Chapter Nine
Consequences
Max is going through my overnight bag when I get back to Wink Hotel. My favorite part about this is that he doesn’t stop when I walk in the room.
“Hey,” he says. He pulls out my black Hugo Boss dress shirt, then holds it up to his nose and sniffs loudly.
“Dude. Stop.” I pull the shirt from his hands and toss it on the bed.
“I just love your scent,” he says in his chick voice.
“You and everyone else, my friend.” I drop down onto one of the queen-sized beds, sticking my hands beneath my head and crossing my ankles. “What are you doing here?”
“Came to pay my favorite collector a visit. That allowed?”
Max pulls out my shoes and holds them up to his own to see if my feet are bigger. I crumple up the Boss shirt and throw it at his face. “Stop being creepy, Max.”
“What? I’m looking for something to network in. I got to get laid, man. I mean, by someone other than your mama.”
I jump from the bed and fly across the room, my hands balled into fists.
“I’m screwing with you, dude.” Max raises his hands in defeat. “Sorry, bad joke.”
“Max, I swear I’ll break your cuff off if you ever mention my mother again.”
“You wouldn’t. You love me too much.” He gives me his car-salesman grin, and I cross the room and drop back on the bed. “Besides, who needs this damn cuff, am I right?”
For a fleeting second, I consider telling him what I know—the story of where our cuffs came from. But I won’t shatter the trust between Boss Man and me.
“So, how you doing with the girl?” he asks.
I glance at him from the corner of my eye. “How’d you know?”
“Are you kidding? Everyone knows. You’re the talk of the town, pretty boy.”
The fact that everyone knows about my assignment drives me crazy. Now it feels like there’s this huge spotlight on my back, and everyone’s allowed to watch.
I fill Max in on almost everything, including the part about the pink seals. But I decide not to spill about the collector outside Charlie’s house—mostly because I don’t want to sound paranoid. When I’m done talking, Max’s face goes slack. He pushes my overnight bag onto the floor and sits on the opposite bed. “I didn’t know that’s why Boss Man sent you to collect her. You really think she has the ability to cancel out our seals?”
I nod.
“What are you going to do?”
I place a hand on my forehead. The truth is I don’t really know what I’m going to do. I’ve proven to myself that I can push Charlie to sin. And I’ve already sealed her soul once. But how am I going to do it enough times to collect her in less than ten days? The weight of this assignment suddenly feels like it’s sitting on my chest, like a fat walrus just hanging out.
“Honestly? I’m not really sure,” I say. “But I’ve been thinking. Out of us six collectors, I’ve always been the top performer. I’ve brought Boss Man more souls in two years than others have in ten.” I look at Max. “No offense to the other collectors.”
He shrugs. “Ain’t no thing but a chicken wing.”
I laugh. Leave it to Max to make anything into a joke. “Anyway, I’m thinking Boss Man will spot me a few extra days if that’s what I need.”
The goofy grin on Max’s face falls. He runs a hand through his hair and turns toward me. “You’re not seriously thinking about asking for an extension.”
I shrug and pull my lips together as if to say. Why not?
“Dante, Boss Man will have a conniption fit if you don’t bring this girl in. He doesn’t want to chance a Judgment Day. It’s why he’s stuck you on her. So you gotta figure something out.”
“Like what?” I need him to have the answer, because right now, I feel clueless. Max is right; if Charlie died before being collected for hell, she’d go to Judgment Day, and she’d be a shoo-in for heaven.
Max rubs his chin and then the sides of his face, which aren’t as perfectly shaven as usual. “The Assistant gave me something.”
My heart stops beating for the second time in my life. Nothing good comes from Boss Man’s assistant. Whenever he’s too worked up to deal with something himself, he passes it off on her. And she does whatever’s necessary to get the job done.
Max stands up and reaches into his navy-blue sports coat. I feel my skin prick with sweat in anticipation. When he pulls his hand back out, he’s holding rolled-up pieces of paper. My muscles relax, and I release a breath I hadn’t realized I was holding.
It’s only paper. How bad can it be?
Max hands me the parchment. A red ribbon is tied around it. For a moment, I enjoy this simple pleasure, my fingers touching the silky red ribbon. Such a great shade of red.
I unroll the document and glance at Max. His face is contorted in an I share your pain kind of way. I glance down and read the first words that catch my eye. I realize I’m not breathing again. I’m not doing anything besides staring at the jumble of letters that open their nasty mouths and scream
SOUL CONTRACT.
I drop the contract in my lap. It’s useless. Someone like Charlie would never agree to an exchange. “Did you read this?” I ask him.
He pulls his mouth up on one side. That’s a yes.
“I didn’t know we used these anymore,” I say.
“Apparently we do,” he says gently.
“Have you ever—”
“No.” Max shakes his head. “Never.”
I stand up, and the contract drops to the floor. “What am I supposed to do? I can’t show her this. I’d have to expose myself. I’d have to expose all of us.” As I say this aloud, I wonder if it matters…if she already knows who we are. “She’ll freak out. She’ll think I’m lying. It’ll push her away.” I cross the room and stop in front of the hotel room window. “There are a thousand reasons why this is a bad idea.”
“I’m right there with you,” Max agrees. “But what can you do about it?”
“I’ll bring her in on time. The right way. There’s no way I’m risking our asses for this girl.” I turn from the window. “Besides, even if I needed to use it, it’d never work. This girl is so damn happy. She wouldn’t sell her soul for anything I could give her.”
“Well, if you didn’t like that, this is going to feel like a swift kick to the nuts.” Max fidgets with his jacket collar. “When the Assistant gave me the contract, she told me there’d be—how’d she put it—Donkey Dick–Sized Consequences if the girl wasn’t brought in on time.”
“Well, isn’t that just freaking wonderful. Consequences. There will be consequences.” Every time I say consequences, Max winces and nods. “Glad to hear the Assistant still has her sense of humor.”
So now my promotion—and who knows what else—is riding on this assignment. This is turning out to be a grand ole time. It’s not that I mind the added pressure. I thrive under pressure. No. I thrive under normal conditions. Under pressure, I blow people’s minds. Besides, what’s the worst they’d do? Deny my promotion?
I let that sink in—the realization that I could lose my only chance to escape the worst place anyone could imagine. Max is biting his fingernails. “Max?”
“Yeah,” he says way too loud.
“I’m going to bring this girl in. I don’t need the contract.”
Max smiles with his entire face. “There’s the guy who trained me, you sexy son-of-a-bitch. I knew you could do this. I told the Assistant, I said, ‘Do you even know who you’re dealing with here? Pfft. Pfft.’”
“You definitely didn’t say that.”
“Nope. I sure as hell didn’t. That woman would’ve cut my junk off. And I need my junk. Especially tonight. What with all the Peachville honeys I’m trottin’ with.” He pops his collar and struts toward the door, trying to make his usual dramatic exit.
“Max Turner, born a lady-killer, died a lady-killer…and damn it if he isn’t still lining ’em up and knocking ’em down.”
Max freezes at the door, his hand on the silver knob. He throws me a small smile over his shoulder. “I wasn’t always like this, Dante. People change when shit happens.”
He walks out the door, and I wonder what he meant by that. The only Max I’ve ever known is the guy he is now, so I don’t buy what he’s selling.
I reach inside my pocket and fumble for a second, fingering lint. Then I feel it—my penny. I pull it out and roll it between my thumb and pointer. The date and the word Liberty are misaligned. It’s called doubled die, and it happened over half a century ago in 1955, when workers at the Philadelphia Mint screwed up. Their error made this penny worth several hundred dollars. But for me, it’s not about the value.
It’s a lifeline to my past.
Shoving the penny back into my pocket, I pick the soul contract up off the floor. I don’t need to read the fine print. Like every other collector, I’ve heard the stories. And I’m sure I’m right about Charlie. That she’d never agree to it.
Which means exactly one thing: I’ve got to play this night like a P-I-M-P.
Chapter Ten
Red Dress
I pull up in Elizabeth Taylor at exactly 9:00 p.m. Fighting the urge to honk, I kill the engine and walk to the door, the garment bag folded over my arm.
After Max left my hotel room, I decided on classing it up for the party. I’m sporting my black Boss dress shirt—sleeves rolled up, of course—dark jeans, and my red Chucks. Even sprayed on my favorite scent, Safari. Because it’s a little dirty, like me. If Charlie doesn’t dig my get up, I’ll expose her for what she is: asexual.
Grams opens the door after I’ve knocked only once. I guess she was expecting me. Her eyes drink me in, and a smile finds her mouth. “If I didn’t know better,” she says, “I’d think the devil just showed up on my doorstep.”
Normally I’d laugh my ass off at the irony of this statement, but I’m strung out, so I feel like shoving a bright light in her face and screaming, “What do you know?!”
Instead, I smile as Grams puts an arm around my shoulder and leads me inside. I’m wondering if there’ll be a moment when Charlie glides down the stairs like she’s a completely different person. But nothing like that happens. Charlie is sitting at the kitchen table to my right when I walk through the entryway. She’s eating a bowl of cereal, looking like she always does—unkempt.
I walk into the kitchen with Grams hovering way too close. Charlie pushes her bowl away and stands up. There’s an awkward moment where we half-hug, half-fumble. Then Charlie spots the garment bag over my arm.
“What’s that?” Her eyes widen.
“It’s for you,” I answer, holding it out to her. “Open it.”
Charlie takes the garment bag and unzips the front. When she pulls out the red dress, Grams groans this long, “Ohhhh, myyyyyy Gaaaaawd.”
“You got this for me?” Charlie asks. I nod, and she twirls around with it held against her like she did in the store. “Should I wear it tonight?”
“That’s the idea,” I say, sitting down at the kitchen table.
“Grandma?” she squeaks.
“I’m right behind you, baby.”
Charlie and Grams head up the stairs toward her bedroom. Why it takes two people to put one dress on one body is beyond me.
Charlie’s bedroom door clicks shut, and a few seconds later, the doorbell rings. Grams sticks her head out and yells down the stairs, “Man Child! Can you get the door?”
I head toward the entryway and listen as Charlie tells her grandmother not to call me Man Child. When I open the door, Blue and Annabelle are standing on the other side. Blue is holding two movies and a pizza box. His pinched expression looks like he just smelled his own asshole.
I take a few steps away and say over my shoulder, “By all means, come on in.”
Annabelle swivels around my side and stands in front of me. Her mouth is pulled into a smile, but her voice holds a note of accusation. “You watching movies with us tonight?”
“Not exactly.”
“Then what are you doing here?” Blue mumbles.
I ignore Blue’s question because it isn’t worth answering. Annabelle is still standing in front of me, so I step around her and plop back down at the kitchen table. She must take this as an invitation to chat because she sits across from me. Blue lingers near the door, leaning against the stairwell railing.
“So if you’re not watching movies with us, what are you doing tonight?” Annabelle asks.
“I’m going to Taylor’s party.”
“Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.” She nods like this is a reasonable answer. “And who would you be going with?”
“I’d be going with Charlie.”
Blue doesn’t move, but I hear the click of his teeth slamming together. Annabelle must, too, because she glances at him and says, “Oh, come on. Is that really a surprise, Blue?”
She jumps from the table and heads across the entryway to a small den. Once there, she opens a closet door and searches for something.
“The mother lode!” she cries.
Annabelle holds a trunk the size of a microwave against her chest and wobbles back toward the kitchen table. I flinch when she drops the trunk on the table and beams at me. “In this trunk,” she says with a serious face, “is God’s gift to women.”
“Chocolate?”
“No.”
“Midol?”
“What? No.”
“Tampons.”
“Stop guessing,” she says. “In this box is Charlie’s grandma’s makeup stash. I’ve waited three years to bust into this thing. The time is now.” Annabelle unlatches the makeup box and lifts the lid ever so slowly. I half expect pixie dust to float out of the box in a twinkling, magical cloud.
Annabelle gasps when she finally peers inside. “It’s better than I ever could have imagined.” She pulls out mini racks of colorful pastes and powders. Grams may be a makeup guru, but she can’t apply it to her own face. Actually, it’s a case of applying too much. She doesn’t understand restraint.
“So you going to do Charlie’s makeup or something?” I ask. I’m hoping I’m right. The better Charlie feels tonight, the more trouble I can get her in.
“Charlie? No. This is my time. First I’m going to hook up with Bobbie Brown, woman of great mystical makeup powers…” She pulls out blue eyeliner and gives it a lustful look. “Then I’m going to hook up with Bobbie Davids, boy of great basketball skills.”
“What?” I say.
“What?” Blue echoes.
Annabelle stares at us like she can’t understand why we’re confused. “I’m going to make myself into a hottie, then make out with Bobbie Davids at Taylor’s party.” She brings the blue eyeliner to her eyes and leans toward a prop-up mirror. “I knew tonight was going to be awesome. I just had this gut feeling, you know?”
“Annabelle, you can’t go to Taylor’s party,” Blue says.
I’m glad Blue spoke up, because the last thing I need is Charlie’s crew ensuring she stays her same ole prude self.
“Who says I can’t go to the party?”
“Your lack of invitation says you can’t go,” he answers.
“Whatever. It’s not like there were formal invites or anything.”
I pull the orange envelope out of my pocket and lay it on the table.
Annabelle stops mid-stroke and stares at the invite, then at me. “You’ve got to be kidding me. She handed these things out? What is this, the sixteenth century?” She rips the invitation out of the envelope. “It says it’s for you plus a guest. I guess a guest means one, huh?”
Blue and I nod in unison. I’m glad we agree on one thing.
“What is she going to do, kick us out?”
We nod again.
“Bobbie Davids would see me kicked out on my ass.” Annabelle takes a second to think about this. “Well, what if I want to go, anyway?”
“Anna, don’t ditch me, all right?” Blue pleads. It’s a little pathetic, actually. But I try not t
o judge, since he’s doing me a solid.
“No, you’ll come, too!” Annabelle gets up from the table and grabs his hands. “I’ll do your makeup, sweet cheeks.”
“Funny.” Blue yanks his hands away. “I’m not going to that party. We’re not invited, or we’d have an invitation.”
Annabelle’s smile crumbles. She walks over to the table without saying another word and starts loading the makeup back into the trunk. I know the stand-up thing to do would be to invite them along. It’s not like I couldn’t sweet-talk Taylor into letting them stay. But I have an assignment with a big, blubbery D-day, and I’m not letting these two get in the way.
Annabelle is sliding the makeup trunk back into the den closet when I hear Charlie’s bedroom door open. It’s about freakin’ time.
Grams glides down the stairs, and a second later, Charlie limps out. She’s as happy as a Care Bear, and I’d love to say she looks like a beauty queen, but she doesn’t. What she does look like is passable, which I’ll take. And for the first time I’m reminded Charlie is seventeen. Her blond hair is piled on top of her head, and she’s wearing a tasteful silver necklace. The red dress is killer—strapless, tight through the middle, and ruffles that end mid-thigh—but her lack of curves does nothing for it. Then I notice Charlie has a rack. Color me shocked.
I quickly glance away when I realize Grams thinks I’m staring at Charlie’s boobs with more than friendly interest.
Blue smiles like she just gave birth to his firstborn son. I roll my eyes at how obvious he is.
You can have her body when I’m done with her soul, I want to tell him.
When Charlie reaches the bottom of the stairs, she takes the hand Blue is offering. “Do I look okay?” she asks, her cheeks reddening with excitement. “The dress is so great.”
Blue opens his mouth to say something, but he’s way too slow and way too inexperienced to handle this.
“Charlie,” I say, pausing for added effect. “That dress is nice.” I lean in close and whisper in her ear, “But you make it…hypnotic.”
Charlie’s face lights up like a Christmas tree. She grabs the bottom of her dress in her hands and squeezes. Then she turns to Annabelle and Blue. “I’m so sorry, guys. I tried to call your cells to tell you about tonight.”