The Corpse Wore Pasties Read Online Free PDF

face.
    “Yeah, right. I’ll put it in my diary,” said Bronx.
    “You make a lot of money doing that?” asked Brooklyn.
    “It’s a living,” I said.
    “And maybe there was someone there tonight who was getting in the way of you making your living?” said Brooklyn.
    “Maybe a certain performer there tonight stole something from you? Something to do with your livelihood?” said Bronx.
    “Like one of your acts, maybe?” said Brooklyn.
    Ah.
    This is where it got tricky.
    The thing is, Cherries Jubilee wasn’t the only one in the dressing room that night who’d had an act stolen by Victoria. A couple of years earlier, Victoria had also added to her repertoire a number that bore an uncanny resemblance to an award-winning act created by the famous Miss Filthy Lucre. The act is called “Miracle Grow” and in it Filthy plays gardener to a wilting sunflower. Nothing will perk the flower up—not water, not plant food—until Filthy starts shedding clothes to encourage it to bloom.
    And I’m the wilting sunflower.
    Or, rather, my arm is. The sunflower is a puppet, and I’m the puppeteer.
    So, yeah, as far as motives went, I had one. A fact that someone at the Dreamland show must have shared with the police.
    “Look,” I said. “Not to speak ill of the dead, but nobody liked Victoria.”
    “But you had a special reason, right?” said Bronx.
    “Lots of people had a special reason. She had a real talent for pissing people off. It was probably her only talent.”
    “But you’re the only one who handed her a bottle of poison,” Brooklyn observed.
    “You can’t deny that,” Bronx added.
    “I’m not trying to deny it,” I said.
    “Fifty people saw you do it.”
    “Handed it right over.”
    “Not just the audience. Your stripper friends saw it, too.”
    “ Everybody saw you put that bottle in her hand.”
    “So why don’t you save us all a lot of time and tell us why you did it.”
    I sighed and said: “She asked me to.”
    Officer Brooklyn’s face lit up. “She asked you to kill her?”
    “Assisted suicide is what you’re saying?” Officer Bronx asked, in a transparently leading tone.
    “No. Victoria asked me to hand her the bottle. I didn’t know it would kill her.”
    “You didn’t know it would kill her?”
    “No.”
    “Why not?”
    “Because I had no idea what was in it.”
    “No?”
    “No idea at all?”
    “Not a clue,” I said.
    “See, that’s weird,” observed Officer Brooklyn.
    “I think it’s weird,” agreed Officer Bronx.
    “I’ll tell you why it’s weird. It’s weird because that bottle says what’s in it,” explained Officer Brooklyn.
    “It says it right there on the side of the bottle,” Officer Bronx elaborated.
    “Rat Poison, it says, in big letters,” clarified Officer Brooklyn.
    “So you can maybe see why,” concluded Officer Bronx, with a note of victory in her voice, “we’re finding it hard to believe that you didn’t know what was in it.”
    Officer Brooklyn scratched his nose triumphantly. I rubbed my eyes.
    “Well, I didn’t think it was real rat poison, did I?”
    “It says it on the bottle!” said Officer Bronx.
    “Someone hands you a bottle says ‘rat poison’ on it, what do you think is gonna be in there? Rainbows and lollipops?” said Officer Brooklyn.
    “It was a prop,” I said. “Sometimes a label says ‘whiskey’ but it’s really iced tea.” (Not in my acts, of course. All spirits imbibed during my performances are 100% genuine. But more sober types have been known to employ non-alcoholic alternatives.) “So, no, it never crossed my mind that it was real rat poison.”
    Officer Bronx shook her head.
    “All right. Let’s go back to when you got to that bar tonight.”
    “Tell us everything you did from the moment you first walked in,” added Officer Brooklyn. He tapped a finger on the table. “Everything.”
    I got to Topkapi early because I was running the show—
    Officer Brooklyn interrupted: “When do you usually