Chapter 1

The Riverside Club was crowded tonight. Joe couldn't help but smile as he looked out over the teeming mass of dancers from the balcony overlooking the dance floor. He had opened this club six months earlier with the intention of providing a new, upscale dance club for those who wanted more than the average hotel lounge or neighborhood bar could give them. He had spared no expense in making the dance floor and bar area of his club a site to dazzle the eyes of all whom entered. He wanted each guest to feel at home and catered to when coming to his club. He wanted them to have fun. He wanted them to keep coming back and spending their money and time at his club. And everyone who walked through the door of The Riverside Club enjoyed their night on the town and highly recommended the club to their socially desirable friends. The club prospered.

But The Riverside Club was much more than what met the eye. The club was Joe's legitimate business. The club had a secret side that very few of his clientele was aware of. Tucked away just off to the side of the bar was a door that was constantly guarded. Only a very few select clients would ever pass through this doorway and descend the stairs to the hallway below. This hallway ran the entire length of the club and was dimly lit. On each side were six doors leading into rooms that were nearly identical. In the center of each room was a king-sized bed. Along one wall was a cabinet containing items that those who would be privileged enough to enter the room could find useful. Each room also contained a full restroom, with a shower, so the occupants could go home without any evident traces of their evening's activities. The only thing that you could not see, but was concealed quite nicely, was a full video recording system controlled from a room just behind where Joe was standing as he gazed out at the dance floor. After all, one could never be too careful in protecting one's assets.

At the far end of the hallway was a final door that opened into a spacious room used only by two chemically gifted friends of Joe's from college. It was here that the two of them had concocted several drugs that Joe was eager to test. And the club was full of guinea pigs nearly every night.

Montgomery Sabastian Childress hated his name. He hated it with a passion. The only thing he hated worse than his name was his parents who had saddled him with it. The first thing on his "to do" list was to get his name changed. But that would have to wait until his parents were rotting in their graves. He needed their continued financial support in order to maintain the carefree lifestyle he had become accustomed to living. But the name had to go. So he began calling himself Monty C, which sounded silly but did exude an air of sophistication. He was nineteen years old and of medium build. He considered himself rather good-looking, but to most observers that opinion was a bit biased. Apart from his family's money he didn't have a whole lot going for him.

It was the money that had made him the first Gold Pass member of the Riverside Club. Only last week he had been given a tour of the downstairs rooms. By the time the tour was over, he was begging Joe to let him sign the agreement allowing him the unlimited use of the rooms. The price of one thousand dollars per month would give him the privilege of using a room anytime at an additional cost of two hundred dollars each night. There was all kinds of legal jargon which he did not bother to read, but as he understood the agreement, just about anything would be allowed as long as everyone who entered the room walked out alive. It seemed like a sweet deal to Monty C.