“Why’s that?”
“Because actresses have to act, honey. That’s what makes them feel alive and fulfills them. And Raul can help you. I bet he’ll even like helping you.”
“Will I have to ask him for help?” She frowned.
“Here’s the thing, Dulcie. Even though you aren’t going to like admitting that you need help, the person whom you are asking to help you-if he cares about you-will be very pleased. It will mean so much to him that you need him that he will never even notice that you feel uncomfortable about it.”
Forty-Seven
The long living room wall was covered with newspaper clippings. There must have been a good twenty-five stories cut out and taped up. Each one telling the story in a slightly different way.
Once in Italy, he had gone into a church. Was it in Siena? The whole back wall had been covered with slips of paper, different sizes and colors, each covered with handwriting. Every note had been a prayer. Some old and yellowed. Others with the ink still black and fresh. He had taken a picture of the wall of prayers.
This then was his wall of answered prayers. The men who had taunted him were getting what they deserved. One by one by one. The only thing he was sorry about was that, although they described the other photographs of the dead bodies, they weren’t showing them. The silly small shots of their bare feet, with the numbers, were disturbing and gruesome, for sure. Graphic, too. In fact, if he were doing a cover for a book about these serial murders, he’d use this image of the insignificant filthy feet, so vulnerable with the bold bright red numbers printed on them.
His glance traveled from the number 1 on Philip Maur’s feet to the number 2 on Timothy Wheaton’s feet to the number 3 on Grant Firth’s feet. And now the number 4 on the bottom of Bruce Levin’s feet.
Number 5 would be up on the wall next. But he could be patient. Today was for luxuriating in Bruce Levin’s demise. He had been one of the worst of them. Laughing at his cock, flaunting his own erection. Stud. Fucking stupid stud.
He smiled.
Not anymore, he wasn’t.
Paul Lessor wished there were someone he could tell. Because it was so satisfying that he needed to share it.
They had laughed at him and now they were dying.
And no one had any idea why.
On the news and in the papers, reporters kept asking: What connects these men? Why these four? What is their bond to each other? And the longer they searched and the more they looked and the more bodies that showed up, the more baffled they became.
Paul knew. The thing that bound them together was the deepest darkest secret each of these men carried. Secrets they each had gone to great lengths to hide so that no one could find out about their nocturnal wanderings, their willingness to subjugate themselves to the powerful women who had them lie down or stand up and kiss them or lick them or fuck them or massage them or bathe them, or the one who had even been so bold as to ask him to wipe her pussy after she had gone to the bathroom.
No. None of these powerful men-who ran companies and made money and ordered other people around- wanted anyone to know that they belonged to a secret society where they were as powerless as ants under a gardener’s shoe. And so they had hidden their secret so well that neither their families nor the police or the reporters could find the connection between them.
It was late. After two on Sunday night. He should go to sleep. He would pay the price for this tomorrow when he went to work. But he wasn’t tired yet.
He picked up the red magic marker on his desk and walked over to the wall of answered prayers and began to underline his favorite parts in the articles that had appeared in the weekend papers. And he wondered how much longer it would take until the secret leaked out. Until everyone who had laughed at him was being laughed at. That would be rich.
Forty-Eight
“It’s too bright in here. Can’t you shut off some of the lights?” Anne asked.
“I’d like that, too,” Ellen said.
The lights were not that bright. My desk lamp was on. The recessed lighting was at the same level it always was. I thought about the request, got up, and turned the rheostat down just enough to make a difference. Then I sat back down.
The group had assembled. Everyone was present except for Betsy, and I wasn’t surprised that she hadn’t shown up.
“Let’s get started. If-” I had to remind myself not to call her Betsy. “If Liz comes we’ll be able to fill her in.”
“I think we should wait for her. She’s the only one who isn’t here,” Davina said. “And this is the first time we’ve all been together since the last two articles appeared. This is the only place we can be together and talk about this.”
“I understand that you’d like everyone to be here. But she may not be coming. And there is a lot for us to talk about. Is it all right with everyone if we proceed?”
I got a few lukewarm nods. Only Shelby spoke. “I think you’re right, Dr. Snow. We really need to get started so we can talk about what’s happened.”
Over the last three weeks, the stress these women were feeling had become more profound. They were in shock. Disturbed. Confused. And flat-out frightened.
The conversation quickly turned to the four men who had been chosen and conjecture about why, out of the many dozens who were participants in the society, they were being targeted. No one could come up with a reasonable suggestion. It seemed random.
The group was also sincerely worried about several men who hadn’t been seen at the society in the past two weeks. Were any of them missing?
“Maybe they just aren’t coming to your evenings. Perhaps the news has scared them away. Have you tried to contact them?”
“Yes. But we can’t do any more than leave coded messages. And we haven’t heard back from them,” Shelby said.
“I’m surprised anyone is still coming,” Ginny said. “Why isn’t everyone staying away? Why aren’t I?”
“How do you feel about being there?” I asked.
“As if it’s more important than ever to show up…” She seemed embarrassed for a moment. “It makes me feel even more alive. Like we are saying ‘fuck you’ to whoever this madman is every time we get together.”
A few other women agreed.
“I think that is a very reasonable reaction. You want everything to go back to normal. It’s a way of defusing the reality of what’s happened.”
“When I’m at the society, I can pretend that nothing has changed,” Anne said.
“I don’t feel that way,” Davina said. “I don’t think I can do this anymore. It’s wrong. Like we are playing some kind of ghoulish sex game.”
Shelby shook her head. “This isn’t our fault, though. It’s not something that we did. We’re not responsible.” She spoke too loudly.
Anne started to cry. “I’m tired of being sad. I don’t think I’ll ever stop being sad. It was bad enough when it was just Philip. And, after him, Tim. But now…four men…this is horrible. I think we should do something.”
Shelby turned quickly to look at her. “I thought you and I already resolved that.”
“Maybe it would be helpful to tell the group what you resolved,” I suggested.
Anne turned directly to me. “I told Shelby I thought we should talk to the police.”
I was glad that someone had brought it up again. If no one had, I was going to try and figure out how to suggest it myself.
There was only one connection between these men. It was the society that these women belonged to and participated in. Yes, now the police knew that each victim had a mark on his right foot that connected him to the others, but that wasn’t much of a lead without knowing what the mark was.
“No.” Shelby spoke sharply. “It’s just impossible. What could we say? No one knows about us. The very last thing we can do is expose our membership. That would be disastrous. We’d never recover!” She was almost shrieking.