Slay it with Flowers (15 page)

I walked into the beauty salon and looked around for the manicurist’s table. Along the long, side wall opposite the door were five stylists’ stations decorated in black and white with red accents. At the back of the shop were four red sinks, and in the front was a big picture window trimmed in red. Directly before me was a semicircular counter with a red Formica top staffed by a tall, pretty brunette with a perfect haircut. “Can I help you?” she asked.

I held up my hands, displaying the flat, unpolished nails. “You tell me.”

“Carrie,” she called over her shoulder, “this one’s yours.”

A friendly blonde bobbed over and smiled at me. We were the same height so I felt an instant bond with her. “Hi. I’m Carrie. Come on over by the window and have a seat.” She led me to a manicure station near the picture window and seated me at a narrow table. “You own Bloomers, don’t you?” she asked, putting my nails to soak.

“Mainly just a window and part of the front door. The bank owns the rest.”

“I know the feeling. This is my shop—or so I like to pretend.” She dried off my fingers and began filing the squares into ovals, looking up as a man darted past the window. She shook her head, sighed, and went back to her work.

“What was that?” I asked.

“Another horny male sneaking over to the massage parlor next door. I post PARKING FOR CUSTOMERS ONLY signs, but they ignore them. Really frosts me when my clients don’t have space for their cars.”

Playing dumb I asked, “Why don’t they park in the spa’s lot?”

“If you only knew,” she said, rolling her eyes. Then she proceeded to make sure I did.

It was obvious to her that the spa was a place for prostitution. One of her clients had tried to get in for a facial and was refused. They bluntly told her they catered to men only. And according to one of her unsuspecting male customers, the spa offered massages and much more. Top-of-the-line treatment was a two-hundred-dollar special called “The Big Finish.”

“Yuck,” I said at that remark.

The men who frequented the spa, Carrie said, parked everywhere but there. The worst times were lunch hours and after work. Carrie had talked to patrons of the restaurant /bar across the street who said it went on into the wee hours of the morning.

“Lunch hours, huh?” I commented. “So their unsuspecting wives think they’re at McDonald’s having a burger, and instead they’re at the Emperor’s Spa having dessert?”

“You got it. The masseuses come here to buy shampoo and conditioner and they
always
pay in cash—with a roll of bills taken from a wad stuffed in their bras. They won’t talk to us. They point to what they want, and then throw the money at us and leave.”

“What do they wear?”

“Bright, tight silk dresses.”

“Spike heels?”

“Four-inchers.”

I watched as Carrie painted on a clear coat of polish. “Have you seen the inside of the spa?” I asked.

“I tried to deliver an order but I couldn’t get past the front door. An odd-looking Oriental man peered at me through a window, then opened the door, grabbed the bag, and slammed the door in my face. We’ve nicknamed him ‘the guard’ because he seems to watch over the girls. They all live together in an apartment over the realty building down the street. We’ve seen him walking them back and forth, snapping at them in some Asian tongue.”

“Do you think the girls are being held against their will?”

Carrie shrugged. “Could be, but they don’t act like it. I mean, they come over here to buy shampoo and things. They could ask us for help. Instead they throw money at us.”

“Not very hospitable, are they?”

She scoffed as she stuck my nails under a dryer. “If I were a man they’d be hospitable. Did you see the addition they’re putting on the back of the building? We heard rumors that it was built for a sunken hot tub, and from the sound of it, the
hot
part doesn’t have anything to do with the water temperature, if you catch my drift.”

“Have you complained to the police?”

“You bet I have. I’ve even put in a phone call to the police chief and written letters to the mayor. I haven’t gotten one single response. It’s like they’re ignoring the situation. Who knows? Maybe they’re being paid off.”

A woman being permed at the next station snickered at that remark and added, “Yeah, in massages.”

Carrie indicated the woman at the reception counter. “Sometimes when Judy sees one of the men sneak across our lot, she’ll stand outside our door and glare at them. Not that it does any good. It just disgusts us that this is going on right here in New Chapel. We don’t want our children growing up in a town that turns a blind eye to prostitution. It’s even worse when it’s in the guise of a legitimate business. But without the mayor’s cooperation, how do we stop it?”

Hearing the word
how,
my brain began to hum with ideas. It wasn’t something I could control. It just happened.

Carrie checked my nails and said, “Do you want to chose a color?”

“What? Oh. Actually, I like them colorless.” Plus, I didn’t have the extra cash to pay for a full manicure. It was a luxury I couldn’t afford.

“You don’t want French tips or anything?”

“Thanks, this will do.”

“Okay,” she said, as though washing her hands of a hopeless case.

“Have you considered getting a group of women to picket the spa?” I suggested. “Or better yet, take photos of the guys sneaking across your lot and give them to the police.”

“You know what the cops will say? ‘So what if they’re going for a massage? It’s a spa. Call a tow truck if they park in your lot.’ Besides, I’m afraid of what might happen to my salon if the people next door found out I’d complained. They’re not what you’d call neighborly, especially the weird-looking old man. If he retaliated, I couldn’t afford to put in another insurance claim. I’ve already had storm damage twice this spring.”

Nothing got my blood flowing like a challenge. Ideally, going in undercover would be the best way to find out what was going on, but Marco had tried it and hadn’t seen any Chinese women, so obviously they’d been wary of him. And short of dressing up as a man, I couldn’t get in anyway. Besides, there was my promise to Marco hanging over my head.

“What if someone were to take a few photos from across the street and send them to the newspapers?” I asked.

“I tried calling the newspapers to tell them what was going on. No one was interested.”

“Maybe with photos they would be. I even know a reporter you can call.”

His name was Bill Bretton. He’d done several human-interest stories on my father after he’d been shot, and I’d been impressed with Bill’s accuracy. He’d also written up a nice piece about Bloomers when I took over. He was a thirty-five-year-old journalist who had aspirations of being a columnist for the
Chicago Tribune.
I hoped that would make him hungry enough to go after a juicy exposé.

“Would
you
take the pictures?” she asked. “They might spot me, but they wouldn’t know you.”

I hesitated, picturing Marco and Grace glowering.

“I’ll throw in this manicure and two free haircuts,” Carrie promised.

The two haircuts alone were worth eighty bucks. Besides, it wasn’t like I had suggested it myself, so it really couldn’t be considered meddling. The glowering faces started to fade. “I’ll do it. Where’s your camera?”

Carrie pulled the camera out from beneath the front counter, an instant print kind used to take photos of clients’ hairdos. She showed me how to use it, then I walked across the street to the Jumpin’ Joe’s Restaurant and Bar parking lot, picked a spot on the grassy berm next to a utility pole, and waited for the next horny male to arrive.

Within ten minutes a rusty, older model Chevy pulled into the restaurant lot, and a man got out, looked both ways, and headed across the street to the spa. He was a big guy, construction-worker type. He had on a navy baseball cap with a dirty-blond tail of hair poking through the hole in the back, a light brown goatee, faded green T-shirt, blue jeans worn thin at the knees, and yellow workboots. I snapped two photos of him, then, once he’d gone inside the spa, I walked over to his car and took a picture of it from the side and from the rear, catching the license plate.

I placed the photos on the grass to dry, then looked up to see a man in brown coveralls walk across the street from the direction of an auto parts store. I took his picture and one of his vehicle—a county van. Our tax dollars hard at work.

Next a silver Audi pulled into Carrie’s lot, and a guy in a suit got out. When he started toward the spa, I focused the lens on his face and snapped. He glanced my way, saw what I was doing, changed direction, and darted across the street toward the auto parts store.

Like I believed that one.

Half an hour and two additional men later, I tucked the stack of photos into my purse, returned the camera to Carrie, and promised I’d call her as soon as I had information from my reporter friend. I also put her number in my cell phone’s memory for quick reference.

Outside the salon, I got the newspaper’s number from information, then dialed and asked for the features desk. Bill answered, and I explained the situation to him.

“Sounds interesting,” he said in a noncommittal way.

“I’m going out on an interview, so I’ll drive by the place, take a look, and get back to you.”

As I closed the phone I had the weirdest feeling I was being watched. I slid into the Vette and very casually glanced at the spa but I couldn’t see anyone. I started the engine, put the car in Reverse, and was about to back out when I caught a slight movement in one of the windows. A corner of the paper had been curled back and a wrinkled Asian face was glaring at me with an expression that sent a chill up my spine.

At once, fragments from one of Grace’s sayings came to mind, something about being able to kill with a look.

If that saying was true, from the look I was getting now, I’d be a goner.

B
ack at Bloomers, I sat at my desk studying the photos. If the newspaper printed them, the men would be easily identified and, hopefully, highly embarrassed, not to mention in big trouble with their wives. That ought to put a damper on the spa’s business. No one would risk going there if he thought he might be caught on film and exposed in the newspaper.

I tucked the photos into the top drawer of my desk, then spent the remainder of the afternoon helping Lottie finish the funeral arrangements so we could get them down to our friends Maxwell and Delilah Dove at the Happy Dreams Funeral Home before five o’clock. Grace was busy with customers in the parlor all afternoon, which was good because it kept her from questioning me about my trip to the hair salon. I didn’t offer any information either, not to deceive her, but because I hadn’t yet figured out how to tell her. One lecture a day was enough. Besides, I was still of the opinion that what she didn’t know wouldn’t hurt her.

“You’re going to dress up as a man and sneak into the spa?” Nikki asked. She was eating Chunky Monkey ice cream and watching an old Grace Kelly movie on television. She had come home from work at fifteen minutes after midnight and made a beeline to the freezer for her favorite dessert, then plunked down on the end of the sofa where I lay with a fan blowing on me to dry the oozing bites on my legs—the very same bites that were keeping me up past my bedtime.

“You’re not listening. I said that was my
last
resort. How do you eat that stuff and not gain weight? I can feel my thighs expanding just by being close to the carton.”

“It’s genetic.” She sniffed the air. “I smell waffles. Did you make waffles for dinner? I’ll bet you didn’t save me any. And why do you have dried paste on your legs?”

“For your information this isn’t paste, it’s oatmeal. Grace recommended an oatmeal bath to stop the itching. Since I couldn’t sleep and hate baths, I decided to mix a package of oatmeal with a little water and apply it like a salve.”