Bad Business

I hadn’t been doing anything of much importance the night Eric called me. I wouldn’t have agreed to see him then, but he sounded panicked. I asked him if he wanted to meet someplace quiet; he sounded like he was calling from a pub. His refusal was immediate and adamant. I got the name of the place he was calling from and fifteen minutes later, I was sitting next to a man who was a shade of the Eric I had known.
   We had talked three weeks before. Then, he had been the same good-natured, good-looking Eric I had always known. He had looks that received longing, sideways glances from women he passed on the street: hazel eyes, sandy brown hair, and a flawless face. He was always smiling, like he had just heard a fantastic joke. And it didn’t hurt that he worked out three times a week, either. Now, though, whatever happened was written on his face: Eric was deathly pale, the fine lines around his mouth and the dark circles under his eyes making him look five years older. There was a scar running along the line of his jaw that I didn’t remember being there, and another laced through his left eyebrow. He looked as if he had lost weight, too much to be healthy. Before I sat next to him at the bar, I could see him shooting nervous glances over his shoulder, left and right. I startled him when I sat down, and noticed the shot glasses lined up in front of him.
   “God, you scared me, man,” he said. He glanced at me before his eyes flicked across the stacks of bottles lined up behind the bar, then to the bartender serving two people a few seats down from us, then onto something else. He couldn’t seem to focus on anything. “Didn’t think you were gonna come.” Eric smiled weakly, waved a hand at the dozen or so shot glasses in front of him. I saw his hand shaking as he did. “Been here a while. Thought I’d have a few.” Judging from the number of glasses, and the smell on Eric’s breath, the amount of tequila in his system should have laid him out flat. Eric always got drunk faster than the rest of us. We would give him a hard time for being a lightweight. But he wasn’t drunk. He wasn’t even slightly tipsy. I watched him call the bartender over and order another bottle. He didn’t even bother with shots this time: he downed a third of the bottle in one go.
   “Eric,” I said after a moment, “what the hell happened to you?”
   His eyes stopped jumping around the pub and settled on mine. I couldn’t believe the terror I saw there. Eric looked ready to run from that pub at any moment, screaming at the top of his lungs. “You have to understand,” he began, “that what I’m going to tell you will probably get me killed.” He gazed at the tequila in his hand while a nasty little chill went up my spine. “I know they’re looking for me. They won’t leave me alone. I know they’re trying to…to get me.” He looked over his shoulder at the rest of the pub’s patrons. It was very busy, full of noisy, happily intoxicated people. “They won’t try in crowded places. Don’t want to cause a scene I guess.” He looked me in the eye again, leaned in closer. “They’re waiting for me, to let my guard down, so they can end it.” A laugh, but no humor in it. The look of fear on his face turned to desperation. “Maybe that would be easier then, wouldn’t it? Just to give up, let them have me. No more lying awake at night, listening and wondering if that’s the night they’ll do it. If they’ll make me finish the job. Wouldn’t that be easier? Wouldn’t it?”
   “Hey man, come on,” I said as he put his head in his hands. I tried a smile, placed a hand on his shoulder. “Take it easy. You’re freaking me out.”
   “Ha!” Eric sat up and grabbed the tequila bottle again, drained another third of it, grimacing. “Freaking you out!! Ha hah!!” Suddenly, he banged the bottle down on the bar, and was looking intensely, directly, at me. “You have to believe me.” He grabbed my arm. “You have to. I’m not making this up. Please, just believe me. Someone has to know. Just believe me.” That scared, desperate look came back. “Please.”
    Eric was in trouble. I could see that. He had gotten involved in something and was in over his head now. I didn’t know what it was, but I could see it eating him up. The least I could do was hear him out. “Alright,” I said, and waved the bartender over, ordered a beer. “I’m listening. What’s going on?”
   I saw the relief and gratitude on his face. He was still scared, but now someone was willing to hear him. He relaxed somewhat, still on his guard, like he expected someone to come up behind him and put a bullet in his head. He took a breath, and then began.
……………………………………………………………....
   You remember how the last time I saw you I said something about coming into a lot of money? Well, guess what? Murphy decided to bring the law down on my head. The money was supposed to have come from this sure-deal, once in a lifetime bet. It sounded so simple, too. There was no way I could’ve lost. But then that was the beauty of it, wasn’t it? Suck some poor, unknowing sap into it and then clean him out. Yeah, I know. The betters I was dealing with were pretty low, and more than pleased with themselves afterwards, and showed up at my door to collect. When I told them I didn’t have the money, they were….upset. They messed me up, then I was offered a choice: get the money I owed them or come to a very quick, very messy end. I could run, but they would have tracked me down. And there was no way I could have lied about the money and have them believe me. What? Nah, the cops weren’t going to do anything. Not that they could. Those bastards would have found a thousand and one ways to make themselves look innocent, and all I would’ve done was make sure I got a much slower, much more painful end for my trouble. There wasn’t anything I could do, and I got desperate.
   I told them I could make it back; they just needed to give me some time. So they did. I had two weeks to come up with the cash, by whatever means necessary, or I’d be suffering the consequences in the worst way.
   So. I spent four days after that doing anything I could to get that money back. How much? Umm…fifteen grand. I know. I couldn’t believe it either. What can I say? The deal got out of hand. Anyways, I called in favors, did favors, anything for a few bucks. Some of them I wouldn’t have done if my life hadn’t been on the line. A lot more of them wouldn’t have done even with my life on the line, but I was desperate. And I only came up with about two hundred. I tried to get another job, but there wasn’t anything where I’d make the money back fast enough. Damn near lost the job I’ve got in the process. What I ended up doing was begging people I had known for some cash. Ah, come on don’t give me that look. I had five different people give me that look when I fed them some bullshit story about how I was on my last legs and needed money to help my sick kids.
The begging didn’t work out much better. I managed to meet twelve of the people I knew could ask, and those five were the ones that actually did give me anything. I have never felt so utterly shitty as I did when they opened their wallets for a twenty. Then something changed.
I was at a diner, on day number four, flat on my ass after lucky number thirteen had realized what I was doing after talking to a couple people that I had also met up with, then knocked me off my stool before leaving. Everyone else in the diner was managing to look like they hadn’t heard or seen a thing. The kitchen staff on the other side of the lunch counter were trying their best not to laugh. As I picked myself up, getting back on my seat, I thought about what I had been promised if I didn’t come up with the money, and how I only had eight hundred dollars. There was no way I could get the rest. I had tried everything I could think of, and I couldn’t do it.
   I don’t know how long it was before I realized someone was sitting next to me. I looked up, and there was a guy in a gray business suit on my left, reading a newspaper and kind of idly stirring the cup of coffee in front of him. He put down the spoon after a few seconds, took a sip of his coffee and made a face. “You just can’t get a decent cup of coffee anymore,” he said. He put down his cup and folded up his paper.
   Have you ever seen someone and gotten a really weird vibe from them? I don’t know what it was about this guy. He didn’t look weird. I remember he wasn’t a small guy; he was at least six feet tall. Besides that, he looked like any other suit having lunch; slicked-back blonde hair, looked like he spent some time at a tanning salon, dark red tie, black shoes. But when he turned and looked at me, something twisted in my stomach for a second. Maybe it was his eyes. You don’t normally see someone with eyes that dark.
   “I couldn’t help but overhear your little exchange,” he said. “You certainly seem to be in some trouble, don’t you?”
   “Not that it’s any of your business,” I replied, “but yeah, I’m in some trouble. What do you care?”
   He looked shocked for a second. “Please sir, I didn’t mean to pry. You simply sound as if you would appreciate some assistance.” He gave his coffee a glance of disgust and pushed it away from himself before continuing. “I may also point out that you are an exceptionally bad liar. Your rather critical financial needs have nothing to do with ailing family or a pending eviction, do they?” He gave me a really unpleasant little grin then that made that twist a little more pronounced. It said that he knew more than he was letting on.
   “Look,” I said. “Unless you’re going to drop a check for twenty grand in my lap right now, we’ve got nothing to say to each other. I got nothing, so if you’re going to blackmail me, you’re wasting your time.” I was got up to leave then, but something occurred to me. “Who are you, anyways?”
   “Me?” he said, looking pretty amused. “You can call me Mr. Court. And I’m not going to blackmail you, Mister...?”
   “Eric.”
   “Ah. Eric, I’m not trying to extort anything from you, I’m simply offering you an opportunity to alleviate your situation. A chance to earn back what you owe.” He gestured to the stool I’d been sitting on. “If you would, please.”
   I hesitated for a moment. Something was tugging at the back of my mind, sending up a little warning flag about Court. He did know more than he was letting on. If I had been smart, I would never have sat back down at that lunch counter. But I wanted to hear what he was offering, and like I said before, I was desperate. I sat down again. “So what do you know?” I asked him.
   “That you made a bad business deal of sorts with the associates of a Mr. Daniel Barrell and that you now owe him fifteen thousand dollars that you, unfortunately, do not have. I also know that if you do not repay Mr. Barrell in two weeks’ time, your life is forfeit.”
   “How…?”
   Court waved off the question. “My superiors have done their research, that is all you need know. I am offering you the following: my own employer requires the protection of something quite dear to him.” I tried to ask what, but he held up a hand before I could speak. “Do not concern yourself with what or where it is. We will send it to you.”
   “You know where I live?”
   “Of course. As I’ve said, my superiors have done their research. Now, once at the end of every week, we will send you a payment of one hundred and fifty thousand dollars, provided you do your job properly.”
   I couldn’t believe my luck. This Court guy was willing to pay me enough to get my ass out of the fire and then some for a week’s worth of just watching something. “What’s the catch?”
   “Unfortunately, the hours are of an indeterminate nature,” he said. “We will be telling you when your work is finished. But I can assure you that it is very simple work. And I needn’t point out that you are being well paid.”
   I thought about it for a few moments. It was an incredible offer, for the easiest thing in the world to do. But that twist in my stomach wouldn’t go away. Could trust him? Did I even want to risk the possibility that I could get that money back on my own?
   “Mr. Court, you’ve got a deal,” I said.
   “Excellent!” He looked really pleased that I‘d said yes. He put out his hand. “Care to shake on it?”
   When I felt Court’s fingers wrap around my hand, I got scared all of a sudden. The twist turned into a hard ball of ice sitting in my gut. I knew, just absolutely knew, that something bad was going to happen soon. After a few seconds he let go of my hand and straightened his tie. “The item now in your care will be sent to your place of residence tomorrow morning.” He got up from his seat and gave me another nasty grin. “We’ll be keeping an eye on you, naturally. Try not to slip up.” Then he turned and walked out of the diner.
   That night when I got home, I had this feeling like I’d done something horrible and couldn’t undo it now. But I was kind of relieved too, you know? I had a solution. And it had come completely out of the blue, too. How often does someone just walk up to you and offer you money? Especially when it means the difference between living the rest of your life or have it suddenly come to an end? Right, it never happens. Still, I had a lot of trouble getting to sleep that night. And when I did, I had some pretty awful dreams.
   I woke up the next morning to the sound of a fist on my front door. I managed to pull on a pair of pants before stumbling downstairs to answer it. When I opened the door, there was a really skinny, really pale guy wearing a black jacket, jeans, and a wide-brim hat pulled over his face so I couldn’t see his eyes. He had a pet carrier in his hands. I could see two bright, curious eyes peering out of it.
   “A cat?” I said. “That’s it?”
   The man in the hat didn’t say anything, just held the carrier in front of himself. I took it from him and noticed how grey his hands were. “Uh…thanks,” I said. He didn’t say anything, just turned and left. I watched him walk away before the cat startled me with a little meow.
   Back upstairs, I put the carrier down on my coffee table and opened the door. I sat there for the next couple hours just watching the cat explore my place. A little card on the carrier said her name was Eadoin. I spent the whole day just watching her. I didn’t mean to, but you have to believe me when I say she was the most beautiful animal I have ever seen. She was sleek, graceful and had a commanding feel to her, a perfect little thing. She looked like a Siamese, you know, tan with black, but silver instead of tan. Her whole face was black except for a little white spot between her eyes. God, her eyes… Yeah, “piercing” is a good word. They weren’t the Siamese blue; they were this bright copper color. She looked straight through you with those eyes.
   It occurred to me that I was going to need to get some things for Eadoin. I put out a hand to pet her, but she ducked away, growling softly. I took the hint. I looked at my clock and decided I had enough time to go to the pet store. I picked up food (wet and dry), a pet bed, a food dish and a water dish, a cat box, kitty litter, even a collar for her in case she got out.
   She wouldn’t eat the food I bought for her, wet or dry. I thought she was just a finicky cat. Three days, and she still wasn’t eating anything. I finally got fed up with it. I wasn’t going to get myself into even worse trouble because of a goddamn cat. One night I just chucked a pack of raw ground beef into her bowl. She ate that right up. When she finished, she sat there licking her whiskers, looking at me with those eyes. After that, I kept a lot of raw meat on hand.
   Three more days passed and Eadoin warmed up to me a bit. Not that she’d sit in my lap or anything, but she did let me scratch her behind the ears occasionally. But she was a strange cat, that’s for sure. I came home the night after I fed her the ground beef and she had killed a rat. A big one, too. It had been gutted and from what I could tell, all the blood was gone from it. She just sat by it and looked pleased.
   Six days went by without any trouble. Eadoin was a good cat, even if she was weird. And I only had one more day to go before I got the payment I was promised. Court had been right. Eadoin was easy to look after. And then everything went sideways.
   Mr. Daniel Barrell had decided I had enough time, and that it was time to collect. On the sixth day I was walking home from the grocer’s near my place. I had picked up two sirloin steaks, one for me and one for Eadoin. She was kind of growing on me by then. I was about halfway home when two big goons walked up to me and grabbed me. They dragged me into a little building nearby. As they shut the door, one of them, an ugly fellow with a crooked nose, leaned in close and said, “Mr. Barrell’s associates would like a word with you.” Before I could ask, something hit me in the back of the head and everything just went away for a while.
   When I woke up, it was dark. I was handcuffed to a chair somewhere cold and damp and my heat hurt. I could hear something metallic being ground down nearby. My eyes focused after I felt a breeze on my face. We were in a construction area, on a square of concrete and steel girders that were going to turn into an office building. There was a spotlight set up to the left. I looked over to the right and saw the goon with the crooked nose sharpening the edge of a large, sharp-looking knife on a grinder. He straightened up and examined the blade, then looked over in my direction. “Well lookit that,” he said. “Sleeping Beauty has risen. Hey Jack!!” he called over his shoulder. “He’s awake!!!”
   Jack was a six foot ten, three hundred and forty nine pound gorilla I had seen the day I’d made the deal. He looked like a nice guy until I saw him cut off a bookie’s ear. He had a pair of pliers in one hand and a hacksaw in the other. He looked at me, looked at Crooked Nose, and said, “We don’t need to bother Mr. Barrell with this.”
   “Listen,” I said. It sent bolts of pain through my head when I spoke. “Guys... I have one more day. I was gonna get the money tomorrow. C’mon, I just need one more day.”
   “Sorry, friend,” Jack said. He had put on a pair of latex gloves and was now squatting down in front of me with a pair of tin shears. “Mr. Barrell doesn’t want to wait anymore. He feels you’ve had sufficient time to repay your debts. Now,” he said, snipping the shears in front of my face, “you gotta face the consequences. Lars, give me your knife.”
   You can guess what happened next. Jack cut me up. You can see the two he did on my face. I’ve got four or five one my back and chest, three more on my legs, one a little to close to my balls for comfort. He took his time. Two hours went by with me screaming and bleeding, Jack deciding where to make the next cut. At one point be stuck the tip between a couple of my ribs and just kind of eased it in as slow as he could. He came within a quarter inch of puncturing a lung before he pulled it out. After that, he got bored with the knife and just sat back and admired his handiwork.
   “You’ve got to understand, friend,” Jack was saying, as he tried to decide what to use next. “This is just business. We worked out a deal, which you failed to carry through. That’s bad business, friend, and we don’t take kindly to bad business.” He picked up the pliers and pulled out four of my fingernails, then put the pliers back down. “All that’s happening here is a consequence to action.”
   “I can get you the money! I swear!!! One more day, that’s all I need!!”
Jack grabbed the hacksaw and smiled sympathetically. “Too late, friend.”
   I closed my eyes, waiting for the saw’s teeth to bite into my neck, through my neck, but it didn’t happen. Right before it touched my neck, there was a noise. A low, scratchy growl.
   “Hey, Jack?” Lars was looking nervous. “Did you hear that?”
   “Yes I did,” he replied. “Sounds like there’s an animal around here, doesn’t it?” He dropped the saw and pulled a gun out of this jacket. “Let’s do some hunting. Lars, go check over there.” Jack waved over to the left.
   Lars covered about ten feet before I saw….something… run out of the dark and leap onto him. Shout of surprise turned into a shriek of pain, and the thing dragged him into the dark. I saw a red streak on the concrete. Jack ran back. “Sweet Christ,” he said. “Lars!! What happened?!” He saw the red streak and suddenly didn’t seem as calm as he had with the pliers. He had his gun held straight out in front when the thing that had dragged off Lars came charging back into the light.
   I knew it used to be Eadoin, but this monster looked nothing like the beautiful little cat I’d been caring for. It was huge, hideous and obviously hungry. Jack didn’t know what was happening until its claws were in his arms and its teeth had sunk into his neck. He stopped screaming then. Blood poured from the side of his mouth and I could hear it eating him, he wasn’t even dead yet. Another minute and Jack was just a pile of twitching, bleeding meat. I don’t remember saying anything, but I must have made some kind of noise. It stopped eating for a moment and looked at me, then moved towards me. Before I blacked out, I saw Mr. Court leaning against one of the steel girders, but now his eyes were black glass.
   I wasn’t handcuffed to the chair anymore when I woke up for the second time. Now I was lying on the ground. There was no sign of Jack’s leftovers, just two red smears on the concrete. I got up then heard a meow from behind me. Eadoin was perched on the worktable that the tools had been lying on. She looked pretty as ever, but she was stained red all down her chest.
   There was a note next to her:

She likes fresh meat. I think you know where to find some.
      -C.

    I spent the night in the hospital. When they asked me what happened, I fed them some story about a gang of crack-heads robbing me. No one said anything about Eadoin.
   The next week was a nightmare. Eadoin stopped eating the raw meat I brought home from the butcher, no matter how bloody it was. I didn’t want to do it, but I ended up drawing out each one of Mr. Barrell’s hired men and Eadoin devoured every one of them. It was horrible to hear them die when she got them. She was getting messier with the kills. By the end of the week there was only Mr. Barrell. She…she played with him first. He took the longest to die and she didn’t eat him completely. His maid found what little there was left of him to find. The cops ruled it an occult killing. They wouldn’t let the papers publish any of the details.
   I couldn’t take it anymore. I knew she’d get hungry again and that she’d want another one. So, last Monday I took her out to the park and left her there.
   I shouldn’t have done it. I’ve been running for a week now, moving around the city. Eadoin’s not the only one looking for me now, you see. I found out who “Mr. Court” is and who his “superiors” are. They’re not human, never were. And I’m a dead man if they find me.
   I can’t run anywhere, I can’t hide. All I can do is stay in the light, keep to the crowds, and just keep moving. I haven’t slept for five days now. Because if I go to sleep, they try to get through to this side. Eadoin’s already here. I can hear her some nights. And I can see her eyes in my dreams.
……………………………………………………………....

   I didn’t see Eric after that night. He sent me a couple letters, but then I stopped hearing from him. It was like he disappeared from the world.
   But I’ve been wondering lately if Eric really had been telling the truth. Yesterday there was a story in the paper about a severed hand found in the park. Police said it was recent, and that the weapon used for removal must have been in very bad shape; it almost looked as if it had been chewed.
   I hope I see Eric again some day. I’d hate to think he’d become the latest victim to bad business deals.

	Author	Topic: Bad Business (Read 707 times)
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