The Hellfire Club

'Once I'm there, I can talk to him, and if I can talk to him, I can soften him up. Sooner or later, he'll listen to reason.'

'Davey, the Trojan horse.'

'That's right.'

Nora leaned back in her chair and looked at him steadily for what seemed a long time.

'I knew you wouldn't like it,' he said. 'But he has to calm down sooner or later.'

'Davey, your father is doing his damnedest to turn you back into a child, and you want to give him a helping hand. Once he has you locked up in there, he's going to keep hammering away. By the time he's finished, you'll be wearing diapers and eating pureed carrots, and we'll be divorced.'

'What a high opinion you have of me,' His face had turned a brighter shade of pink.

'I know what happens when you're around your father. You turn mute, and you do everything he says.'

'Not this time,' He frowned at his glass, then looked back up at Nora in a way that seemed almost challenging. 'Where did you find that garbage about my mother writing the Morning and Teatime books, in the astrology column?'

'It's true,' Nora said. Davey grimaced. 'I was reading along, and there they were, the Crosshatch scuff marks and a sentence starting with 'Indeed.' I was flabbergasted.'

'Not as flabbergasted as my mother. She's never even read novels like that. You heard my dad. Why would she do it in the first place?'

'Because Alden talked her into it. He thought he could make a lot of quick money out of horror novels.'

He put on a disgusted expression and gazed at his drink. 'Nora, even if this crazy idea came to you, why did you decide to tell her about it? Didn't you realize what would happen? I don't get how…' He threw up his hands.

'She was already ranting at me about spitting on her masterpiece, and I tried to rescue myself by telling her that it was so much better than those books. I guess I thought she'd be flattered.'

'Smart,' he said. 'You throw a bomb into the living room and expect her to take it as a compliment.'

Nora pushed hers away from the table. 'I have to go to bed. Will you come, too?'

'I'm going to stay up. I won't be able to get to sleep for hours.'

'But you will make those calls?'

'I don't need another bully in my life.'

'I'm sorry, I won't say any more about it, I promise.' Nora backed toward the door. 'I'll see you later, then.'

'I suppose.'

She forced herself to smile as she left the room.41

About half an hour after Davey had left for work on Monday morning, Nora cried out aloud and woke herself up. Sweat covered her body and dampened the sheets. A small, trembling pool lay between her breasts. She groaned and wiped her face with her hands, then grabbed a dry portion of the top sheet on Davey's side of the bed and blotted her chest. 'Holy cow,' she said, an expression inherited from Matt Curlew. As soon as she wiped away the moisture, more of it rolled from her pores. Her body radiated heat. 'Oh, hell,' she said. 'A hot flash.' She had not known that you could get a hot flash while sleeping. An insect of some kind began crawling up her right thigh, and she raised her head to look at it. Nothing was or her thigh, but the sensation continued. Nora tried to rub it away. The invisible bug moved another two inches up her leg and ceased to be. She lay back on the damp sheets, wondering if phantom insects were common occurrences during hot flashes, or if this were some little treat all her own. A few seconds later the moisture on her body turned cold, and it was over.

After she had showered and out of habit put on a dark blue T-shirt, white shorts, and her Nikes, Nora realized that she had dressed for a run. She padded into the kitchen for a glass of orange juice and realized that she knew at least one person sufficiently down-to-earth not to mind being asked what some would consider an intrusive question. She pulled the telephone directory toward her and looked up Beth Landrigan's number. Only when she heard the telephone ringing did she wonder if she might be calling too early.

Beth's untroubled greeting dispatched this worry. 'Nora, how nice, I was just thinking about you. Our lunch last week was so much fun that we should do it again. Just us, no noisy husbands. Let's cut loose and go to the Chateau.'

'Great,' Nora said. 'I love the Chateau, and Davey never wants to go there.'

'Arturo practically lives at the Chateau, but he never goes there for lunch, so we'd be safe. Wednesday?'

'You're on. Twelve-thirty?'

'Could you wait until one? I have a Japanese lesson at eleven-thirty on Wednesdays, and it lasts an hour.'

'Sure,' Nora said. 'Wow, Japanese lessons. I'm impressed.'

'So am I. I'm getting to speak it like a native… of Germany, unfortunately. Anyhow, you didn't call me to talk about my language difficulties. What's on your mind?'

'I wanted to ask you a question, and I hope it won't offend you.'

'Fire away.'

'It has to do with menopause.'

'Offended, are you kidding? Everybody I know is menopausal, including me. It's all the rage. What's the question?'

'I had my first hot flash this morning.'

'Welcome aboard.'

'This strange thing happened. In the middle of it, I felt a bug crawling up my leg, but there wasn't any bug. I could really feel it. Did that ever happen to you?'

Beth was laughing. 'Oh God, the first time that happened I almost jumped out of my skin. They tell you about the flashes, they tell you about night sweats and lots of other unpleasant things, but they never get around to telling you about the bug.'

'I'm glad it's not just me.'

'There's even a name for it. I can't remember the word, but it's something like masturbation. Maybe I'll ask my tutor what it's called in Japanese. On second thought, I'd better not. He'd probably run out of the house. He's an intellectual lad, but he probably doesn't know a thing about menopause.'

'Probably knows a lot more about masturbation,' Nora said, and the two women laughed and talked another few minutes before saying good-bye.

Cheered by this conversation and delighted by the promise of a friendship with funny, smart, levelheaded Beth Landrigan, Nora settled her long-billed blue cap on what she hoped was her own level head and left the house.

Forty-five minutes later, Nora heard the telephone ringing as she opened her front door, and she rushed up the stairs to answer it. Sweat darkened the blue T-shirt and shone on her legs. She snatched up the receiver and said, 'Hello.'

'Nora, this is Holly. I'd like you to get down to the station right away. Can you do that?'

'Did Natalie say something?'

'We have a lot of things to talk about, and that's one of them. If you don't have a car, I can send a man for you.'

'I came in from my run just this second, and I'm dripping. Let me take a quick shower and change clothes, and I'll be right in.'

He hesitated. 'Okay, but some folks here are going to get nervous if you don' show up soon, so make it as quick as you can.'

'Holly, you sound so… kind of abrupt. Should I be worried about anything? My life has gone so haywire lately,I wouldn't be surprised.'

'It isn't quite that simple,' he said. 'Do what you have to do and get here as fast as you can.'

'I'll see you in twenty, twenty-live minutes.'

'Come around to the back. This place is a zoo.'

Nora said, 'Okay, good-bye,' and Fenn hung up without speaking.42

Nora parked in the slot Davey had taken behind Fenn's office, and saw through his window the back of his