The Corpse Wore Pasties

by Jonny Porkpie

  She sat on the divan, poured herself some tea, took a sip, and then resumed the process of unlacing her boot.

  “So, you were saying?” she said.

  What had I been saying? Oh, right. “I was saying, don’t you think this looks suspicious? I take a few sips of tea, next thing I know, I wake up naked and strapped to your wall.”

  “You came to a pro domme and wound up in chains? I don’t think anyone would consider that suspicious,” she said. She called out over her shoulder, to the closed door behind her, “For crying out loud, are you ready yet?”

  “Me?” I said.

  “Not you, silly. You’re ready for whatever I tell you you’re ready for.”

  From the other side of the door came a negativesounding grunt.

  Jillian sighed. “Looks like we have a couple minutes to kill, Jonny. What did you want to talk about?”

  “You mean, other than who’s on the other side of that door?”

  “Yeah, that would be telling.”

  “Well, all right,” I said. “Let’s talk about Victoria, then.”

  “What do you want to know?”

  “To start, what happened between the two of you,” I said. “The rumor going around was that you were pissed because she opened up a burlesque school and you thought yours should be the only one.”

  “Yeah, guess who spread that rumor,” Jillian said, after downing some more tea. “That’s not why I was pissed. You want to open a burlesque school? Go for it. Be my guest. I don’t own the idea. But I do own the materials I created for my school. And when she opened hers, in Philly? Guess what she handed out to her students.”

  “Your materials?” I said.

  “She covered up my name and wrote in her own. That was the extent of her original work. I had a lawyer friend (who shall remain nameless and about whom we shall never speak again) draft a cease-and-desist, and she ceased. And desisted. And then,” Jillian said, “started saying I was an arrogant bitch who claimed the exclusive right to teach burlesque on the East Coast. Now, I may be an arrogant bitch—but I don’t claim any such thing. Hell, other people teach burlesque in New York City, you don’t see me sending lawyers after them.”

  “So she made you pretty mad?” I said.

  She smiled a sly smile. “Mad enough to kill her— that’s where you’re headed, right?”

  “Not at all,” I said, “just—”

  “A month or so ago, I found out that she’d started using my handouts again. This time I just let it go. First off, I had revised them since, and who cares if someone is using your old crap? And second of all, by now everyone in the business knows what she is. It wasn’t worth my time even to send her another C&D—you think it would’ve been worth it to kill her? I mean—”

  She was interrupted by a knock at the door.

  “Ah, finally,” Jillian said. “Yes, he’s all set,” she continued. Then, as the door opened, “What took you so long?”

  Filthy stood in the doorway in an outfit that I can’t describe, because there wasn’t enough of it to warrant description. Suffice to say, north of a pair of highheeled boots almost identical to the ones Jillian was now holding in her hands, Filthy wore nothing that wasn’t black, made of vinyl, and skin-tight. Her couture didn’t provide much in the way of coverage, but let’s be fair: it did beat what I was wearing.

  “Are you kidding?” Filthy said. “Took me half an hour just to lace one boot.”

  “Well, he’s all yours,” Jillian said. “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.” She sauntered out of the room, then turned around and looked back. “For the record, there’s nothing I wouldn’t do.” She closed the door behind her. Filthy locked it.

  I arranged my face into as judgmental a look as a man hanging naked on a wall can manage.

  “Darling,” I said. “I’m sure that whatever you have planned will be fun, but I should remind you that I am currently under suspicion of murder. Now is hardly the right time for this sort of thing.”

  “Actually, it’s precisely the time. I’m not here for kicks—though I have to admit, seeing you like this does make me tingle in ways I enjoy immensely. But I’m here to prove a point.”

  “That you look hot in skin-tight vinyl? I could have told you that.”

  “That you, my dearest, are putting yourself at rather a lot of risk. What if Jillian were the murderer?”

  “What if she was. Grammar, darling.”

  “What if she were—look it up, subjunctive case— and I weren’t here? You wouldn’t be chained to a wall, you’d be floating in the East River.”

  “Fine. Point taken. I’ll be more careful in the future. I’ve learned my lesson.”

  “Oh, honey,” Filthy said, picking up the riding crop. “We haven’t even started the lesson.”

  CHAPTER 11

  The sun was setting over Manhattan as I emerged from the subway station onto the streets of downtown Brooklyn. I still had a hike ahead of me, so I tried LuLu LaRue’s number for the third time, but still without luck.

  Eventually, Filthy had let me go. She’d had to. She couldn’t keep me chained to Jillian’s wall forever—Jillian had other clients, for one thing, and needed the dungeon back. Filthy had tried her best to convince me to abandon my inquiries, and made her point quite...enthusiastically. But I just wasn’t ready to give it up, not when the cops seemed only interested in closing the case as quickly as possible using the most convictable suspect—me. If I didn’t figure out who killed Victoria, who would?

  As a compromise, I promised Filthy I’d be more careful, and wouldn’t put myself at risk needlessly; in return, Filthy promised that if I got myself killed, her eulogy would consist of four words: “I told you so.” But she unlocked the shackles. When you’ve been married as long as we have, you have a pretty good sense of when you’re not going to win an argument, even if you’re the one with the riding crop in your hand.

  Given a choice, I prefer not to worry Filthy. I didn’t have a choice. And anyway, there was only one suspect left. If the first four interviews hadn’t gotten me killed, how bad could the fifth one be?

  Brioche à Tête lived and worked in a run-down industrial loft building with a bunch of other dancers, the kind of building not zoned for residential use that landlords rent out illicitly to artists for a few years to perk up a sagging neighborhood. As soon as the artists have raised the cachet of the area enough to make it fashionable (“the next Soho,” the realtor listings will say), the landlords anonymously tip off the cops about the illegal tenants and the artists are evicted to make way for people who are willing to pay a premium to appear fashionable and live around the artistic vibe. The artistic vibe, of course, is busy carting all of its crap to the next run-down industrial loft in the next sagging neighborhood, which will be on a slightly less accessible subway line.

  I’d never been to Brioche’s building before, but I knew the neighborhood pretty well. I’d helped more than a few friends move out of it. I managed to slip in the front door as someone was coming out. I looked enough like the other residents of the building that she let me in without question. I was playing it safe, as promised—by not ringing up from the lobby, I was giving Brioche as little advance warning as possible, and therefore as little opportunity to plan my murder, if she was inclined in that direction.

  To get to the higher floors, the building offered a freight elevator, nothing more than a platform with a metal gate on either side, hand-operated because it hadn’t been upgraded since it the day it was installed. I pushed the lever down and the thing jerked into motion, creaking and groaning as it ascended.

  I closed my eyes for a moment on the way up. It had been an exhausting couple of days, and I was operating on even less sleep than usual. I opened them again to discover that I had passed Brioche’s floor. I pulled the lever in the other direction. The elevator clattered to a stop and started down with a lurch that left my stomach on the level above. Even though I was paying attention this time, it took me a few tries to get the e
levator aligned with Brioche’s landing. When I did, I pulled the gate out of the way and knocked on Brioche’s door.

  She opened it naked. Completely naked.

  “Oh,” I said. “Sorry. Were you in the middle of rehearsing or something?”

  “No,” she said. “Come in. I was just about to make tea. Would you like some?”

  “Thanks,” I said. “No. Have you been speaking to my wife, by any chance?”

  “Why do you ask?” she said, cocking her head to one side. She gestured toward a large open area to her left. “Please, sit.”

  I looked around the room. Except for a small braided rug in the exact center of the hardwood floor, there wasn’t a stick of furniture. So I sat on the rug. Brioche sat opposite me.

  “I’m not in a rush,” I said. “If you want to put on a robe or something.”

  “You’ve seen me in this state dozens of times,Jonny Porkpie. I hardly think it necessary to cover myself in my own house in deference to a societal conception of modesty to which neither I nor you subscribe. Had I been uncomfortable in your presence, I would have clothed myself before opening the door. Besides, it’s too damn hot in here. Feel free to join me if you like.”

  I thanked her but demurred. She cocked her head at me and looked me in the eyes. I looked back, but the mottled blue told me nothing—as usual—of what she might be thinking.

  “I can only assume,” Brioche said, “that you’ve dropped in to discuss the events of this past Wednesday. No doubt you have already been informed by someone that I am, as you are, among the people who bore a measure of personal, one might even say spiritual, animosity towards Victoria, an animosity that was expiated to some degree, though not entirely expunged, by her death.”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “To which of the major schools of twentieth century psychology do you subscribe, Jonny Porkpie? Structuralism? Behaviorism? Cognitive? Humanistic? Or are you of the school that conceives of the human psyche in a more philosophical manner?”

  I replied that I had not yet chosen a school, but I planned to apply to several and see where I got in. Brioche smiled, to indicate that she was aware that I was attempting to be amusing.

  “Well, whichever you end up embracing, most will tell you that I simply don’t fit the archetype of a murderer. You, on the other hand, frequently display three out of the ten winsome attributes outlined in the writings of the Chinese philosopher—”

  “What was your problem with Victoria?” I interrupted. A crash course in Chinese philosophy was not what I needed right now, especially if it was going to explain how I made a better murderer than she did.

  “How shall I put this? You are, of course, aware of the underlying metaphor behind contemporary Swedish dramatist’s Nypa Botten’s earlier poetic works, taken as a whole. His version of the Personius myth—removing all references to Personious himself, of course—provides a reasonable analogy for the situation.”

  I had a sneaking suspicion that she was making this up as she went along. On the other hand, if anyone would have a working knowledge of obscure Nordic playwrights, it was Brioche. My best course was probably to try to play along. When the need arises, I can shovel it with the best of them. It got me through college.

  “I fail,” I bullshat, “to see how the parallel can be contextualized to a modern paradigm, but perhaps that’s because we’ve yet to adequately define our terms. Perhaps you can clarify the essence of your metaphor in contemporary rhetoric?”

  Brioche furrowed her brow, but not in a manner that suggested she thought what I’d said made no sense. Rather, her expression was one of serious consideration. “Contemplate if you will,” she said at last, “the central image-slash-paradox of that fable, the conundrum of the lizard and the yew tree. An imperfect correlation, I admit, but to take a step back from it and regard instead a crumbling stone on a wall some three miles distant, and a blade of grass about to be crushed by a single drop of dew, that will give you some idea of how the situation developed.”

  I attempted to formulate an appropriate response, but found my ability to circumlocute had atrophied over the years. So it was back to the straightforward approach. “Are you telling me,” I asked, “that you and Victoria used to be friends, but she screwed you over?”

  “Hardly, Jonny Porkpie. Hardly. There was always a dissonance there.”

  “So she stole one of your acts?”

  The look of disdain Brioche gave me would have wilted a block of concrete. “Have you even read Nypa?” she said.

  “Not since kindergarten,” I said. This was getting me nowhere. I decided it was time to try a different angle. A more practical angle. “Listen. When you arrived at Topkapi, you asked for someone to order you a drink while you went to stash your suitcase— white wine of some sort?”

  “A blanc seems not implausible.”

  “You and the glass of wine showed up at the bar almost simultaneously, and we both know it takes a few minutes to get a drink at Topkapi. Tossing your bag into the alcove should be a matter of twenty seconds. So what took you so long? Were you looking in someone else’s bag?” I dropped the question quickly, hoping to surprise her, and watched her face to see if her reaction gave anything away.

  That reaction was a perplexed stare. Not very helpful. “Another person’s bag? For what reason?”

  “Any of several,” I said.

  “Such as...?”

  “Such as, to discover which act she was planning to perform.”

  “Oh, I wouldn’t do that, Jonny Porkpie. One must always respect the liminal space inherent in another artist’s luggage.”

  “All right, then what were you doing that took you so long?”

  “I think,” she said. “Or rather, I seem to think...that I was talking to someone. Yes.”

  “Who?”

  “An archetype. One of those who comes to shows reeking of sweat and desire. One who is by definition the definition of himself, and no more. He was lingering in the vicinity of the curtains. I’m always intrigued by the observations of such men on the art of burlesque. It’s a perspective to which I do not often have access.”

  “And what were his observations?”

  “If I remember correctly, he expressed an ardent appreciation for the specifics of the unclad feminine form.”

  “He said that?”

  “Not exactly.”

  “What did he say exactly?”

  “He said he liked the tits.”

  “Classy.”

  “Rather.”

  “What did this archetype look like?” I said.

  “Archetypal. It was dark. I didn’t absorb a lot of detail.”

  “In general terms, then.”

  “Sometimes a cloud will be split by the wing of a plane. A tangle of briars on a mountaintop. The drip of sordid rain.”

  “Less general than that.”

  “Are you familiar with the works of the Dutch Master von Snuifje?”

  I shook my head.

  “Were this man to have been painted, it would have been by von Snuifje. I’m sorry, but that’s as specific as I can get.”

  She paused to consider.

  “Oh,” she said, “And he was wearing an overcoat.”

  Ah, yes. The creep in the overcoat.

  As a pretext for her delay, it wasn’t bad. I had seen the guy lurking by those curtains myself, and turned him away when he tried to follow us into the dressing room. And it would be just like Brioche to take an anthropological interest in one of the less palatable members of the burlesque audience.

  Of course, she could be lying—she might have remembered my interaction with him at the door and seized on him as a convenient excuse. But then, it wouldn’t be hard to track down a guy like this; based on his behavior, I had a feeling he was a frequent burlesque attendee. Since Saturday—bump and grind’s busiest day of the week—was just around the corner, if I didn’t find him at one show, I’d find him at another. So her statement could be fairly easily proved or disproved, a
nd she would know that. Which meant that for the time being I was going to assume she was telling the truth.

  She was still a suspect; she could have tampered with the bottle then talked to the guy briefly to establish an alibi. But on further consideration, that scenario would have required a degree of calculation and practical thinking on Brioche’s part that had not thus far been apparent in my interactions with her.

  In other words, my final suspect, while not wholly in the clear, was as unpromising as the first four had—

  It hit me then, like a poorly thrown brassiere.

  Brioche wasn’t my final suspect.

  The man in the overcoat was.

  The more I contemplated the idea, the more I wondered why I hadn’t thought of it before. A suspiciouslooking creep spending a suspicious amount of time right in the vicinity of the alcove where Victoria’s bag was stashed? That same creep later sitting exactly where a murderer might sit if he wanted a front-row seat to the results of his handiwork? This guy seemed tailor made for the part of homicidal maniac, and I had been ignoring him entirely.

  Granted, as a candidate for prime suspect, there were two problems with the creep. First, as far as I knew, he had no motive. It wasn’t hard to conceive of possibilities—he was a jilted fan of Victoria; he was obsessed with one of the other performers in the show and exacting revenge on her behalf; so forth and so on. But theorizing and proving are two different things. And cops prefer proof.

  The second problem was that I had no idea who he was.

  But I had an idea where I might find him. In the same place I was thinking of looking for him when he was merely Brioche’s alibi: at one of the burlesque shows he probably frequented. It wasn’t a perfect plan, I admit. If I couldn’t track him down, I’d be no better off than I was before I tagged him as a suspect. But at least now I had something to work with.

  Brioche had been sitting quietly, scrutinizing my face as I worked through the idea. I stood up, thanked her for her time, and left her place eager to track down my new lead.

  And, as an added bonus, I wasn’t dead.