“Don’t get too excited. Like Doc said, I was the most vicious. The most vicious can charge the most money. I did things other dommes wouldn’t do. You know, because they didn’t want to go to jail. Didn’t have anything to do with being pretty. There are dommes who have me beat ten times over in the looks department.”

Cyrus didn’t know about that.

“The viciousness is true,” Doc said. “God bless her dark heart, I have heard stories all the way down here.”

“You into that?” Cyrus asked him. “Getting the shit kicked out of you?”

“By her? Who wouldn’t be?” Doc chuckled again, and Nora only looked to the heavens. But she was smiling the way a woman does when paid a good hard compliment.

“You say you heard stories down here? Did you ever meet Queenie over here before she came down to Nola?”

“Never had the pleasure,” he said. “But legend travels.”

“You ever had one of Nora’s red business cards in your possession?”

“If I did, I would wear it on a gold chain around my neck. Why do you ask?”

“Can you keep your mouth shut?” Cyrus doubted it.

“Let me handle this,” Nora said. “Doc, you keep your fucking mouth shut about this or no dominatrix—in this town or any other—will ever strip you, whip you, and make you her bitch again. Ever.”

“Yes, Mistress,” Doc said.

Cyrus wiped his hands on a linen napkin before taking the photo of Father Ike out of his breast pocket.

“Could you tell me if you know this man?”

Doc gingerly took the photograph from Cyrus and gave it a long hard look. Cyrus tried not to get too excited, but he knew from experience that if somebody didn’t know somebody, they knew it at once. If they kind of recognized somebody, it could take a long time to remember how and where and when they’d met them.

“Possibly,” Doc said at last. “Though if I had to swear I’d seen or met him in a court of law, I couldn’t.”

“We’re not in a court of law,” Cyrus said. “But can you tell me maybe where you saw him? How you might know him?”

“Since I retired, I’ve started teaching classes on various kink and fetish topics,” Doc said. He was still staring hard at the photograph. “I think this man came to one of my classes.”

“Where are the classes held?” Cyrus asked.

“Adult bookstore in Metairie has a basement we use. I’ve been trying for two years to get the Queen to come teach a class,” Doc said.

“Too busy being lazy,” Nora said.

“When was this class?”

“This past summer. July.” Doc said it firmly, no question mark at the end. He was more certain than he gave himself credit for.

“And this class you taught,” Cyrus continued, “what was it about?”

“Again, I can’t swear that was where I saw him,” Doc said, “but if my old brain can be trusted, it was a class on medical fetishes.”