The Hellfire Club

'Hustle your fine little buns into the bathroom and brush your teeth. Void your bowels. Enjoy a lengthy urination. While I do the same, get your shit packed. Time's a-wasting.'

Nora had folded all the new clothes into the suitcase, slid the unopened packets of soap and bath cream down the sides, jammed in the mouthwash, and begun placing all the makeup and beauty-care equipment on top of the pile. After packing his own clothes twice as well as she in half the time, Dart stopped admiring himself in the mirror to check her progress. 'Didn't your mother teach you anything? You can't put that stuff in your suitcase, for God's sake.'

'Where do you want me to put it?'

He winked at her. 'Little surprise.' He opened the closet door, took from the shelf a black leather handbag with a golden snap, and danced toward her. 'Gucci, you will observe. Testimonial to your invaluable assistance.'

'I didn't see you buy this.'

'Took advantage of the trusting inattention of the salesladies at our second stop. Fit neatly into the bag from the first emporium.'

Nora scooped the bottles, cases, and containers into the bag and snapped it shut.

'Let's find our victim,' Dart said.53

'A lot of people think traveling salesmen died out with Willy Loman, but the world is full of guys with their backseats full of sample cases and catalogs. Travel these huge territories, two or three states, the whole; Northeast. Drive high-end Detroit iron and pull into joints like this too tired to fight.'

Standing on the balcony a few feet from Dart, Nora rubbed her bare arms. Condensation shone on the empty cars beneath them, and the windows of Home Cooking were dark. The headlights of a dark green sedan on the side of the lot shone on a cement planter in which geraniums wilted in a carpet of cigarette butts.

'Idiot's battery is going to die before he gets his ass out of bed,' Dart said. Some people shouldn't be allowed to drive.'

'You're sure someone's going to come in?'

'Dick Dart's word is his bond,' he said in a booming voice. 'If Dick Dart tells you something, you can take that motherfucker to the motherfucking bank.'

A car veered into the exit. 'What did I tell you?' Dan pulled her into the room and looked back at the car, which drove past the entrance to the lot. 'Cheapskate's looking for a place costs five bucks less a night.' He dropped Nora's arm and stepped back out onto the balcony. 'Let's see some action here, people. Haven't got all day.'

He shoved his hands in his pockets and rose onto the balls of his feet. He patted the top of the balcony rail with his fingertips. 'Still can't get over that serial killer thing.' For a minute or two, he paced up and down on the narrow balcony. 'Let's take our bags downstairs.'

Nora carried her suitcase in one hand, and with her other arm clutched to her chest the bags from the hardware store and liquor store. Draped over these was Dart's bulging suit bag.

They carried their things past an empty desk. 'No conception of service left in this country. We're turning into Nigeria.' He crammed himself into the revolving door, swore, swung it around, and disappeared from view, leaving Nora to solve the problem of the revolving door by herself. She had to struggle around twice to move everything outside. Once, she would have fled through the hotel and escaped, but the person she was now could not do that; she had been punished too much, and the transparent membrane protected her from further punishment.

Dart was standing beneath the marquee. 'Get over here in case one of those morons actually deigns to work the desk.' He pulled keys from his jacket pocket and displayed them on his palm. These things cost something, but hey, they just work here, it's not their money.' He tossed them into the cement planter. 'That thing is supposed to add some beauty to the place, and what do people do? Turn it into an ashtray. First of all, they smoke, as if nobody ever told them they're begging for lung cancer, and then they throw their butts into a planter. Anybody can stop smoking. Used to smoke four packs a day, and I stopped. What happened to self-control? Fuck self-control - what happened to simple consideration for others?'

Nora watched dark outlines speed down the highway against the brightening sky.

'Isn't there any work ethic left in this country?'

Nora looked at the car with its lights burning and made out a shape behind the wheel.

'Come on, Nora. Can't do everything by myself. Wind it up, cross your fingers, turn the key, do whatever the hell you do.'

'I don't do anything.'

'Do you…' He stopped talking and looked at her, blinking rapidly. 'If that dodo left his lights on, maybe he left his keys in his car.'

He walked out from under the canopy, bent to look into the car, and ran toward it, pulling the revolver from his jacket pocket.

Nora pressed the heavy suit bag to her eyes and waited for the explosion. Dart's shoes thudded on the asphalt and came to a stop. She heard his dirty bow-wow-wow laugh.

She lowered the bags. Dart was blowing her a kiss from beside the open car door. 'Goddamn it, Nora, you deserve a bonus.'

She moved toward him.

'Ta da!' Dart stepped aside to reveal an obese male body slumped behind the wheel. A yellow tie had been yanked sideways, and the first four buttons of the shirt had been torn off.

'Heart attack, wouldn't you say?'

'Looks that way,' Nora said.

'Butterball here's about fifty pounds overweight, and the inside of his car reeks of cigarettes.' He touched the corpse's flabby cheek. This bag of shit drove in about a minute before we went out onto the balcony, turned off his car, and dropped dead before he could switch off his lights. He's been here all along! Put down that stuff and give me a hand.'

Dart kneeled on the passenger seat, wrapped his arms around the dead man's chest, and yanked him sideways. Nora bent down and pushed. Her hands sank into the soft body.

'Jesus, Nora, you've handled dead bodies before. You can't wimp out on me now.'

Nora put her shoulder into the dead man's side. 'Push!'

The body tumbled into the passenger seat.

Dart tossed the keys over the top of the car. Put the bags in the trunk.'

Obedient Nora opened the trunk and laid the suit bag across cartons and boxes. Then she got in the backseat and Dart accelerated backwards, braked, and shot toward the front of the hotel. The dead man's head rolled sideways. They jammed the rest of the bags into the trunk and backseat. The knives between his feet. Dart rolled chuckling toward the exit. Then he braked and leaned toward the corpse.

He tugged a wallet from the dead man's jacket. 'Check out these business cards. Playtime Enterprises, Boston. Gumbo's Goodies, Boston. Satisfaction Guaranteed, Waltham. What are these places? Hot Stuff, Providence. The Adults Only Parlor.' Dart started laughing. 'Jumbo sells sex toys! What a gem! Let's find out his name.'

He held up a license displaying a photograph of a pudgy face with distended cheeks and close-set eyes. 'We have the pleasure of being in the company of Mr Sheldon Dollkis. Mr Dolkis is, let's see, forty-four years of age, weight two hundred twenty-five pounds, height five feet, eight inches. He claims to have hazel eyes, and he has declined to be an organ donor. We shall see about that, I believe.' Dart grasped the corpse's right hand. 'A treat to make your acquaintance, Shelley. We'll paint the town red.'

He drove into the southbound lanes of the highway. 'We want a Mom and Pop motel redolent of the two quintessential Normans, Rockwell and Bates. A shabby little office and a string of depressing cabins.'

'Why is that what we want?'

'Can't leave our new friend in the car, now, can we? Shelley is part of our family.'

'You're going to keep him?'

'I'm going to do a lot more than that,' Dart said.54

'Delightful place, Springfield,' Dart said. 'Pay attention now, Shelley. Even a lowlife like you must have heard of the Springfield rifle, but did your education cover the Garand? Wonderful weapon for its time. For two hundred years, both of these rifles were manufactured in Springfield. It may be the only city in America with a weapons