Welcome To Hell.A.

by Stephens, L.

  “We’re going to go ride up to the mountain tomorrow,” Pamela continued in a new voice. “Is it okay if Franky uses dad’s...” Pamela switches back to her bland voice. “Chase stops suddenly, and Mom stops pouring juice into the glass she is holding.”

  Sarah had tears in her eyes. It was in the script but Pamela hadn’t read it out, giving Sarah the chance to show her range.

  “It’s okay, Chase. Of course, Franky can use your dad’s bike,” Sarah said, flashing a sneaky smile, the tears in her eyes still glistening. “You’re not going to try to jump over the ravine, are you?”

  “Yes, I am!” Pamela said overly enthusiastically.

  “He breaks it, you bought it,” Sarah jokes in an old Broadway style voice.

  Marcus and the casting assistant laughed loudly as Sarah stood smiling at them.

  “Okay, Sarah. Thanks for coming in,” Pamela interrupted stiffly as she ruffled through a bunch of headshots. “Who do we have next, Nathan?”

  Marcus was shell-shocked. He stopped laughing and looked from Pamela to Sarah and back again. Sarah bowed her head to hide her smile. Pamela’s shortness wasn’t mean-spirited; it was calculated. She had become the bad guy so Marcus would find a place in his heart for Sarah and would hopefully champion her when the final choices were made.

  “Thanks for your time,” Sarah said meekly to Marcus and Pamela.

  “We’ll let you know,” Pamela said evenly and went back to her headshots.

  Marcus’ eyes were wide and his mouth agape as Nathan jogged from behind the camera and extended his arm like a traffic cop to show Sarah the way back out of the studio. Pamela had played the part well but hearing the “we’ll let you know” line never felt good. Sarah’s brief confidence descended into thoughts that maybe she hadn’t done that well, that maybe she had over sold it and that maybe she was not even good enough to secure a role that she believed was beneath her. The more Sarah thought about it as she walked the twenty yards to the door, the more doubt crept in, and to make matters worse when Nathan had opened the door, the receptionist was smiling on the other side.

  “Thank you,” Sarah muttered as she stepped past.

  She made a point not to call him Nathan, as that would have been a true indication that she had only just found out his name, but she turned and established eye contact with him and flashed one of her signature smiles just to let him know he existed.

  “You ready for that photo?” Sarah asked sweetly to the receptionist.

  CHAPTER 6: CANTER’S DELI

  D-Dubs’ real name was Daryl Waits, but no one called him that. No one he knew anyway. D-Dubs had been his AOL Instant Messenger handle and somehow it had stuck with him long after the online message service had been unplugged.

  † We’re not going to call him D-Dubs anymore, ‘cause you don’t fucking know him. It was a fun ride though, wasn’t it? †

  As Daryl walked down the sidewalk on Fairfax, he realized how foreign the street he used to call home had become to him. He didn’t even live in the area anymore. Rent was way too expensive, and dealing with mid-city L.A. traffic was a fucking nightmare. He saw a group of kids coming his way, but he didn’t look at their faces. Within seconds he had analyzed them and designated the four of them as three rich kids with one super rich kid or one super poor kid. Air Jordan 3 Retros in the Game Royal colorway, Nike Air Max 97s in the Off-White colorway with the red zip tie still intact, Air Jordan 3 Retros in the White Cement colorway with that dope elephant print and Vans Vault OG Classic Slip-Ons in the black colorway. Daryl wasn’t hating on the kid with the Vans, though. He was in fact wearing a pair of Vans Slip-Ons himself, but his were the Pros in the all-black colorway.

  “That’s him!” one of them whispered as they passed.

  Daryl shook his head and kept walking. He wasn’t a celebrity, but on this street he was. He received this kind of treatment every time he was in the area. He was known as the guy who blew it all or the guy who started it all, and neither of those legends paid him any money, so he paid them no mind. A lot had changed for him since the glory days he had spent sleeping on lawn chairs outside of the shoe stores on Fairfax, waiting to be in first in line to secure limited-edition sneakers, just so he could flip them to rich white and Asian kids. His once tall and skinny frame had filled out to resemble a mobile battering ram. His once youthful face was now hard, littered with faint scars and framed by faded tattoos that covered his neck, chest and arms, but he was still that guy who could spot a fake pair of sneakers from a mile away.

  He checked his phone as he crossed the street and saw the message from Jake. He needed to get home, but he wasn’t in a rush. He knew Jake would be late if he even turned up at all. The sense of dread returned with fury, and Daryl gently rubbed at his roiling stomach. Everything about the situation felt bad, and as usual Jake was right in the center of it. Daryl had plans. He fucking hated working for Big Ron, but even when Jake had come to him promising a big check and an easy job, it unsettled him. He just assumed it was self-sabotage. He wanted to close the door on that part of his life and open a new one to something with real meaning and real money. Even though daily texts with Jake had ceased and become more monthly than weekly, they were still best friends. Nothing could put a dent in their friendship, not even a jail term. It didn’t matter how distant they were, they would always pick up right where they left off, same jokes and same conversations: sex, drugs and girls.

  As Daryl got into his Dodge Charger and pealed out of the parking lot, he reminisced about how he had ended up at this fork in the road. This hardened criminal who used his muscle rather than his mind was almost unrecognizable from the biggest Sneakerhead in all of Los Angeles who provided rare and limited-edition shoes for an insane markup. Back then, he didn’t care much for the shoes he was flipping; they were just a product. He had seen an angle and had revolutionized it. In three years, he went from selling used Air Jordan’s to kids in his high school for one hundred and sixty bucks to selling pristine limited-edition Jordan’s to a collector in Japan for fifteen thousand.

  After a few years wheeling and dealing on the street and online he had enough shoes in his self-storage locker to open up his own shoe store. That was the plan, until he had gone to his hoard and found a blow torch had been used to cut a hole in the corrugated steel roll-up door. He didn’t need to go inside. He knew what had happened. Someone he had put too much trust in had fucked him over and that was the end of that. Through pity or opportunity, a shoe shop owner on Fairfax offered Daryl a job managing his store, and reluctantly Daryl had taken him up on it. He really didn’t have a choice. Most of the money he had accrued had gone back into inventory.

  This is how Daryl, a former internet shoe baron, had met Jake, a guy who had no official job but who was willing to pay six months rent in advance. Jake had been the perfect roommate. He was always out of town or at some girl’s house, and when he was home he would sleep all day before emerging and hitting up some local club, usually taking Daryl along for the ride. Daryl was a few years older than Jake, but they had the same sense of humor and would spend hours watching TV, mostly old sitcoms, while fighting off hangovers A.K.A. praying for death. After a while, being late for work had turned into not turning up for work at all. It wasn’t that he was unreliable, but going to work and selling shoes for someone else was like torture to Daryl. He needed another angle, and Jake helped him find it.

  Daryl used the money Jake had given him for rent to buy some inventory, and thanks to their circle of friends in no time at all Daryl had become L.A.’s newest coke dealer – not like it needed any more. The coke business was easy for Daryl. It wasn’t a niche sale like shoes. Everyone wanted coke, and they wanted it all the fucking time. Unlike the shoe business, Daryl could keep his whole inventory in one shoebox. He had found his calling. And you damn well know he heeded Biggie’s fourth rule: his product was strictly for resale. Daryl loved the feeling of being back in business, even if it was illegal and a boatload more stressful. Once
again, he was selling product at a significant mark up to rich white and Asian kids with money to blow.

  Daryl drove onto the eastbound 10 highway and tried to stop thinking about the past. Making money wasn’t easy anymore, there were no big smiles greeting him like when he sold shoes or coke. All he saw now was sadness. He turned up the music on the radio and nodded his head along to it. He had an opportunity to make a new future for himself, and he needed to be in the moment, not in the fucking past.

  CHAPTER 7: PRICE OF ADMISSION

  Ryan could feel her eyes assessing him as she shifted in her seat. She thinks she’s too good for me, he thought. Fucking bitch, I’ll fucking show her!

  “So, Carissa, where are you from?” Ryan asked.

  He didn’t care where she was from, but he needed to assert dominance over her, make her feel like she didn’t belong in L.A., like she wasn’t pretty enough, special enough. The reality was that she was pretty enough, and if she knew it she wouldn’t need anything from him.

  “Iowa,” Carissa said meekly. “But, I’ve been here for almost six months.”

  It was already working. He could sense L.A. had already gotten to her. Everyone who had asked her this question had turned their nose up at her answer, and it had given her a complex. She was starting to become ashamed of where she was from. It was all too easy.

  “You a buckeye or a tornado?” Ryan asked as he leafed through the glossy portfolio she had brought along.

  “Buckeye, I guess,” Carissa giggled. “Go State!”

  It’s like taking candy from a baby, he thought.

  “Hmmmm,” Ryan murmured as he turned more pages of her portfolio. “I like your shots.”

  It was the middle of the afternoon, and she was dressed like she was about to hit a nightclub. Micro-mini, heavy makeup and super aggressive stilettos were a little bit over the top for the venue where he had chosen to meet her. She reminded him of one of the fucking sluts who used to tease him and give him shit in high school: always overdressed and in need of a taking-down.

  “This your headshot?” Ryan said with a derisive snort.

  “Yeah?” Carissa said as if it was a question. “You think I need a new one?”

  “Maybe…” Ryan said looking at it from different angles. “I just don’t think this one captures your key features as well as it should. Kind of makes your nose look big.”

  It was textbook pickup artist game that he had learned from books and seminars. All you did was point out the girl’s flaws and make her feel inadequate, and then even the lowly scumbag sitting next to her seemed like a catch. He could see she was trying to stop herself from reaching for her nose, but within a few seconds the urge was too great and she casually felt it as she scratched her cheek.

  “The headshot is the doorway to you getting work,” Ryan said stiffly. “If it doesn’t catch the eye, you might as well have stayed in Des Moines.”

  “It’s Cedar Rapids, actually,” Carissa said softly.

  “Huh?” Ryan said, looking up at her with an eyebrow raised. “Oh, same thing.”

  “Are we going to stay here?” Carissa asked as she looked out the window. “I thought we were going to go have lunch.”

  He could see she was getting annoyed at him but he had to keep pushing. He needed to make her want to leave or to try harder to get into his good graces. If she left, he knew she’d most likely write him an email apologizing the next day, and then she would be well and truly his. If she didn’t leave, well, he was going to get a little something for his time. That’s how it all worked in his opinion.

  “It says here you’ve done some extra work,” Ryan said, looking back at the portfolio. “You done anything real?”

  “Not really. There isn’t much opportunities for real roles in Iowa,” Carissa sighed. “I used to date this director who was making a movie there. He said I should come out here and that I had potential.”

  “Dated, huh?” Ryan repeated as his eyes scanned her up and down. “What’s his name?”

  “Ummm,” Carissa mumbled. “David Re..”

  “David Reynolds?” Ryan said with a knowing smile. “He meet you on set?”

  Ryan knew a lot of people in the business, but he especially knew all the creeps, all the guys who used their positions of power to get what they wanted. Allies were great and having information over them was even greater.

  “Yeah, he just came up to me,” Carissa said, her cheeks starting to glow. “He told me I had a great look.”

  “He take you back to that cool trailer of his?” Ryan asked with a knowing nod. “The one all decked out in black?”

  “Of course!” Carissa replied with a smile. “I didn’t do anything, though! I’m not like that.”

  “Really?” Ryan asked as he closed her portfolio dramatically. “That’s a shame.”

  “Oh, no, I’m a lot more experienced now,” she promised, uncrossing her legs and leaning towards him so her cleavage was next to his arm. “L.A. has made me a lot more fun.”

  “Oh, yeah?” Ryan said, leaning towards her so their faces were close. “Did he say what attracted him to you?” he whispered and licked his lips. “Did he say what turned him on about you, what made his cock hard?”

  She seemed a little taken aback, and he had to think on the fly. He had let his inner creep out which was amplified by his outer creep. It definitely wasn’t the first time that he had seen that reaction.

  “I mean, that kind of information could help us design the perfect headshot for you,” Ryan stumbled. “It could mean the difference between working in movies or daytime soap. You got a real movie star look, you know that? I think we could really go big with you.”

  “Oh, that’s sweet of you to say,” Carissa said before turning crimson.

  “You’re blushing!” Ryan remarked. “Tell me, come on. What did he like? Directors have a great eye for talent. We could really use his input.”

  “Umm, it’s a little embarrassing,” Carissa said coyly.

  “Do you want my help or not?” Ryan snapped. “You need to be honest with me.”

  She was giving the impression she was down for some pay-to-play, but he didn’t have all afternoon. He needed to get this show on the road.

  “Of course, I do. I mean, um, he really liked my breasts,” Carissa said, pushing up her breasts. “I’m just not sure how we can show them in a headshot is all.”

  “Oh, is that all you’re worried about?” Ryan laughed. “Don’t worry! I’m sure I can find a way.”

  “So, you’ll help me?” Carissa asked with a big smile. “I mean, you will represent me?”

  “I’m not sure just yet,” Ryan said with a sigh. “You’ve definitely got a look that directors like. I just don’t know if you’ve got what it takes to go the distance. I don’t like wasting my time, you know? I see fifty girls a week and maybe three have got what it takes to make it worth my while.”

  She leaned towards him, and her hand reached shakily onto his knee. He could tell she was nervous. He just needed to see how desperate she was.

  “I’ll do anything,” she whispered. “Whatever you want. Whatever it takes.”

  Ryan curled his lip. She and every actress that had ever sat across from him were the embodiment of the fucking sluts in high school who used to taunt him. He needed to get his revenge and his rocks off.

  “Anything, huh?” Ryan said as he lowered his seat back in his ’97 Corvette convertible. He unbuckled his belt and pulled down his pants. It was finally time for the real audition to commence.

  By no means was Ryan Pinkerton one of those sad stories you hear of the bullied kid who was tormented for no reason. Ryan was a shit bag, even in elementary school. He would hang under the stairs looking up girl’s skirts and hoard porno magazines in his locker. These weren’t your average skin-mags that other guys would gather around to see, they were the worst of the worst: shit fetishes, anal fisting and lemon parties. He had a rat-like face that made it easy for other kids to call him names like Ryan the R
at, Ratface and Nurse Ratchet.

  In high school his needs for sex increased and he took those depravities to the next level. He would get into the cavity behind the showers of the girl’s locker room, wedge himself against the wall with the plumbing and feverishly pump his flesh wand as he peeked through the little hole he had drilled in the drywall and tile. For a whole semester, Ryan the Rat was in his element, crawling through the wall space every day and jerking off to naked young girls in the shower. He reached peak shit bag one afternoon when he over pumped while reaching climax and became unbalanced, crashing through the waterlogged drywall and into the bathroom. The girls screamed and covered their junk, huddling in a group looking down at Ratface lying unconscious in a pile of broken tile and rotted drywall. Their terror turned to laughter once they realized Nurse Ratchet’s index finger was wedged firmly up his ass. Not to let the facts get in the way of a good nickname, Ryan Pinkerton, formerly known as Ryan the Rat, Ratface and Nurse Ratchet, graduated to Stinky Pinky. At forty-eight, his rodent features were still prominent and his hairline now resided towards the back of his skull in a clump like a rat’s tail. He wasn’t ghastly, and you definitely wouldn’t call him ugly, you just wouldn’t call him.

  Ryan left the nicknames behind in Wisconsin and moved to California, where he got another thirty solid years of shit-baggery under his belt, working in the scummiest business he could find, the film and television industry. He was an agent, representing actors and models. You know, the beautiful people, everything he was not. His job was to get them work for the most money possible, and he actually did it well. He didn’t work at CAA, Innovative Artists or William Morris; he worked at Formica Talent Agency, A.K.A. F.T.A., A.K.A. Forgettable Talent Agency, A.K.A. the lonely gas station in the middle of the desert that you only used on the way up or on the way down. All the big agencies were in Beverly Hills or West Hollywood but F.T.A. was in Downtown Los Angeles. Not exactly glamorous, but the rent was good. Not that Ryan owned the company or had a stake in it. He just showed up, did his work and secretly ran an underground escort agency, providing the rich and not so rich access to beautiful people.