The Hellfire Club, Part Four

Up a flight of stairs, Keeler sat behind a desk in a more modern office than the salon the club met it. Glass-topped desk, computer, chairs from IKEA. I sat down. Demmons leaned against the door.

            “Who are you?” Keeler smiled, folding his hands on top of the desk.

            “Tom Watson, of course. I told you—”

            “That’s not your ring. It belongs to a club member here.” He twisted the ring on his finger. “We can tell.”

            I’d have to warn Bering. If I got the chance. “All right. My name’s Tom Jurgen. We talked on the phone a few weeks ago?”

“The private detective?” His eyebrows rose. “I remember you. I was sorry to hear about Roger, but—”

“His girlfriend died today of the same unidentified infection. I’m thinking she picked it up from the ring.”

Keeler’s eyebrows lowered. “That’s . . . sad.”

Sad? I leaned forward. “Has it happened before? Gary blogged about being sick—”

Keeler sat up. “This club offers an  . . . extreme experience. There’s an appetite for this. Sometimes their appetites are too much for them.”

            “How extreme?” I wasn’t sure I wanted to know, but . . .

            Keeler clicked his computer mouse and swiveled his monitor around. “Take a look.”

            I leaned forward in my chair. A camera from a corner of the ceiling in the club room showed the action:

            Tangled piles of naked bodies cavorted on the carpet and the couches. The brazier crackled with fire. I saw Gary squirming with a man and a woman. Liz Ray was surrounded by men and women. Jason sat in a chair, watching as two men stroked Liz’s nude body.

The bald midget Ozzie strolled around, snapping a whip. One of the nude performers spanked a man. Another one lay across a table as people ate food from her body.

            “I get the idea.” I sat back. “The membership dues must be pretty healthy for everything you provide. Food, drinks and, uh . . . performers?”

            “None of it’s cheap.” Keeler snorted. “I share revenues with other clubs around the country, and they share funds with me. It’s complicated. I’d offer to send you an application with a dues schedule, but under the circumstances—no.” He chuckled.

            I started to stand up. “Well, it’s been interesting—”

            Demmons clamped a hand on my shoulder. “We’re not done.”

            Sweat chilled my skin as I settled back down.

            Keeler looked at me. “We’re all consenting adults. Nobody—”

            “Linda Niles wasn’t.” Damn it. Antagonizing Keeler and Demmons wasn’t likely to be the best strategy for getting out of here in one piece. I’m not very brave, but sometimes my mouth thinks I am.

            Keller shrugged. “Roger should have been more careful. The power it takes to create this fantasy can have side effects, but—”

            “Fantasy?” I pointed at the screen. “Those are real people there.”

            Keeler sighed, annoyed. He moved his mouse and clicked a command on his keyboard. “Here. Take a look at what’s really happening.”

            The tangled bodies were still on the screen. But the floor was tile with a thin blue rug over it, and the chairs and sofas looked like cheap resale store rejects. The bookcases were gone, along with the fireplace and the painting above it. The room looked like a vacant apartment filled with naked, rutting bodies.

But the brazier was still there, spewing smoke into the air. And Ozzie stood in the center of the floor, hands on his hips, gazing around like a ringmaster as a circus.

            The performers—Tick and Tock, and the three performers—rolled around in the middle of the pile, looking up, gasping, then sinking back down as if they were being consumed.

            I peered at the screen again. Before, the debauchery had looked like a mixture of the Pride and Prejudice and Bob Guccione’s Caligula. Now it just looked like a cheap porn film.

            “It’s more than just the money for the drinks and the food and those sluts. The fantasy takes energy.” Keeler sat back. “That’s my job. They get what they’re looking for. Everyone’s happy.”

            “That’s all just—an illusion?” I shook my head to get my mind around the idea. Everything I’d seen, felt . . . nothing more than a hallucination? Like an old Star Trek episode?

            “Like Gary’s sacrifice.” He held up his ring. “He didn’t burn, he only felt like he was. And then he was fine.”

            I thought of him moaning on the floor. “He was—in pain.”

            “Not real pain.” Keeler tapped his forehead. “Only in his mind.”

            This was getting crazier by the minute. “So all of these Hellfire Clubs are just—mass hypnosis?”

            “The aroma of the fire intensifies the experience.” He inhaled. “I can smell it from here.”

            I could too. I tried not to breathe in too deeply. “And what about those women? Tick and Tock? And Ozzie and the others?”

            “I pay them.” He leaned forward. “More than the usual whores. They’re happy to work for me. And Ozzie has been with me for years.” He smirked. “You see? There’s nothing to worry about.”

            But Roger Mathis and Linda Niles were still dead. “So why are you telling me this?”

            “To keep you from making trouble.” He held out his hand. “And I want that ring back.”

            I curled my fingers. “It’s not mine to give you.”

            Keeler groaned. “Fine. I’m sorry, but—”

            He snapped his fingers.

I wasn’t on fire. I was freezing.

            I felt like I’d fallen off the Titanic into the ice-cold ocean. Like Leonardo DiCaprio, I was sinking down, unable to breathe, the warmth leaking from my body. I couldn’t even shiver. My muscles felt stiff and helpless.

            I drifted in darkness. I couldn’t feel my arms or legs or face, but I could feel the cold in my blood and in my bones.

            I didn’t care about breathing. I only wanted to be warm again. Just a little bit.

            But I kept sinking. My eyes were frozen shut. My muscles had shut down. I could feel my heart beating slower and weaker. 

            In the back of my mind I knew that this wasn’t really happening. Just like Gary hadn’t burned. It was just Keeler’s illusion.

            But icicles were stabbing at my brain. This was the end.

I pictured Rachel, the first time I’d met her upstairs in our building, and then the last time I saw her—sitting in her Prius, flipping me the bird.

Even though my face was numb, I felt my lips curl in a smile. Okay, if this was my last memory . . .

Darkness.