HELL OF A DEAL, a supernatural satire

Chapter Six

6

A burning sensation, quite unpleasant, stinging, horrible, but Alfred Smith came out of it. He returned to the world. He opened his eyes once again.

How he had arrived in this limousine he couldn't remember.

Katya Stone sat across from him, still dressed as a nurse. She clicked on a little pen light, and she shone it into Al's eyes, as nurses were supposed to do apparently.

"Success, as usual," said Lou Seaford seated beside Al to his right. "Champagne?"

Smith felt pretty rejuvenated. The grogginess was wearing off. He shook his head back and forth to loosen up the effects of the drugs.

"Where are we?" Al wondered who the hell was saying this. His voice sounded like someone else's. Smith was hearing things. He just heard a voice forty-three years gone.

Al caught sight of his hands. The hands were clearly someone else's hands. This all likely was some virtual-reality type scam. Smith thought he might be seeing the world through some newfangled 3-D vision system – now that he could believe.

"Hey! What the hell is going on?" Again, the voice was disembodied and foreign. Al genuinely felt confused. He didn't believe it, not in the slightest.

"We're busting open the champagne, bud." Lou popped it. The fizzing bubbly spilled out onto the seat and floor. Katya snatched her share of champagne, and she downed it immediately.

"Gimme a mirror!" Smith fidgeted side to side, searching frantically for clues.

"They all want a mirror." Lou sat back unconcerned. "Why don't you take a minute and savor the champagne, Big Al? Or should I call you Little Al now?"

"I don't want champagne. Stop the car!"

"What? Here?"

"Stop the car, right here!" Al jumped out of the limousine and into the sun's glare. Bending low, he saw a distorted reflection in the car's dark window. The shiny black auto paint reflected his image back as well. This couldn't be right. It couldn't be true.

Smith turned back behind him, and he saw a mirrored wall on the entrance to a club. This strip club was adorned with nasty mirror profiles of limber young women in silhouette form along the exterior. The place was called Las Diablesas, and it seemed like so many of the other establishments in that part of downtown Los Angeles.

Al ran over to the mirror silhouettes, his eyes steeped with curiosity. There he seemed to be. He touched his own face. Al now appeared thirty, or seventy-three going on thirty. It was a severe shock to his psyche. Perhaps he was now some kind of pioneer, like an astronaut launched into new, uncharted regions of human development – a youth-traveler.

"Alfred." An ethereal feminine voice called from the shadows inside the doors of the club. "Alfred?"

Smith pivoted with astonishment. "How do they know my name?"

Lou and Katya marched over to handle the client. Seaford swung the champagne bottle at his side.

"You like the work?" Lou inspected Smith's form. "I guess you were salvageable after all."

"That stuff is too good to be true," said Al.

Katya stormed forward. "I think you look hot!" She clamped onto Smith's wrist, and she yanked him into the club's entrance.

Al's feet seemed to float above the ground, gravity somehow diminished. Katya pulled Smith along like a kite.

Las Diablesas' ambiance was dark and red, with a fiery hell motif throughout the decor. Naughty young ladies strutted in themed lingerie costumes, sporting devilish pointed tails and fake plastic horns glued to their foreheads with spirit gum.