“So, what do you think of the place?” Kingsley asked.

“It’s definitely a wreck,” Sam said as they wandered down the hall. “The newspaper said the church got a deal on it because the city was about to condemn the place. But you can tell it was beautiful once.”

“I like that it’s not beautiful anymore. I like that it’s been hurt.”

“It’s kind of big for a BDSM club. Most kink clubs I know are little shitholes.”

“Well, my club will be a big shithole.”

They entered what had been the lobby of the hotel and found moth-eaten furniture, fading Persian rugs, layers of grime on a curved bar—grime and grim everywhere they looked. Once, the decor had been blue and red and gold, but now everything had faded to a dull gray. Kingsley opened a set of double doors, and Sam peered over his shoulder.

“It looks like an old concert hall.” Sam pointed up at the ceiling. “Or a dining hall. Hard to tell.”

She and Kingsley walked through the dining room, stepping over broken chairs, breathing in dust-filled air.

“Is that an elevator?” Kingsley asked.

“Looks like it.” Sam pointed upward. “There’s some kind of landing up there. I guess the bigwigs got to eat their dinner looking down on the little wigs.”

Kingsley stood in the middle of the grand hall and turned slowly in a circle.

“Let’s see the rest,” he said. Together he and Sam wandered for an hour through the now-defunct Renaissance. A madman must have designed the building. The layout made very little sense. One hallway of guest rooms was hidden behind the dining room. There were secret doors all over the place that led to other hallways. Guests must have gotten lost all the time trying to find their way back to their rooms. No wonder it had gone out of business.

“I think M.C. Escher must have been the architect on this place,” Sam said.

“I hate to think what Fuller would do to a building this unique.”

“He’ll probably turn it into a church like his other churches—a big ugly warehouse with beige carpet.”

“This place...it’s been through many transformations.” Kingsley stood in one of the larger suites. “Many incarnations. Now it doesn’t know what it is anymore. It only knows that it’s been abandoned. I know how it feels.”

He reached out and laid his hand on an ornately carved door frame like a doctor feeling for a heartbeat. “This place is perfect,” Kingsley said. “Everything I dreamed of.”

“You have weird dreams.”

“These suites are what I need for our pros.”

“Pros? Like hookers?”

“No hookers. I’m not a pimp. I mean professionals. Professional dominants.”

“Dominatrixes?”

“One or two. The best in the city.”

“Mistress Felicia? You want this club to be special, you want her.”

“Isn’t she still in prison?” he asked. Last he’d heard the notorious Mistress Felicia was still locked away in Danbury for ignoring a subpoena to testify in a high-profile divorce case.

“She got out last month. She says she’s retiring, but she might come out of retirement for you,” Sam said with a wink.

“I’m not a submissive,” Kingsley said.

“I mean for the club. She’s the best in the city. You should woo her.”

“You know a lot about kink in this city.”

“Everyone tells the bartender everything. Plus, I’m kinky. Does this come as a shock to you?”

Kingsley looked her up and down.

“Not at all. I want people like us at the club. I want all of our kind welcome here—gay and straight, bi, as long as they’re kinky. We’ll need professional male dominants, too. A few bouncers.”

“Then you’ll need some of the leather guard,” she said. “What else?”

“Pro-submissives—male and female.”

“Those will be harder to find. There’s ads for dominatrixes in the goddamn phone book, but pro-subs? How many people do you know who want to get the shit beat out of them for a living?”

“Enough of them do it for free. They might as well get paid for it.”

“What else?” Sam asked. “If it’s an S and M club, I guess we’ll need some sadists.”

“I have one sadist already. Not on the payroll, but he’ll certainly bring the pain, out of the kindness of his heart.”

“Is he good?”

“He can slice a lit cigarette in half with the tip of a whip. But we’ll need more than one. There are more masochists in this city than you would believe.”

“With rent as high as it is, I’d say we’re all masochists.”

He stood in front of her and looked at her without smiling.

“This might get ugly,” Kingsley said. “I do ugly things in my work sometimes. If you work for me, you’ll get your hands dirty.”

“I like dirty.”

“Illegal things may or may not happen.”

“I have an amazing ability to look the other way.”

“I’ll never put you in harm’s way, but I will put myself there.”

“You’re a grown-up,” she said. “Just make sure my paychecks don’t bounce.”

“I pay in cash,” he said.

“This is the greatest job ever. Let’s do it.”