The Corpse Wore Pasties (3 page)

I returned the favor. I didn’t want to be impolite. Eva squealed and I laughed and suddenly, for a moment, there was a bit of the usual good atmosphere in that dressing room.

It didn’t last.

Victoria chose that moment to sweep back in, purple cape wrapped tightly around her, still dragging her gig bag. She parked herself in front of a mirror, straddled the bag again, and got to work finishing up her face.

In addition to snapping the rest of us right back into our bad mood, Victoria’s entrance also reminded me that I still hadn’t dealt with rearranging the setlist. Eva was the opening act, so she wasn’t an option; I’d be damned if I was going to start the show with a plagiarist. Which meant there was really only one possibility left: Brioche à Tête, the woman with whom Eva had been talking. I wasn’t entirely comfortable asking her, because Brioche...well, Brioche is
weird
, even by burlesque standards. And I’m saying this in an industry where people regularly glue inanimate objects to their naughty bits and make it sexy. Brioche’s acts are unlike anything else in the business—they’re more along the lines of performance art, though that’s not exactly the right description either. Because when I say “performance art,” you’re probably thinking about that excruciating thing you had to sit through for five hours when your college roommate decided to “explore the world of live theatrical creation.” This is as different from that as you can possibly imagine. Brioche’s acts are compulsively watchable. You just can’t ever be sure what exactly it is you’re watching.

And in person she tends to make me a little nervous. Don’t get me wrong, I like her, but she has a way of looking at you that can be disconcerting. I can’t quite describe it. It was a cocking of her head similar to the way a dog might look at you when confused, if that dog were significantly more intelligent than you.

“Listen, Brioche,” I said. “Would you be willing to switch spots in the lineup?”

“With whom?”

“With Victoria.”

“Excuse me?” she said. There was that look, damn it.

I did my best not to stammer when I said, “She says she has another gig, wants to do her number earlier in the show.” I dropped my voice, not out of concern for Victoria’s feelings so much as to keep the backstage atmosphere from going from chilly to explosive. “Look, you wouldn’t be doing
her
a favor, you’d be doing the rest of us a favor. The sooner she performs, the sooner she leaves, the sooner everybody starts having a good time.”

“Perhaps she could leave right now.” Brioche didn’t lower her voice nearly as much as I had. I’m guessing she wanted to be overheard—she doesn’t have a very strong internal censor, nor much patience for dealing with people she doesn’t like. If Victoria caught the comment, she showed no sign of it. She was busy adjusting something underneath her cape.

“What are the chances of that?” I whispered.

Brioche stared at me. I kept my mouth shut.

“Fine,” she said, following the word with a sigh that would make a dead man punch a duck. “I’ll make the exchange.”

“Beautiful,” I said. I took Brioche’s music, and Eva’s, and headed back over to Victoria.

“You’ll be on second, after Eva,” I told her. She thanked me “so so
so
much” and handed me her own CD.

Just for the hell of it, I glanced at the disc to see if there was any clue on it about what number she was doing, but no such luck. A self-burned job, nothing written on it but her name.

I made the changes to the setlist and headed out into the main room. Casey intercepted me halfway to the DJ booth. I handed him the paperwork and the pile of CDs.

“Thanks,” he said. “I’ll introduce you as soon as I’m all set back in the booth, okay?”

I nodded. Casey headed up the aisle, and I went back into the dressing room, where I intended to polish off the remainder of my pre-show drink in one gulp. But before I could, I felt a hand on my shoulder. I turned to find it was Victoria’s. “Thanks again for your help, honey,” she said.

Honey, my ass. I’d bet gold against g-strings that she was only calling me ‘honey’ because she couldn’t be bothered to remember my name. I shook the hand off my shoulder, put the whiskey in my face, and directed my feet towards the stage.

“Oh, there’s one other little thing,” she said, following me, a little too closely. “I’ll need you to hand me a prop during my act.”

“Fine,” I said. I held out my hand. I’d do just about anything to get this damn show started and her act out of the way.

Victoria pouted, which she clearly thought was cute. It wasn’t. It looked like her lower lip was trying to escape her face.

“It’s at the bottom of my bag,” she said. “I’ll give it to you right before I go on, honey.”

Well, that wasn’t fishy at all, was it? This, in conjunction with the death grip she’d retained on her suitcase all night, added up to a sneaking suspicion that our little thief was up to something. But I didn’t have time to figure out what. Because on the other side of the curtain, Casey was announcing me.

And then the applause began.

Showtime.

I walked onto the stage, doing my Standard Politician Wave. A wink. A non-threatening thumbs-up. I took the microphone from its stand. Pause. A far-too-sincere smile.

“Thank you. Thank you. I’d like to thank you, the voters, for your support, and welcome you to Dreamland Burlesque!” (Hold for applause. The name of the show always gets applause.) “Me? I’m Jonny Porkpie, the burlesque mayor of New York City. It’s not an elected position...”

I scanned the crowd as I did my bit. It was a nicesized audience, almost a full house. The front row was packed with Dreamland regulars; folks who came to see the show every week, rain or shine, and could be counted on for a vociferous response if they liked what they saw. Good. Performers feed off the energy of the audience, and this audience would provide plenty of—

Ah, crap.

Somehow, I knew he’d end up in the front row. Near the corner of the stage, putting him unpleasantly close to touching distance, was a creepy-looking guy in a shabby overcoat who had tried to push his way in with the performers before audience seating had officially begun.

There’s always one.

Look, I don’t want to discourage anyone from buying a ticket, but if you’re going to be one of those men who sits alone, refuses to take off his outerwear even when the air conditioning is broken, wears dark glasses and leather gloves, doesn’t brush his hair or beard, and keeps trying to catch a glimpse of the girls getting dressed backstage...if you’re going to be one of those guys, maybe a downmarket West Side Highway strip club would be more to your tastes than a night of burlesque. Burlesque is a different monster altogether. It’s more about wit than anything that rhymes with wit; more about cleverness than any other c-word. Burlesque is a matter of brains over boobs... which, I suppose, is the standard arrangement, but you get my point. One creep in the audience working a Show World 1977 vibe could potentially sour the room.

This particular creep was sitting calmly enough and had his hands where I could see them, so maybe he was one of the harmless ones. Still and all, I’d keep an eye on him. And while I was at it, I’d keep the other one on that group of gigglers in the back. Probably the bachelorette party I’d noticed gathering in the bar before the show—ah, yes. The white veil and penisnose glasses on the blonde with the fresh-from-thesalon curls by the door were a dead giveaway. That bunch could go one of two ways: either they’d have a lot of fun and bring a great energy to the audience, or (especially if this was a late stop on their drinking tour) they might forget that they were supposed to be spectators and not the stars of the show. At least they were in the back row.

No worries about the rest of the audience, though. Looked like it was mostly groups of friends having a night on the town, couples out for a romantic evening —the bread and butter of any successful night of burlesque. They were here to have fun, to laugh at the half-assed double entendre, to cheer and whistle. Perfect. With a good crowd like this, when the lights hit the glitter, the underwear hit the floor, and the hooting and hollering filled the room, backstage would be a distant memory.

I glanced into the wings, and a thumbs-up from Eva told me she was ready to go. So I wrapped up my opening bit. “My erstwhile predecessor, Mayor Fiorello La Guardia, called burlesque, just before he banned it from New York, ‘entertainment for morons and perverts.’ So, my dear morons, gentle perverts...welcome to the show.” That line always gets cheers, both from the morons and the perverts. The applause kept coming as I introduced Eva, and got louder when they saw her walk out onto the stage to start her number.

What can I say about Eva Desire’s performance? Let me put it this way: When she moves, you follow every step. When she doesn’t move, you hold your breath and wait. And when she looks out at the audience and smiles, every person watching is convinced that he or she is the one that Eva wants to go home with. Usually, the burlesque acts I love best are built around humor, plot, or character, and Eva doesn’t go in for any of that, but in her case I don’t give a damn.

Four minutes and a whole lot of sexy later, Eva’s costume lay scattered across the stage, leaving only pasties and a g-string to keep her legal. She spun in place so every bit of glitter on her nearly naked body— and there was a lot of it—caught the lights, a sparkly whirlwind of va-va-voom, and then she fell into a split that would have broken a less flexible person in half. With her long legs splayed from one side of the stage to the other, she bounced, which made the tassels (the ones on those pasties I had peeled for her) twirl.

And twirl.

And twirl.

Her song ended.

The applause began.

And that, ladies and gents, is how you open a show. The textbook definition of “a hard act to follow.”

I wasn’t at all unhappy that Victoria Vice was the one who had to do it.

Eva rolled out of her split, took a coy little bow, and headed offstage as I made my way on. As we passed each other, she grabbed my ass again. “Knock ’em dead, Porky,” she whispered. “Especially
her
.” She winked and inclined her head toward Victoria, who was waiting in the wings.

I winked back, grabbed the microphone, and said to the audience: “Miss Eva Desire, ladies and gentlemen! That’s one to write home about...if you’re into that sort of thing.” I made a few more lascivious comments— several more, actually, than I usually would, trying to delay the moment when I had to announce Victoria. Introducing a performer you don’t like is a highwire act. On the one hand, you owe it to your paying customers to give them a polished, professional show. So you can’t really say anything
bad
. But it was difficult to work up any enthusiasm for our little plagiarist, and audiences can tell when you’re lying. Fortunately, equivocation is far less detectible, and it always gets a chuckle from those in the know. So in these situations I’ll usually say something like, “I’m sure you’ll enjoy her performance
as much as I do
.”

But this time, I felt I had to take it further, for Cherries’ sake. And, hell, for my own. Just get one little dig in. So what I said was this: “Our next performer comes to us all the way from Philadelphia, where she’s well known for doing some of the best acts in burlesque.”

I heard a “Ha!” from the dressing room that sounded like Cherries. Yeah, she’s known for doing some of the best acts in burlesque. None of them her own.

“And now...” I said.

Big pause.

“...Victoria Vice.”

There was scattered applause from the people in the audience who didn’t know any better. Too bad. If they were expecting another act of Eva’s caliber, they were about to be sorely disappointed.

I stepped off the stage and passed Victoria in the wings. “Thanks for the intro,” she said. I couldn’t tell if she was being sarcastic. She pulled something out of her suitcase and pressed it into my hand.

Right. Her damn prop.

“Just give it to me when I reach for it,” she said, and scampered past me. The way she’d been guarding it, I half expected her to drag that suitcase on stage with her, but no. She left it sitting in the wings next to me. Whatever she had been trying to protect was probably on stage with her right now.

Or in my hand.

I looked down.

The prop I was holding was, according to the yellow letters (and skull and crossbones) on the label, a bottle of poison.

On the bright side, that meant she wasn’t doing Cherries’ football number.

But was she stealing from another performer? Did I know anyone who did a number with a bottle of poison in it? Off the top of my head, I couldn’t think of any. So maybe, just maybe, this was an original creation. Which probably wasn’t great news for the people who had to watch the act, but at least it meant the show would run more smoothly.

Victoria walked out to center stage and threw off the purple cape to reveal a gothic black ballgown. Her music began playing—louuuuud (actually, a bit too loud, probably Casey exacting a minor revenge for her behavior)—and she began to dance.

She wasn’t the complete embarrassment I thought she might be, but...meh. Even if she hadn’t been a plagiarist, Victoria just wasn’t a great performer. I hoped she would take the prop off my hands soon, so I could stop wasting time watching her and get back to my whiskey.

As the music crescendoed, she reached under her dress, gasped (unconvincingly) as if with pleasure, and pulled a black rose from the folds of the fabric. She smelled the flower, caressed her cheek with it, licked it, growled at it, and bit all the petals off.

The bit was getting a pretty vocal reaction. Not from the audience, though. From behind me, in the dressing room. A perturbed mumbling, but that was to be expected. As long as they kept the volume low enough so the audience couldn’t hear, the performers backstage could make whatever comments they wanted.

Victoria spit out the rose petals all over the first row of the audience, then unzipped her gown and let it drop to the floor. She kicked it to the side of the stage, danced towards me, and extended her arm.