There was a member section which had an entry from the street, but, like VIPs, all members needed to pass a vetting process, pay a yearly membership fee but also pay an hourly or nightly viewing fee. Non-VIPs could show when they wished without a booking, paid for their drinks at the bar and sat in a common viewing area with their brethren.

The scenes were played out on the upper floor. The lower floor for non-VIPs was simply a nightclub. There was music, liquor, dancing and men and women behind screens performing dances that hinted at the real thing, that real thing being something that could be found beyond security up a set of hidden stairs.

Obviously, there was also the VIP section, which had its own entry and a higher level of service, providing much more discretion and vastly superior accommodation.

The owners paid Benito Valenzuela for protection and assistance in making certain the club was not discovered by law enforcement.

This protection was at one time paid to Marcus Sloan. Seven years ago, in the days when Sloan was still acknowledging my father’s existence, he’d sold that protection to us. This was why I knew of the club.

In a brutal takeover that meant we lost one man and two more were injured, three years ago, Valenzuela had taken over.

After that, I continued my membership because it continued services I appreciated at a caliber that was more than acceptable. I did this even if the club was under Valenzuela’s umbrella.

Benito Valenzuela was not the most couth individual on the planet. In fact, he was one of the foulest people I’d ever met. He reminded me of my grandfather, including the fact he’d convinced himself he was the opposite of vile when he was not.

My father and my sister didn’t know I continued to belong. Neither would be pleased, though it would be Dad, as usual, whose displeasure would be communicated in a way that I would have no choice but to desist doing something he did not like.

But in my life where I had very little I enjoyed and absolutely nothing I looked forward to, the club served a variety of purposes.

It was a secret defiance to my father, and even my mother, the former who would be furious if he knew I went there, the latter would be horrified.

It was also mine.

Mine.

Georgie didn’t go there. Dad didn’t. None of our men went for fear of Dad’s (or Georgie’s) displeasure. And certainly none of my legitimate colleagues or acquaintances went there.

So I could go and not run into anyone who encroached in my life.

A life that was less of a life and more of a world.