Crab Town by Iii Carlton Mellick

date. The audacity of his proposal was too much for her to refuse.

    Going on a date in Crab Town pretty much meant to go for a walk on the bay, which is what Jack had intended. But Nine wanted nothing to do with that. She took him out to eat at a nice downtown restaurant outside of Crab Town, spoiling him with mint cocktails and clam pasta. She even bought him some new clothes for the occasion, which made Jack feel a bit like a Ken doll.
    “This is a shocking turn of events,” Nine said. “Yesterday I was trying to have you killed and you were trying to put me out of business, today we’re having a romantic dinner together.”
    Jack just smiled.
    “You have yet to tell me why you asked me out on this date.”
    “As you said, I’m trying to put you out of business,” Jack said, then he took a sip of white wine.
    “And?”
    “And…” Jack shrugged. “Dropping everything to go out on a date with me meant that, for at least today, you’d be out of business.”
    Nine laughed out loud. “So that’s your scheme…”
    “It worked, didn’t it?”
    “Your strategy worked brilliantly. But, you know, tomorrow it’s business as usual.”
    “Not if we go on another date.”
    Nine laughed again. She took another sip of wine and looked him in the eyes.
    “Tell you what,” she said. “I’ll make you deal. Every day you go out with me I’ll shut my business down. No films will be shot, no movies will be sold, no actors will be recruited. I’ll consider it a day off.”
    “You’ve got a deal,” Jack said.

    Nine had no idea that Jack would take the offer so seriously. He decided to go on a date with her every single day from that point on. Originally she wasn’t actually serious about shutting her business down just because they went on a date, but she found herself honoring the agreement. The whole thing amused her so much she had to keep her end of the deal. She just wanted to see how far Jack was willing to go.
    After a month had gone by, Nine wondered if it was all a game anymore. She definitely had serious feelings about him, and she believed he had serious feelings about her even though he always said he was only dating her to keep her business shut down.
    “Why don’t you join me?” Nine asked him. “You could be a partner in my company. You know how much I make? Twenty thousand a month, tax free. Half of that could be yours. You wouldn’t even have to do any of the dirty work. You could just be my business associate and personal bodyguard. Think about it. I’m willing to share it with you 50/50. I’d never make that offer to anyone else.”
    “50/50 would be what? 10,000 a month?”
    “Yeah.”
    “Too low.”
    “Too low? How much does the House of Cards pay you per month? Nothing? Well, I’m offering you 10,000 times as much.”
    “I wouldn’t sell my soul for so cheap.”
    “Come on, you can live a life of luxury. So few people live in luxury these days.”
    “You live in Crab Town. What do you know about luxury? Your movie dungeon is probably the most scummy, toxic pit in town.”
    “But I’m able to go on vacation any time I want. Maybe you should come with me on vacation and see what I mean. I’ll show you what you’re missing.”
    Jack tapped his plate with his fork.
    “What do you say?” she asked.
    Jack agreed to go out of town with her for five days. They ate shellfish, swam in a radiation-free pool, they even made love a few times. Nine thought she had finally won him over, she had finally got the hero to come to her side. But on the morning of the sixth day, she woke to find him gone.
    When she got back to Crab Town, she learned that her film studio had been burned to the ground. Her actors had fled and her workers were missing. She could no longer contact her distributors and clients, many of which had been imprisoned. And to top it off, her bank account was empty. Jack was behind it all.

    “You probably could have convinced me to retire without robbing me blind,” Nine