The Mephisto Club

“Someone’s gotta stop her before she humiliates herself!”

“Humiliates you, you mean.”

Frank shook off his daughter’s hand. “She’s your mother. You should talk some sense into her.”

“She’s at a party, so what? It’s not like she’s committing a crime.”

“That dress is a crime. I’m glad I got here before she did something she’d regret.”

“What are you doing here, anyway? How’d you even know she’d be here?”

“She told me.”

“Mom did?”

“Calls to tell me she’s forgiven me. Says I should go ahead and have my fun, ’cause she’s having fun, too. Going out to a party tonight. Says my leaving was the best thing ever happened to her. I mean, what the hell is going on in her head?”

What’s going on, thought Jane, is that Mom is having the ultimate revenge. She’s showing him she doesn’t give a damn that he’s gone.

“And this Korsak guy,” said Frank, “he’s a younger man!”

“Only by a few years.”

“You taking her side now?”

“I’m not taking any sides. I think you two need a time-out. Stay away from each other. Just leave, okay?”

“I don’t want to leave. Not till I have this out with her.”

“You really don’t have the right to tell her anything. You know that.”

“She’s my wife.”

“What’s your girlfriend gonna say about that, huh?”

“Don’t call her that.”

“What should I call her? The bimbo?”

“You don’t understand.”

“I understand that Mom’s finally having some fun. She doesn’t get enough.”

He waved in the direction of the music. “You call that just fun? That orgy out there?”

“What do you call what you’re having?”

Frank gave a heavy sigh and sank into a kitchen chair. He dropped his head into his hands. “What a mess. What a big, fucking mistake.”

She stared at him, more shocked by his use of the F word than by his admission of regret.

“I don’t know what to do,” he said.

“What do you want to do, Dad?”

He raised his head and looked at her with tormented eyes. “I can’t decide.”

“Yeah. That’s going to make Mom feel great, hearing that.”

“I don’t know her anymore! She’s like some alien with her boobs pushed up. All those guys are probably staring down her dress.” Abruptly he stood. “That’s it. I’m gonna put my foot down.”

“No, you’re not. You’re gonna leave. Right now.”

“Not while she’s still here.”

“You’ll only make things worse.” Jane took his arm and guided him out of the kitchen. “Just go, Dad.”

As they crossed the living room, he looked at Angela, standing with a drink in her hand, the disco ball casting multicolored sequins of light across her dress. “I want you home by eleven!” he yelled to his wife. Then he walked out of the apartment, slamming the door shut behind him.

“Ha,” said Angela. “Fat chance.”

Jane sat at her kitchen table, papers spread out in front of her, her gaze on the wall clock as the minute hand ticked past 10:45 P.M.

“You can’t just go dragging her home,” said Gabriel. “She’s an adult. If she wants to spend the whole night there, she has every right to.”

“Don’t. Even. Mention that possibility.” Jane clutched her temples, trying to block out the thought of her mother sleeping over at Korsak’s place. But Gabriel had already thrown open the gates, and the images came stampeding in. “I should go back there right now, before something happens. Before-”

“What? She has too good a time?”

He came around behind her and placed his hands on her shoulders, massaging her taut muscles. “Come on, sweetheart, lighten up. What are you going to do, give your mom a curfew?”

“I’m thinking about it.”

In the nursery, Regina gave a sudden wail.

“None of the women in my life are happy tonight.” Gabriel sighed and walked out of the kitchen.

Jane glanced up at the clock again. Eleven P.M. Korsak had promised to put Angela safely in a cab. Maybe he already had. Maybe I should call and find out if she’s left yet.

Instead she forced her attention back to the papers on the table. It was her file on the elusive Dominic Saul. Here were the few fading clues to a young man who, twelve years ago, had simply walked into the mists and vanished. Once again, she studied the boy’s school photo, gazing at a face that was almost angelic in its beauty. Golden hair, intense blue eyes, an aquiline nose. A fallen angel.

She turned to the handwritten letter from the boy’s mother, Margaret, withdrawing her son from the Putnam Academy.

Dominic will not be returning for the fall semester. I will be taking him back with me to Cairo…

Where they had simply disappeared. Interpol had found no record of their arrival, no documentation that Margaret or Dominic Saul had ever returned to Egypt.

She rubbed her eyes, suddenly too tired to focus on the page, and began gathering up the papers and returning them to the folder. Reaching for her notebook, she suddenly paused, staring at the page in front of her. She saw the quote from Revelation that Lily Saul had written:

And the ten horns which thou sawest upon the beast, these shall hate the whore and make her desolate and naked. And shall eat her flesh. And burn her with fire.

But it was not the words themselves that made Jane’s heart suddenly start to pound. It was the handwriting.

She rifled through the folder and once again pulled out Margaret Saul’s letter withdrawing her son from the Putnam Academy. She laid the letter next to her notebook. She looked back and forth, between the biblical quote and Margaret Saul’s letter.

She jumped to her feet and called out. “Gabriel? I’ve got to leave.”

He came back out of the baby’s room, holding Regina. “She’s not going to appreciate it, you know. Why don’t you give her another hour at the party?”

“This isn’t about my mom.” Jane went into the living room. He watched, frowning, as she unlocked a drawer, took out her holster, and buckled it on. “It’s about Lily Saul.”

“What about her?”

“She lied. She knows exactly where her cousin is hiding.”

THIRTY-FOUR

“I’ve told you everything I know,” said Lily.

Jane stood in Sansone’s dining room, where the dessert dishes had not yet been cleared from the table.