Crowning the Slug Queen (A Callie Stone Mystery Book 1) (6 page)

The second half of the room held larger stage pieces like doors or faux staircases. Callie saw a trio of disco balls she thought looked entertaining. She smiled, "You're right, this is where all the fun is."

"I thought you'd like it. Our main storage is in a warehouse across town on West Eleventh Street, but this is where we keep most of the smaller stuff. We're limited here to what can fit into the elevator."

At the opposite end of the hall were the elevator doors. "Can we go up to the rigging?" asked Callie.

"As if a tour of the stage would be complete without the sky view," he said smiling and pushing on the elevator button.

The elevator was of an industrial size, with gray padded mats hanging on the walls to protect any stage sets from bumps and damage. The elevator moved smoothly and the door opened silently when it reached the upper level of the theater.

Callie and Wade stepped out onto a metal catwalk. They walked forward until they got to the place where it overlooked the stage. There were ropes and numerous sandbags that acted as ballast for the curtains and backdrops.

Wade leaned over the side of the railing looking down. "I've been here since they built the place. Back in the early days we'd spend hours up here watching the show and moving the scenery and curtains around. It's a lot easier on my back now that so much of its electronic, but I sometimes miss the bird's eye view of the show."

Callie said, "I always thought of this as 'God' view. It's not only that I can see what's going on, but I get to control an awful lot of it."

He laughed. "You're right. I guess a bird doesn't really have much impact on the whole show, does it?"

They both looked down as they saw two people arrive on the stage. "I'm sure it makes no difference to you, but I will be taking the dressing room on this floor," said a man's voice in falsetto. From the view above, Callie couldn't see the face of the speaker, but from the black beehive of hair she could see, she assumed it was Slimerita Rivera.

"That would be one of many things you would be wrong about," said the second person in a low voice that Callie couldn't tell was a man or a woman's. There was an accent to it she couldn't quite recognize. Maybe Eastern European? However, from the brilliant green dress, she thought she could identify the speaker as Molluska. Neither of the two voices matched the distinctly female voice Callie had heard yelling earlier.

"I think I'd better be heading down to meet the contestants," said Callie.

"Better you than me," Wade mumbled as he led her back to the elevator.

CHAPTER NINE

The pictures definitely did not do them justice, thought Callie. While she and Wade had taken the elevator down to the main level, the other three contestants had arrived and now all five were standing on stage in full slug queen regalia. And full slug queen attitude, Callie thought, as they were arguing about who should get what dressing room.

              Molluska in her glittering green dress and four-inch heels was arguing with a low intensity with the olive green slug version of Cinco de Mayo, Slimerita Rivera. Bella Oozonia, in her forest camouflage seemed to be triumphing in her discussion with her majesty, Queen Slugabeth II. From the tone of her voice, Callie thought Queen Slugabeth really didn't care, but felt she had to argue for form's sake. Standing to one side of these two groups was Gastronia Creepalot, known in real life as the mayor's husband. It wasn't really warm in the theater, but she was holding her full length claw tipped gloves in her hand instead of wearing them.

              Callie stepped out from the back stage area. "Hello, slug queens!" They stopped arguing and turned to see her and Wade. "I'm the new pageant coordinator. It's nice to meet you." From the looks on the faces of the queens, Callie could tell whatever pleasure there was, was entirely on her part. "Is there a problem here I can help with?"

Immediately the four queens who had been arguing all began to speak at once, demanding their due as a slug queen contestant. Callie looked at Wade and asked a low voiced question. "If I tell them we can only use the dressing room on this floor, will you back me?" Wade gave an almost imperceptible nod.

"Ladies, while I understand you need adequate space to get yourselves ready, in the end, we aren't really going to use this space for the actual show. So for now, I think it would be best if everyone shared the large dressing room on this floor. It will get us used to the cramped conditions we'll have at the outdoor stage."

This set off a new firestorm of protest. Molluska stepped forward. "What gives you the authority to decide that?" There was a slight foreign accent to her voice. Callie wondered how Molluska maintained such a slim figure. Her arms were almost bony.

Well, the committee, thought Callie to herself. But she knew an outward statement of authority wouldn't work with this bunch, but instead would just make them more resistant to her management, so she tried deflection instead.

"I just had a tour with the theater's stage manager." Callie could tell although Wade had been perfectly apparent standing behind her, the queens had ignored his presence. That often happened with the behind the scenes staff. They didn't get acknowledged until there was a problem they were needed to solve. "And he let me know they have a small rodent issue on that level and he wants to ensure no one's costumes or persons meet up with the mice."

"They aren't up here, too, are they?" asked Queen Slugabeth nervously.

Wade shook his head and took up her story admirably. "No, they seem to be only in the lower level and mostly in the store room and not the dressing rooms. But we don't want to take any chances until they're gone. We have poison placed throughout the basement and the mice should be gone in a week or two." Callie thought his time line was conveniently chosen as the slug queens would also be gone by that time.

Callie didn't want them to dwell on the imaginary rodent infestation. "I have here a copy of the run of show and it would really help me out if we walked through this." The run of show was the document with minute by minute guidelines as to what would happen during the event. Each page was divided into two sections. The left half of the page gave the stage and audio visual directions, the right half gave the exact actions and script for what was taking place on stage.

"Do you have a copy of this?" Callie asked Wade.

"Yes, Polly gave me one before she left." Wade left the stage and headed towards the sound booth in the back of the theater.

"I'll go sit in the front row and act as announcer."

There was only so much Callie could do in practicing an event that would take place in a totally different venue with different audio visual support and staging. She thought the most difficult thing to replicate were the entrances to the stage. Here, there was plenty of space for the queens to hang out and walk gracefully from the wings. Callie had seen photos of the outdoor stage and the wing space really didn't exist there. The queens would wait at the bottom of a staircase and climb up to what was basically a large elevated platform. Callie hoped those queens who were men in heels could handle wobbly stairs.

Callie went down to the first row of chairs and was surprised to see someone already sitting there. "Mayor Felson, I didn't expect you."

"Please, call me Dot. I thought I'd come and see the practice. I've got a horse in this race, you know." Callie assumed she was referring to her husband.

"Of course. It's only fair you should get to share the fun with him." Callie sat down next to her.

For the next hour Callie had the queens walk on and off the stage for the various portions of the pageant. She had them practice using the wireless microphones. Even if the audio set up was different for the live downtown event, they could get used to correctly speaking and learn how to make themselves heard clearly.

Even though she dreaded it, Callie also thought it was important each contestant do a full run through of their talent portion of the competition. They had listed their talents on their applications and she wasn’t sure if they were serious about them or the talent portion was merely another parody of a beauty pageant. She couldn't test them on the Q&A session as those questions would be thought up on the spot by the Old Queens, but she could at least have them as best prepared as they could for performing.

Callie yelled the order in which she wanted them to perform. "We'll do this in the following order: Molluska singing, Queen Slugabeth and her poetry, Gastronia's one-man, er, one-woman band, Bella's lassoing and last Slimerita's flamenco dancing." There were outraged cries from backstage. Callie knew no matter what order she choose, someone would be unhappy, so she went with the order she thought would be most entertaining. If she interspersed the musical numbers with the non-musical ones, the program would not have any one section that was more upbeat than any other section.

Molluska came out first and had a CD in her hand. "Will you take this to the stage man? It is my music," she said in her slightly accented voice. The question wasn't so much as a request for Callie, but an order.

"I'd be delighted." Callie reached up as Molluska leaned down. How did a man get such good cleavage, wondered Callie as she got an eyeful of it.

As she took the CD back to Wade, she heard Molluska and Dot Felson speaking in low tones. Callie wondered what they had to talk about.

Callie gave Wade the CD. "Wait until I get back up to the front to press play. I don't want to miss a minute of this." Wade nodded.

Wade dimmed the lights and shone a spotlight on the stage. Molluska glided into it. Callie noted her hand was shaking as she held the mike, but Callie thought that was just nervousness.

As her voice poured out over "Willkommen" Callie and Dot looked at each other in amazement. Smooth as silk, warm as honey, her voice immediately transported Callie back to a smoky café, filled with the seedy dregs of the Weimar Republic. Molluska's voice was more than singing, Callie thought, she could really fill the words with empathy. Callie had seen a number of Broadway shows in her time and had even helped manage performances. She thought Molluska was among one of the best singers she'd ever heard live.

As the song came to an end, a chair appeared somewhere from outside of the spotlight and by the claw toed boot that appeared momentarily, Callie thought it was Gastronia Creepalot with the assist. Molluska went into a version of "Mein Herr" complete with some of the chair acrobatics Liza Minnelli had used in the film version of the play. The slit up the right side of her dress winked open and closed seductively as she moved through the song.

She closed with "Life is a Cabaret." Callie didn't think she'd ever seen it performed so well, and was willing to admit Molluska might even be on par with Liza.

As Molluska sang the last notes, Wade, with a fine sense of the dramatic, struck the lights. There was silence for a moment and then Callie heard applause from the wings and got up herself to clap enthusiastically for the performance. Wade brought up all the lights and Callie saw Dot next to her clapping rather desultorily. Well, thought Callie, maybe she wasn't a fan of Broadway.

Callie decided then that when the contest actually took place, she'd move Molluska to be the final performer. It would not be fair to the others to follow such a strong performance.

This thought was proven correct when Queen Slugabeth II took the stage. She began with a single word. "
Gilgamesh
.” She proceeded to lose Callie in a vast array of names and places that seemed to be describing the death of a monster in a cedar forest. Callie remembered Queen Slugabeth's application stated the poetry would bring tears to everyone's eyes, but it wouldn't be for the reasons she thought. Queen Slugabeth's reading was so dramatic, low intense words interspersed with loud booming cries that Callie thought the performer might be doing herself harm.

However, the loud cries reminded Callie of the argument she had heard before practice had begun. Upon reflection, she was now not certain if it was a woman or a man. Callie couldn't tell if that voice and Queen Slugabeth's were the same. The dramatic reading provided a good way to disguise a voice.

Finally, the poem ended and it was time for a musical act. The same chair used to such good effect by Molluska was put to a much more prosaic use by Gastronia Creepalot. Sitting in the chair, the audience was forced to stare straight at the green claw toed hip boots. They were incongruously holding a pair of cymbals at the knees. She held a guitar on her lap, topped by one of those metal devices that held a harmonica. Atop the back of her shoulders, was a small snare drum. Callie could see there was a lead attached to Gastronia's right heel and she assumed the drum would play when the heel was moved.

"Has he been doing this long?" Callie asked Dot as Gastronia continued to get situated.

"Doing what?" said Dot, as if neither a cross dressing husband nor being a one-man band were anything out of the ordinary.

"Playing all those instruments at the same time. He must be really talented."

"He can play guitar a little, but I'm not sure how he came up with this contraption," said Dot unenthusiastically. "In fact, I'm not sure where he came up with this whole idea of being in the slug queen pageant. It was all very sudden."

Callie just nodded. She did not desire to get involved in the mayor's personal life. Gastronia began to play. Callie hoped in the future, she was much farther away from the stage. Gastronia played like a novice. The cymbals and drum didn't seem to be able to set a consistent beat and she seemed unable to switch smoothly between the guitar and the harmonica. It took more than a minute of playing for Callie to finally recognize the song as "How Much is that Doggy in the Window?" Mercifully, Gastronia only played one song and didn't launch into a second. Callie stood and applauded, but wasn't sure if she was applauding the performance or only that the assault on her ears had ended.

As Gastronia stood and gave an awkward bow, her snare drum slid forward and hit her on the back of the head. "Ow!" She said in a distinctly masculine voice and walked slowly off stage holding the back of her head.

Bella Oozonia appeared on the stage from the left, carrying a lasso. She came to the front of the stage and holding out a CD said, "Can you please take this to the gentleman in the back?"

Callie took the CD to Wade. "I wonder what kind of music goes with lassoing."

Wade shrugged.

Although Callie had no real idea of what the music would sound like, she expected a vaguely western theme. Instead, the only thing Callie could think of when the music blared, was that it was the bump and grind of a strip tease.

And so it was. Bella started the performance by doing some routine tricks like circling the lasso around various parts of her body, stepping through it from both the left and right and doing some sort of complicated jump over the spinning rope reminding Callie of a saber dance. Then her clothes started to come off. Bella could lasso equally well with both her left and right hand, so she would undo a catch or a button and off would come first one shoe, and then the second. She left her socks on and then removed her camouflage pants revealing a pair of skin tight shorts below them. The shorts were still covered in the same camo pattern as the rest of her costume, but were enhanced by strategic applications of glitter. Callie thought that would impair any ability of the camo to fade into the background. Plus the fact that Bella seemingly had biceps and abs of steel, she'd definitely catch attention in this outfit.

Callie looked at the mayor. "Is this a family friendly show?"

"For Skinner, as long as she keeps on as much clothing as a bikini, we'll allow it in the competition," said Dot.

The next thing removed was her blouse, underneath which she wore a green and gold spangled bra top complete with tassels. Callie was amazed at Bella's ability to keep in time to the slow music while still moving the lassoing and removing her clothes. Finally down only to bra, shorts and socks, Bella did one final trick of doing a single hand stand, first on her left hand and then on her right all the while spinning the rope. She let the rope go and it spun in a graceful arc to a stop around her feet.