Tease (17 page)

‘Huh. That’s only five hundred grand these days.’

‘Damn inflation. Make it a billion.’

‘That’s more like it.’

‘See you in forty.’

‘See you. Love you.’

Tiger turned back to her mirror and tightened her silk dressing gown about her waist. She felt weird putting on a performance in the daytime for a scathing panel of suits armed with notepads. Still, this was the acid test for the Vegas finale routine. There was no way Dianne Castrelli would sign off millions of dollars of the promoter’s budget for an epic water feature if she thought the act wouldn’t work. Lewis had arranged for today’s demonstration to be installed in the Hippodrome. Formerly ‘The Talk Of The Town’, it was one of the few venues with a hydraulic stage lift, and flies high enough from which to work Tiger’s huge glitterball prop. The Hippodrome also happened to be most fitting, in that it was a beautiful old, faded venue which used to house circus shows, followed by music hall entertainment a hundred years back. An observant eye would be able to spot the huge
iron hooks set into the walls that were used to chain up the elephants.

Of course, when Tiger had excitedly discovered that in the Hippodrome’s circus days elephants would slide down an enormous waterfall the height of the proscenium arch into a huge water tank, Lewis had been extremely quick off the mark to stress that under no circumstances was he asking Dianne Castrelli for a troupe of elephants. Tiger knew that it was always a battle between the artist and the producer to strike a happy medium that satisfied both creative vision – and budget – a battle that Lewis was forever stuck in the middle of. She also knew that if she wanted elephants, she would bloody well find a way of having them. As it happened, she thought diving tigers would be much more appropriate. Hell, if they were good enough for Siegfried and Roy, then they were the obvious choice for Tiger Starr. After all, this was for Vegas, baby. First base was getting Di Castrelli to agree to her water feature.

Blank canvas, blank canvas, blank canvas, chanted Tiger inwardly as she expertly blended her eyeshadow. She worked her brushes like an artist used gouache, blending, daubing, blending some more, then methodically working thick mascara into her false lashes layer by layer. She hummed as she worked, gaining energy as the layers went on. Rapidly she sculpted her cheekbones with highlighter and contouring powder. Razor sharp, she thought to herself, pulling back from the mirror and sucking her
cheeks in for a second while she admired her handiwork. Her breathing deepened as she drew in her lip line with a steady hand, before filling in her lips with glossy red. She sprang up to apply a final dusting of diamond powder to her cheeks and eyelids with a flourish. She smiled to herself and shut her eyes as she soaked up the first familiar tingle of butterflies. Great, we’re on the ride now, she thought to herself as she bent over to shake out and fluff up her pink curls.

‘Now that’s what I call a view!’ came a familiar voice.

Tiger squealed in surprise, and immediately straightened herself, flinging her hair back violently and swinging round to face the intruder with a vicious glare.

‘Rex! Who let you into …’

Tiger felt a surge of butterflies. Her heart pounded. She didn’t know whether it was the nerves, or seeing Rex unexpectedly like this. He looked stunning in an immaculate tan Italian suit, with a delicious shading of stubble on his jaw. Damn, he even smelled good; Aqua di Parma, thought Tiger as an intoxicating waft of fresh bergamot and lemon filled her dressing room.

‘Hey, kiddo.’

‘You know I hate that,’ said Tiger tetchily, ‘anyway, what are you doing in here?’

‘Listen doll—’ a beat ‘—I’ll cut to the chase – we have to talk.’

‘Not now, Rex, not before the presentation,’ dismissed Tiger.

‘But this is really urgent.’

‘Well, why didn’t you just call?’

‘It’s sensitive. I need to discuss this with you face to face and since you’ve been avoiding me lately …’

‘I don’t know what you mean. We work together. I’m on the phone to you five times a day. I don’t need to see you.’

‘Look. This is urgent,’ Rex repeated insistently.

‘I’m sure whatever it is can wait until this evening. I’ll meet you around six?’

‘No can do, the thing is—’

‘Oh wait, don’t tell me, it might interrupt a date you have planned with my own
sister
.’

‘Well, well, well, I didn’t think you were the jealous type. In fact I thought blowing hot and cold was more your style … in every sense.’

‘That’s disgusting. I have a really important performance to do right now. Lay off with the mudslinging in my private space.’

‘For chrissake, Tiger, we need to talk. There’s a story breaking with the
News of the World
.’

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘It could damage you.’

‘The ‘News of the Screws’? Oh pull the other one. I’ve done nothing.’

‘We really need to talk through your options. And you do have options, so long as we act fast.’

‘I’ve been straight with you from the start, along with
Lewis. Someone always reckons they have a story on me, and you know it’s always been some false alarm.’

‘Well,
someone
bears you a grudge—’

‘Rex, shall I remove you from this dressing room myself? Let’s discuss this later. Don’t ever dump shit on me before a show, and certainly never in my dressing room.’

‘You got it, lady. I don’t need your help to leave, don’t worry. You call me when you’re done. But speaking as your paid advisor, be warned. This won’t wait.’

‘Fine. I hear you. Loud and clear.’

‘Oh, and some girl gave me this to give to you as I was on my way from the stage door.’

Rex held out a pink envelope. Tiger blanched.

‘Aren’t you gonna take it?’ Rex asked, pushing the envelope under her nose.

‘Thanks, I’ll open it later,’ said Tiger, forcing a smile. ‘It’ll be a fan or something.’

‘Yeah, whatever.’

‘Oh, Rex?’

‘Yep.’

‘What did she look like?’

‘Who?’

‘The girl who gave you the envelope?’

‘Oh, I dunno, she kind of ran past. I think she works here, looked like she was wearing a staff t-shirt. Red hair, bit of an old boiler.’

‘Oh. Okay, cool, thanks.’

Rex left the room. Bastard, thought Tiger, invading her
dressing room like that. And looking so handsome. Her heart ached. Shit, now her head was all over the place. Anxiety. Longing. Fear. Desire. Guilt. Confusion. Lust. Panic. And who the fuck was dishing out these stupid anonymous letters? Surely it was a wind up. Tiger paced, still holding the pink envelope in her hand. What was Rex on about, anyway? A story in the tabloids? About what? She hadn’t done anything really newsworthy lately – at least not in a scandal sense. No drugs, all that was well behind her. There had been no married men, no secret gastric band, no sex tapes, no covert boob job. Maybe it’s some elaborate kiss ’n’ tell, wondered Tiger. Probably some guy from years ago who was stony broke and fancied making a cool ten grand from a fabricated encounter. Yes, of course that was it. Oh let them, thought Tiger, calming herself. As long as they give a good report on my technique, she thought, smiling to herself naughtily. If that’s the only way they can earn money then she just had to feel sorry for them.

Looking down at the envelope she wondered whether or not to open it. Oh what the hell, it’s not like things could get much worse this afternoon. She ripped the paper open.

‘I. Know. Your. Secret.’ Tiger froze. The four little words on the pink paper burned into Tiger’s retinas like a branding iron. Her mouth went dry. Her mind raced. What secret? Most people had secrets – parts of their past they’d rather not be publicly revealed. Who sent this? The same
person who was selling a story to the newspapers? Tiger told herself it was simply a shot in the dark. Oh lord, maybe someone had discovered about her liaison with Libertina. Tiger panicked. Libertina was firmly in the closet, convinced it would damage her career if the Hollywood mafia knew she was batting for her own side. But Tiger wondered, did anyone really think that was scandal any more? Newsworthy perhaps. But surely it had to be more. Could the letter writer really know about Tiger’s
real
secrets? Tiger shuddered before making a sign of the cross and hastily mumbling a Hail Mary. How on earth was she going to get through her performance with a mammoth stab of fear now lodged in her heart?

Lewis sat with Pepper, Blue and Rex to his right, and Vince, Johnny T and Dianne Castrelli from Las Vegas to his left. The tension was palpable as the lights dimmed. This motley crew were not easily impressed.

‘I got Tiger into the osprey fantail and the new corset,’ hissed Blue. ‘You wouldn’t believe what strings I had to pull to get them finished for this meeting … ’scuse the pun.’

Lewis grunted absentmindedly. He couldn’t give a crap about the costume – after all, Tiger could make a coffee sack look good. He just wanted her on form, and he had just received a weird text message from her to say she really needed to ‘kick some ass’. That’s all it had said. Lewis had seen Rex sniffing around Tiger’s dressing room
earlier, and knowing that Rex had the diplomatic skills of a gorilla with a hard on, Lewis dreaded to think what he might have been saying … or doing to her by way of encouragement back there. He’d hoped that whatever had been going on between Tiger and Rex had fizzled out but now he felt the tic start in his cheek as his paranoia started to get the better of him.

Lights flooded the stage, and the opening bars of ‘Carmina Burana’ blasted through the room as the magnificent ten-foot glitterball rose, spinning above everyone’s heads. It was certainly a rousing start. So far so good, thought Lewis, as he nudged Di Castrelli.

‘If you just imagine the pit as the pool,’ he shouted over the fanfare, ‘the fountains would be pushing up the mirrorball at this point.’

Dianne nodded and jotted notes in her pad.

There was a collective gasp as a door swung back from the glitterball to reveal Tiger perched upon a bird swing like an albino bird of paradise, set against red padded interior upholstery in the style of the Russian Czar’s Renaissance Fabergé egg. The sparkle from the diamonds on her corset was blinding. She looked like a jewel in a crown.

‘Holy Cajone!’ cheered the normally poker-faced Vince and Johnny T in unison. Dianne Castrelli continued to scribble furiously in her notepad.

Ten of the Starrlets were lowered to the stage on rope swings, each wearing their sparkling mirrored crinolines as Tiger nimbly swung down from her glitterball, using a
huge suspended velveteen tassel. Her long silk ruffled train undulated wildly behind her as she rotated. Tiger looked like a gazelle mid pounce as she flew through the air; pure elegance in motion. ‘Carmina Burana’ reached its in famous crescendo as Tiger was finally lowered to the floor in an arabesque. Lewis detected a steely expression on her face, tense and fiery.

Lewis leaned in to Di Castrelli, shouting in her ear: ‘She’d be on the central plinth in the pool at this point with the fountains in synchronised jets.’ The three Americans leaned in together to confer. Lewis looked to his right. Blue had his nails in his mouth, Pepper was tapping her dainty foot as she scrutinised Georgia and the Starrlets, and Rex looked on mesmerised. Lewis eyeballed Rex suspiciously, deciding he had a distinctly lecherous air today. Rex smiled over at Lewis and stuck his thumbs up. Tosser, thought Lewis resentfully as he curled his lip and looked away to concentrate on the stage.

The music segued into a dramatic, filmic John Barry number as Tiger lifted her enormous circular fantail like a peacock, and paraded majestically with the girls, as they broke into leggy kicks behind her. She had a predatory air as she stalked regally across the stage, shimmering with every movement. Lewis knew she was wound up, with a forceful tension in her limbs that he recognised from her early days on stage. Lewis glared back over at Rex, narrowing his eyes as he watched him licking his lips at the Starrlets. His hackles went up. He had trusted
Rex as a solid part of the work team for all these years; that is until he overheard Tiger enthusing about the shape of his penis with Blue in one of the intervals at the Savoy show. Lewis had been appalled to think of Rex’s great hairy paws on his elegant Tiger; what on earth was she thinking? Lewis couldn’t watch her on stage that night without seeing her differently somehow. She was too good for Rex, she must have lost her head. Tiger was too much woman for someone like him to handle and Lewis wasn’t surprised to see Rex move on to her sister like some sleazy Lothario. Now, Lewis was damned if he was going to let Rex anywhere near any of the young Starrlets, and certainly not his girlfriend Georgia. Lewis kept his eyes on the stage, realising he had been clicking and unclicking his pen angrily, much to everyone’s irritation.

Deftly, Tiger unclipped the huge osprey fantail from her corset to use it as a feather fan. Only this was no gentle wing flapping. Tiger used it as a fighting fan. Slicing the air, she span it in extreme circles over her head like a Japanese warrior as she thundered towards her audience. She then unclipped her matching osprey headdress and used it in tandem. With fire in her eyes she slashed powerfully through the air in synchronised circles. It was a spectacular display. The energy was untamed. The Starrlets could be seen glancing sideways at each other on stage. Pepper looked confused.

‘She’s moved away from the choreography!’ Pepper
complained into Lewis’ ear. ‘She’s moving into the girls’ space! Absolutely apalling discipline!’

Lewis turned to look at Rex with an accusatory glare.

‘What the hell did you do to her in the dressing room? She’s all over the place!’ Lewis hissed over at Rex.

‘Nothing, mate, what’s the problem? She’s doing great! This is fucking electric!’

Lewis settled back in his chair, unable to face Rex. Lewis knew he was right. It really was electric to watch, that old Tiger fire; that heat that turned Lewis on to her in the first place. Her glamorous shows had polished some of that rawness away over time. He’d never seen her so worked up in the last ten years. So this was what she meant by ‘kicking some ass’.