Hell to Pay

by Dick Wybrow

  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 in
to 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 th
ink 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.