"The Wedding Gig" is a short story by

Stephen King Stephen Edwin King (born September 21, 1947) is an American author of horror, supernatural fiction, suspense, crime, science-fiction, and fantasy novels. Described as the "King of Horror", a play on his surname and a reference to his high s ...

first published in ''

Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine ''Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine'' is a bi-monthly American digest size fiction magazine specializing in crime fiction, particularly detective fiction, and mystery fiction. Launched in fall 1941 by Mercury Press, ''EQMM'' is named after the fict ...

'' in 1980 and collected in King's 1985 collection ''

Skeleton Crew A skeleton crew is the minimum number of personnel needed to operate and maintain an item such as a business, organization, or ship at its most simple operating requirements. Skeleton crews are often utilized during an emergency and are meant to ...

'', as well as in the 1999 mystery story anthology ''Master's Choice'', edited by Lawrence Block.

Plot summary

Told from the viewpoint of a bandleader during

Prohibition Prohibition is the act or practice of forbidding something by law; more particularly the term refers to the banning of the manufacture, storage (whether in barrels or in bottles), transportation, sale, possession, and consumption of alcoholic ...

, the story centers around a small-time

racketeer Racketeering is a type of organized crime in which the perpetrators set up a coercive, fraudulent, extortionary, or otherwise illegal coordinated scheme or operation (a "racket") to repeatedly or consistently collect a profit. Originally and of ...

, Mike Scollay, who hires the narrator's jazz band to play at the wedding of his 300-pound sister, Maureen, and her 90-pound fiancé. At the gig, Scollay's enemy, the Greek,

blackmail Blackmail is an act of coercion using the threat of revealing or publicizing either substantially true or false information about a person or people unless certain demands are met. It is often damaging information, and it may be revealed to fa ...

s a man to come to the wedding reception and insult Maureen in front of the guests. Shortly after, Mike is shot down in a hail of gunfire from the Greek's men. The band leader is approached a short time later in a bar by Maureen, who is despondent and depressed, feeling that she caused her brother's death and is filled with self-loathing over her weight and the way she is aware other people perceiving her. After requesting a song, she leaves, and the narrator never sees her again, but he, like everyone else in the country, follows her story from that point on. Now Maureen Romano, she takes over her brother's racket, with her husband as her lieutenant, and carves out a criminal empire that ironically far eclipses the operations of both her brother and the Greek, whom she soon hunts down and takes a gruesome revenge on. Eventually, she dies of a heart attack and her husband, who does not share her leadership abilities, is later sent to prison. The narrator sadly reflects on the cruel rumors that she had ballooned up even further in weight by that point, something he considers to just be malicious rumors.

External links

The story at an archive of HorrorKing.com
Wedding Gig, The Wedding Gig, The Works originally published in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine {{1980s-mystery-story-stub

Plot summary

See also

External links