Nightside 07 - Hell to Pay

in one place should be declared illegal on mental health grounds. You couldn’t criticise the club’s taste because it gloried in the fact that it didn’t have any, but I still felt the neon figures over the door engaged in what I’d thought at first was a sword-swallowing act was way over the top.
    Bright young things and gorgeous young creatures sauntered and sashayed through the main entrance. They came in groups and cliques, in ones and twos, laughing and chattering and arm in arm, their heads held high. This was their place, their dream, their heaven on earth. And this…was Paul Griffin’s club. I wondered what (or who) he’d look like when I finally tracked him down.
    I strolled casually towards the main entrance, feeling positively dingy in my plain white trench coat, hoping against hope that I wouldn’t run into anyone who was involved in the previous…unpleasantness. The big and burly bouncer at the door was Ann-Margaret, in a leopard-skin print leotard, a flaming red wig, and surprisingly understated makeup. The illusion was fairly convincing, until you got close enough to spot the over-developed biceps. He moved quickly to block my way, a distinctly unfeminine scowl darkening his face.
    “You are not coming in,” the Ann-Margaret said flatly. “You are banned, John Taylor, banned and barred and banished from this club for the rest of your unnatural life. We’d excommunicate you and burn you in effigy if we thought you’d care. You are never setting foot in Divas! ever again, not even if you get reincarnated. We’ve only just got the place looking nice again. And even you can’t force your way in now, not with all the really neat new protections we’ve had installed since you were here last. I have new and important weapons to use against you! Mighty weapons! Powerful weapons!”
    “Then why aren’t you using them?” I asked, reasonably.
    The Ann-Margaret shifted uneasily on his high-heeled feet. “Because there are a lot of really nasty rumours going around just now as to how you really won the Lilith War. They say you did some really awful things, even for you. They say you burned down the Street of the Gods and ate Merlin’s heart.”
    “Does that really sound like something you think I’d do?” I said.
    “Hell, yes! Whatever happened to Sister Morphine? What happened to Tommy Oblivion? Why have their bodies never been found?”
    “Trust me,” I said calmly, “you really don’t want to know. I did what I had to, but I couldn’t save everyone. Now let me in, or I’ll set fire to your wig.”
    “Beast!” hissed the Ann-Margaret. “Bully.” But he still stepped aside to let me pass. The painted and powdered peacocks waiting to get in watched in disapproving silence as I entered the club, but I didn’t look back. They can sense fear. The hatcheck girl in her little art deco cubicle was a 1960s Cilla Black in a tight leather bustier. He clearly remembered me from last time because he took one look and immediately dived beneath his counter to hide until I was gone. Lot of people feel that way about me. I could sense all kinds of weapon systems tracking and targeting me as I strolled through the lobby towards the club proper, but none of them locked on. Sometimes my reputation is more use to me than a twenty-third-century force field.
    I pushed open the gold-leaf-decorated double doors and stepped through into the huge ballroom that was the true heart of Divas! I stopped just inside the doors, stunned by the make-over they’d given the old place. The club had gone seventies. Las Vegas seventies, with a huge glittering disco ball rotating and sparkling overhead. Bright lights and brighter colours blazed all around, gaudy and tacky by turns, with rows of slot machines down one wall, a mirrored bar, and a row of long-legged, high-kicking chorus girls slamming their way through a traditional routine up on the raised stage. It was as though the seventies had never ended, a Saturday Night Feverdream where the dancing never stopped.
    Gorgeous butterflies in knock-off designer frocks fluttered around the crowded tables on the ballroom floor, crying out loud in excited voices, catcalling and laughing and shrieking with joy. It was all almost too glamorous to bear. The chorus line trotted off-stage to thunderous applause, replaced by a Dolly Parton in hooker chic hand-me-downs, who sang a medley with more enthusiasm than style. I wandered through the tables, nodding appreciatively at