The 8th Circle

by Sarah Cain

  And there were always consequences.

  She’d never let anyone see her naked in the daylight. But he wasn’t appalled at the white scars on her rib cage, the pucker just below her right breast. He’d kissed it and told her she was beautiful.

  “I wish I’d met you before,” he’d said.

  “Before what?”

  He didn’t answer immediately, and she watched him trying to frame his answer. He did that a lot. Danny was careful with words. He enjoyed coaxing them out of people, but he liked being careful with his own. Was it the deceiver in him or his fear of exposing himself? Maybe it was both. It allowed him to insinuate himself into people’s lives, however briefly, and walk away with little nuggets he would polish into gems.

  Was she real to him or just another little nugget of a story he would store away in his mind? Kate pressed her fingers against her eyes and willed herself not to cry. She wished she could be like the snow and dance away on the wind.

  She heard the soft knock on her door and went to open it. Novell. She tried to slam it in his face, but he stuck his foot in the doorway.

  “I don’t have any booze,” she said.

  “It’s not a social call.” He pushed past her. “Where is he?”

  Kate folded her arms. “Who?”

  “Ryan.”

  She tried without success to force down the bubble of laughter that rose in her chest. “Jesus Christ, Novell. You lost him?”

  Novell caught her by the shoulders. “Tell me where he is or—”

  “Or what?” She grinned when Novell let go of her shoulders.

  Novell leaned close. She knew he did it because she hated it, but she didn’t flinch. “You just remember, Kate. I know who you are. If Ryan comes here, you call me. Linda Cohen was a warning. I can protect him.”

  He didn’t believe that. Kate would have sympathized if her anger hadn’t run so deep.

  “No one can protect him, Novell. He’ll have to take his chances.”

  “That’s cold. So cold I almost don’t believe you.”

  Damn him. She hated that he knew her so well. Once it was almost a relief having one person she didn’t have to lie to, and she felt a pull toward him—even though he was a million years old. Sometimes she still felt it. Faint, almost bittersweet, even though Novell thought she was a whore.

  Hell, she’d been that. She made no apologies. But her most unforgivable sin in Novell’s eyes was going to work for Robert Harlan.

  “Ryan’s still in love with his wife,” Novell said. “Funny, isn’t it? She was a bitch too.”

  Kate gave a shrug as if she didn’t care, but cold sliced into her chest. Still, she wouldn’t give Novell something else to hold over her head. Novell knew her at her worst, clinging to the edge of a toilet, barely able to stand. It didn’t give him the right to tell her how to live.

  “You used to be kind of decent, Novell. You get religion or what?”

  “I’m just warning you, Kate. Don’t think he’s some kind of hero because you had sex with him.”

  “Why is it that men think women can’t get over getting laid?” Kate examined her nails. She had a chip in her manicure and glared at the offending triangle of white in the smooth burgundy of her thumbnail. “Believe me, Novell. You see one dick, you’ve seen ’em all. Someday, I’ll get me a dog, then I’ll be content.” She sat back down on the window seat.

  “Ryan attracts some heartless women.”

  She pulled up her knees and rested her head on them. Heartless. That was almost funny. “How’s Linda?”

  “Still unconscious. You talk to the senator?”

  “I told him I was with the police.”

  “You need to watch yourself with him.”

  Kate heard this lecture before. “I’ll be all right.”

  “I’m serious, Kate. He’s a predator. He likes to isolate—”

  “He’s never done anything improper.” She didn’t understand why Novell thought Senator Harlan would do anything to her. Sure, he was strange, but he’d always been kind to her. Sort of like a mentor.

  Novell shook his head. “He doesn’t work that way. He’ll suck you dry and then discard you. I’m warning you, for your own good.”

  Kate focused on the salt truck that drove down the street. Its amber light flashed like a beacon. If she concentrated on that light, the snowplow, she could shut out the terrible pain in her nonexistent heart.

  “Don’t you have somewhere to be, Novell?”

  “If Ryan comes here, you let me know.”

  “He’s not stupid. He got what he wanted from me. Why should he come back?” That was what Novell expected. Cynical Kate. The whore.

  What else could she do? When Thomas had died, she had to survive. She didn’t have anyone to look out for her. If he’d lived a little longer, things might have been different. She didn’t know why Thomas had signed on to be her angel, but he’d told her once she was his penance and redemption.

  All she knew was that Thomas had paid for the surgery on her face. He’d given her a place to stay, helped her find a new identity. A girl with the same first name because he said it would be easier to remember, and Katie Shay of Belfast, Ireland, became Kate Reid of Deer Island, Maine.

  It would’ve alarmed Thomas to see her with his son, the boy he’d been at odds with forever. One of those nights near the end, when the pain was bad and he was living on morphine, Thomas had told her Danny was conceived in anger, and he couldn’t look at him without feeling ashamed.

  “The Lord punished me,” he’d said. “He took my Mary and left me with—every time I look at him . . .” He’d buried his face in his hands, his gaunt cheeks marred with tears.

  No, Thomas wouldn’t be happy, but it was too late. She’d jumped in the deep end. Or maybe that happened long ago.

  Novell said, “Goodnight, Kate.”

  She startled at the sound of his voice.

  Kate turned back to the window and reached out to touch the cold glass. She wanted to cry for Thomas and Danny Ryan and Katie Shay, the girl who died in the flames. The lost one.

  45

  Danny slid the disc Linda had given him into Theresa’s laptop. He’d bought the computer for her when she insisted she needed it because she was going back to school any day. The trouble was that every few months, she had a new idea: dental hygienist, medical assistant, interior designer. He gave her points for sticking with the receptionist job she’d managed to secure with Jimmy Manisky. He wasn’t sure if it was Theresa’s typing skills or the fact that Jimmy had been sweet on her all his life. Now divorced from his third wife, Jimmy was still sweet on Theresa and had a thriving dental practice, despite his penchant for cheating wives and bad toupees and his unfortunate resemblance to an overweight Chihuahua. If Theresa had given him the slightest encouragement, he would have been her slave, but even Theresa had her standards.

  He opened the files that popped up. The first was a restaurant review. The Red Door. Michael rated it four stars plus.

  “Look behind the Red Door for Bruce Delhomme’s real specialties. . . . Any fantasy your palate desires will be fulfilled here; Red Door caters to the outrageous . . .”

  Kinky, for a restaurant review. Michael’s style had improved, though it was out of place here. Or maybe it wasn’t. Bruce Delhomme of the shampoo commercial hair and overindulged child manners served up exotic food and what else?

  Bruce Delhomme, friend of Andy and Robert Harlan. Danny made a note to check through the senator’s campaign filings to see if Delhomme was a contributor and, if so, how big. The most recent filings wouldn’t be out for a few more weeks, but he could go backward. He added Bartlett Scott to the list and then called Linda’s appointment secretary and cajoled her to e-mail him the guest list.

  “Linda wanted me to check out some names quietly,” he told her. She had agreed tearfully after informing him she’d sent the same list to the police.

  He didn’t expect surprises. Most of the people who appeared were bound to show up o
n a donor list for Robert Harlan. It was always politically wise to hedge one’s bets when donating to a candidate, even in the bitter partisan political atmosphere. Robert Harlan wasn’t likely to be defeated in Pennsylvania; therefore, major donors were going to line his pockets whether they liked him or not. It guaranteed an audience. Robert Harlan was a business conservative: he talked family values but never let those hardcore conservative beliefs interfere with business interests.

  Danny went back to the restaurant reviews. Twenty more restaurants—some of which he knew well. Michael rated fifteen of them four stars plus. It all seemed innocuous, except for Michael’s vaguely obscene prose and the fact that half of them were mediocre places at best. Danny couldn’t believe someone killed Michael over smutty restaurant reviews, and he didn’t see the connection between upscale eateries and the Inferno.

  Still, there had to be one or Michael wouldn’t be dead.

  Danny opened another file: Black Velvet. Michael rated it four stars plus and called it “a delightfully decadent feast for the voyeur but not hard core.” Black Velvet of the lip-shaped couches and naked bodies was a whole different kind of feast, not exactly a place you’d recommend as a top nightspot in a mainstream paper. He wondered what Michael considered hard core until he opened the next file.

  Club Midnight in Northern Liberties, which was, according to Michael, a Bruce Delhomme Enterprise, though not one on the record books. “Club Midnight is not for all tastes. . . . Private rooms upstairs have the real action. . . . The dungeon is reserved for special members. . . . Luscious leather and chains are available for those who like it hard. Bring your own whips and fantasies. Pain guaranteed. Four stars plus.” Just below Michael had typed “Tophet.” Danny wasn’t sure if it was part of Club Midnight or a new entry he hadn’t filled in.

  None of this made sense. How could Michael compare sex clubs to restaurants? Unless the four stars plus wasn’t a rating but some kind of code. A code that signified a connection to something. What did restaurants and sex clubs have in common? What did Club Midnight and Bruce Delhomme’s upscale restaurants have in common?

  What was it Zach had said? “It ain’t a club—not like this. It’s like management. It operates clubs, and depending on your level of membership, you get access.”

  Access to what?

  A sex club where rich old coots got jacked off or something more? The Inferno was management. Maybe they managed clubs and provided special services. Danny was sure that Midnight was the sex club Theresa described. The one that specialized in S and M. She said there were levels of membership, and after they negotiated for a while, she even remembered where she put Vic’s card. It was similar to the one he found at Michael’s. This one was flashier, gold divided by a red line with a black drop in the center—just the thing for a dealer on the rise.

  Amazing what money could do to jog the memory.

  Dumbass. Concentrate.

  One file remained: an image. Danny wasn’t sure what he expected, maybe a dominatrix complete with whip and full leather ensemble. He wasn’t prepared to see a photograph taken more than nine years ago at his father’s funeral.

  It had reached one hundred and four that day, a new record for the city. He remembered that Kevin’s face had burned bright red above his dress uniform, and a waterfall of sweat had run down his forehead.

  Poor Jean’s pregnant belly had strained against her black cotton dress, and her ankles had looked like mottled sausages. Danny had held her arm when Kevin had accepted the American flag that had draped over the old man’s coffin. Jean’s arm had been slippery and fragile, as if the slender bones might snap under his fingers, and she labored to catch her breath. When he’d whispered to her to come back with him to the limo to sit in the air conditioning, she’d looked up at him both stricken and surprised.

  “Oh, no, Danny. I couldn’t, but thank you. I’m fine. Really. Please, no, this is your father’s funeral.”

  “He’s dead. He won’t care.”

  Her mouth had dropped open, and that was the moment caught in the picture, seconds before the ubiquitous piper began to play “Amazing Grace” and they threw handfuls of dirt on the old man’s coffin. Danny thought it would’ve been more fitting to dump shots of Dewar’s in the grave but then figured the old man might come roaring back from hell if he knew they were wasting a drop of his beloved scotch.

  Why did Michael go to the trouble to look up this picture? It was a strange choice.

  Danny squinted at the photo and tried to decide what Michael might have been looking for in that sea of faces. Some were familiar. Cops for the most part. His coworkers from the paper. Curiosity seekers. A girl with her back to the camera, but something about her carriage reminded him of Kate. Weird, or perhaps he had Kate on his mind.

  A face in the corner caught his eye, and he leaned closer. Bartlett Scott. Now that was peculiar. Danny tried to remember if he had spoken to the great man himself and decided he hadn’t. In the photograph, Bartlett Scott looked vigorous, with a full head of blondish hair and a slim build. It reminded Danny of someone, but he couldn’t force the image into his head. He made a note. He needed more information. He knew Bartlett Scott had lost a son to cancer, and of course, there was the daughter, but he thought there was a second son. Why was Bartlett Scott at the old man’s funeral? He hadn’t come because Thomas Ryan was a kindly man. More likely, he wanted to make sure the old man was dead.

  Why had Michael pulled this picture? Did he have suspicions about the great philanthropist of Philadelphia? Bartlett Scott built hospital wings and performing arts centers. The thought of him prowling around a place like Black Velvet made Danny’s skin crawl. Some are born to endless night. Was Bartlett Scott talking about himself when he dropped that gem?

  This just got weirder and weirder.

  Michael must have been nosing around clubs and discovered the Inferno. That much made sense. Danny’s own father had talked about the Inferno—Kevin had admitted that much—but what had he meant? What the hell did Michael find? Some kind of link? Zach had told him the Inferno was management. It provided access. The more money you paid, the more access you got. But what did that mean? He needed to get out of here and talk to Andy. He needed wheels.

  He should have talked to Michael when he had the chance, but he’d been too busy popping pills and wallowing in his own misery. God, he loved those pills. He’d line them up and swallow them down until the pain faded to a tolerable ache and life lost its hard edges and bright colors. He’d drifted into a perpetual twilight, like falling into deep snow.

  “Can’t you see what you’re doing to yourself?” Michael had said that night when he’d dropped in unannounced and unwanted. Michael had paced the family room and swallowed tequila straight from the bottle.

  It was summer, and he’d worn a hideous red, orange, and purple Hawaiian shirt that had gaped open enough to reveal his massive beer gut. Danny had heard Beowulf growl beside him, and it snapped him out of his stupor enough to pay attention.

  “You’ve got to stop this shit right now.” Michael had slammed down the bottle. “I love you. Conor and Beth are dead. I’m your brother. I won’t let you kill yourself.” He’d headed for the stairs.

  It was the only thing Michael could have done that got Danny running, but he’d tripped on the uneven back steps. The toilet had flushed before he’d reached the second floor. When he’d skidded through the bathroom door, Danny had seen the pill bottles lying empty in the sink. A few of his precious friends had scattered across the floor like jewels against the beige tile.

  “Asshole!” He’d started toward Michael. “You have no right—”

  Michael had pulled out a .22 from behind and aimed it at him. “I’d rather shoot you than see you like this!”

  Beowulf had barreled through the door, and Danny had grabbed his collar. The dog’s momentum had driven him to his knees and dragged him halfway across the bathroom, but he had known if he let go, Beowulf would go for Michael’s throat, and Michael m
ight shoot.

  “Put the gun down, Michael.” Danny had forced himself to speak in a rational voice. If he weren’t afraid for Beowulf, he would have launched himself at Michael and hoped for once Michael wouldn’t screw up.

  “You don’t know.” Great sobs had racked Michael’s body. “Listen to me. I know things. You have to come back.”

  “You know shit. You want me back because I’ve saved your sorry ass for the last sixteen years. Who’s rewriting your column now that I’m not there?”

  Michael had slumped as if he’d been kicked. His mouth had opened and closed. The gun had drooped in his hand. “But you have to . . . You can write—”

  “I don’t want to write. I want to be left alone.” Danny had pulled himself to his feet and dragged Beowulf with him to the master bedroom. “If you’re going to shoot me, go ahead. Otherwise, let yourself out. Don’t come back.”

  They didn’t speak again until Michael had crashed into his duck pond.

  Now he knew that Michael was right. He knew things.

  Not all accidents are accidents, and Beth and Conor certainly hadn’t been one. Beth and Conor were dead because of him. They had been driving his car. If he hadn’t fallen apart, he would’ve realized something was wrong about the crash. He should have known.

  Beth was in awful shape. Danny hadn’t recognized her at first, and he’d stood for a long time, staring until her features began to rearrange themselves into their familiar lines and angles.

  But there hadn’t been a mark on Conor’s body. He’d just been so cold. And Danny had thought if he could only hold him, Conor would grow warm again. His heart would start to beat, and his skin would turn pink instead of that bloodless white.

  Familiar pain gnawed at his stomach. He’d let them slip away. He couldn’t hold on to Beth, to Conor. To anyone. The sense of his own impotence overwhelmed him like the thick silence that lay over the house. He bowed his head against the window. Cold. He was cold. He was so good at using smartass remarks or, worse, silence as a shield. Because nobody was ever going to beat him up again. Ever.