The Demon Pool

by Richard B. Dwyer

  “Given in the right quantity,” he had said, “the victim’s involuntary systems keep working, but the drug disconnects the brain’s voluntary control mechanism, the main link between the conscious mind and the body.”

  “And you’ve used this before?”

  “Oh yeah. In the Wan Chai district of Hong Kong. I grew up there. American father, Chinese mother.”

  Kat watched the shadow twist and weave around Tony.

  “The bargirls paid me a small fortune for the mix. They used it to rob businessmen and politicians stupid enough to cheat on their wives. They were easy targets because the girls knew that few married men, especially those in business or politics, were going to report that a hooker had robbed them.”

  “But wouldn’t some of them go to the police anyway? Claim they had been drugged while just having a drink or two?”

  “They might have except for the photos and videos. With my mix, the victim could still get an erection with a little help from his new friend. That turned out to be one of the more interesting and profitable aspects of the drug. Pose the victim, add a couple of naked girls, record the party, leave the evidence with the victim. It worked every time.”

  Unfortunately, for Tony — but now fortunately for her — one of his hooker associates carelessly overdosed the son of a highly placed Triad leader. The woman had left the body in the hotel and crossed back into China, setting up Tony as the fall guy. Tony was on the next available plane to New York. He stayed in New York for a week before he decided Tampa seemed a lot safer. No Triad-infused Chinatown to worry about.

  Mikey the doorman stood next to Demore. Demore sat straight up on the stool, his eyes glassy, staring straight ahead, the remains of his drink puddled on the floor. Whatever the second drug was, it had done its job. Kat and Mikey escorted Demore around the bar toward the private, curtained booths of the VIP area. They helped him into the booth farthest from the stage. Mikey closed the curtain, standing guard on the club side of the thin barrier. Behind the curtain, Kat stood in front of Demore. She leaned forward putting her head next to his.

  “It’s a shame you’re not going to remember any of this, Trooper Demore. I have a special gift for you.”

  Kat straightened up as a second dancer slid past the curtain and into the booth.

  “He won’t be going anywhere for a while,” Kat told her.

  Kat turned around and stepped out from behind the curtain. She put her hand on one of Mikey’s huge biceps.

  “Crystal is getting him ready. I’ll be right back with the camera.”

  Mikey just grunted and smiled.

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  Jim sat in the booth. He tried to shout for someone to call 9-1-1, but his mouth and tongue would not cooperate. They felt thick and heavy, as if someone had imbedded a chunk of lead in his tongue.

  Everything that made Jim who he was — thoughts, personality, spirit, soul — felt crammed into a tiny place inside his skull. They were all there, but separated from his body by an infinite, seemingly unbridgeable gulf.

  He could think, see, and feel. Those functions worked. But something had severed the control connections between his brain and his body. Not in the way that a paralyzed individual experienced, where the outer parts ceased functioning altogether. No, this was different. He had walked to the booth, but he did not want to. His legs carried him along, even though he wanted to make them stop. A puppet on a string, and Kat Connors pulled that string.

  One moment walking, then sitting. Momentary blackout?

  He needed to focus. Kat had leaned toward him and said something, but her voice had sounded faint, a universe away. Then, Kat left and another girl stood in front of him. Just move something, stupid. Anything, for God’s sake. Focus. Get control.

  Nothing moved, but Jim felt something pulling at him. At least I can feel.

  His eyes refused to do anything but stare straight ahead, the lead weight still stuck in his tongue. The girl continued to lean over, doing something around his middle. Jim saw his leather utility belt float past. Then the tugging began again. Move something, anything, damnit.

  Still, nothing moved. The dancer’s naked breasts swayed in front of Jim. He wanted to close his eyes. Ignore her. Suddenly, something moved. Oh God, not that. Anything else but that.

  A bright flash wiped out his view of the breasts. Hands touched him, stroking the rising hardness in his crotch. Another flash. Jim’s eyes were open, but his only movement was in his pants. The dancer stripped off her G-string. Now, fully nude, she began an intimate, lap dance routine.

  More touching. More flashes. More movement in the wrong place. He was in serious trouble and could not do a damn thing about it.

  ***

  Baalzaric watched through Kat’s eyes as the dancer “entertained” Demore. The woman, whose gyrations now debauched Trooper Demore, did not host any spiritual force except her own lust for money. Lust, greed, power. The engines that propelled the human race forward, and the strongest weapons available to the Devil’s kingdom. Weapons Baalzaric wielded expertly.

  ***

  When Jim woke up, he was sitting in his patrol car looking out at the water. For a moment, he just sat there, disoriented, not sure what had happened. The last thing he remembered was driving toward Tampa for an appointment with Kat Connors. He didn’t remember arriving at the club or leaving the club, or driving down toward Tampa Bay — assuming the water he was looking at was Tampa Bay. I’m somewhere on a friggin beach, but where?

  Something was not right. His eyes were open and he heard the sounds of the bay through the closed car windows, but he felt sluggish, as if a fog had settled into his brain. Even the bright morning sun, assuming it was morning, was having a difficult time burning away the confusion. His hand slid down toward his waist and felt for his duty belt. He touched the buckle and followed the leather around until he felt his holster. He let his hand slip up to where the butt of his pistol should be. Jim exhaled. A massive sigh of relief. His gun was there.

  He stared at the bay and tried to think. How the hell did I end up here? And just where in hell is here?

  He reached up with both hands and rubbed his faced, then looked out through the windshield again. Somehow, the Charger had ended up parked at some hard-packed, sand-and-shell parking area. Seagulls and pelicans dive-bombed the water in front of him. Palm trees and sand divided the parking area from the water. A large KC-135 Stratotanker was making a slow approach across the bay from what he guessed was the southwest. OK, I must be somewhere west of MacDill Air Force Base.

  He looked over to his right, down the length of beach, and saw what looked like some type of terminal. Farther to the north, he saw a bridge that spanned the length of the bay. Jim surmised that he had somehow ended up on Picnic Island in Port Tampa.

  The temperature inside the cruiser increased. Sweat oozed from Jim’s pores, beading up on his forehead before running into his eyes. His mouth tasted as if he had dined on a rich mixture of dirt and dog crap. He wiped his eyes with his hands, and then began looking for the vehicle’s keys. He found them in the ignition. He started the car and turned on the air conditioning full blast. He leaned back in his seat and closed his eyes. A pair of breasts swayed inches from his face.

  Jim’s eyes snapped opened. Sunlight shimmered across the surface of the bay. He grabbed the steering wheel, stepped on the brake pedal, and put the car in reverse. As he twisted to look out the rear window, he saw an unmarked manila envelope sitting on the passenger seat. He kept his foot on the brakes and picked it up. He felt something sliding around inside. Damnit, Jim. Try to remember. What did you do last night?

  He shoved the shifter back into park and opened the envelope. He let the contents slide out on to the passenger seat. He saw photos, a note, and a DVD. He looked at the photos. Someone had filled the envelope with porn, and in those pornographic photos Jim Demore was the star. He may have somehow ended up on Picnic Island, but today, sure as hell, would not be a picnic.

 
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  Saffi was standing next to the mass spectrometer preparing a sample for evaluation when she got the message to call Jim Demore. Someone had checked the “urgent” block on the yellow Post-it note. Saffi ungloved and stepped into the small lab assistant’s office. She closed the door, picked up the phone, and dialed Jim’s cell. He answered on the first ring.

  “Demore.”

  Saffi heard the fatigue and stress in Jim’s voice.

  “Jim, this is Saffi. I got your message.”

  “Are you at your lab?” Jim asked.

  The fatigue suddenly morphed into urgency.

  “Yes, but only for about another hour. I have a meeting. They’re putting together an evidence task force. You’re big news Jim.”

  “I think I’m about to become bigger news.”

  Urgency amplified by worry.

  “What’s going on?”

  “I’m not sure,” Jim replied. He hesitated a moment before speaking again. “Listen, Saffi, something happened to me. I was supposed to have a meeting in Tampa last night. At a club. A strip club, actually. But, I woke up a little while ago, in my car, on Picnic Island near old Port Tampa. Saffi, I don’t know how I got here or what I did last night.”

  “Jim, maybe you should call dispatch. Have them send paramedics. Maybe the explosion…”

  Jim cut her off.

  “No. No paramedics. And no cops.” Jim thought about the irony of a cop saying “no cops.” He continued, “This is something totally separate from the explosion.”

  “That was a powerful explosion…”

  Jim cut her off again. “I know. I was there. Remember?” He immediately regretted the sarcasm. “Look,” he said, “this is something else. Just believe me, okay? I really need your help.”

  A pause on Saffi’s end.

  “OK, I’ll call my supervisor and tell her I can’t leave the lab until I get the results of the test I’m working on. Maybe she’ll accept that.” And maybe she won’t and I’ll get fired.

  “I’m leaving now,” Jim told her.

  “Get here as quick as you can,” Saffi replied.

  As she hung up the phone, Saffi still wondered if this had anything to do with the attempted assassination. Maybe she and Jim would discover some evidence the State, ATF, or FBI had missed. Maybe she would help Jim remember something that would break the case and lead to the arrest of the person who planted the bomb. Maybe Jim would be so grateful for her help, he would ask her out and she could share her faith with him. Maybe he would go to church with her, become part of her life. Maybe...

  Get a grip, Saffi. Stop being such a hopeless, romantic dork.

  Saffi smiled and let the words move from her mind to her lips, “Maybe...”

  ***

  The manila envelope on the passenger’s seat mocked Jim. First, they try to blow me up. Then somehow, someone gets dirty pictures of me doing things I sure as shit don’t remember. What the hell is going on?

  He drove out of Port Tampa and turned left onto Westshore Boulevard. He had to hurry if he was going to arrive at Saffi’s lab in Ft. Myers in a reasonable amount of time. He hit his lights and flew out of Port Tampa.

  The route to the lab was about one hundred and thirty miles, and if he hauled ass, he would make it in way less than two hours. He had a lot to do before he shared the contents of the mocking envelope with Major Kant.

  ***

  Saffi struggled to maintain her professional composure as she looked at the photos. The words obscene, pornographic, vile, and vulgar popped into her mind. Jim stood beside her, his face red, his expression pained.

  Her brain objected to, revolted against, what she saw. Thirteen photos. Nasty photos of Trooper Jim Demore with a woman in what looked like a lounge, bar, or restaurant booth. Probably not a restaurant. A bar or club somewhere? Maybe the strip club he mentioned?

  The woman in the photos, whose appearance screamed “strip club,” did obscene things to Jim that Saffi had only seen once before when she had caught her little brother looking at an adult website. She immediately booted the little pervert off the computer and then guiltily lingered on the site for a moment herself, morbid curiosity getting the better of spiritual discernment. The next day a cyber-nanny program appeared on the family’s computer. As bad as the website photos had been, these pictures were worse. They had Jim Demore in them.

  “Jim, this is awful. What’s on the DVD? More photos?”

  Jim inserted the DVD into Saffi’s laptop. A video of Jim and the woman started playing. It was raw; twice as nasty as the photos, and twice as painful to watch.

  “How did this happen?” Saffi asked, trying not to sound judgmental.

  “All I remember is that I had an investigative interview at a club in Tampa. I was following a lead in the Briggs case.”

  Jim kept his eyes off the photos and DVD and fixed on Saffi.

  “Next thing, I wake up in my car on Picnic Island in old Port Tampa and there’s an envelope on the passenger seat with all this stuff in it.

  Saffi looked away from the video and picked up the note. Someone had printed both the note and the pictures on standard copy paper; the kind used in most ink-jet printers and sold everywhere.

  The note was short and to the point: Private or public, your choice. Briggs drove too fast and killed himself. Case closed.

  No other writing marked the paper.

  “I’ll test the paper, the photos, the DVD, and the envelope, but I’ll be surprised if we find anything,” Saffi said. “Common paper. Probably printed with an equally common ink-jet printer. Blank DVDs are a dime a dozen. Anyone who could pull this off would not likely leave fingerprints. We might be able to match the photos to a location, though. Where was the meeting?”

  “Midnight Oasis Gentlemen’s Club, near Port Tampa. Outside MacDill Air Force Base.”

  It bothered her that Jim had gone in there. Gentlemen’s Club. What a joke. You would think he could have come up with a better meeting place.

  “I’ll start testing these right away.” Saffi said, her voice tinged with just a little extra professionalism that made her sound detached.

  “There is something else,” Jim offered.

  He looked her directly in the eye. She blinked, but did not look away.

  “I had to have been drugged for this to happen. I need a blood test. I won’t let anyone blackmail me, but I need proof that I had no control over what happened in those pictures.”

  “Why didn’t you meet her somewhere else?” Saffi asked.

  She tried to keep any sense of accusation out of her voice, displaying honest concern and a little sadness.

  “I didn’t go there to meet the girl in the pictures. I don’t even know who she is. I went there to meet a person of interest. A dancer named Kat Connors. I don’t even remember making it to the club, but I must have. Connors called me and asked for the meeting. I’m certainly not the first cop to have to question someone in an unpleasant location.”

  “No, I guess you’re not,” she replied. Unpleasant location? Cute euphemism. You were in a strip club for God’s sake. What the h-e-double-toothpicks were you thinking?

  “Roll up your sleeve,” she ordered. Men are so stupid sometimes. Maybe most times?

  “I need to take some blood.” She gave Jim a small smile. And I’m going to use the biggest needle I can find. Maybe next time you won’t be such a cowboy.

  CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

  Janet Poulet was tapping away at the keyboard of her laptop when her cell announced an incoming call. The screen showed Martha St. Onge. Janet answered.

  “Martha, I’m working on a story. I only have a minute. The news waits for no one, you know.”

  “I only need a minute, dear. What are you working on right now?”

  “Story about the FHP trooper who got himself blown up. It’s weird. I mean what kind of asshole blows up a guy who writes traffic tickets for a living. Doesn’t make sense.”

  “What do you know about him?”<
br />
  “Ex-marine, did a couple of tours in the Middle East. Purple Heart. Bronze Star. Actually sounds like a really good guy. Must have pissed off someone sometime, but I haven’t found anything. Yet.”

  “Yet,” Martha repeated. “That’s why you guys get all the ratings. I might be able to help you.”

  Janet looked at the clock on her laptop screen. She could spare a few more minutes. You did not get to report for the highest rated TV news program in Southwest Florida blowing off reliable sources, and Martha was more than reliable. She was the crone of the Green Grove Coven. Janet’s coven and the crone was nothing even close to Hollywood’s green-faced Wicked Witch of the West. Simply a post-menopausal, former high priestess who acted as counselor for the priests and priestesses of the coven. However, to the Green Grove Coven, Martha was a witch’s witch.

  “Your trooper might not be quite the good guy he appears to be. Might be a little dirt underneath that squeaky-clean exterior.”

  This was not the first time that Janet’s association with Martha had got her a great story.

  “Okay, Martha. You have my attention.”

  Janet knew that the larger, unenlightened community would be shocked to their teeth to learn the extent that witchcraft had penetrated into general society. The Green Grove Coven sat like a warm, spiritual blanket over dozens of South Florida’s citizens, many who were influential and well-placed. Martha was the common thread that ran through the entire blanket, and sometimes Martha just knew things that no one else seemed to know.

  She had been present at each ritual of Janet’s three craft degrees, and had helped Janet select her secret craft name, MoonFire. She had also officiated at Janet’s high priestess ceremony. The faithful knew Martha as a powerful witch, devoted to her craft and the members of her coven. When Martha called, Janet listened.

  “I can’t give you the details just yet. The story is, as you reporters would say, developing,” Martha said. “I’ll call as soon as I have more information.”