The G-String Murders

by Craig Rice

  Gee Gee was trying on a blue satin nightgown.

  “Believe me, Miss Graham, if I hadn’t had so much sickness in my family, I couldn’t sell it for less than seven dollars,” Mrs. Pulsidski sobbed.

  “I’ll give you five bucks for it,” Gee Gee said unsympathetically.

  “I’m such a poor old woman. Not for my own daughter could I …”

  I took a couple of cigarettes with me and left the room. The words “Real Alençon lace” and “like a glove it fits” followed me downstairs.

  I made myself comfortable on a pile of scenery under the steps and lit one of the cigarettes. I was dressed for my next scene, so I had enough time to relax.

  Jake, the prop man, came over to join me.

  “I’ve been looking all over for you,” he said cheerfully. “The rest of the crew and I got some gags for the party.” He looked around to see if anyone was listening. “I got the stuff hid in the prop room, for a surprise.”

  I would have liked to have been surprised, too, but when he motioned to me I pulled myself away from the comfortable bunk and followed him.

  He shuffled toward the prop room, a large, drafty place to the left of the stage. Instead of stairs, a ramp led to the double door. Jake unlocked a huge padlock that was attached to a bar and socket. He opened the door enough for me to squeeze through.

  “Don’t want anybody to see the stuff until tomorrow,” he said mysteriously.

  With the exception of a small clearing for a card table and a few chairs, the room was filled to the ceiling with furniture and props that would be found only in a burlesque theater. A gazeeka box, loaves of papier-mâché bread strung together, dozens of bladders, all sizes, hanging from the ceiling, a chandelier made of wood with leather braces for the chorus girls to cling to, a park bench, a fireman’s helmet, and the constantly used bedroom suite. The bed was made. It was being used in the show, as usual. A lavender rayon spread concealed the fact that instead of a mattress there were boards. A tired, droopy doll, wearing a tarnished silver gown, was draped on the pillow. At the foot were several carelessly wrapped packages.

  “I walked me legs off getting some of this stuff,” Jake said, “and wound up havin’ to make most of it myself.”

  I gave him the “There isn’t anything you can’t make” dialogue and the wide-eyed admiration look. His thin chest bulged a little under the faded blue overalls.

  “Take this, f’instance.” His callused hand offered me a piece of board with two clamps on the side, a roller between. “Ya know what it is?”

  I nodded yes. It was obviously a toilet-tissue holder.

  “Well, get a load of this!” He inserted a roll of blue paper. With a dramatic gesture and all the timing of a good actor he tore off a strip of the tissue, then looked up, waiting for my reaction.

  Music was coming from the roller! A tinkling music-box version of Whistle While You Work.

  “It’s wonderful!” I gasped.

  “Yeah? Well, that ain’t all.” He waved the piece of tissue under my nose. It was perfumed. “Heliotrope,” he said proudly. “Now you see why I had to let you in on the secret. I gotta have help to get this stuff in the room so’s nobody’ll see ’em.”

  “Why not after the show tonight?” I suggested.

  “The paint on a couple of the things won’t be dry for twenty-four hours,” he said. There was a troubled wrinkle between his pale eyes.

  I thought a second. “How’s about the finale of the first act?”

  He slapped a fist in his hand. “By golly, that’s it!”

  With all that settled, he began showing me the other surprises: a blue bath rug, a plunger painted to match with a rhinestone handle, a pair of oilcloth curtains.

  “This is the most important of all,” he said.

  At the end of the room stood the floral tribute, a huge horseshoe made of wax roses. A red ribbon with success spelled out in gold letters was draped from side to side. It was fastened to an easel and must have been over six feet high.

  “I wanted to get something more symbolic,” Jake said, “like when they open a barbershop, they make up a pair of scissors outa flowers. Only all my ideas were too corny.”

  “It couldn’t be more beautiful,” I assured him.

  “Damn it all! Why don’t you watch your cues?” Russell had thrown the prop room door open and was shouting to me. “You’re on,” he yelled.

  I tossed my cigarette in a brass prop cuspidor and made a dash for the wings.

  Biff was on the stage, ad libbing. “She told me she’d meet me here …” He saw me in the wings and scowled.

  He was doing the drugstore scene. I had one line:

  “I’d like ten cents’ worth of moth balls.” I fumbled in my purse for the money.

  Biff gave me a double take, then a slow triple. “Who you kidding?” he said. “Moths have no …”

  “Fresh!” I stamp my foot and exit.

  “If it’s fresh, I’ll take some,” he said as I left.

  Before I got off, La Verne’s high-pitched voice began screaming. She was way backstage, near the cellar stairs, but the noise almost shattered my eardrums.

  “Why you no good, two-bit, broken-down bastard!”

  I thought she and Dolly were at it again until she yelled, “I got enough on you to hang you. Understand? Hang you!”

  Louie’s voice answered her. “What you got on me don’t count.” There was a second’s silence. Then: “The next time I see you hanging around another guy as long as I’m keeping you, I’ll …”

  “Keeping me?” La Verne hit a high C. “You got a hell of a nerve to say that to me when I’m doing four-a-day in a flea bag like this.”

  There was the sound of a quick slap, then a scuffling.

  Louie’s voice was low. It vibrated with fury. “You heard what I told ya. Well, don’t forget it. This ain’t nothing to what you’ll get.”

  La Verne screamed again, this time in pain, not temper.

  A couple of stagehands sauntered by. I peeked around the scenery and saw Sammy hotfooting it over.

  “Stop the noise,” he said, trying to separate them. “There’s a show going on.” The stagehands helped him pull Louie’s hands off La Verne’s throat.

  Louie swung a left at her and Sammy got it. His eyes puffed up like a balloon.

  “Poor guy,” I thought. He was always on the receiving end of those fast ones.

  He was afraid to blame Louie, so he turned on La Verne and booted her in the behind while the stagehands talked Louie into leaving quietly.

  The blood trickled down La Verne’s lip to her chin and she wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. She didn’t seem to feel Sammy’s knee when he booted her. Her eyes went from the blood on her hand to Louie’s retreating figure.

  “Dammit, I won’t have all this racket during the show,” Sammy shouted. He was ashamed of himself and tried to bluster his way out of it. Jake hurried over with his first-aid kit and pushed the stage manager aside. “Can’t you see she’s hurt?” he said.

  Sammy mumbled an apology and turned to the group of stagehands that had gathered. “Fine bunch of guys you are,” he said. “Stand around and let a guy beat the stuffing outta a woman and not lift a finger to help her. Break it up now. We got a show to do here.” Then he turned to La Verne. “I’m sorry. Forgot myself.” When she didn’t answer he shrugged his shoulders and went over to the switchboard.

  I hadn’t seen Russell standing in the wings until Sammy approached him. His face was like chalk and his mouth hung open. He was looking at La Verne.

  Sammy said, “It’s like working in an insane asylum, ain’t it?”

  Russell brushed past him without speaking. He stumbled toward the stairs and climbed them one at a time, slowly, like a blind man.

  Jake was cheerfully patting iodine on La Verne’s lip. “Don’t know what we’d do without this little first-aid affair,” he said.

  La Verne’s lip was swelling and the iodine must have stung because she pushe
d Jake away and followed Russell upstairs. At the landing she stopped and looked up to the men’s dressing room, then she turned and went into her own room without speaking to him.

  Was it the sight of the blood that made Russell so white, I wondered, or was it the first time he knew of La Verne and Louie being lovers?

  Well, it was none of my business, but I did have to agree with Alice. No diamond bracelets are worth it. Like her, I’d settle for an old garnet brooch that belonged to Mother.

  Chapter Five

  I was surprised to see everyone in the dressing room so early for the Saturday matinee. Then I remembered; the Princess opened today. On the itinerary I noticed that her specialty was in the middle of the first act, her second number opened the second act.

  “Pretty good spots for a new woman, eh?” Jannine had been reading over my shoulder.

  Gee Gee looked up from the bedspread she was crocheting. “She better not send her laundry out until after the midnight. When those guys get a load of that frozen puss of hers they aren’t going to like it.”

  La Verne was vocalizing, trying to hit the notes without hurting her lip. It looked, a little worse. The iodine stain drew one side of her mouth almost to the ear. She had tried to cover it with grease paint and that made it swell more. Alice kept asking what had happened to her.

  “How in the world could you do that in your thleep?” she said wonderingly.

  “Oh, nuts.” La Verne dragged her Japanese kimono from a hanger. “I only said that to keep you quiet last night.” She put her arms through the flowing sleeves and pinned the robe on tightly. “As a matter of fact, I bumped into a fist. Now shut up, will ya?”

  The chorus girls’ chatter through the ventilator reminded us that the opening was over. La Verne had a number after Dolly’s strip. They both began dressing hurriedly. The Prima Donna took off her kimono and pulled a plain black dress over her head and pinned on a floppy black hat with a red ostrich feather that hung down over her shoulder. She was doing Love for Sale. It seemed a very appropriate song. The lip made her make-up complete. She vocalized the first eight bars. “Love for sale, appetizing young love for sale …”

  Gee Gee had the courtesy to wait until she left the room before saying, “Young love. With that face!”

  Alice sat with her knees up and her face cupped in her hands. “You know,” she said, a puzzled look on her pretty bread-and-milk face, “I jutht can’t thee how she coulda bumped into a fitht.”

  Biff kicked the door open. “Hi ya, Punkin. I got a container of coffee and a bag of buns for ya.” He put them down on the nearest chair and made a dive for the stairs. “Gotta make with the jokes. See ya later.”

  Gee Gee shook her head. “I don’t know which one of ’em is worse, so help me, I don’t.” She opened the container of coffee and the bag of sweet rolls. “La Verne’s knocks her with fancy fists and diamonds and this guy knocks you out with cute words and cold coffee.”

  She was right. The coffee was cold. I dunked a roll and ate it. “Hot or cold, he’s a cutie,” I said between mouthfuls.

  Dolly came in dripping sweat, La Verne almost following on her heels.

  “Jesus, are they tough today,” Dolly complained.

  “Oh, they were all right for me,” the Prima Donna lied airily. “By the way, any of you seen Russell this morning?” Dolly’s mouth got tight but she turned her head away with a tired gesture.

  “Yeah, I seen him,” Jannine answered offhandedly, “and was he loaded? Whee!”

  “You mean he was drunk?” Dolly spun on her heel and faced Jannine. I thought for a minute she was going to strike her. Jannine did, too. She backed away quickly.

  “Not exactly drunk,” she stammered, “just kinda, well, hung over, maybe.”

  The orchestra picked up the last eight of Dark Eyes in four and forte. With a glance at the itinerary, Gee Gee shouted, “That’s her!”

  There was a mad rush for robes, kimonos, and house coats. In burlesque it’s considered good form to wait until the second or third performance before catching a new act, but with the Princess it was different. We rushed downstairs, three abreast.

  Dolly mumbled, “I’ve been playing this joint for seventeen weeks and they haven’t given me a spot like this.”

  “She probably knows where the body’s buried,” Jannine said.

  Even the dancers were in the wings, twenty deep. Gee Gee explained to one that ours was a professional interest. The kid nodded and let us move in her place.

  The Princess was a smoothie all right. One peek convinced me of that. This wasn’t her first stripping job, I decided. She had too many tricks that come only with experience, like dropping her shoulder straps and rolling a feather muff around her breasts. Not that it was original; Sandra had done it weeks ago. But I’ll have to admit that she didn’t get as much out of it.

  There was a hum of appreciation drifting over the footlights. I looked through the peekhole at the rapt, sweating faces. Then she began slowly lifting the skirt of her evening gown with a dark-gloved hand, the other covering her breasts. A long, thin tongue licked the purple lips and the music built up to a crescendo. She flashed a rhinestone G string, and with the same sensual, expressionless face she threw her torso into a bump that shook the balcony. The audience went mad. She dropped the skirt and waited for them to stop applauding.

  Dolly whispered in my ear, “Get a load of those Bordens.” I looked. The muff was over to the side and I thought that competition wasn’t so tough after all. Just as I started relaxing—I never thought she’d have the nerve to take that brassière off—it happened. She not only took off the brassière, but her G string, too. I couldn’t believe my eyes. There was nothing but a small strip of adhesive in front and a string of fringe in the back. How she kept that on I don’t know. Glue maybe. The customers weren’t thinking about that anyway. That strip was practically the end of the show.

  She had darted behind the velvet curtain, and Phil, the tenor, was on doing a ballad. I gritted my teeth when I thought of the setup Moss had given her. To let her work that strong when we all had to wear full net pants. Right after the raid, too. And then to have Phil follow her in a pin spot with a ballad! I was so mad I shook, and I wasn’t alone. Dolly’s hot breath on the back of my neck was coming faster and faster. Gee Gee stormed her way past us on her way out front. It will serve Moss right if she does make a scene, I thought. How in the name of burlesque can anyone follow that?

  I must have spoken aloud because Alice’s coy voice asked, “Why didn’t she wear full netth like everybody elthe?”

  I like Alice, always have, but at that moment I could have strangled her in cold blood. “I’m—sure—I—don’t—know,” I said deliberately. Alice edged away.

  Biff had also been watching from the wings. After my outburst he gave me a mischievous grin. “Why do you let it get ya?” he asked. “You don’t work like that.”

  “No, I don’t, but I have to follow it. How’d you like to have to follow a comic that spits in his pants for a laugh?” Sammy made a shushing gesture. “Oh, shush yourself!” I cried. Then Biff laughed. For a minute I didn’t like him either, then I laughed, too. It was silly to get mad at a thing like a woman taking off her pants.

  On my way upstairs I decided to keep my specialty so girlish that the audience would think I was a fugitive from a finishing school. Organdie ruffles, a big picture hat, or a parasol, maybe. A verse and a chorus of Sweet Little Alice Blue Gown, and strip trailers like Oh Promise Me and I Love You Truly.

  Gee Gee was throwing things around the room again. A box of powder exploded on the wall. “Hot Springs!” she yelled. “I’ll Hot Springs him.” A jar of cold cream missed my head by inches.

  Alice whispered. “Moth went away for a couple of weekth. Thatth why she’th tho mad.”

  Dolly was ransacking the old wardrobe trunk. A pile of gaily colored rags that were once costumes were heaped beside her. She finally found something that interested her, a piece of monkey fur about three i
nches square. With fiendish determination she glued it on in place of her G string. As she stood before the mirror admiring her new “costume” I could visualize the cops walking down the aisles again.

  Crash! An empty bottle hit the sink. Gee Gee paused to get her breath. “So help me,” she vowed, “on the night show I’m going to take off a couple of layers of skin.”

  Alice and I tried to quiet her. “She can hear you through the pipe,” Alice cautioned.

  “And why give her the satisfaction?” I asked. “Moss will hear about the scene you’re making and then he’ll think we’ve been picking on her.”

  “Yeth. She’ll have a beef and Moth will give her the betht of it.”

  From the ventilator came a soft laugh. “Moss vill giff me vot I vant, no matter.” I stuffed a towel in the vent before anyone could answer her.

  The fight was all out of Gee Gee, though. She began brushing her copper-colored hair, counting each stroke carefully. Suddenly her face lit up. “Let’s shoot the wad and eat at Luchow’s,” she said. “I’m sick of that damned drugstore grub.”

  Her idea started a purse-fumbling contest. Dolly unsnapped the catch on her grouch bag and counted off two dollars. “A buck for dinner and a buck for drinks.” She bit the inside of her mouth thinking. “Yep, that’s for me,” she decided finally.

  With the exception of one show girl who was too stingy to treat herself to a fancy feedbag and La Verne, who was too stingy period, a pre-party dinner was arranged.

  Biff and Mandy joined us at Luchow’s later. Biff had just won six dollars in a crap game so the first round of drinks was his treat. Gee Gee bought a round, then I had to go for one. Dolly loosened up for the whole two bucks and by then it was time for the theater again. An old German cuckoo clock went into its act; the bedraggled little bird poked its head out of the window eight times.

  “My Gawd,” Mandy yelled, “it’s half-hour and we ain’t et yet.” There was time for one quick round, though, so we all ordered another Martini each. They were served in big glasses with little sour onions instead of olives.