Death's Excellent Vacation Read Online Free PDF

amazed until I realized that she could have carried twenty costumes in there, if the size of the one she was wearing was any gauge.
    Pam cocked her head at me, and I hurried to help.
    “What you got?” I asked. She dropped the garments into my hands. She’d snagged a glittery gold spandex bandeau to go around the chest and a matching—well, it was flattering it to call it a thong. There was a pair of translucent heels to wear with it. Then there was a sort of sky blue leotard with black trim: a former leotard, since most of it had been snipped away. A little swath of blue for boob coverage, descending in a tiny strip to the bottom part, which was like an abbreviated bikini. Black heels and thigh-high black hose completed the look.
    Pam sat down on a chair, hard. She giggled again. “Get ready, buttercup! I’ll take the gold; you take the blue. It’ll look great with your tan.” She shrugged off her coat, and when the speckled blouse came into view, she read the alarm on my face correctly. She turned her back to the room to unbutton it, then turned it inside out and tossed it on the floor, close to the vamp. To my amazement, the vamp waited for a moment, then in one quick movement picked up the blouse and stuffed it into her huge bag.
    Pam was out of her clothes and into the costume as if it were her daily routine.
    I turned my back on the room, though no one seemed in the least bit interested in my goodies. In the course of wriggling into the thing, I found out the descending strip Velcroed to the bottom of the costume. Convenient.
    I looked at us together. “Wow,” I said. “Pam, we look
great
.”
    “We do,” Pam agreed, with no attempt at modesty. We gave each other a high five. “I’m coming down,” Pam said. “Really, I’m feeling almost like myself.”
    Mohawk called from the door. “Okay, the doubles act!”
    I had no idea how we were going to get out of this, so we started toward the door. Even drugged, Pam managed walking in her platform shoes without a wobble in her step, but I had to concentrate ferociously to master the spike heels.
    “What’s the names?” Mohawk asked.
    “Sugar and Butterscotch,” I said, and Pam turned her head to give me a look that clearly said she thought I was an idiot.
    “Cause she’s white and you’re brown,” Mohawk said. “Cute.”
    I hadn’t spent all that time tanning for nothing.
    “Okay, you’re on,” Mohawk said, opening the door at the end of the corridor to reveal a short flight of steps leading up into darkness. The noise surged out at us. A Latina blonde stomped down the steps, topless, followed by the sound of whistles and catcalls. She looked sweaty and bored.
    The cops were still in the hall.
    “Shepherd of Judea,” I muttered, and Pam and I looked at each other and shrugged.
    “New skills,” she said. “Eric told me you are quite the dancer. You just have to try doing it naked.”
    So we went up the steps, teetering in our high, high heels, to begin our careers as strippers. Suddenly we were on the stage, which was simply wood painted black, punctuated with three stripper poles.
    The emcee was a brunette guy with a big white smile. He was saying, “Remember, gentlemen! The applause each girl gets is measured with our applause-o-meter, and out of all our dancers tonight, the three girls getting the most audience response will be hired to appear right here at Blonde!”
    So we were supplying the audience with free entertainment in the faint hope that we might get a job out of it. Michael was an even bigger asshole than I’d thought, which was saying something.
    “Here, straight from their record-breaking engagement in Vegas, I give you Sugar and Butterscotch!” the emcee said, with considerable drama. I figured he took drugs.
    I put on my biggest and emptiest smile, and managed to make it to the front of the stage without falling down, thanks to Pam’s sudden grip on my hand. Together, we looked out at the men hidden in the darkness,