The Sphinx Club was a bump and grind joint that had the strange distinction of elevating the neighborhood. A block down the road the Strip got sketchy, but the Sphinx Club projected something resembling class. From outside it looked like a miniature casino, its entrance flanked by two golden sphinxes and bathed in soft spotlights at night. Inside, the decor was tasteful-minimal in red and brown and gold. There were Egyptian touches, but not enough to be kitschy.

Silence hung over the cathedral, the deep dark quiet that creeps up some time between midnight and dawn. The fluorescents in the sublevels had long since cycled into low power mode, and shadows gathered in doorways. Sebastián's footsteps sounded strangely soft on the industrial carpeting, even though he was almost trotting just to keep up with Usman. The security guard was very tall and very brisk.

      
     
There is nothing more unaesthetic than a policeman.
-Arthur Conan Doyle
              
 

          
Detective Cruz looked up from the dead man sprawled on the asphalt and saw another dead man walking towards her.

"I'll be damned," she muttered, and then, "Edison Palmer! You're under arrest!'

He spotted her across terminal A. She was chatting with a businessman as they glanced through magazines at a news stand. He stared, at first to make absolutely sure it was her, and then to make sure she noticed him. She never turned her head, but after two minutes she ran a hand through her hair, twice.

He remembered the old signal. Don't approach. He wondered, without any real interest, who the mark was.

Whenever the unSighted ask me about magic, I tell them this story.

Once upon a time, though not so long ago, there lived a girl. Some might have called her a young woman, but really she was a girl. This girl dreamed of becoming an actress. It was a vague and secondhand dream, for this girl fancied herself misunderstood and unloved. She thought if she could become famous then all the world could, would, should love her.

She mustered her half-portion of courage and set out to make her way in the world. She found it was not so easy to become an actress. But the girl was pretty, and she got a job as a model. She imagined it was her big break.

The Sphinx Club, an elite strip joint and discreet high-end brothel becomes the latest horror scene in Hudson City.  The owner, former porn star known as Cleopatra, was horrified and distraught over losing her girls and quite possibly her reputation.  The serial nature of the crime was a very clear and present danger to both her girls and her affluent clients. At her wits end and unable to trust the authorities, she called in the best of the best, Edison Palmer. 

It is approaching the third year anniversary of the disappearance of Ophilia DiSantiago's absent fiance, Dean Masterson. She finally uses her ties with the Conquistadors to look into the mystery, with high hopes of solving it. Stone, in exchange for the date that Phi had won during the bachelor auction, agrees to look into it, promising to keep it as quiet as he can. When he runs into a roadblock, he recruits Edison Palmer and they both dive head first into a most startling discovery. So startling, that it's almost impossible to believe.

Staring: Ophilia DiSantiago, Stone, Edison Palmer, Sebastian DiSantiago and Mason Willoughby

The sweat soaked and stressed trio that had disarmed the bomb at the Justice Building, were beyond grateful to see Chip Wolfe leaning up against the limo outside.  It was illegally parked, but security assumed that the right palms had been greased and that he was entitled to be there.  Hudson City justice was highly influenced by who paid who what, so often times if you looked like you belonged, not a brow would be raised.  Drop the right name and just about anything could be forgiven.