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SOME opening night, huh?" Gee Gee said when it was all over. "Yeah!" Dixie Daisy's voice was still shaky. "Wide open !"
But at that, the opening night was nothing to what was coming. No one even dreamed that murder was soon to stalk the old Opera House. Least of all Dixie and Gee Gee, who knew so little then of the feuds and hatreds smoldering among the cast.
They'd banked so much on that opening night in New York ever since S. B. Foss' telegram had reached Dixie in the "burleycue" in Columbus a week ago. The Belasco of the bumps was offering Dixie a star spot in his show. That meant Gee Gee would be going too. Everyone on the circuit knew their friendship. Anybody who wanted Dixie's rhinestone-studded G-string would have to take Gee Gee's twangy guitar and her ten-year-old routine along with it.
It was like the last rung in the ladder of success to Dixie, that telegram, the rung that was to pop her right out
of burlesque into legitimate show business and the kind of parts she'd dreamed of. Only she couldn't help wishing her New York debut was in a more glamorous theater. For the old Opera House looked as if it had wearied down the long march of years and the magnificence it once had was falling apart. Its marble lobby and the faded red plush and dingy gold leaf inside were only shop-worn reminders that once the carriage trade had swept up to its doors.
Still, it was New York and she had the star spot. Dixie put everything she had into her first routine as she sang Play it on the E-string with the boys out front whistling for more even though Biff Brannigan, the top comic, waiting in the wings topped her lyrics a couple of times with cracks that almost broke her up, making her laugh off cue like that.
S. B. Foss was grinning when she ran off the stage.
"What did I tell you \" He threw his arms around her affectionately and then said, "You'll be wearing diamonds in your hair with S. B. Foss (Please turn to page 78 )