“Talk to you a minute, Miss Shanelle?” Harry asked.

Shanelle recovered, giggled, and strutted over like she was working a Paris runway. She was wearing a brief white top to display heavy silicone orbs, a black leather miniskirt high above the knobby knees, and plastic shoes like those Croc things, only with four-inch platforms. They were spray-painted metalflake gold.

I leaned out the window. “Hi, Shanelle. Love the shoes.”

Her false eyelashes fluttered like excited butter-flies. She tapped her toes together, looking down.

“You don’t think they’re too conservative, Carson?”

I shot a thumbs-up and a wink. “They’re sexy and sassy.”

Shanelle beamed and put a shoe on the window frame while bending to look at my partner. “What do you think, Harry? They pretty, ain’t they?”

“They’re lovely, Miss Shanelle,” Harry said. “But I’ve got a question even more important than shoes.”

“Anything for you, Harry Nautilus.”

“We’re looking for a dominatrix. Any around?”

Shanelle grinned and batted the lashes. “Harry, if you need a spanking…”

My partner sighed. “The person we’re looking for is probably one of the highest priced ladies in the market. A pro’s pro.”

“She ain’t in no trouble is she, Harry?”

“Not a bit. Just questions.”

“The girl you looking for. Is she black or white?” Shanelle asked.

Harry looked at me. I rolled the question over in my head. “Almost certainly white.”

“And real expensive, you said?”

“That’s what we’re thinking.”

Shanelle thought a minute, gave us an address not overly distant.

“Is that all you need, Harry?” Shanelle purred through the window.

“For now, Shanelle. But remember, Carson and I always appreciate you keeping your pretty eyes and ears open for any weirdness or –”

“Whoooo-eee,” Shanelle whooped like a crane, turning to screech at her cadre a couple dozen paces away. “Harry Nautilus says I got pretty eyes and ears.”

The girls called back taunts and howls. Shanelle said, “Bitches. They don’t understand what we got going, right, Harry?” She did kissy-mouth, complete with sound effects.

Harry sighed a final time and waved goodbye. Fifteen minutes later we were in a warehouse district between the city and the bay. A small apartment held a few mailboxes by the front door, one of them assigned to M.L. We headed up the stairs, found a single apartment occupied the entire floor, the door built of cleated metal. Harry banged the metal, making a booming sound like a hammer on a ship’s superstructure.

“Police. Open up.”

We heard a rustle of motion, a door slam inside. We’d checked for a back exit, found none. “Police,” Harry repeated.

The door opened to reveal a powerful-looking woman in her mid thirties, a silky robe from her shoulders to the floor. I saw black boots sticking out, expected they laced up to her knees, standard fare. She was smoking a cigar and emitting smoke through chrysanthemum lips as red as blood. Her puffy explosion of jet-black hair was striped red down the center. The cat-bright eyes were large to begin with, further widened by make-up dusted with flecks of gold. Even with the robe it was apparent the lady had a splendid exercise regimen.

“Mistress Layla?”

She blew a plume of smoke to the side. “Who’s asking?”

We showed ID. She looked close, a careful type.

“May we come in?” I asked. “We won’t need much of your time.”

“May you come in?” she said. “How polite. Gentlemen are always welcome here.”

She moved like rhythmic water and led us down a short dark hall to a small sitting area with a loveseat and a chair, passing a side door on the way; a closet, I assumed, by its proximity to the front door. The walls were flocked red wallpaper, the trim was burnished brass. Along with the cigar odor, the air smelled of incense and sweat. A velvet curtain hung behind the couch, covering the door to the arena, I supposed.

“Who else is here?” Harry asked, looking at the curtain.

“No one’s back there,” she said, sitting on the couch.

“May I take a look?” I asked. “Specialized décor has always fascinated me.”

“I’d be delighted if you would.”

I pushed through the curtain to the windowless room behind. Twenty by twenty, high beamed ceiling, three walls black, the fourth raw brick. Steel hooks and rings and loops were situated at intervals along the walls as chain-holds. One hook held leather straps, still damp with sweat. A small table held an assortment of whips and flails. Smaller tables around the room held candles. There was an antique four-poster bed in a shadowed corner, beneath it I saw a gleaming steel bedpan.

I returned to the sitting area and smiled at Mistress Layla. “The rings look very solidly anchored. The exposed brickwork is a nice touch.”

“Thank you. My dungeon always gets compliments.”

A fair amount of cops might have made snide comments or tried to be funny, but Harry and I always tried to treat folks with respect. One, it was the right thing to do. And two, over the years it had given us a solve rate that was the envy of our peers.

“You say you’re working, ma’am?” I asked.

I saw a glance flick to the closet down the hall. She didn’t try to hide the look.

“Yes.”

“This won’t take long. We’re checking into a for-hire situation. A man hired a dom to ball-gag him, suspend him by his ankles, give him a plugging and a whip job on the back and buttocks.”

Mistress Layla stubbed out the cigar in a crystal bowl. “Your presence tells me the man must have been robbed. Or hurt.”

“He was…injured,” I said, realizing how little we could say without revealing the victim was Richard Scaler.

“We’re trying to find out how it all went down, ma’am,” Harry said. “There’s no indication that anyone is in trouble. I want to stress that. This is purely a gathering of loose ends.”

“Good to know,” she said. “Where did this, uh, event happen?”

“I can’t tell you,” Harry said.

A small smile. “When, then?”

“In the past week.”

“You want to see my appointment book, gentlemen? No names, but times. If someone was hurt, it wasn’t me. My clients don’t get anything but what they need, which is a little time out of themselves. I’ve made my reputation on creating imaginary situations where humiliation and fear prevail, but safety is a word away.”

“I believe you,” I said. “You ever work anywhere but here?”

“Not often. All of my materials are here.”

“Have you worked off-site in the past two weeks?”

“Not in months.”

I felt she was telling the truth, further strengthened when Mistress Layla consented to giving us her fingerprints. We wiped down a Coke can, she gripped it, dropped it in an evidence bag. We’d compare them to the hundreds of prints and partials found inside the cabin, but I didn’t expect a match.

She frowned in thought as I zippered the bag.

“Did you say the client was upside-down, Detective?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Gagged?”

I nodded. “With hands bound tight behind his back, a double knot.”

She leaned back in the loveseat, tapping her chin like an engineer presented with a structural anomaly.

“That’s not too common, being upended. It drains blood from the sexual organs and diminishes pleasure. Add the gag and bindings and it’s a position almost too helpless for most people. Tied to a bed or wall or using a harness suspension is one thing, but everything is disoriented when you’re upside-down. There must always be the knowledge that the…event can be turned off in an instant. That’s the difference between pleasure and terror.”

I said, “Tell us about your competition, Mistress. I don’t expect you have many peers.”

She nodded at the compliment. “You’re very kind. My colleagues are few in number, ranging from Pensacola to Biloxi. More in New Orleans, of course.”