth opened, and my jaw hung there for a moment, then I closed it and said nothing.

“Boy, they ain’t no Crossroads,” she said in a manner better suited if she were rocking in an old chair on an old, dilapidated porch. And maybe smoking a pipe. Or whittling. Maybe whittling a pipe. Or smoking a whittle. She added: “That’s just a dumb ol’ legend some record company made up to sell blues records.”

“Okay, whatever.”

“Fine, believe whatchu want.”

She hadn’t been there the night before. This woman was someone who attempted to rob not-dead bodies for chrissake! What did she know?

Ahead, through the dust and haze coming off the hot road, I saw the first signs of several buildings. Shops.

Still, my fists were banging off my thighs at how quickly she’d dismissed my incredible, mind-boggling metaphysical experience from the night before.

“So, I talked to the guy,” I said. “Not that you’d buy that.”

“Talked to who?”

“The guy. The Dark Man. I came out here, damn right, to the Crossroads. And he was there, had this wide-brimmed hat. Waiting right there for me.”

She was quiet for a moment. “That was probably Randall.”

“No, it wasn’t a guy named Randall!”

“Fine. What’d he look like?”

“What? It was dark. And he’s, you know, the guy… so you can’t see his face. I think.”

“You didn’t see the man’s face?”

“No… ’cause, you can’t, right? It’s just black.”

She shot me a look.

“I mean, it’s dark. No light. You can’t see.”

She nodded slowly. “Sound like Randall.”

“No, no, and NO! Of all the things that could possibly be anyone called Randall, this guy was none of those things!”

“Uh-huh. So I’m guessin’ you came up on a guy in the middle of the highway you didn’t know, a face you couldn’t see, and you went and said you’d sell him your soul.”

“It… it’s way, way more complicated than that.”

“Yeah?”

“Yes!” I said. “He had this… stick.”

“A stick.”

“A walking stick. Very powerful. One tap, it sent these… bolts of pain right through me!”

“Right. A stick.”

“With… uh, I think it may have, sort of, had a tennis ball on the end of it. For the mud.”

“Uh-huh,” she said, looking toward me with a mocking, wide-eyed expression. “You right. Stick with a tennis ball on it? That sounds like some serious Old Testament shit right there.”

“Whatever.”

“So spooky!” She put her hands to either side of her mouth very theatrically, and I asked myself if I could live with having punched an old lady. “Boy, sounds like you met the Devil hisself!”

And all signs were pointing to yes.

“Stop talking,” I said. “Now. Okay? Please?”

Kicking up little swirls of dirt as we walked in silence, I watched the buildings form before us. One looked to be a diner, and the thought made my stomach growl.

I was hungry and so thirsty it was hard to swallow. Curling the toes of my right foot, I could feel my ID and credit card were still there. Hopefully the card hadn’t gotten too wet from last night’s storm.

“That there’s Wardoff. Sort of, uh, in between spots out here. Not a big place,” she said, nodding ahead. “Got a Kmart, though. Hardware store. Diner.”

“Great,” I said. Then: “Thank you.”

She nodded, and with that, we’d made some sort of unspoken peace.

I offered to buy her lunch at the diner—after all, she’d led me back to town— but she said she’d just stick to the road, whatever that meant.

With about ten minutes left of walking before we’d reach town, she coughed something up and spit it out. Cleared her throat.

“So, why would you come all the way out here, risk expirin’ in this heat? You obviously ain’t used to it. Just to offer up your soul to Randall?”

“It wasn’t any guy named Randall.”

A small smile bent her lips, and she raised her hands as if surrendering.

“Fine, not Randall,” she said, then paused and stopped. Her breathing was a little labored. I guess nobody really gets used to that kind of heat. “Well, hold on, now. You really wanted to make a deal with the Devil, din’t you?”

I nodded, eyes closed.

“Boy, why would you even consider that? You talking about your everlasting soul, now, ya hear? For what? For a chance to be a better guitar player or to discover the unified theory or something?”

“No, nothing like th— Wait, what was that last thing?”

“I read the science magazines at the dentist’s office. Not much else to do out in these parts.”

“Except rob dead guys,” I muttered.

She shrugged. “Certainly better than jigglin’ their balls.”

I laughed, and she gave me a smile. As we walked the final few minutes into town, I explained to her why I was willing to risk my eternal soul.

Don’t let the adventure stop there! Pick up Hell inc. now