Helen’s house was sparingly decorated. There were large empty walls, painted in glossy white and soft pastels. The same honey-gold carpet spread from room to room. Where there was art, it was Italian, mostly handblown glass and landscape oils heavy on sienna and umber. In a wide corridor leading to the rear of the house, however, Stride saw a series of photographs hung in slim frames. Helen, elaborately costumed, with Sinatra. Helen with Wayne Newton.
Helen with Boni Fisso.
She noticed Stride admiring the pictures. “Helena Troy,” she said. “That was my stage name. Don’t you love it?”
“It looks like you knew all the big stars,” Stride said.
“Why, of course. It was a small town back then. Everyone knew everyone among the entertainers. Las Vegas was like our personal playground. The world was our stage. The tourists who came, they were like children with their noses pressed against the glass, watching us, and wanting to catch a little bit of the glamour.”
“It’s not that way anymore?” Stride asked.
“Oh, no. People don’t appreciate the magic of those times. The sixties were our golden age. There was such a sense of class. Today everything is corporate. It’s Disneyland with a topless Minnie Mouse. There’s none of the star quality the town had in the past. Ma and Pa Kettle come here from Kansas, and they dress like they’re taking the kids to Six Flags. Even the celebrities who stay here now are so crass. I miss the old days, I really do.”
Helen sighed. She led them into a sunken family room overlooking the valley. The east wall was made of rough-cut stone and featured a large fireplace. There was a wet bar on Stride’s right and a mirrored display of crystal behind it. Helen took them through French doors that led to the outside patio. She pulled out three chairs from around a glass table and angled the umbrella to block the sun.
Stride noticed two deck chairs placed side by side next to a forty-foot swimming pool. Two sets of wet footprints were drying quickly in the afternoon sun. Obviously, Helen had a guest who wasn’t invited to the interview.
“Linda was very upset when she called me,” she said. “She made it sound like you thought I was in some way responsible for Peter’s death.”
“It’s nothing like that,” Serena assured her. “We’re exploring whether there’s a connection between Peter’s death and the murder of MJ Lane over the weekend.”
“Who?” Helen asked. There wasn’t any guile in her voice. She noted their surprise and added, “You’ll probably think I’m old-fashioned, but I don’t use my television set other than to watch old movies. And I don’t read the newspapers. Too much bad news.”
“MJ Lane was murdered near the Oasis casino,” Stride said. “He was the son of Walker Lane.”
Helen blinked and looked uncomfortable. “All right, I knew Walker Lane, but that was forty years ago. I don’t see what possible connection there could be to Peter’s death.”
“We’ve had two murders in the space of a week under unusual circumstances,” Serena said. “Both victims had family relationships to people who had connections to the Sheherezade casino in 1967, and specifically-”
“Specifically, a relationship with Amira Luz,” Helen said, finishing the sentence.
“That’s right,” Stride said. He played a hunch. “You talked to Rex Terrell, didn’t you? He mentioned you in his article in LV as one of the people whose careers benefited from Amira’s death.”
Helen nodded.
Stride leaned forward, his elbows on the table. “Why don’t you tell us exactly what happened back then?”
Helen stared off into the valley, then turned back to Stride with a hardness in her face. “I have a nice life. My husband is an international lawyer, and he makes a great deal of money. And he’s away a lot. I’m sure you understand.”
She knew Stride had spotted the footprints.
“It’s one thing to gossip with a reporter on background,” Helen continued. “It’s another to be a witness for the police. We’re talking about a murder at a casino owned by Boni Fisso. Boni has a long reach and a long memory.”
“Have you been threatened?” Serena asked. “Do you think someone was sending you a message by killing your grandson?”
“No,” Helen said flatly.“Not at all. I haven’t heard from anyone. Certainly not Boni. The idea that Peter’s death could somehow involve me or what happened in the past-that’s a complete shock to me. I don’t see how or why.”
“That’s why we need to know what happened in 1967,” Stride told her. “To find the connection.”
“It may be the only way to find out who killed Peter,” Serena added.
“Peter,” Helen murmured, struggling with her reluctance. “I can’t believe what happened to him. I’ve never been a very emotional person, detectives. I’m not one to believe that attachments last forever. You can ask my ex-husbands about that. But I loved that little boy.”
She drummed her nails on the patio table and bit her lip.
“I guess the first thing to say is that I feel like I have blood on my hands, too. I hated Amira. I was insanely jealous of her. When she was killed, I have to say I was glad. Funny, how petty it seems in retrospect. But I was barely twenty-one then, and ambitious, and Amira was standing in the way.”
“What was she like?” Serena asked.
“Amira? She was scandalous.”
“In what way?”
Helen gave them a wicked smile. “You two are too young to understand the times. It was the sexual revolution, but there was still a lot of the 1950s about the world back then. Big hair. Ugly black glasses that made us look like librarians. Lots of ridiculous hats. Flouncy little miniskirts so you could practically see our pussies, but we were still supposed to look virginal.” She laughed. Stride thought she was pleased to see that her language surprised them.
“There was plenty of flesh back then,” she added. “You had Lido at the Stardust, the Folies at the Trop, Minsky’s at the Slipper. All of them bare-breasted, but pretty tame. Even so, we took a lot of heat. We had some councilmen in Henderson who thought a few tits onstage meant the end of civilization as we knew it. They wanted the girls wearing pasties, elevated stages, all sorts of nonsense like that. Fortunately, no one listened to them. Like I said, the nudity was pretty innocent.”
She took a sip of wine. “Then Amira came along. Looking back, I can admit it now. Amira had something special, something I didn’t. She was utterly uninhibited. When Boni made Amira the lead dancer in our nudie show, she was a sensation. And that show was pretty conservative. But Flame-my God. Everyone thought she was a prima donna going off to Paris for six months, but when she came back, she unveiled Flame. No one had seen anything like it. Amira wasn’t stripping. She wasn’t dancing. She might as well have been masturbating right there onstage. For 1967, my dears, that was scandalous.”
“What was Amira like as a person?” Stride asked.
“Cold. Ambitious. Selfish.” Helen traced the top of her wineglass with a painted fingernail. “Does that sound harsh? I admit, I was biased against her, because she treated me like shit. She treated all the other dancers that way. Most of us would pal around, look out for each other, but not Amira. She was only interested in herself.”
“Do you know how she wound up in Vegas? How she got her start?”
“If you were a young girl with stars in your eyes, you went one of two places back then,” Helen said. “Hollywood or Vegas. I don’t think Amira liked the idea of being a movie star. She fed off the crowd. She liked performing in front of an audience. And she was all about sex. Vegas was a natural for her.”
“But you don’t just walk into town and become a star,” Serena said.