Good Day In Hell. J.D. Rhoades

Stan replied. Roy flipped on a light as Laurel and Stan entered.

      Inside, the trailer was cramped and cheaply furnished. A pair of movie posters dominated the space over the ragged sofa. Stan glanced at them. “Hey,” he said, pointing, “I think I saw that one on TV one time. And isn’t the other one the one where that guy got killed filming it?”

      It took an effort of pure will for Roy not to pick up the shotgun and blow the kid’s head off to shut his stupid mouth. “Yeah,” he said. “Damn shame.”

      “Roy was in them two movies,” Laurel said proudly. “And a bunch of others, too.”

      “Wow,” Stan said. “No shit?”

      “Yeah,” Roy said. “No shit.” He turned to Laurel. “Fix us something to eat,” he said. “I got some work to do.” She looked for a moment as if she was going to argue about it, but she saw the look in Roy’s eye and closed her mouth. “Okay,” she said.

      Roy went down the narrow hall to the bedroom he’d turned into an office. The tiny space was crammed full with a bed, a dresser, and a battered rolltop desk shoved into one corner. On one wall was a pair of cheap bookcases filled with books on filmmaking, texts on acting, and biographies of Hollywood stars. One shelf contained a set of three-ring binders, and it was one of those that Roy took down as he sat at the desk. He called them his “shooting scripts,” and they contained the plans for each of his productions. He had scouted locations, mapped out entrances and exits, even drawn a few cmde storyboards of the scenes he envisioned. Some of those would have to be changed, he thought, as his eyes danced over the crude cartoonish images of mayhem he had drawn. He felt a sudden sharp pain in his head, like an icepick jammed brutally between his eyes. Roy gritted his teeth and rubbed his eyes, willing the pain to go away. After a few moments, it subsided to a dull throb. The headaches were getting closer together and increasing in severity. Laurel hadn’t rushed things by much. It was time to make his move.

      As if to reassure himself, he went to the desk and took an envelope out of one of the cubbyholes. He unfolded the paper inside and looked at it again, even though he had the words memorized by now. Inoperable…some experimental procedures…some chance of success… The letter tried hard to be optimistic, considering that it was a death warrant.

      For years Roy had held on, knowing that someday, somehow, he was going to make it back. The people who had used him, the people who had shoved him aside, would fall, and he would rise. It was an article of faith with him. Sometimes he imagined walking back onto the set, pausing for a moment in the doorway a all heads turned to look at him, a shadow backlit by the sun outside… the image faded. It wasn’t going to happen now. There wasn’t time.

      He considered the advantages that having a third player would give. The kid hadn’t had the rehearsal time that Roy and Laurel had, but he could do some of the grunt work, like driving. That would free up Laurel to take a bigger part in the production. That would make her happy for a while. Until it didn’t matter.

      Roy and Laurel had fallen in together because each of them saw their own fury mirrored in the other. Laurel had been Roy’s audience, the perfect sounding board for his vision of revenge. She was the closest thing he’d had to a friend in a long time. But in the end, she was expendable. When this was all over there’d only be one name on the headlines. It was tough, but that was show business.

      After dinner, Marie called Keller. He answered on the second ring. “Hey,” he said.

      “Hey yourself,” she said. “How’re you doing?”

      “I’m okay,” he said. “You?”

      “Fantastic,” she said. “I’ve got a chance to work a murder case.”

      She heard him chuckle at that. She laughed as well. “I know, I know,” she said. “Only a cop would call that luck.”

      “So,” he said, “that mean you’re working this weekend?”

      “Possibly,” she said. “Shelby--that’s the detective I’d be working with--says he’s going to try to get the overtime authorized. But I kind of have to stay around here. Can you come up?” Before he could answer, she added, “We’ve been invited to dinner with Shelby and his family.”

      “We?”

      “Yeah,” she said. “You and me. Like a couple.” There was a long pause. “You there?” she said finally.

      “Yeah,” he said. Then he laughed. “Dinner with the boss. It sounds so … normal.”

      “You say that like it’s a bad thing.”

      “No,” he said, “not bad. Just new for me. I haven’t lived what you’d call a normal life.”

      She thought back to her father’s words. “Maybe that’s good,” she said. “New things, I mean.” She paused for a moment. “I miss you, Jack,” she said. “I want to see you.”

      Another pause. “I miss you, too,” he said finally. “So yeah. I’ll be there. What time?”

      “Dinner’s at six-thirty,” she said. “Pick me up at six?”

      “Okay,” he said. I love you, she wanted to say. Instead, she said, “See you then.”

      Keller hung up the phone and stared at the wall of his living room for a moment. The walls were blank, the furniture simple, mostly thrown together castoffs. He had been about to tell Marie that he had a jumper to catch, that he had to work the case. But then Angela’s words had come back to him. Stay with it, she had said, you two are good for each other.

      He had been alone so long, he had no idea if he was any good for her or anyone else. He had spent the years since the war in a self-imposed limbo, wrapping himself in his own fury until it hardened into a kind of armor, protection against any kind of pain. It had made him pitiless, remorseless. It had given him the kind of fearlessness that comes with not caring whether he or anyone else lived or died. All of which had made him very good at his job.

      Then things had begun to change. First with Angela, then Marie. He had begun to feel again. The armor had begun to crack. For a moment, he felt a stab of fear. He marveled at that for a moment, like a fisherman who had hauled up some prehistoric creature from the depths. It seemed like eons since he had felt fear or doubt. He wondered if it would slow him down, cost him a step or a second of reflex. He wondered if it would get him killed.

      “What did it mean when you said ’Like we agreed?’” Stan asked.

      He and Laurel were lying in bed together. They were naked. He was on his back, staring, fascinated, at the darkened ceiling. It seemed to ripple and blur under his gaze. After the three of them had eaten, Roy had broken out a Baggie of crystal meth and cut several lines for each of them. Stan had never done meth before. The stuff burned his nostrils fiercely as he snorted up the fat lines. But the rush when it came was a hundred times more intense than the boost he had gotten from the laced joints before. It was like being shot out of a cannon. Stan’s heart felt like a car engine with the pedal jammed to the firewall. His thoughts rushed by him almost faster than he could capture them. In minutes, they were all flying high, Roy and Laurel jabbering about whatever came into their heads. Then Laurel took Stan by the hand and dragged him into the bedroom. He had glanced nervously back at Roy, but the older man had ignored them in favor of cutting out more lines. Once inside, she had giggled like a mischievous child as she yanked his pants down and pushed him back on the bed. The next few minutes had been a blur of images flashing in his head like a strobe as Laurel pulled her own clothes off and straddled him. She rode him hard and fast, gasping and tearing at the front of his shirt with her nails. As he groaned with his oncoming climax, she had leaned down and bit him on his cut lip, hard. He had screamed as he came, the meth rush combining with the pleasure and pain and the taste of blood in his mouth in a mind-shattering explosion.

      Afterwards, as they lay together, thoughts continued to zip through Stan’s head like fireflies. He hadn’t realized that he had spoken aloud until Laurel answered. “What’s that, honey?” she murmured,