Killer Cuts: A Dead-End Job Mystery (19 page)

H
elen woke up with the sun streaming in her bedroom win

dow. Too bad the sunny weather didn’t match her mood.

Helen had that uneasy, stomach-full-of-snakes feeling she got when things were going wrong. It had nothing to do with her up coming marriage.That couldn’t be better, once Margery had agreed to perform the ceremony.

Helen was worried about Miguel Angel.The Cuban stylist could lose his salon. He’d worked many long, hard years to get where he was. He didn’t deserve that. She didn’t, either. If the salon closed, Helen would be out of work, and for a dead-end job, this one was cushy.

Helen mentally ticked off the advantages: She spent her working day in a pleasant salon.The heaviest lifting was picking up the fall fash ion issue of V
ogue.
Mostly, she fetched cold water and hot tea and swept up hair clippings. She’d had worse jobs.

Telemarketing won the booby prize for worst verbal abuse. Clean ing hotel rooms was a job that still made her back ache.And talk about lifting. As a hotel maid, she’d hauled heavy vacuums and piles of un speakable laundry, and pushed a cleaning cart that weighed as much as a minivan.

Working for Miguel Angel was easy in comparison. Thanks to his quest for perfection, her hair almost always looked good. He couldn’t resist correcting her homemade attempts at styling. Helen had one of South Florida’s most expensive hairdressers itching to style her hair. For free.

If you have such a terrific job, you’d better get there, Helen told her self. She gave her hair one last brush, and knew that was a waste of time. Miguel Angel would restyle it the moment she walked into the salon.

She finished her coffee, grabbed a bottle of water, and started the short walk to work.

Even at nine in the morning, the June humidity was like a thick, damp pillow over her face. She could hardly catch her breath. She could feel her hair frizzing as she moved.

Helen had barely rounded the corner onto Las Olas Boulevard when she saw the throng of TV vans parked by the salon door.

Uh-oh. Media ambush.

They were after Miguel Angel. She could see the Closed sign was still on the door.The shades were drawn.Was the salon going to open today?

Helen ran back to the Coronado and knocked on Phil’s door. He wasn’t home. She used her key, unlocked his door, and called the salon from Phil’s phone.

The answering machine clicked on, and Ana Luisa’s voice asked her to leave a message.

“Ana Luisa, is the salon open today?” Helen asked. “I saw the TV vans. Should I come into work or not? Is Miguel Angel okay? Is—”

Ana Luisa herself picked up the phone. “Miguel Angel is avoiding the TV cameras,” she said in a whisper. “The press is camped out in front and in back. He called me. He’s parked his Jeep in the metered lot off Las Olas. He’s sitting there while we find a way to sneak him into work.”

“I have an idea,” Helen said.”Tell him to wait for me. I’ll be at the lot in fifteen minutes.”

Helen ran home and searched her closet. She found a soft blue blouse in a matronly style. She rarely wore it, except when she went to job interviews. She threw her makeup into a small plastic bag, added a brush and hair spray, a pair of gold clip-on earrings, a plastic disposable razor, a hotel toiletry bottle of hand lotion, and crammed them all into a big green tote.

Then she knocked on Margery’s door. Her landlady was still wear ing her purple robe. She looked bleary-eyed.

“Do you have to break the door down?” Margery asked. “What time is it?”

“Nine twenty,” Helen said.”What’s wrong?”

“I slept late for a change,” Margery said.”What’s your problem? Tell me you didn’t break up with Phil.”

“No, we’re fine. I have an emergency.The press is after Miguel An gel and I have to help him. Do you still have that wig you wore at Halloween?”

“The black curly one?” Margery said. “I looked like an Omaha church lady.”

“I don’t know,” Helen said. “I’ve met some stylish women from Nebraska.”

“I’m trying to say it’s an awful wig,” Margery said.

“That’s why I want it,” Helen said.

“Well, hold on and let me find it. Maybe I’ll find my head while I’m at it.” Margery really did look her age for once. Helen had always seen her landlady as indestructible, but this morning she looked frail, and yes, old. Helen felt a small flash of fear.What would she do without Margery? Her landlady was one of the pillars of her world.

Helen followed Margery into her bedroom. “Can I fix you some breakfast?” Helen asked.

“You? Cook? Then I’d really be sick.”

Ah, that was better, Helen thought. Margery sounded like her surly self.The landlady got down on her knees to look in the lower dresser drawer, and Helen heard her joints pop and crack.

“I could buy you a muffin or pick up something at the bakery,” Helen said.

“I can light my own cigarette and turn on the coffeepot.And I will, as soon as you leave,” Margery said. She rooted around in her lower dresser drawer and pulled out something black and hairy. She handed it to Helen.

“It’s either road kill or your curly black wig,” Helen said.

“Are you going to insult it or take it?” Margery said.”I want a ciga rette and my coffee. I’m in no mood for your wisecracks.”

Helen stuffed the wig into the tote before Margery changed her mind.”One more thing,” she said.

“Yes, Columbo?” Margery said.

“May I borrow that purple throw on your living room chair?” Helen asked.

“Take it, take it,” Margery said, waving her toward the door. “Just bring it back.And don’t slam the door.”

Helen stuffed the purple throw into the tote and closed the door so softly the jalousie glass didn’t even rattle. She ran the three blocks in the other direction, and arrived out of breath at the steaming parking lot.

She spotted Miguel Angel in his black Jeep. He beeped his horn in greeting.

“Ana Luisa said you were on the way,” he said.

“I’m here to sneak you into the salon,” she said. “I brought some makeup and a wig.”

“The wig is ugly.” Miguel Angel made a face.

“It’s supposed to be.You’re a tourist. Put it on.”

Miguel Angel fussed with the fake hair. Then he put on the ma tronly blouse.

“I brought the razor and hand lotion so you can shave your beard,” Helen said.

He made some quick swipes, then put on Helen’s makeup.

“This lipstick is not the right color for me,” he said.

“You’re not supposed to look good.Wrap this purple throw around you and hide your hands,” Helen said. “You’re my sickly auntie.We’re checking into the Lauderdale Las Olas Hotel.”

“But I have to go to work,” Miguel Angel said.

“And I have to sneak you past the TV cameras. Move over into the passenger seat.”

Helen drove Miguel Angel’s Jeep to the hotel’s check-in side.A valet rushed out to meet them.

“My aunt is recovering from surgery,” Helen said.”She feels ill and needs a wheelchair. Do you have one?”

“We can get one,” the valet said. He returned with a folding wheel chair and helped Miguel Angel into it. Helen carefully arranged the purple throw to cover the stylist’s lap and hands and tipped the valet ten dollars.

“I’d like to leave my car here and get my aunt breakfast, then take her down Las Olas for some fresh air. We’ll be back in a bit. Can we keep the chair for the day?”

“Certainly,” the valet said. “There will be a thirty-dollar rental charge.”

“Terrific,” Helen said. She filled out the paperwork. Miguel Angel handed the valet forty dollars.The valet started to give him change, but Miguel Angel shook his head.

“Thank you, ma’am!” the valet said.

Helen wheeled the chair toward the hotel’s front door. When she

looked back, the valet had driven off with the Jeep. She pushed the chair two blocks up Las Olas.Their progress was slow and the chair felt like it was going to tip over.

“Can you go faster?” Miguel Angel said.

“I’m trying, but the pavement is uneven and you’re heavier than you look.”

“It’s my arms and hands,” he said.”They’re all muscle.”

“It’s your Cuban sandwiches,” Helen said. “Good thing you’re a cross-dresser. It makes it easier to carry this off.”

“I am not a cross-dresser!” Miguel Angel said, his voice fierce with anger.”That is someone who does not know who he is. I know who I am. I am gay. I am a hairdresser.”

“I’ve known straight hairdressers,” Helen said, “and please lower your voice.”

“In Cuba, if you style hair, you must be gay,” Miguel Angel hissed. “No real man plays with women’s hair.”

“That’s stupid,” Helen said, steering the chair toward the alley. “Miguel Angel, call Ana Luisa on your cell. Ask her to open the back door when we knock three times. Promise me you won’t say a word while I get us through the press corps and inside.”

Miguel Angel speed-dialed and delivered the message.

“Put your head down,” Helen said. “I don’t want anyone to get a good look at your face.”

“Me, either,” Miguel Angel said.

“Keep your hands under that throw,” she said.”They look too strong to belong to a sick old woman.”

Helen was rolling the chair around the news vans when the first reporter approached, a bleached blonde with dark roots. She could have used a consultation with Miguel Angel.

“Excuse me,” the reporter asked. “Do you feel it’s safe to come to this salon?”

“Miguel Angel has been doing my poor, sick aunt’s hair for years,” Helen said. “She’s not feeling well. Please let me get her inside, out of this heat.”

Miguel Angel hung his head like a wilting violet. The wave of reporters and videographers parted. Helen wheeled the chair up to the back door, knocked three times, and Ana Luisa opened it. One more push over the threshold, and Miguel Angel was inside.Ana Luisa slammed and double-locked the door.

Miguel Angel stood up, pulled off the wig and shook out his own hair.

“How is it going?” Helen asked.

“Horrible,” Ana Luisa said. “
Manhattan Fashionista
canceled their shoot, and so have three other New York magazines. The television bridal show canceled. LaDonna suddenly doesn’t need Miguel Angel for her tour.”

“That ingrate,” Helen said.”After Miguel Angel saved her career.”

“There’s more,” Ana Luisa said. “Three MTV dancers called to say they won’t need their hair done after all. Valencia is sending her assistant to pick up her extensions. Someone else will put them on her.”

Helen watched the color drain from Miguel Angel’s face. He knew what this meant: slow death.The major magazines and celebrities that gave the big stylists their earning power were running away.

Miguel Angel’s fame—and his fortune—would soon be gone. He would no longer be able to afford the pricey shop on Las Olas. The glittering Miguel Angel salon would slowly sink into the sleepy, lowpaying life of a neighborhood beauty shop.

The dead King would drag him down into ruin.