The Corpse Wore Pasties Read Online Free PDF Page B

get there?”
    “When I perform? Half hour, forty minutes before showtime.”
    “Every week?”
    “I’m not in the show every week. And even if I’m performing, I don’t usually run it.”
    “Who does?”
    “LuLu LaRue.”
    Officer Brooklyn snorted. “You strippers and your names,” he observed.
    “So why were you running the show tonight?” Officer Bronx said.
    “If you want to know about that,” I said. “I’ll have to start further back.”
    “Hey, take your time,” said Officer Brooklyn. “It’s not like there’s anyone else we gotta talk to tonight, is there?”
    “Last I checked, he’s the only one here,” said Officer Bronx.
    “It was about a month ago,” I began.
    Filthy Lucre and I were sitting at the bar enjoying a post-show drink when LuLu LaRue wrapped an arm around each of us.
    “Can you guys do something for me?” LuLu said.
    “Right here on the bar?” asked Filthy. “Both of us?”
    “ For me, sweet cheeks, not to me. Not tonight, anyway. I just found out I have to leave town next month for a couple days, and I need someone to cover Dreamland for me when I’m gone. I’ll book it, make the setlist, publicize, and all that, just like I always do. All you’d have to do is host and make sure the night runs smoothly. Casey takes care of most of it, actually.”
    “When?” Filthy asked, taking her calendar out of her gig bag.
    LuLu told her the date.
    Filthy shook her head. “I’m booked at the Gilded Heel that night. But Jonny is available.”
    “Am I?” I said. “Are you breaking up with me?”
    “Ha ha, Jonny,” said LuLu. “Seriously, will you do it? I’d feel a lot better.”
    “Sure,” I said. “Why not?”
    “So you’re claiming,” said Officer Brooklyn, “That LaRue asked you to run the show?”
    “Yes,” I said.
    “You’re sure you didn’t ask her? ”
    “Why would I do that? I have my own shows to produce. I don’t look for additional stress. It was a favor for a friend.”
    “Favor...for a...friend,” echoed Officer Bronx, as she wrote the words in a little spiral-bound notebook.
    “So you and this LaRue are pretty close, huh?”
    “Close enough to do each other this kind of favor, sure,” I said.
    “Way things worked out, bet she won’t be asking you again, though, huh?” Bronx said.
    Brooklyn chuckled.
    Hilarious. And it reminded me that I was going to have to call LuLu on her trip and break the news to her. I wasn’t looking forward to that conversation.
    “So, then, tonight.” Brooklyn said, interrupting my train of thought. “You said you got there early. When, exactly?”
    “I don’t know exactly —it was after 8:30, I’m sure of that.”
    “What makes you so sure?”
    “The comedy show had just started.”
    Bronx flipped through her notebook. “Comedy show is supposed to start at eight o’clock,” she said.
    “And that,” I replied, “is how I know it was after 8:30...”

CHAPTER 3
    I got to Topkapi early because I was running the show.
    It wasn’t a dive bar. Not quite. But it sure wasn’t a Broadway theater. Still, Topkapi wasn’t a bad place to do burlesque, and the Dreamland show was always a fun gig.
    The venue is basically two big rooms. The one you walk into off Eleventh Street is designed for drinking. It’s fairly standard for the neighborhood—a long wooden bar lined with stools along one wall, a banquette against another, and a few tables scattered about between. If you were there when no show was happening, you might never know that behind the black curtains at the back of the room was a pair of French doors. And that through those French doors was a rather spiffy little performance space.
    When I got there, the first thing I did was make my way to the back of the room and duck behind those curtains. Between the fabric and the French doors is a small alcove in which performers can store their bags until the comedy show lets out and we can get into the dressing room. There were a couple suitcases