“I’ll make sure nothing happens here, ma’am.”

“I’d appreciate that.”

“And if I may say so…” His southern accent came trippingly off his tongue. “Speaking on behalf of all the security officers here at the Transylvania, we very much appreciate and admire what you’re doing. We’re behind you one hundred and ten percent.”

Her eyes went slightly out of focus, glistening. “Thank you, Ernie. That… that means a great deal to me. I hope we can talk again sometime.”

“I feel certain we will, ma’am,” he said, smiling sweetly.

“Seriously, Darcy, I think it would be better if you stayed in the car.”

“But I do not want to stay in the car. I cannot help you if I stay in the car.”

“You can. I’ll tell you all about it.”

“I want to go in with you.”

We were parked outside Nighthawks, still in my car. Truth was, I would rather he came in, too-you never knew what he might notice. But I had a feeling it might not be a good idea. “You see, Darcy… this place… this is a grown-up place.”

“All those places where girls died were grown-up places.”

“Yeah, but this is… this is…” I took a deep breath. “Darcy, has your dad ever… had that talk with you?”

“My dad talks to me all the time. Sometimes I wish he wouldn’t talk to me so much.”

“Yeah, but has he ever talked to you about… the birds and the bees?”

His eyes widened. “I’ve read lots and lots of books about birds and bees. Did you know that the hummingbird is the fastest-”

“That’s not what I mean, Darcy.” I took a big breath. “See, Darcy… this is a sex club.”

He looked at me, then at the building, then back at me. “Do you mean-they do sex in there?”

“Yes. I mean, probably not. Certainly not all the-”

“I have never seen anyone do sex. Can I go in with you and see it?”

I pressed the palm of my hand against my forehead. “Are you sure you’ll be okay with this, Darcy?”

“Of course. This is not like gong to all those places where people got killed. Killing is bad. But I think doing sex is a good thing. Do you think doing sex is a good thing?”

I popped open the car door. “C’mon, Casanova.”

“Good afternoon,” the woman in black said as I stepped through the door. “I am the mistress of pain.”

“Stow it,” I replied, flashing my ID. “I’m the mistress of pain in the ass.”

She blocked my path, pressing up against me. “You prefer to be dominant?”

“I prefer to get what I need without any hassles.”

Her fingers toyed with my collar. “You should open yourself to new experiences. I could-”

I slapped her hand away. “Let’s get one thing straight from the start. If you think you’re going to intimidate me with your lesbian chic bullshit, forget it.”

Darcy was behind me, staring with a total absence of subtlety. But of course subtlety was a personality quality he didn’t have. The mistress was wearing brown riding pants, very tight, and a black leather bustier top. Not hard to guess where Darcy was staring.

“Do you have trouble breathing?” he asked. “Because it looks like you might have trouble breathing.”

The mistress pointed her riding crop at him and winked. “Breathing is overrated.”

“Do they make you wear that?” he continued. “Are you being punished because you misbehaved?”

“No, dear.”

“I’ve never seen a shirt that had to be tied up in the front like that. Do you like to be all tied up like that?”

She turned her withering expression my way. “One of your crack detectives?”

“As a matter of fact, yes. I have a few questions for you.”

“I’ve already spoken to several-”

“You haven’t spoken to me. I have some additional queries.”

“Well, I have a business to run.”

“I can change that.”

She jammed that crop under my chin, forcing it up. “You like to play rough. Is that what you’re into?”

“You don’t have any idea what I’m into.”

“I’ve been at this a long time. I can tell what a client wants in about thirty seconds.”

We were practically nose to nose. “I’m not a client, and if you don’t cooperate, I’ll send Vice over to shut you down for good.”

“Bitch.”

“Lady, you don’t know what bitch is till I get started. So are you going to talk to me, or what?”

“Well…” She glanced beyond the red curtain, down a corridor. “These are business hours.”

“And what business would that be? Nothing illegal, I hope.”

“Of course not.”

“I would certainly hate to find out there was”-I made a little gasp-“prostitution on the premises, because that’s still not legal in Vegas.”

“Contact dancing is permitted. At least for now.”

She was right. Despite Vegas’s rep as Sin City, prostitution had never been legal here. Customers had to leave town and go to joints like the famed Chicken Ranch for that. For it to be legal, anyway. In reality, prostitution was not uncommon. A lot of it passed under the guise of “outcalls” or “room dancing.” Escort services with girls who met you at your hotel room fronted a lot of it, too. After a 2002 law change, lap dancing became technically legal in Clark County, but dancers were not permitted to touch or sit on the customer’s genital area, which some would have said was the definition of a lap dance. What many people didn’t realize was that the Las Vegas Strip-and most of the clubs on it, including this one-were outside the city limits. Municipal officials had no jurisdiction.

“Is that what you give your customers?”

“In part. We’re about fantasy fulfillment.”

Darcy probably only understood a tenth of what was being said, but he was still red in the face, and I knew it was only going to get worse. “Darce, why don’t you take a stroll around the premises while we talk? See if you can spot anything the detectives missed.”

I could tell he didn’t want to leave me, but he did as I asked. If only my previous partners had been so compliant.

This chick was way over the top, but by Vegas standards, she was a perfectly average, ordinary working girl. After all, Vegas was the one city where a girl with no training, no education, and not incredibly bright could still make a good living, own a house, raise kids. Thanks to the Culinary Union, even nongaming cocktail waitresses got nine bucks an hour, plus tips, which was where the real action was. Gaming waitresses got fourteen. Where else could a cocktail waitress afford a mortgage and car payments? Where else could a high school dropout park cars and make enough to send his kids to college? Call girls-even run-of-the-mill ones-took home anywhere from five hundred to three thousand bucks a night, depending upon what exactly they were willing to do. Anywhere else in the world, this woman would be sleeping under a bridge in a cardboard box. In Vegas, she was the mistress of pain.

Hey, it wasn’t called Sin City because of Wayne Newton.

“What can you tell me about Lenore Johnson?”

“Nice girl,” she answered. “Did whatever she was asked. I like that in an employee.”

“How long had she been here?”

“About three months.”

“Know anything about her background?”

“She came from Kansas, poor girl. Father was a police officer. She didn’t do drugs-something of a rarity in this field. She was well mannered, respectful. Didn’t have the attitude a lot of my girls get. She was trusting.”

Which was probably what killed her. “Did she do outcalls? For sex?”

“Not to my knowledge. That would be illegal, you know.”

“Yeah, but did she do them?”

“I don’t think so. She was a good girl.”

“But she was working here. The night she disappeared.”

“Yes, and two of my girls saw her leave with a customer. One of them actually referred her to him. She blames herself.”

“She shouldn’t. He picked his victim based on her name and her appearance, not any referral.”

“Really?” For the first time, her mistress-of-pain façade cracked a bit. “I’ll tell her that. I hope she takes some comfort from it.”