The Pleasure Set

by Lisa Girolami

  If she hid in her house, the situation would just grow worse. So she decided to attend the party and try to get more information. She wasn’t sure how the hell she would do that but, with increasing trepidation, she realized that diving straight into the snake pit was the only way she could extract the venom.

  Laney found the location of the party high up in the Hollywood Hills, on a winding stretch of dark roadway, at the end of a deadly quiet street that curved sharply upward. Parking farther up the hill, past other cars that she was sure belonged to women of the Pleasure Set, she walked down to the house.

  At least forty women were in the front foyer and the living room, definitely more than she’d ever seen gathered at any Pleasure Set event. She didn’t recognize most of them as she wandered through the crowd. The rooms were shadowy, similar to the ambience of most places they hung out, and Laney was thankful for the slight cover the dim lighting provided. Not seeing Theresa right away did ease Laney’s nervousness, but she stayed on high alert.

  Most of the women looked very drunk and no longer seemed to even notice the blaring hip-hop song that repetitively thudded out its unyielding refrain.

  Laney’s first instinct was to avoid Theresa for as long as possible. Theresa was too cunning to reveal any facts that would help her. She had to chat up others, women who might not know that Laney was now onto their game.

  She grabbed a bottle of vodka from a counter and poured herself some liquid courage before she strode through the grand living room.

  Through the murky lighting, she spotted Morgan Donnelly in a far corner, leaning seductively into another woman. Since Morgan’s art gallery was the vehicle through which the laundered money ran, she wouldn’t even try to get anything out of her. She had to assume that Morgan was as deeply involved as Theresa.

  And just as Laney was about to turn away from Morgan’s direction, she spotted Theresa through the crowd, rounding a corner and gliding into the living room.

  Laney whirled around. If Theresa found her, she’d dominate her evening, leaving her unable to break away easily to pursue her mission. With her sudden change of direction, she almost walked straight into some thick, burgundy drapes that framed the wide-open doorway leading out to a deck.

  Luckily, she dodged the blunder and found herself on a teak-and-stainless-steel deck overlooking the sparkling city of Hollywood below. Almost as many women crowded the deck, but they were cast in darkness, as all the outside light sconces were off.

  She pushed her way toward the end of the deck so she could catch her breath and survey the party without attracting too much attention. Quickly throwing back her vodka, she resisted a cough as the searing alcohol burned her throat. Some low-slung deck chairs were lined up against the railing, and one was empty.

  As she approached, a slurred voice called out to her. “Laneeeeeey!” Kay Kitterman occupied the next chair.

  Laney sat down, meeting Kay halfway for a hug. “Kay, how are you?”

  “Three fuckin’ sheets to the wind.” Kay held up a very expensive-looking and nearly empty bottle of Bruichladdich Scotch.

  “I can see that.”

  “Didja jus’ get here?”

  Laney nodded and set her empty glass down on the railing. Kay could be the stoolie she was looking for. She was careful not to immediately grill Kay about the money laundering, but Kay’s consciousness clock was ticking down and she would soon pass out or begin to ralph up thousand-dollar Scotch.

  Laney kept an eye out for Theresa and started with some small talk as she tried to seem as casual as possible. “So, whose house is this? It’s beautiful.”

  “Bridget Marina.” It sounded more like Kay said Bruh-jhet.

  “Which one is she?” Laney looked around at the crowd on the deck.

  “She’s not here.”

  “She’s not at her own party? Why?”

  Kay dispassionately took another swig of Scotch. “She’s dead.”

  “She’s dead? What happened?”

  Kay put two fingers to her head and cocked her thumb up. “Pow.”

  “She was shot?”

  “Yup.”

  “Was she part of our group?”

  “Yeah. Sexy, too.”

  “So how did you all get into the house, if she’s not around?”

  “Theresahasa key.”

  “Kay,” Laney had to move this along, “remember the nine thousand dollars you deposited into your account at the bank?”

  Kay’s eyes began to droop. She nodded.

  “Did it come from Morgan’s art gallery?”

  “Yesss id-did.”

  “Did Theresa tell you to deposit it?”

  “Sheee always does.”

  “Do you know what’s going on at the gallery?”

  Kay opened her eyes and focused on Laney. “D’you mean thah money hidin’?”

  “Yes. How do they do it?” Laney was beginning to panic. The longer it took to get the facts, the higher the chance that Theresa would eventually find them talking and stop the conversation.

  “Simple.” Kay’s head drooped, her chin resting on her chest.

  Laney lifted Kay’s chin, “Kay, how do they do it?”

  Kay smiled sleepily. “Morgan makes fake art salesss an’ pretendsza money comes from tha’.”

  “But where does the money come from?”

  “Herr-in.”

  “What?”

  Kay’s eyes went glassy. “Herr-in.”

  Laney was so close but she was losing Kay quickly to the alcohol. Without thinking, she slapped Kay’s cheek.

  “Heyyyy!” Kay said.

  “What’s herr-in?”

  Kay frowned and shook her head, this time clearly making a deliberate effort to enunciate each syllable. “Her-o-in.”

  A bolt of dread slammed through Laney’s head. “Shit.”

  Kay nodded. “Guhd shit.”

  Laney took the bottle from Kay’s careless hand. “Kay, let’s ease up on the booze for a while, okay?”

  “Yup. S’ok with me.”

  “I’m going inside now. Will you be all right here?”

  Kay opened her eyes wide and blinked a few times as if trying to sober up. “Yeah. Th’ freh’shair is very nice.”

  Clutching the bottle of Scotch, Laney shook her head as she got up from her deck chair.

  “An’ she was jus’ like you…” Kay began to say.

  “What? Who?”

  “Bridget. She wuzzha bank person jus’ like you.” Kay giggled, finding that fact somehow funny.

  Laney needed to somehow get out of the party without running into Theresa. She eased back into the living room and surveyed the crowd. She didn’t see Theresa so she snaked through the women and headed toward the door.

  The vodka had slightly numbed her, but her arms and hands still shook. A few women smiled at her, but she couldn’t even smile back.

  Kay’s last comment about Bridget had confused her. She had to get out of there.

  She reached the door as two women were entering. Twisting past them, she stepped out onto the porch, eyes set solidly toward the street.

  “Laney.”

  She turned and saw Theresa holding the door open.

  “Theresa.” Her heart began to pound.

  “Where are you going?”

  “Home. I looked for you and couldn’t find you so I’ve been out on the back deck for a while.”

  “Come back inside, the night is just starting.”

  No way in hell would she do that. Theresa’s smile, which used to thrill her, now looked artificial and sinister.

  “I’m not feeling well, Theresa. I’m going home.” She was sure her words weren’t very believable, but she was too afraid to put on any more of an act.

  “Just come back in and have a drink. Or I can make you something a little easier on the stomach.”

  “Really, I need to go.” She tried her best nonchalant smile, which felt more like a grimace. “I’ll call you tomorrow.” As she turned and walked towa
rd the street, all the childhood horror movies she had ever seen rushed through her mind. She felt like a petrified eight-year-old with sharp prickles stinging the back of her neck, indicating that the monster who was right behind her, with hideously jagged talons, would, at any second, pounce on her.

  Just keep walking, she told herself as she gritted her teeth, unable to breathe. Just get to the car.

  She didn’t take her next breath until she was up the street and locked into her car. She forced herself to drive calmly down the winding road toward Hollywood Boulevard. She was in big trouble, but she wasn’t sure exactly how immense it was.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Bridget was a bank vice president.

  Candace was an actress.

  Bridget is dead.

  Candace is dead.

  Laney gripped a half-full glass of bourbon as she paced back and forth through her living room.

  As if the deaths weren’t enough, if she could believe Kay, heroin was also involved. And Theresa and the rest of the Pleasure Set were in a dead woman’s house, partying like no one cared about Bridget. Or Candace, for that matter.

  It was now past three a.m. and Laney still wore her party outfit. She barely remembered the drive home, and in the hours since then she had thought about nothing but the seriousness of what her new group of friends was truly into.

  How naïve was she to not see that the Pleasure Set was more than just a very private club and a wealthy networking opportunity? Was she that ignorant to believe that a bunch of seemingly intelligent, industrious, and rich women would be that clandestine without something larger behind their activities?

  The rampant sex between them all certainly necessitated their stealthy behavior, but now Laney was beginning to see the bigger picture. The gravity of the situation shook her. She fell onto her couch and fought the urge to cry. The money laundering was bad enough, but she was now convinced that the deaths were part of the mess as well.

  “Theresa.”

  Laney forced herself to remain calm as Theresa answered her cell phone. She had dialed the number thinking she might be able to extricate herself from all of this hell before it got any worse for her.

  “Laney.”

  “I’ve been up all night.”

  “Listen, Roger’s here. Why don’t we talk tomorrow?”

  “No. This will be short and to the point. I want you and the rest of your friends to close all of your accounts and your safety-deposit boxes.”

  “What’s the matter, Laney?”

  “You know goddamn well what the matter is. And I will have nothing to do with it. Close all your accounts and I won’t report you.”

  “Laney, calm down. There’s nothing wrong. I told you what we’re all doing.”

  Laney began to tremble. She had to erase this mess from her bank and her life. “That line is getting old. There’s illegal shit going on, and I don’t want to know and I don’t want it in my fucking bank. I’m dead serious.”

  “I can’t afford to do that, Laney.” Theresa’s voice sounded menacing. “And neither can you.”

  “Neither can I?” Laney was almost paralyzed with fright, but the last comment stunned her. “What the fuck does that mean?”

  “You’re implicated, my dear.”

  “Hardly. I unknowingly facilitated your accounts and now I’m knowingly demanding their closure.”

  “You can’t.” It sounded like Theresa blew out a sarcastic snort. “You’re on the tape.”

  “What tape?”

  “Your bank’s security tape. The night we partied there.”

  “I turned the camera off.”

  “And I turned it back on.”

  Laney’s head spun as she tried to recall that night. Before she could respond, Theresa filled in the details.

  “The camera was off when we went to your office. But when I went to the restroom, I switched it back on. What that means is that there is now a recording of you partying with us in the vault.”

  “But the camera was off when we left. I had to turn it back on.”

  “Remember when the wine was spilled? I went to get paper towels. I just flipped the camera back off before I came back. So, darling, there’s evidence that you are more than just our friendly neighborhood banker.”

  A vivid memory of Laney kissing Theresa in the vault stabbed her in the stomach. She felt nauseous and swallowed, struggling not to throw up.

  Theresa’s voice was full of an arrogance that gave away her nastiness. And she was now angry. “Conveniently, the tape is not at your bank for anyone to accidentally see.”

  “You took the tape.”

  “I did. I simply inserted a blank one in its place.”

  Shit. Laney remembered an employee telling her that one of the tapes hadn’t been marked. Everyone had thought that it was an oversight. Now she knew that wasn’t the case.

  “You’re in neck deep,” Theresa said, “and you will shut the fuck up and look the other way.”

  Once more, the monster appeared. Theresa wasn’t the warm, gracious woman who had once invited her to forget her breakup with Judith and be comforted by new friends.

  “You set me up, didn’t you?” Laney’s mind raced with a staggering new awareness. “You needed a pawn to hide your money so you wooed me with your charm and your privileged lifestyle.”

  And just as suddenly, Theresa’s words came sickly serene and syrupy. “Calm down, honey, please. I’m truly attracted to you. I love spending time with you. I didn’t think you’d be upset over hiding money from our husbands. Don’t you see? They’re bastards and they control our lives. This is the only way to gain some of that control back.”

  Theresa’s transformation from angry to charming was scary. Nevertheless, she was sticking with her bullshit story. Laney felt like she was being treated like a five-year-old. She found the anger hiding behind her fear and pulled it forward.

  “I want the tape back, Theresa.”

  “It’s a bit of insurance for me that you won’t do anything stupid.”

  Laney didn’t tell her that the tape’s special formatting wouldn’t allow Theresa to make extra copies, but just one original floating around could be disastrous. She fumed inside. How dare she fuck with my family’s bank? “That’s stolen property. It’s marked with the bank’s identification information and I want it back.”

  “You’ll get it eventually. Just don’t panic. This isn’t as bad as it seems.”

  “And what about Candace?” She was almost yelling. “Do you think she thought it wasn’t as bad as it seemed when she was getting murdered?”

  Theresa lowered her voice. “What does Candace have to do with any of this?”

  “You tell me.”

  “Nothing, darling. We’re all mourning her death.”

  “Like you all were doing last night?”

  The silence on the other end of the phone was ominous. Laney’s gut lurched. She might have pushed Theresa too far. Before Theresa could respond, Laney said, “Close your accounts now.” Her voice shook as she tried to regain her composure. “All of them.”

  “Laney, please.”

  Though Theresa again sweetened her words, it was all garbage.

  “All of them,” Laney repeated, and hung up. She wasn’t convinced that Theresa would comply. And, if she was right, she had to figure out what to do next.

  *

  Sunday evening slowly passed into morning as Laney spent another night unable to sleep. She had tried to watch TV, read a book, anything to get her mind off the disaster she had not only gotten into but was seemingly unable to get out of.

  Finally, at six a.m. she called the bank, leaving Kelly a message that she was sick, and crawled under the covers. Burying her head in her pillow, she reviewed all her options for probably the thousandth time.

  She could get a lawyer and go to the police now. They would in turn contact the Department of Treasury to launch an investigation. They would get the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network and the FDIC involv
ed, and then it would be out of her hands while they decided whether she should be indicted in this crime.

  She could tell her father, but he would insist that she go to the police and start the same process or would just do it himself.

  She could simply close the bank accounts herself. The deposit agreements that they had all signed allowed the bank to do that for any reason the bank deemed suspicious. But Theresa might have new friends merely open some others. She had the original security tape to hold over her head and wouldn’t hesitate to use it.

  Jumbled thoughts and fragments of visuals about the Pleasure Set flitted through her brain, but no clear, concise decision or plan would materialize. After an hour, she angrily threw the covers off and took a shower.

  The hot shower helped a little, but the feeling of dread had her scared shitless. Wrapped in a towel, she grabbed a diet soda in the kitchen, retrieved her cell phone from the counter, and walked back to the bathroom. She had turned her phone off, unable to talk to anyone all day, and when she turned it back on, several messages were waiting.

  The first was from Hillary. Her heart sank. She’d been such a lousy friend lately. Hillary didn’t approve of Theresa and had cautioned Laney to be careful about hanging out with the Pleasure Set. She certainly didn’t know how accurate her warnings had been.

  The next message was from Sandrine, asking if she was free that night. Sandrine said she would be home and to call her because she would love to see her.

  The last message was from Theresa. Laney anxiously listened. “We’ll be at the Tire Store tonight. Please come. We really need to talk. It’s so not what you think. Please come.”

  That was the last place she’d be going tonight. Or any night.

  She unwrapped the towel from around her body and let it drop to the floor. Looking in the mirror, she noticed that her body seemed oddly foreign to her. Who was she now? What had she become? What would become of her now? The alien being that stood before her was swathed in deep despair and its face was drawn long from stress.

  Hillary’s call had made her sad and Theresa’s message filled her with shame. She had been a horrible friend and had been blind to Theresa’s manipulation.