The G-String Murders

by Craig Rice

  “I thought you left with Mandy and Joey,” I said quickly. I was irritated. He startled me and perhaps my voice wasn’t friendly.

  “Forgot something,” he replied curtly. “Went back to get it.”

  His mouth twitched. There was a piece of cigarette paper stuck to his lip. As he tried to pull it off, I saw that his fingernails were dirty.

  “What’s the matter, Rus?” I felt that he needed sympathy.

  The last few days had changed him so. Instead of the well-dressed, suave straight man, I looked at a bleary-eyed, untidy bum. From the pink grease paint on his collar to the frayed bedroom slippers on his feet, he was dirty.

  He bit his lip savagely. The cigarette paper stuck there. Before he answered me, he glanced into the empty room.

  “You gonna sew tonight?” He closed one eye as though he couldn’t focus with both of them.

  “Uh-huh, promised Gee Gee.” Even mentioning her name made me jealous.

  To change the subject, I invited Russell to have a drink. As soon as the words were out of my mouth I regretted them. After everything that Biff had told me about Russell and after all that Jake had told me, I had to go and invite him to drink with me!

  While he was making up his mind, I remembered the day after La Verne’s murder; how I’d found him sitting on that tree stump as though he’d lost his only true love. Then admitting that the main thing he was worrying about was La Verne’s money.

  I was glad when he refused the drink and started downstairs.

  I backed into the room and closed the door. I had a strange feeling that he was still there until I heard the stage door slam. I propped the chair under the knob again. The window was still bolted and, stuffy as the room was, I wouldn’t have opened it for anything in the world. I lifted the cretonne draperies and looked under the make-up shelf. Then I felt behind the costumes hanging on the far wall and, for luck, tried the window. It was secure.

  While I was maneuvering Sarah into a better light, I thought of Biff. It was hard for me to believe that he could be so unfaithful. Maybe it wasn’t with Gee Gee at all. I used that thought for consolation for a little while. Somehow I wouldn’t have minded so much if it had been anyone else but Gee Gee.

  I unfolded the white satin and began pinning the wedding gown on Sarah. She didn’t look too well in white. The black stocking material showed through and the places where her stuffing was coming out seemed to be increasing. The gold knob wabbled back and forth and she creaked in every joint. It was about time to pension her off.

  My thoughts went back to Biff. “He might have waited until we were alone and then told me,” I said. “He’s sat around with me when I sewed before. He could have tonight, of all nights.”

  I punched in the side of the container so the beer wouldn’t spill and took a long drink. I felt betrayed, so I took another drink. Then I felt abused, so I took another.

  “Maybe it wasn’t Gee Gee,” I said again. “Maybe it was Sugar Bun Kelly, or that Joyce Janice.”

  That made me madder than ever, so I put the container on the shelf and began stabbing at the wedding gown with the scissors. They went clip, clip and the white satin fell on the paper-covered floor. With blue chalk I outlined the seams to be sewn and stripped Sarah of her finery.

  I don’t know if I nudged her when I sat down or if the vibration of the sewing machine did it, but with a screeching, snapping noise Sarah collapsed. Her wire bottom sprung open like the innards of a clock and the buxom top went sprawling to the floor.

  The gold knob bounced like a golf ball across the room. Sarah was no more. Like a half woman in a side show she rolled over on her back and was still. The whir of unsprung metal still sang as I looked at her.

  I picked her up and carefully sat her on a chair. It took a little balancing, but she finally became steady.

  “You can’t do this to me,” I said to her. “You’re the only one left. Everybody went to the Ringside but you and me, and now you have to fall apart.”

  I took another gulp of beer and looked at her again.

  “You know,” I said eyeing her intently, “with the right clothes and a little make-up you’d be a damn-fine-looking woman.”

  My coat was hanging behind the chair. I took it down and placed it on Sarah’s strong shoulders. It covered her to the floor. I stood back and appraised my handiwork.

  “But you gotta have a face.”

  I took just a sip before I wadded a clean make-up towel into a large ball. With a piece of string I tied it on to the screw the gold knob was fitted for. Then with a lipstick I gave her a mouth. A little rouge on the cheeks with Gee Gee’s rabbit’s foot.

  “That’s for luck,” I said, as I gave her a healthier blush. An eyebrow pencil made eyes and lashes, long lashes.

  “Now for a touch of eye shadow to make you mysterious.”

  I took my hat from the hook and put it on her, punched the extra part of the make-up towel into the high crown, and pulled the brim down over one unblinking eye.

  “Madam, it makes you look ten years younger.” I pulled the brim down a little lower. “I bet if Biff saw you right now he’d take you to the Ringside. Not that the one he’s with is any more intelligent.”

  I had another drink.

  “Or witty, or adorable, or something.”

  The container was empty. At the bottom was a brownish, frothy leftover. I scooped it out with my fingers. It tasted bad, so I brushed my teeth, washed my hands, and started back to work.

  The wedding gown seemed to leer at me. I thought suddenly of how many wedding gowns I’d worn; the Polish wedding finale, the bridal-night scene, my own number, “Always a Mother But Never a Bride,” and now, another finale. Some people wear wedding gowns to get married in, I thought bitterly, and the only guy I ever wanted to marry has to go out with somebody else and leave me all alone.

  It must have been my imagination, but I thought Sarah gave me a sympathetic glance. She didn’t speak, though; I’m sure of that.

  To keep from crying, I buried myself in the business at hand. I stitched up one side of the gown, then the other. My foot pressed so hard on the pedal that the machine raced along.

  A light was shining in my eyes and I remember throwing a scrap of dark material over the guard. Then I moved the table a little so the light would come from over my shoulders.

  As I sat facing the doorway, every now and then I glanced at the door to assure myself that it was firmly closed. Sarah was sitting in Gee Gee’s chair, staring at herself in the seasick mirror, and the room was hazy with smoke.

  It was cozy, I decided. I felt very safe, quite secure. As a matter of fact, I was safe and secure—until I opened that door.

  But that was later. How much later, I don’t know. I do know that once or twice I got up to stretch my back and legs. Then I played a couple of victrola records. Maybe the selection was bad, but to this day I can’t listen to a victrola without thinking of La Verne’s blue, swollen face.

  That night it was worse. I kept seeing my own face on her body. They were carrying me out of the toilet room and I was dead. The wedding gown wasn’t for a wedding; it was for a funeral.

  I lifted the needle from the record and began sewing furiously.

  That’s when I fell asleep. Beer always makes me sleepy and I really just meant to rest my eyes. Just for a moment, just put my head on the shelf and rest my eyes …

  Chapter Eighteen

  The pain in my back and neck awakened me. When I first opened my eyes I wasn’t sure just where I was. Then it slowly dawned on me.

  I looked nervously around the room. The door was still closed, the chair propped under the knob; the window was bolted, Sarah continued staring at her unlovely towel face in the mirror, and I was still alone.

  Something besides my stiff back had awakened me, though. It was a voice. Or had I dreamed that I heard someone singing?

  I got up from the chair and let the cold water run in the sink. Then I scooped up handfuls of it and splashed it on my fac
e and head. With the water still dripping from me, I went back and sat down. I lit a cigarette and glanced at my wrist watch. It was one-thirty. I must have slept for an hour or more, I thought.

  Suddenly I heard the voice again. It was coming from the stage!

  I was so startled that I dropped the cigarette. It rolled down my chest and onto my lap before I realized that I had been burned. I shook my apron and when the cigarette fell to the floor I quietly pressed my foot on the lighted end. Then I waited.

  I waited for the sound of footsteps on the iron stairway, the rasping noise of someone lifting the latch of the door, the groan of the chair as it would give way.

  The voice had stopped, and still the sounds I expected didn’t come. It’s easy enough for people to tell me now that I should have stayed in the room; in a way I agree with them. But I couldn’t stay. There was no doubt in my mind that I was alone in the theater with the murderer. I just couldn’t sit in my room and wait patiently for him to break in and strangle me. No, I had to open the door, walk down the stairs, and say, “Here I am!”

  I turned off the lights, leaving just the covered one burning. It made the room quite dark and shadowy. I wanted to fix it so that when I opened the door I wouldn’t throw a streak of light on the stage, but I was too afraid of total darkness.

  When I pulled the chair out from under the knob it made a slight noise, so I waited a moment. Then I heard the voice again. It was almost like someone vocalizing, but the sounds were guttural and harsh. As long as I could hear it I felt safe. The stage door was straight ahead. All I had to worry about was getting down the stairs without being caught. Then I could run for the door.

  I unlatched the door and slowly opened it. It didn’t creak that time and as I left, it closed behind me. The stage was in darkness; not a gleam of light. Just the sound of a voice to convince me I wasn’t alone.

  My slippers shuffled on the landing while I grabbed the iron banister. If a person can be glad about anything in a moment like that, I was glad—glad I had left my soft bedroom shoes on, and glad I was out of the room. I felt the top step with a cautious toe, then the next. It suddenly occurred to me that I had never counted the steps leading to the stage. Twenty-eight weeks in a theater and I didn’t know how many steps there were!

  A cold draft of air hit my face and I pulled my robe around me. Maybe the stage door was open! The thought made me hurry. Then, maybe the stage door was locked! I hadn’t considered that at all and when I did, I wanted to turn around and rush back to the dressing room.

  Why hadn’t I thought about the window? It led to the roof and maybe there would be some way to the street. But something kept me moving forward. I’d lost count of the stairs. Was it twelve or one hundred and twelve?

  Then the banister ended. “Straight ahead is the stage door,” I told myself over and over. I touched the call board and felt the thumbtacks that held the two weeks’ notice sign, then another piece of paper.

  That would be the B.A.A. announcement, I thought. “Are you paid up on your union dues?” it read, and at the bottom was Tom Phillips’, the president’s, signature.

  As I felt the door I realized that I wasn’t paid up. Maybe they’ll think I got myself murdered on purpose so I wouldn’t have to pay. My hand touched the latch and I tried to lift it.

  It was heavy and wouldn’t budge. I tried with both hands. It was locked.

  I wanted to pound on the door, to shout and scream, but instead I pressed my face close to the cold iron. I think that is the only thing that kept me from fainting.

  I don’t know how long I stood there, but suddenly I became aware of a new sound. The voice had stopped. There was a faint, scuffling noise like someone tiptoeing. It was getting fainter, as though they were trying to move away from where I was.

  Maybe they thought I was the murderer! Maybe it’s just someone who was locked in, like me.

  I thought of Russell. It could have been he. I was going to call out when I remembered his dirty fingernails and his bleary eyes. Did he stay on purpose because he knew I was alone in the theater? Did he think I knew something about the murders? Was he the murderer?

  The tiptoeing sound stopped. I began feeling my way back to the stairway. My breathing seemed to fill the theater, and if I’d worn spiked shoes, I couldn’t have made as much noise as I thought I did.

  I touched the railing again. Then I decided to try the coal chute. If I went back to the room I was trapped, I reasoned. What if I did get out through the window? Would the Chinese restaurant be open at this hour? Certainly not. The only other exits would be the shops or the florist. They all closed early.

  My hand touched the water cooler and it reminded me of the first time I’d tried to get out through the coal chute. Someone had grabbed my throat, thin, strong hands had pressed my vocal cords. It had been dark then, too, and someone had tried to kill me. I was sure of it. Biff had laughed at me when I told him. He should have listened.

  My foot found the top step. Then I stopped. Someone had shouted.

  “Who is it?” The voice came from the stage.

  It sounded familiar, but I was too terrified to place it.

  “Who’s there?” it asked.

  Then I ran. Not downstairs or toward the stage door, but straight for the voice. I bumped into the scenery. It was a plush drop and the stagehands had roped it together for the cleaning women, roped it so that it cleared the floor for the mops to go under.

  I grabbed hold of it to keep from falling. I must have been pressing the plush the wrong way because the nap felt like thousands of little needles stabbing me. I tried to breathe into the plush so the voice couldn’t hear me, but the musty odor made me want to sneeze.

  Just a few hours ago I had stood on this same stage. The theater had been full of men, slouched down in their seats. Their cigarettes glowed in the dark and a spotlight pierced through the smoke, following me as I walked back and forth. Musicians in their shirt sleeves, with racing forms in their pockets, played Sophisticated Lady while I flicked my pins in the tuba and dropped my garter belt into the pit. Then my petticoat. When it fell, it covered the tuba player. He struggled to get it off and the audience laughed. I had thought, I’ll keep that in.

  Only a few hours ago, and now I stood there with my face buried in the dirty plush curtain, alone with a murderer.

  There were so many things I wanted to do before I died. I wanted to live in one of those apartment houses with trees growing in cement boxes in front of it. I wanted to be in a big show so I could have Sundays off, and, most of all, I wanted to be Mrs. Biff Brannigan.

  A round circle of light blinded me. It was a flashlight and it was coming nearer and nearer. The voice was nearer too.

  “Why didn’t you answer when I called out before?” it demanded. I could just barely see the startled face. It was Stachi’s. It looked as frightened as I felt.

  “You gave me a turn,” he said.

  I gave him a turn!

  “How’d you get down here in the dark?” he asked.

  Then I found my voice. Not exactly my voice, but a quivery sort of thing that would do for the time being. “I fell asleep while I was sewing and then I thought I heard someone singing, but I guess I was mistaken.”

  An expression of relief covered Stachi’s face and someone giggled stupidly. I realized it was I.

  “I’d better get dressed,” I mumbled. “Folks are waiting for me.” I was still giggling. Stachi threw me a beam from his flashlight and I had an urgent desire to turn and yell “Boo!” as I started to go upstairs.

  He held the light until I opened the door and entered the room. It was still shadowy, but I was in too much of a hurry to waste time turning on the lights.

  I zipped myself into a dress and stuffed my garter belt, with the stockings still hooked to it, in my purse. Then I stepped into my shoes and took my hat off Sarah Jane. Her round, unblinking eyes seemed to follow me when I went over to the mirror.

  My hair and face were certainly not lookin
g their best. In fact, I reminded myself a little of Stella Dallas at her worst.

  There is some scientific explanation for my next emotion, but I don’t know much about it. It’s a feeling that I’d lived the moment before. Yet I couldn’t remember when; maybe a thousand years ago. When I looked in that mirror to fix my hat, I felt it again. There was something weird about it.

  My hand was unconsciously reaching for the closet door; not to open it, but to touch it. My arm seemed to hang suspended in the air. I had no feeling of effort. Then suddenly I remembered!

  I knew the door leading to the stage would open, and I knew a man would come into the room. There was nothing I could do. I just waited.

  The door opened silently and slowly. Then I saw a hand in the shadows and an arm. A frayed maroon sweater covered it. There was that same odor of carbolic acid.

  “You were in the dressing room the night La Verne was murdered,” I said without turning.

  Reflected in the mirror was the full figure of Stachi, the doorman.

  “I smelled the soap. It is soap, isn’t it?”

  He said yes.

  “You said you were downstairs, but you couldn’t have been, because I fell over your chair.”

  He nodded.

  “You were watching me when I dressed for the finale, too.”

  He didn’t answer me. The door was closing and I could see both of his hands. Something sparkled in one of them. The other hung limply at his side. I realized that he was closing the door with his foot.

  “You murdered them, didn’t you?”

  The face I saw in the mirror was calm, almost benign. I turned and put my hands on the make-up shelf.

  He was walking into the light and I could see the little beads of sweat in his eyebrows. He held the glittering thing close to my face. It swung back and forth on his index finger. The rhinestones hung heavily on the dental floss.

  “See?” he said. “On one finger I hold the costume of a lovely lady. Such a little thing,” he said tenderly, “and yet so dangerous.”