Tragedy in a soft pink spotlight

The silver light bounced off the disco mirror ball and glinted on the barrel of the pistol to the beat of "Disco Inferno".

Glint! Glint! Glint glint!

It hypnotised Shandy into a trance. She couldn't pull her eyes from its mesmerising glimmer. I'd love a sparkly number in that shade of gun metal gray, she thought to herself. It's very film noir Laurel Bacall gangster moll, it's it? I'm sure Margot could whip me up something gorgeous if I could find that same color down at Clegs...

Glint! Glint! Glint glint!

She heard a scream, but it came from someone, far far away. There was movement too, slow and languorous it seemed to her, filling the peripheral of her Dior-lined vision. Suddenly a dark shadow fell across her from out of nowhere, blocking her view of her adoring fans and breaking the spell of the gorgeous glinting gray gun.

Suddenly there was a WHOOSH! And another scream! And a burst of light! And then suddenly everything was plunged into darkness. Shandy dropped to her knees like a two-buck hooker during the last half-hour of half-price night at the Pentridge Prison Rodeo.

Another shot ripped through the inky blackness! And then other! The nancy boys in the front row unleashed a high-pitched machine-gun volley of screams that ricocheted off every hard surface in the place - including Lady Luck's tits.

Just then someone skittered past Shandy, knocking the six-foot plume headdress that completed her lavish Aztec Quetzal Bird costume to one side. The weight toppled her over; she collapsed blindly to her left expecting to hit the Sassy Palms stage, but tumbled onto a body sprawled out before her. She groped around in the hopes that she could find out who it was. "The lights!" she screamed out. "Somebody get the lights! Somebody! Franklyn? Anyone? Please! Oh for the love of God will somebody help--"

Then, in a blinding flash, Shandy's spotlight flooded the stage, bathing her in her signature British Baby Rosebud pink light that never failed to enhance her inner glow. She looked down to see the crumpled body. She recoiled, stifling a scream, her perfectly manied nails pressed against her silky smooth cheeks brushed lightly with Paula Dorf Perfect Glo.

"It's okay," a familiarly deep voice told her softly from behind. Shandalier turned and threw herself into Dirk Flynn's thick, hard, bulging arms and buried her face in his barreled chest.
"But...but..." she whimpered. Wet sobs were bubbling to the surface now. "...it's all because of me...he...he...threw himself in front of me...and he...he took the bullet for me."

"Do you know who he is?" Dirk asked.

Shandy nodded. "It's Morty Hemple. He used to own the Sassy Palms. Do you think he's carked it?"

Shandy felt Dirk's massive chest heave up and down as he nodded. "I'm afraid so, my darling."

Shandy's eyes popped open. Darling? Darling? Did he just call me "Darling"? Am I his darling? Well now, this was a delightful turn of events. She pulled her face from the stunning cleft between Dirk's pecs and looked up at him, drowning herself in his melted Belgian chocolate eyes. She was about to tell him that he was her darling too when suddenly across the empty bar a high-pitched voice erupted.

"OH MY GOD! WE'VE FOUND IT! WE'VE FOUND I-I-I-I-I-I-I-!"

Shandalier and Dirk shielded their eyes from the softening haze of Shandy's signature British Baby Rosebud pink light and spied Iva and Carmene working their way around the deserted tables of the Sassy Palms. This was the first time Shandy had even noticed the joint was emptier than a synagogue on Christmas. As the pair drew closer, Shandy could make out that Iva was holding something in her left hand, or more specifically, between her thumb and pointer. She held it like you would someone else's used tampon. "What is it?" she asked.

"The murder weapon!" Carmene announced, her voice ripe with the melodrama of the moment. "Nobody saw who it was. He - or she - was dressed in your basic black, any-occasion ensemble and disappeared into the crowd as everyone was stampeding like randy rhinos."

They stepped into the light and revealed the shiny gray revolver. On the grip was a strange, squiggly symbol in the same shade of Dublin-at-Dawn Emerald Green that Shandy nearly went with on her new bathroom tiles. Shandy appeared closer. Were they letters?

"So nobody saw anything?" Dirk asked, in his knee-weakening police detective voice.

"Nobody saw nothin'," Iva told him. And then she turned to Shandy with eyes a-narrowed.

"What?" Shandy demanded. "If nobody saw nothin', what can I do?"

"You can go see you-know-who, that's what you can do?" Iva replied.

"You don't mean..."

"Yes I do mean!"

"Who?" Dirk asked.

Carmene grabbed Dirk by his impressive forearm. "Iva here is referring to none other than Melbourne's foremost drag queen-slash-psychic: Miss Clare Voyant. She's amazing. She knows all. She sees all. She tells all."

Dirk turned to look at Shandy. She could read his meltie chockie eyes clear as day: "We have no other clues to help us solve Morty's murder."

"We have a history," Shandalier told him petulantly. "And it isn't pretty."

"Where does she live?" he asked.

"In a rundown house down at the beach," Iva piped up. "It's ever so spooky, it is. It's up on the cliff overlooking everything. You can't miss it. It's called Elwood By The Bay."

Dirk grabbed Shandy firmly by the shoulders and stared deeply into her troubled orbs. "We must go see Clare Voyant," he told her. "Do it. Do it for Morty."

...and then there were nine.

The music was thumping, the toned bodies of the sexy young dancers were glistening with a wild concoction of Bev's Bootylicious Body juice and salty sweat, the smell of thos bodies was driving Shandy wild - but there'd be plenty of time for post-show celebrating later, now she heeded to show the crowd what they came fore - hard tits, long legs and the moves as saucy as a XXX hot chilli tabasco. The crowd were perched on the edges of their gold-lame-padded retro kitchen chairs - this was going down as one of the wildest nights in the history of The Sassy Palms.

Shandy kept her back to the crowd. Her long toned legs jigging as she shook her buns of steel to the rhythmic Mayan beat. The stage was packed: Shandy, Iva Biggun, Lady Luck, Caress, Margot Bourgeois and the three dancers and then of course Carmene and Morty waiting in the wings. Ten little Mayan Indians having the time of their lives - and for one of them, that life was about to end. Snuffed out like the career of a former child-star who thought making a gay sex tape was a good idea at the time.

Shandy spun, hiding her face from the audience with her slender, perfectly manicured hands (nails painted in Mayan Musque for the occasion), she slowly drew her hands back, teasing the audience who were desperate to gaze upon her elegant visage. The music took a dramatic turn and Shandy pulled her hands back, flicked back her hair with the merest shake of her neck and strutted towards the audience. They were out of their seats, they were screaming - man this girl could lip-synch to 'The Road from Gundagai' and the audience would still lap it up.

It was one of those nights when performing is almost religious, Shandy shook it, shimmied and swung like no-one had for years. The timing, the electricity and the movement between all the performers was evident. The crowd were on their feet, screaming for more. The number finished and the Shandy and the other performers ran backstage, hot with exhaustion but high on the atmosphere.

Morty lit a cigar, 'Shandy darling I've seen some stuff in my time, but Baby you should be taking this one to Vegas.'
Carmene passed around handtowels, 'Don't smudge your make-up girls I think this crowd won't be going until they see some more.'

And she was right, the crowd was screaming for an encore.
Shandy locked eyes with Iva, 'Let's do it' and they all rushed back onstage to the rapturous applause of a dedicated crowd.

Franklyn hit the music and the lights and the performers swung back into action but suddenly Shandy froze. She'd been scanning the faces of the crowd, waving to the regulars, blowing flirtatious kisses to the gorgeous young things in the front row, making a wisecrack at the expense of the fat girl in the tiara - when someone caught her eye. The crowd stopped, everyone craning their necks to see who had caught the attention of Shandy and caused all that glorious post-orgasmic flush to drain from a face they all loved.

But it wasn't who had stopped Shandy in her tracks but what. A gleaming silver pistol - aimed straight at the stage. A single shot was fired, the crack deafening. There was confusion, some people laughing thinking this was part of the show - others screaming in blind panic desperate to flee. The performers dropped to the floor of the stage. The lights went out - the power had been cut. It was chaos, complete Mystique Mayan Mayhem throughout The Sassy Palms. It would take twenty minutes before anyone realised that a precious life had been lost on the stage of The Sassy Palms that night. A life drained away down the plughole of camp that was The SassyPalms. And then there were nine...