“Well,” she said. “That’s Manhattan for you.”
“I want to open a new club,” he began. “A club for us. For
our kind. The world’s largest S and M club. I found a place I
wanted, but it’s owned by Reverend James Fuller.” “Reverend Fuller? The Reverend Fuller? The Reverend
Fuller who opens legislative sessions with prayers, held the
Bible for the mayor when he was sworn in and baptized the
governor’s granddaughter? That Reverend Fuller?” “The same,” he said.
“Okay. Tell me everything.”
He told her. He told her about Sam and The Renaissance, about trying to buy it from Fuller and having his offer refused. He told her about the church, the camps and the teenage kids being tortured for being gay. He told her that while he could find another building for his club, he loathed Fuller so much
he refused to give up.
“Maggie,” he said, raising her hand and kissing it. “This is
my city now. This is my home. I can’t let Fuller bring his empire into my city. You know what I am. I was sleeping with
another boy when I was sixteen. Fuller would have sent me to
one of those fucking conversion therapy camps if he’d had the
chance. Me and him. And Fuller’s not sorry. He only closed
the camp because two of the campers made a suicide pact.” “Did they die?” she asked, horrified.
“One died. The other girl lived. Lived and worked for me
for a few months.”
“Sam?”
“She told me what happened to her at that camp. I spoke
to some others who’d gone to his camps. They confirmed
everything she said. There’s a thirty-two-year-old man in
Queens who still has the burn scars from the electrodes on
his testicles.”
Maggie winced. Once Kingsley had realized Sam had betrayed him, he’d begun doubting everything she’d told him.
But when it came to the camps, she’d been telling the truth.
The man with the burns hadn’t wanted to talk to him at first,
not until Kingsley promised him that he’d do everything he
could to keep Fuller from opening a church in the city. Kingsley had found him through a lawsuit he’d filed against Fuller
and the church seeking restitution for his massive therapy and
medical bills. The man hadn’t had sex in five years because
he couldn’t bear to let anyone see the burns on his genitals. “He’s not a man of God,” Kingsley said. “I know a man of
God, and that man of God makes me think God might be on our side. But Fuller, he’s a demagogue. And he’s dangerous.
And I don’t want him in my town.”
“I get it,” Maggie said. “I can’t say I want him or his church
in my town, either.”
“What about Irina?”
“They’ve ‘lost’ her paperwork. INS is as bad as the health
department. Someone deep in the works is throwing a wrench
into everything I try to do.”
“You got her out of jail. That was a good start.” “Getting the charges dropped again was easy. They don’t
have any evidence. Keeping her from being sent back to Russia will be the hard part. Especially since she’d been twice arrested. She doesn’t make a very sympathetic case.” “Her husband bought her, abused her, and she put eye drops
in his drink so he’d be too ill to rape her one night and that’s
not sympathetic?”
“He was never charged for anything. She was. You know
how the world works, King.”
“I know. I don’t want to know, but I know.” He made a
decision then and there, and he spoke it aloud before he lost
his courage. “I can’t let Irina be deported. I’ll call Fuller. I’ll
tell him I give up. He wins. I lose.”
“Are you sure?” Maggie asked.
He wasn’t, but he didn’t know what else to do. He could
survive without the M?bius. He would beat any charges
brought against him for tax code violations. But he’d made
Irina a promise to take care of her, and he would keep it. “I’m sure,” he said. He sat back and put his boot on the
chair across from him.
Then he kicked the chair so hard it f lew ten feet across