HELL OF A DEAL, a supernatural satire

Twenty Two

22

Al Jr. drove to Victoria Smith's Bel Air home. He parked on the street, and he took a breath, gazing down at the lawsuit papers.

His finger pushed the doorbell, and Al straightened up in place.

Victoria shouted through her door, "Just a minute."

Al waited patiently, about a minute and a half. Numerous ideas, most of them bad, flooded into his head. It was a game, a negotiation, a charm offensive, an amicable settlement. What the hell it was didn't matter. He just wanted to win Victoria over again. Al had to calm her and get her back on his side.

Victoria Smith opened her door, and she invited Al inside. She wore her usual faded jeans and a khaki shirt. "Step right in," she said. "You're good at that."

As Smith paused in his daughter's foyer, he turned to her, and he said softly, "I think we should start over."

"That's my idea too." Victoria smiled, and she locked her front door.

Al smiled.

Victoria reveled a small feminine pistol from behind her back. It was a twenty-two or a twenty-five caliber, very shiny, probably never fired. "Back that way. Get your hands up."

"What's wrong with you?" Al raised his arms. "I'm here to apologize if I did anything to offend you."

Al marched around the corner and into Victoria's kitchen. Victoria followed him in, and she stepped over to the row of cabinets.

In a drawer she dug around. "You'll recall dad's film Driven to Reckless, and the creative usage of duct tape?"

"That's not funny, Victoria."

"Sit down, asshole." Victoria aimed her gun at Al's forehead.

Al dropped down into her kitchen chair, lost in thought but quite disoriented. He said, "I didn't think you watched dad's movies."

"Well you wouldn't know the first thing about me, or my family, would you?"

Victoria wrapped generous amounts of duct tape to bind Al's wrists behind his back as he sat in the chair.

"Take it easy. You saw Driven to Reckless?"

"I've seen every one of my father's films, you petty grifter. Now shut the fuck up." Victoria encircled Al's waist with the grey tape, sticking him fast to the chair.

Victoria ignited the blue flame of her gas stove. She arranged a plate of sewing pins on the counter beside her. "I read about this one online."

Al's concern increased exponentially. "What do you think you're going to do?"

Victoria held the tips of the pins over the flames momentarily, and then she dropped them onto a saucer. "It's just sterilizing."

Al struggled against the duct tape, his hands locked securely behind his back. "Victoria, you don't want to do this."

"Maybe I do." She spun away from her stove. "Where is he?" Victoria slammed the pins on the counter beside Al's head.

"Don't you know that torture is wrong?" Al couldn't believe he was saying it, or that he needed to tell Victoria.

Victoria pinched one of the pins between her fingers, and she held it up to his face. "Well that's your opinion, and if I was in your position I'd probably have the same opinion."

"It's wrong, Vee."

"Now what did I tell you about calling me that?" Victoria threw the pin down on the floor recklessly, and she slid Al's chair around, so that she could grab his middle finger. She bent it upward and back behind him.