Hellbox

PROLOGUE

PETE BALFOUR

They shouldn’t of kept making fun of him like that. Not like that.

It was all Ned Verriker’s fault. Bastard shouldn’t of hung that label around his neck like a goddamn dead bird. That was what took it right over the line.

Bad enough, all the crap Balfour’d had to take most of his life about the way he looked. Man couldn’t help the face he was born with, could he? But he’d got so he could stand the ragging pretty well, even joke about it himself when he’d had a few. Like the night at the Miners Club when he was half in the bag and he come out and said he hadn’t had a woman in so long he’d started carrying a picture of his right hand around in his wallet. Everybody got a good laugh out of that. Hell, he’d joined right in that night, and again the time somebody asked him if he was still dating old Five Fingers.

But after a while, when he was alone at night in his house, he didn’t think that was funny, neither. Plain damn truth. Only woman he’d ever laid that he hadn’t had to pay for was Charlotte, his ex-wife, and she’d been lousy in bed. Weighed more than he did, too, and had a face like a foot. Plus a mouth that never stayed shut. Nag, nag, nag the whole eighteen months they were married. Banner day when she walked out on him after the last of their fights, wearing a black eye and a smashed nose. He hadn’t missed her one minute since.

The way he figured it now, he’d never have another woman except a second-class whore. Just too butt-ugly. No getting away from it-there were mirrors in the house, he saw his reflection in store windows, he knew what he looked like. Short, puffy body on stubby legs, not much chin, mouth like a gaffed bass, knobby head with a patch of hair like moss growing on a tree stump. Somebody’d said that to him once, someplace or other. “You know something, Pete? You got a head looks like moss growing on a fuckin’ tree stump.”

Mostly it hadn’t bothered him, how he looked. And for a long time, he’d figured his life was tolerable enough. No real friends except for Bruno, and that was just because he fed and watered the dog and knew how to handle him. Treat a pit bull right and he’d lick your hand; treat him wrong and he’d tear your throat out. But that was all right, he didn’t need anybody to hang around with except a few half-assed drinking and poker and bowling buddies now and then. He liked his house, a fixer-upper he’d turned into a real livable place with his own two hands. He liked working construction and being his own boss. He liked hunting and camping in the backwoods, and collecting guns, and shooting pool, and watching baseball on TV, and bowling a few lines at Freedom Lanes and playing stud at Henson’s Card Room, and watching martial arts’ flicks on the tube, and reading a Louis L’Amour western if he was in the mood for a good book. And when he got horny, well, he could drive down to Sacramento and spend thirty or forty bucks on a teenage hooker, or if he didn’t feel like making the effort, he had his collection of porn videos, and he could go on the Internet and surf through the porn sites.

But sometimes, even before that night at the Buckhorn six weeks ago, it all backed up on him like a clogged septic system. More and more, he felt like hitting something, breaking something out of sheer frustration. Wished he was still married to Charlotte so he could beat the crap out of her again. Times like those, he knew how much his life here sucked. Really sucked.

It got so he couldn’t stand the thought that things would go on pretty much as they always had for him, one day the same as another right up until he croaked. Weekdays working his construction jobs, working his little scams, and when he knocked off it’d be the Miners Club or the Buckhorn or Freedom Lanes or Henson’s, and then home to watch a DVD or fool around online and then straight to bed. Weekends watching a ball game, sipping some brews, playing poker, playing pool, playing with his computer, playing with himself. Sure, he was used to it and he was better off than a lot of poor, jobless bastards living on welfare or sleeping on the streets, but that didn’t make it any less boring.

Only then it stopped being boring and got ugly instead.

He remembered that night like it was yesterday. Friday night, and he’d been drinking Bud and shooting pool with three of the Buckhorn regulars. Just happened to wander in there that night and Frank Ramsey couldn’t find nobody else to partner up, so he’d got asked and he figured, why not, it’d give him a chance to show up Verriker. Two of them never got along. Verriker thought he was funny as hell, a regular stand-up comedian, always cracking stupid jokes at somebody else’s expense, even when he was at work at Builders Supply. Holier than thou, too. Drunk Friday and Saturday nights, first one in church on Sunday morning. Didn’t like the way Balfour Construction did business and told him so more than once. Like he never cut a few corners in his life. Man has a right to live the best way he can and he don’t need anybody else trying to tell him how to do it.

That afternoon, he’d finished the repairs on old Mrs. Evans’ sunporch, and she’d paid him in cash like he asked her, and he was feeling good. So he thought the hell with Verriker and stayed put in the Buckhorn to celebrate. He’d’ve got out of there damn quick if he’d had any idea what Verriker was gonna do to him.

Other two in the group were Ramsey and Tony Lucchesi, with Ernie Stivic, who didn’t know a pool cue from a golf club, kibitzing. Balfour had always got along with Ramsey, and Lucchesi was all right for a dago, even if he was a lousy barber. Didn’t like Stivic much better than he did Verriker. Fry cook at the Burgers and More greasy spoon, asked him once if he knew the difference between a hamburger and a Polack burger, just kidding around, and Stivic got right in his face and threatened to bust his arm if he said “Polack” again. Two of the same, him and Verriker. Smart guys that didn’t care about nobody but themselves.

It was about nine o’clock when they switched from partners Rotation to one-on-one Eight-Ball. Verriker’s idea. When he was half in the bag, he thought he was Fast Eddie Felson. Fact was, none of them shot a better stick than Pete Balfour, so it was him Verriker challenged first. He smoked the bugger for five bucks and pissed him off. Verriker claimed he moved the cue ball on one of his shots, but none of the others saw it. He moved it, all right, but he never did see no reason why a man shouldn’t have an edge if he could take it. That went double against a prick like Verriker.

Well, they played and drank and talked the way you do in bars. Pro football, a game he never liked much-too violent. A few jokes from Verriker, none of them funny no matter what the rest thought. Politics. Verriker and Lucchesi were bleeding hearts, and wouldn’t you just figure on that? Him, he hated the politicians on all sides, except maybe for the Tea Baggers-some of them made sense. The rest… always raising taxes and passing bullshit laws that made it harder for a man to live. Always trying to take away your civil rights, like the right to own and carry guns.

Work was another topic they got into, and Balfour was just enough in his cups to tell how he’d phonied up an invoice to make an extra thousand on time and materials off old lady rich-bitch Evans. Didn’t see no reason why he shouldn’t talk about it; it was a good trick and a good story, and besides, he knew it’d piss Verriker off. It did, all right. Verriker said, “Suppose I tell Mrs. Evans what you did.” Balfour said, “Suppose I tell your boss you like young boys.” Verriker got hot, called him a dirty son of a bitch and said how about they go outside so he could kick some Balfour ass. He worked up a laugh, said he was only kidding around about the young boys, said he’d lied about screwing Mrs. Evans, even though it was the plain truth. He wasn’t a coward, but Verriker had twenty pounds and ten years on him, and he knew he’d get his clock cleaned if he fought him. Pete Balfour’s mama didn’t raise no damn fools.

Verriker said, “You’re an asshole, Pete, you know that?” but not like he wanted to fight anymore. He chewed his back teeth, but let it go unchallenged. That time, he did. Didn’t want to light Verriker’s fire again.

He turned his stick over to Lucchesi, and while the dago and Verriker were shooting, Ramsey got off on a story about how a tourist almost run him off the road that afternoon, some suit in a BMW going about twenty-five miles per hour over the speed limit. Ramsey drove a mail delivery truck, drove it like an old lady, so it was no surprise he’d near got forced off the road. Twenty-five over the limit was nothing on the good roads they had in Green Valley. Gone as much as fifty over himself when he was sure there wasn’t any sheriff’s patrols around. But the others were on Ramsey’s side.

Lucchesi said, “Yeah, you got to watch yourself every minute these days. People driving too fast, talking on cell phones and not paying attention, jumping lights, cutting you off to save one car length and five seconds of time.”

“You got that right,” Stivic said. “Seems there’s more assholes on the road every day.”

“Not just the roads,” Ramsey said. “Everywhere you go. It’s like some sort of disease, you know? An epidemic of assholes.”

Everybody laughed but Balfour. He didn’t see what was so funny.

Stivic said, “Christ, you don’t suppose they’re organized? I mean, a union and everything?”

That got some more laughs. So did what Lucchesi said next: “We ought to put up a sign outside town. Big bare buns in a circle with a line through it. No Assholes Allowed.”

Subject might’ve been finished then if it hadn’t been for Verriker. Wiseass had to stick his oar in, had to make the kind of joke out of it that cut right to the bone. Just had to do it.

Said, “I got a better idea. What we should do, we should round up all the assholes in the state, maybe even the whole country, and stick ’em together some place in the middle of nowhere. Valley like this one, say, only bigger. Have armed guards on duty full time, make sure they all stay put. Call the place Asshole Valley, so there wouldn’t be any mistake about who lived there.”

“I like it,” Stivic said. “By God, I do.”

“Well, I don’t.” Balfour knew he should’ve kept his lip buttoned, but he was half in the bag himself and couldn’t help it. “I think it’s a stupid idea, that’s what I think.”

“Sure you do, Pete,” Verriker said, grinning. “I figured you would.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Like I said before. You’re an asshole.”

The words come out loud and they brought down the house. Fifteen or twenty other drinkers in there, every one flapping an ear, and they all busted out laughing, too. At what Verriker’d said, but it was Pete Balfour they were looking and howling at.

He wanted to smash the bastard’s face in. If he’d had a bottle in his hand, he might’ve done it. But he just stood there with the blood coming hot up his neck and said, “I’m not an asshole,” in a voice as loud as Verriker’s.

“Bet if we took a vote on that, you’d lose.”

“I’m not an asshole!”

“So you say. I say you’re the biggest one I know, maybe even the biggest one in the county.”

“You shut up, Verriker. You shut up-”

But Verriker didn’t shut up. He was on his feet, moving around, grinning all over his face, playing it up to the crowd. Said, “Matter of fact, if we rounded up all the assholes in the state and put ’em in that valley I was talking about, I bet somebody’d nominate you for mayor. And I bet you’d win, hands down. Pete Balfour, the first mayor of Asshole Valley.”

Brought the house down again. It made Balfour want to puke, the way they all hooted and high-fived and hooted some more. Looking at him and laughing at him the whole time. Made him so hot, he was afraid he’d pop a blood vessel if he didn’t get out of there quick.

Must’ve looked to Verriker and the rest like he was running away, tail between his legs like a kicked dog. He could hear them laughing even after he was out the door. All the way home, he heard the laughter and Verriker calling him an asshole, hanging that mayor tag on him.

He didn’t sleep much that night. Still felt lousy in the morning. But he had work to do, a repair job on the restrooms and concession booths at the fairgrounds-a good deal because he’d factored a gimmick into his bid to the county where he’d buy some cheap-grade lumber that’d pass for high-grade, make himself another couple of grand. So he went out on the job, and the half-wit kid he’d hired to help out on this one, and Tarboe, the faggot fairgrounds director, were both standing there grinning. The faggot said, “Good morning, Your Honor,” and the kid laughed fit to be tied. That was how fast word got around in a small town like Six Pines. He snapped at them to knock that crap off, it wasn’t funny, and they saw he meant business and left him alone. So did Eladio Perez, his regular helper. The old Mex did his work and kept his mouth shut, about the only one Balfour knew who did. But all day long, he caught the kid hiding a smirk and knew just what he was thinking. He could almost hear it going round and round inside the half-wit’s head like it was going round and round inside his own.

Pete Balfour, mayor of Asshole Valley.

He knew he was in for a bad time for a while, but he didn’t figure on how bad. It was like a wildfire, the way the bad joke spread around town, the valley, probably the whole damn county. Everybody out there getting their funny bones tickled at his expense. The fat slob at the store where he did his grocery shopping. Harry Logan at Harry’s House of Guns, a guy who’d always been decent to him. Luke Penny at the Shell station. Others who’d been in the Buckhorn that night. First thing Tony Lucchesi said to him was, “Well, if it isn’t Hizzoner.” And Frank Ramsey, all smirk and smart-ass with “You got your political platform worked out yet, Pete?” And one more that was even harder to take. Charlotte, his cow of an ex-wife, so fat now her ass looked like the back end of a bus, standing in front of City Hall where she worked and making ha-ha noises with all her chins jiggling.

He did all he could to avoid Verriker, but that didn’t stop the bugger from telling and retelling the story to anybody who’d listen. Keeping it alive. Keeping the knife stuck in him right up to the hilt, so the hoo-ha didn’t go away after a few days the way he expected it would. No, it got worse. Seemed like everywhere he went, everybody he come in contact with-grins, giggles, stares, pointing fingers. Kids, even. Some snotnose couldn’t of been more than ten, giving him a look that said plain as day, “Hey, there’s the dude got elected mayor of the assholes.”

Goddamn people! Didn’t they know how much a name like that could hurt? Calling somebody an asshole to his face was bad enough, but saying he was the biggest asshole around, leader of the pack, making a big joke out of him and never letting him have any peace, that was the worst you could do to anybody. It sliced deep into a man, carved out chunks of his insides. Made him half crazy.

It got so bad he couldn’t stand to go out of the house. Just holed up except when he was working, and some days, he could hardly make himself drive over to the job site. The half-wit kid kept looking at him smarmy all the time, hiding a grin and laughing with his eyes. He’d of fired the dumb-ass quick if he hadn’t needed him to get the work done. Tarboe was just as bad. Started ragging on him about not getting the grandstand and concession repairs finished in time for the big Independence Day celebration, yap, yap, yap. Dressing him down with half his mouth, laughing at him out the other half.

Balfour had plenty of time to think, holed up in his house, nothing to do but drink too much whiskey and stare at the TV. He didn’t even have any interest in looking at the porn sites on his computer anymore. More he thought, the madder he got. He shouldn’t have to take this kind of crap. What’d he do to deserve it? Nothing. Bad enough he had one cross to bear, his butt-ugly looks, but this new one weighed twice as heavy, and hurt a lot more because it wasn’t true, he wasn’t what they were all saying he was. No way. He was just a guy trying to get along the best he could, same as everybody else. None of this was his fault.

He couldn’t keep on taking the abuse. He had to do something about it, pay Verriker back for making him a laughingstock.

Yeah-payback.

Question was, what kind?