Good Day In Hell. J.D. Rhoades

air rifle. It’s time he started learning some basic safety.”

      Marie felt her shoulders tighten. “Yeah,” she said. “Okay.”

      “Bullshit,” he said flatly. “It’s not okay. You get that look on your face every time I mention it. And I’m not going to do it if it’s going to upset you.”

      “He’s awfully young,” Marie said softly.

      “You were his age when I started teaching you to shoot,” he said.

      She laughed. “Yeah, well, my Dad was kinda weird.”

      He didn’t laugh back. He walked over to her and grasped her shoulders. “Kid,” he said softly, “it’s not that big a deal whether or not Ben gets an air rifle. But every time I bring it up, it shakes you up. Bad. Worse than it ought to. And I want to know why.”

      She looked away from his eyes. “I can’t talk about it, Dad,” she said.

      “That bad, huh?” he said. “Worse than what happened to Eddie? Because you can talk about that.” All she could do was nod.

      He took her chin in his hand and drew her around to look back at him. “Marie,” he said. “Sometimes a cop crosses the line. Sometimes he does things that only another cop can understand. And it’s important to know that someone understands. You know what I’m saying?”

      In her mind’s eye she saw a man standing, framed in the scope of her deer rifle, a cigarette lighter raised above his head. Had he lit it, he would have incinerated himself and everyone around him. She took the slack up on the trigger just like her dad had taught her, felt herself breathe out slow, squeezed, heard the report of the rifle…

      She jumped slightly. Her father, startled by the movement, let go of her shoulders. “I’m not ready, Dad,” she said. “I’m just not ready.” She wrapped her arms around him and buried her head in his broad chest. “I’m sorry.”

      Her father hugged her tightly. “Okay,” he said. “When you’re ready, then.” He pulled away. “Those chops are gonna burn,” he said.

      “Thanks, Dad,” Marie said softly. “Thanks for everything.”

      He waved it off. “Least I can do,” he said. “Go get Ben washed up.”

      Roy smiled to himself when he heard Stan’s muffled cry of release. The kid was shook up, out of his element. But he was also a homy sixteen-year-old. What Laurel was doing would bind the kid to them. Or at least, it would bind him to Laurel, and Roy could handle her.

      He drove the van back down U.S. 74, through the flatlands of Robeson and Columbus Counties, headed for the coast. Laurel stayed in the back with Stan.

      Roy thought about what was about to go down. He was about to claim what had been denied him for so long, what other people’s cowardice and deception had taken from him. He thought back to the days when everything had been opening up for him, when everything had seemed in his grasp. He had worked with the stars, and soon, he had known, he’d be one himself. Until the day when it all came crashing down. Because someone else couldn’t admit their own fuckup. Because it was easy to blame Roy. His knuckles turned white on the wheel. Soon, he thought to himself. Soon.

      Just before reaching the Cape Fear River bridge, he took one of the exits in the snarl of ramps that sorts traffic to the various coast roads. A narrow two-lane blacktop paralleled the river, headed down toward the town of Southport. A few miles down, he turned down a dirt road toward the river. Laurel rejoined him, clambering over the front seat.

      “He all right?” Roy said in a voice too low for their passenger to hear.

      She nodded. “It’ll be okay, Roy, I promise,” she said.

      “We ain’t pickin’ up every stray that comes along,” he said.

      She grinned. “Look who’s talkin’.” He didn’t reply. He turned down a dirt road in the direction of the river. A weathered sign announced COMING SOON, RIVERWOODE. LUXURY HOMESITES FROM. The bottom of the sign where the price range was written had rotted and fallen off.

      They bumped and jounced over the deeply rutted road until they came to a thick steel cable strung between two trees. Laurel grabbed a key ring from the glove box and hopped out. As she was undoing the padlock holding the cable, Stan appeared behind the passenger seat, peering out the front window.

      “Where are we?” he said. He looked dazed.

      “Home sweet home,” Roy said. “For another day or so at least.” Laurel got back in the van. She leaned back to peck Stan on the cheek.

      After another quarter mile or so, the road emptied out into a clearing. They were on the bank of the river. Wire grass and stunted bushes struggled up from the sandy soil. A double-wide house trailer sat at one edge of the cleared space. There was a prefabricated metal shed on the other side of the clearing. Roy pulled up next to the trailer. They all got out.

      “Wow,” Stan said, “you got a great view here.” He walked through the tall grass toward the riverbank. The Cape Fear River was broad and deep here. Far out on the channel, a massive container ship piled high with brightly colored rectangular boxes glided soundlessly up the river toward the port of Wilmington. Suddenly, Stan tripped. Then he seemed to become taller by a foot as he hopped up on something concealed in the tall grass.

      “Hey,” he called back. There’s a concrete slab here. Was somebody, like, building a house?”

      Rage flared white-hot behind Roy’s eyes. He opened the back of the van and reached for one of the rifles wrapped up on the floor.

      “Roy,” Laurel said. She put her hand on his arm. “Easy, baby. He don’t know.”

      Roy rested his hand on the gun for a moment as he throttled his anger back down.

      He had been working stunts, taking the falls that the insurance companies weren’t willing to let the more recognizable faces take. The film’s rising young star had been chafing to do more of his own stunts; it was a martial arts movie, after all, and he wanted to show off his skills. But in the cold calculus of moviemaking it was the faceless ones who got to take the real risks.

      Roy didn’t mind; he was still young and strong, and the money was great, especially for a farm boy from Duplin County. And he knew that, once he’d paid his dues and made the right connections, he’d be one of the faces on the movie posters. He’d ascend to the heights where it was Dom Perignon and blow jobs from starlets in the backs of limos every night on the way to the next premiere. And his picture in the magazines, every week. That would be the sweetest part. Everyone would know his face. He had the look. He had the talent. And when the bruises he took from being knocked into set walls left him limping and sore, he had the coke and the whiskey to put the pain someplace far away.

      Then it had all come down on him. His career had sputtered and died. He had been robbed. And now someone was going to pay while there was still time to collect.

      The kid came running up, out of breath. “Man,” he said. “What a great place.”

      “Come on in,” Roy said. “We got some things to do before show time.”

      They walked to the door of the trailer. Roy turned the key in the lock but only opened the door a couple of inches. He reached inside and loosened the noose of wire wrapped around the doorknob. He slipped it off and over the knob, then opened the door and entered.

      The interior of the trailer was dark, all the windows closed, and the blinds pulled down. A straight-backed wooden chair sat across the room facing the door. Bound to the chair with a weave of gray duct tape was a double-barreled shotgun pointing at the door. Roy walked over to the chair, winding the wire around his fist as he went. He unhooked the wire from a hook set in the far wall. The wire led around the hook back in the direction of the door, then was tied to the trigger of the gun. A person who cluelessly pulled the door open without stopping to unhook the wire would yank the wire taut around the hook and trigger, firing the gun and taking the full