The Corpse Wore Pasties Read online

  Cherries Jubilee is, in normal circumstances, a close friend of mine.

  But when I walked up to her, she practically threw her CD in my face.

  “What the hell is that one doing here?”

  “I’m just running the show, Cherries, I didn’t book it.”

  “Why the hell would you book her?”

  “I didn’t book her.”

  “I don’t mean you you, Porkpie. I mean the royal ‘you.’ Why the hell would LuLu book her? Why the hell would anyone book her? Did you know she was going to be in the show? You would have told me if you knew she was going to be in the show, right?”

  “I found out exactly three seconds before you did,” I said, “when Casey stopped me on the way backstage and handed me the setlist. Speaking of which, do you want Casey to play your music right after I introduce you, or when you’re in position on stage?”

  “In position. If she the hell does my football number again tonight, I’ll kill her. Hell, I’ll kill her if she does your—”

  “Didn’t she tell you she wasn’t going to do that number anymore?”

  “Yeah. And I’m blonde, so I believe everything she the hell says.”

  I shook my head. “I don’t think that even she would be stupid enough to do a number she stole in the same show as the person she stole it from.”

  “The hell you don’t,” Cherries said, and turned back to the mirror, checking her teeth for lipstick.

  I didn’t bother asking if she’d be willing to switch with Victoria in the lineup.

  The next performer was putting on a corset, angrily. Which is no way to put on a corset. As I approached, she shoved the laces into my hand.

  “Tighten,” she said. I slipped the clipboard under my arm and pulled.

  Jillian Knockers is a legend in the annals of bump and grind. First of all, she’s not called “Knockers” for nothing. On the contrary, she’s called “Knockers” for two things. But it’s not just the obvious talents that make her a star; the woman has been in the burlesque business longer than almost anyone, and it shows. Not physically—if you saw her onstage and tried to guess her age, I guarantee you’d be wrong by a decade or two, on the young side. Where it’s obvious is in the quality of her performance. She mostly does variations on classic stuff like fan dances, glove peels, feather boas, chair work. When she’s on stage, she doesn’t make a single move that isn’t calculated to get a rise out of the audience, and she gets it, in every sense of the word.

  “Tighter,” she said, as I pulled. “Hey, Jonny, I have your opening line (tighter): Ladies and Gentlemen, tonight Dreamland Burlesque is proud to present (tighter) plagiarist Victoria Vice and a (TIGHTER!) veritable Who’s Who of performers (Jesus, Porkpie, don’t be a wimp, pull harder, I’ll tell you if it’s too tight) the bitch has screwed over.”

  That was a terrible opening line. I wasn’t going to use that.

  But I sympathized with the sentiment. Jillian, too, had once had a run-in with Victoria. I’d never heard all the gory details, but it had something to do with the Gotham Academy of Ecdysiasts, the school of burlesque that Jillian had founded a few years back. (She calls herself the “headmistress,” a title inspired in part by her side job as a dominatrix. Headmistress, I’ve been bad. Take me to detention, Headmistress. Oh, Headmistress.)

  Jillian didn’t like to talk about it, but from what I’d gathered through the grapevine, she had a problem with a competing burlesque school Victoria had opened in Philly. That was all I knew, except that Jillian wasn’t any fonder of Victoria than Cherries was.

  “I can see why LuLu would want to get out of town for a show like this,” Jillian said. ”What I don’t understand is why she would book it in the first place.” She took the corset laces out of my hand and shoved her CD at me. I took it and moved on. Once again, I didn’t ask about the switch, but this time for a good practical reason: Jillian was the final number in the show.

  Angelina Blood just looked at me. Didn’t say a word when I asked her for her music, just paused in the middle of applying a thick halo of black eyeliner. Her eyes had been fully surrounded by black when she arrived, and now she was adding more. She pushed a raven-black lock of her raven-black hair to the side, and her raven-black eyes (I didn’t know if they were contacts, but I’d never seen her without them) flicked over to the banquette next to her, where a CD lay next to a pair of skull-and-crossbones-shaped pasties on top of her raven-black suitcase. She didn’t say a word when I asked when she wanted her music to start, but those black eyes flicked to the CD again, and I saw that she had written instructions on it. She didn’t say a word when I asked her if she wanted to switch places in the lineup with Victoria, because I didn’t bother asking. I didn’t feel like wasting my breath.

  The last two performers had been talking together, softly, as I gathered the music from the other three. They shut up before I got close enough to hear anything. I decided I needed to make my culpability—or, rather, lack thereof—clear right off the bat.

  “Just for the record,” I said, “I don’t know what problems you have with Victoria, but whatever they are I agree with you. And I didn’t book this show. I’m just running it.”

  “I blame you entirely, Porky,” said Eva Desire, an alabaster beauty with pink streaks in her hair. Eva had shimmied into town a few months ago. She and I weren’t exactly friends yet, but we had done a few gigs together and got along pretty well—at least, until now. “But I’ll let you make it up to me,” she continued. She put on a breathy stage voice. “Peel me.”

  She handed me a pair of pasties, the small circles of adhesive-backed decoration that keep burlesque performers away from the long arm of the law. Due to an archaic cabaret restriction, although a woman can legally appear topless in the streets of New York City, if she wants to do so on a stage in the back room of an East Village drinking establishment, she is required to cover her nipples. Pasties come in all shapes, sizes and styles. This particular pair had tassels dangling from the center, tassels that would no doubt be twirled at some point during Eva’s performance. I peeled the backing off one and handed it to her, careful not to get the fringe caught in the exposed tape. Eva took out a lighter and held the flame under the tape. (Professional secret—heat the tape, it sticks better.) She centered the pastie over her nipple and pressed it down, hard. I peeled the other pastie and handed it over.

  “Okay, Porky, I forgive you,” Eva said, bouncing to make sure the tassels would twirl and the pasties were securely attached. They were. She grabbed my ass to let me know there were no hard feelings.

  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 comp
ulsively 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.