Page 73 of The King of Halloween
“Truth is, man, if not for your friendship with the mayor, I don’t think this place would have opened.”
“What?”
Logan jerked a thumb toward the front door. “That guy hates Halloween.”
“What the hell is he doing in Anoka?”
“Probably trying to ruin everyone else’s fun because he can’t have it. You know how that type is.”
“Far too well,” Raj grumbled to himself. “This is another two grand. Where are we going to get the money?”
“I can move some things around. Cancel a few ads.”
At this point, their advertising budget was a little over fifty dollars. Best they could do was hang a sandwich board on a cow and leave her next to the highway. Raj crumbled into his hands, his heart pounding faster in his head. “We need people to come here.”
“I know.”
“They can’t do that if they don’t know we exist.”
“We’ll figure something out. Something that keeps everyone happy.”
He wasn’t in the mood to keep a man like that happy, but he didn’t have a choice. It was the VFX studio all over again. Every time he thought he got control, he could survive, some middle manager asshole would come along and gut him without a second thought. All because it made the books look better for the stockholders.
“Hey.” Logan finished tucking the invoice away where Raj couldn’t get at it. “Why don’t you ask that Stein guy to help? Do something with his store?”
Adam? Just as things were getting good between them, he was supposed to use him to help his failing business? That’d go over well.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Raj said.
“Why? Because of the apple thing? So you two had a weird fight over fruit. People thought it was funny. They’re still talking about it, which means they’re talking about the hotel. We can use it.”
“No.” Raj shook his head.
I won’t use him.
?
“Hey! Hey, Mister.”
“That’s hey, hey, mister Stein to you.” Adam chortled as he finished sweeping the last of the red maple leaves off of his sidewalk. The cherubic child bored a hole through his head at the joke. “Yes, what do you require, rapscallion?”
“What? I ain’t an onion!”
The kid’s friend took over the questioning while he fumed on the trickery of etymology. “When’s your haunt opening?”
Oh, that.Adam had kept it running for a few days due to people demanding it. But now that Raj’s was working, maybe he should shut it down.
Of course, that would only invite wee sprites like the Tuttle twins to hurl eggs and bricks at his windows.
Adam tossed his broom to the other hand like he was about to break into a soft-shoe routine. A shame he didn’t wear a hat to roll off his arm and into his palm. “I’m glad you’re here, instead of wasting your time at that other haunt.”
“There’s another haunt?” the biggest kid asked.
“Yeah,” the onion responded. “By the gas station at the lake. But it costs money.”
“Too true. A whole fifteen dollars for you to spend, what? A half hour getting terrified out of your wits. Boring. Mine finishes in three minutes. In and out, the way Halloween should be.”
The kids’ faces fell.
