The Innocent

There was a tricycle in the driveway. Loren pulled up behind it. They both got out. Someone had set up one of those baseball net-retrievers in the front yard. Two mitts sat in the fetal position on the grass.

Yates said, "Your source lives here?"

"Like I said, you have no idea."

Yates shrugged.

A woman straight out of the Suzy Homemaker handbook answered the door. She wore a checkered apron and a smile Loren usually associated with religious fervor. "Len's in the workroom downstairs," she said.

"Thank you."

"Would you like some coffee?"

"No, that's okay."

"Mom!"

A boy of maybe ten ran into the room. "Kevin, we have guests."

Kevin smiled like his mother. "I'm Kevin Friedman." He stuck out his hand and met Loren's eye. The shake was firm. He turned to Yates, who seemed startled. He shook too and introduced himself.

"Very nice to meet you," Kevin said. "Mom and I are making some banana bread. Would you care for a slice?"

"Maybe later," Loren said. "We, uh…"

"He's down that way," Suzy Homemaker said.

"Right, thanks."

They opened the basement door. Yates muttered, "What did they do to that boy? I can't even get my kids to say hello to me, forget strangers."

Loren muffled a laugh. "Mr. Friedman?" she called out.

He stepped into view. Friedman's hair had gone a shade grayer since the last time she'd seen him. He wore a light blue button-down sweater and khakis. "Nice to see you again, Investigator Muse."

"Same here."

"And your friend?"

"This is Special Agent in Charge Adam Yates from Las Vegas."

Friedman's eyes lit up when he heard the location. "Vegas! Welcome then. Come, let's sit and see if I can help you out."

He opened a door with a key. Inside was everything stripper. There were photographs on the wall. Documents of one kind or another. Framed panties and bras. Feathered boas and fans. There were old posters, one advertising Lili St. Cyr, and her "Bubble Bath Dance," another for Dixie Evans, "The Marilyn Monroe of Burlesque," who was appearing at the Minsky-Adams Theater in Newark. For a moment Loren and Yates just looked around and gaped.

"Do you know what that is?" Friedman gestured toward a big feathered fan he kept in a museum-style glass cube.

"A fan?" Loren said.

He laughed. "Not just a fan. Calling this a fan would be like"- Friedman thought about it-"like calling the Declaration of Independence a piece of parchment. No, this very fan was used by the great Sally Rand at the Paramount Club in 1932."

Friedman waited for a reaction, didn't get one.

"Sally Rand invented the fan dance. She actually performed it in the 1934 movie Bolero. The fan is made from real ostrich feathers. Can you believe that? And that whip over there? It was used by Bettie Page. She was called the Queen of Bondage."

"By her mother?" Loren couldn't resist.

Friedman frowned, clearly disappointed. Loren held up an apologetic hand. Friedman sighed and moved toward his computer.

"So I assume this involves an erotic dancer from the Vegas area?"

"It might," Loren said.

He sat at his computer and typed something in. "Do you have a name?"

"Candace Potter."

He stopped. "The murder victim?"

"Yes."

"But she's been dead for ten years."

"Yes, we know."

"Most people believe she was killed by a man named Clyde Rangor," Friedman began. "He and his girlfriend Emma Lemay had a wonderful eye for talent. They comanaged some of the best low-rent but talent-loaded gentlemen's clubs anywhere."

Loren sneaked a glance at Yates. Yates was shaking his head in either amazement or repulsion. It was hard to tell which. Friedman saw it too.

"Hey, some guys get into NASCAR," Friedman said with a shrug.

"Yeah, what a waste," Loren said. "What else?"

"There were bad rumors about Clyde Rangor and Emma Lemay."

"They abused the girls?"

"Sure, I mean, they were mob co

Loren said, "Uh huh."

"But even among thieves there is a certain code. They purportedly broke it."

"In what way?"

"Have you seen the new commercials for Las Vegas?" Friedman asked.

"I don't think so."

"The ones that say, 'What goes on in Vegas stays in Vegas'?"

"Oh, wait," Loren said. "I've seen them."

"Well, gentlemen's clubs take that motto to a fanatical extreme. You never, ever tell."

"And Rangor and Lemay told?"

Friedman's face went dark. "Worse. I-"

"Enough," Yates said, cutting him off.

Loren turned toward Yates. She gave him a what-gives shrug.

"Look," Yates continued, checking his watch, "this is all interesting, but we're a little pressed for time here. What can you tell us about Candace Potter specifically?"

"May I ask a question?" Friedman said.

"Shoot."

"She's been dead a long time. Has there been a new development in the case?"

"There might have been," Loren said.

Friedman folded his hands and waited. Loren took the chance.

"Did you know that Candace Potter may have been"- she decided to go with a more popular though inaccurate term-"a hermaphrodite?"

That got him. "Wow."

"Yes."

"You're sure?"

"I've seen the autopsy."

"Wait!" Friedman shouted it in the same way an editor in an old movie would shout, "Hold the presses!" "You have the actual autopsy?"

"Yes."

He licked his lips, tried not to look too anxious. "Is there any way I can get a copy?"

"It can probably be arranged," Loren said. "What else can you tell us about her?"

Friedman started typing on the computer. "The information on Candace Potter is sketchy. For the most part she went by the stage name Candi Cane, which, let's face it, is a horrible name for an exotic dancer. It's too much, you know? Too cute. You know what a good name is? Je

"Right," Loren said, just to say something.

"And Candi's solo act was not the most original either. She dressed like a hospital candy striper and carried a big lollipop. Get it? Candi Cane? I mean, talk about clichéd." He shook his head in the ma

"Bria

"Yes. She worked with another dancer, a statuesque African American named Kimmy Dale. Kimmy, in the act, went by the name Gayle Sayers."

Loren saw it. So did Yates.

"Piccolo and Sayers? Please tell me you're kidding."

"Nope. Bria

"Yeah, moving, I get it," Loren interrupted. "Anything else?"

"Sure, of course, what do you want to know? The Sayers-Piccolo number was usually the opening act for Countess Allison Beth Weiss IV, better known as Jewish Royalty. Her act- get this- was called 'Tell Mom It's Kosher.' You've probably heard of it."

A waft of banana bread was reaching them down here. The smell was wonderful, even in this appetite-reducing atmosphere. Loren tried to get Friedman back on track. "I mean anything else about Candace Potter. Anything that can illuminate what happened to her."