"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 connected. This isn't unusual in the business, unfortunately. It really taints the overall aesthetic, you know what I mean?"
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? Jenna Jameson, for example. You've probably heard of her. Well, Jenna started as a dancer, you know, before she got into porn. She got the name Jameson from a bottle of Irish whiskey. See? It's classier. It has more oomph, you know what I mean."
"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 manner of a teacher let down by a prized pupil. "Professionally she'll be better remembered for a dual act where she was known as Brianna Piccolo."
"Brianna Piccolo?"
"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. Brianna and Gayle did a sort of exotic dance rendition of the movie Brian's Song. Gayle would tearfully say, 'I love Brianna Piccolo,' you know, like Billy Dee did on the dais in the movie. Then Brianna would be lying sick in a bed. They'd help each other undress. No sex. Nothing like that. Just an exotic artistic experience. It had great appeal to those with an interracial fetish, which, frankly, is nearly everyone. I think it was one of the finest political statements made in exotic dance, an early display of racial sensitivity. I never saw the act in person, but my understanding was that it was a moving portrayal of socioeconomic-"
"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."
Friedman shrugged. "She and Kimmy Dale were not only dance partners but also real-life roommates. In fact, Kimmy Dale paid for the funeral to save Candi from- pardon the unintentional pun here- a potter's grave. Candi is buried at Holy Mother in Coaldale, I think. I've visited the tombstone to pay my respects. It's quite a moving experience."
"I bet. Do you keep track of what happens to exotic dancers after they leave the business?"
"Of course," he said, as if she'd asked a priest if he ever went to Mass. "That's often the most interesting part. You wouldn't believe the variety of life roads they take."
"Right, so what happened to this Kimmy Dale?"
"She's still in the business. A true warhorse. She no longer has the looks. She's- again pardon the unintentional pun- slid down the pole, if you will. The headline days are over. But Kimmy still has a small following. What she loses in not being, say, toned or hard-bodied she makes up for in experience. She's out of Vegas though."
"Where is she?"
"Reno, last I heard."
"Anything else?"
"Not really," Friedman said. Then he snapped his fingers. "Hold on, I have something to show you. I'm quite proud of this."
They waited. Len Friedman had three tall file cabinets in the corner. He opened the second drawer of the middle one and began to finger through it. "The Piccolo and Sayers act. This is a rare piece and it's only a color reproduction off a Polaroid. I'd really like to find more." He cleared his throat as he continued his search. "Do you think, Investigator Muse, that I could get a copy of that autopsy?"