Free Shop Till You Drop by Elaine Viets Page B

guess I said the right thing,” she said. “Maybe I should be a shrink.”
    Christina did not mention the three thousand dollars. Helen knew she’d heard her say, “I’ll need fifteen hundred down and fifteen hundred when the job is done.”
    “What’s Jimmy do for a living?”
    “He has some T-shirt shops,” Christina said. “But I think they’re a front for something else, maybe money laundering. He’s known as Jimmy the Shirt.”
    “Sounds like a mob name,” Helen said. “Desiree is the perfect first name for a femme fatale. I hope her last name isn’t something disappointing, like Potts. And please don’t tell me she lives in an apartment complex in Davie.”
    “I don’t know where she lives,” Christina said, coldly. “But I know you better quit standing around yakking. There’s stock to put away. Here. Hang these up.” She thrust an armload of blouses at Helen.
    Christina had effectively cut off any more questions. Was she being a boss? Or was she trying to shut Helen up?
    No, it couldn’t be true. Niki didn’t come here to buy a murder. This wasn’t happening. Helen couldn’t say anything to anyone, not even her friend Sarah. She knew what Sarah would tell her: Get out of that place now. Find another job. It was good advice. She would look for work on her next day off.
    Besides, Niki could still change her mind and call off the murder, if there really was one. If Niki came in tomorrow with the money, then Helen would call the police, no matter how crazy she sounded.
    Somehow, Helen got through the next day. She watched the green door constantly and jumped every time the doorbell chimed. But Niki never showed up with a cute little bag full of money. She never showed up, period. Helen began to relax. She’d misheard. She’d misunderstood. This was what she got for listening at doors. Everything was going to be fine. It would be better than fine.

Chapter 8

    “Do you even know what a Sapphire martini is?” the young man demanded in a supercilious voice. His pretty pink choirboy face was disfigured by a nasty sneer.
    If this rude young man had applied to Helen for a job, she’d have shown him the door. Instead, she was asking him for work, and she knew she didn’t have a chance.
    “Uh, it’s blue?” she said uncertainly.
    “It’s only like the unofficial gay drink,” the choirboy said, pitying her ignorance. “If you want to tend bar on Las Olas, you’d better know what gays drink. And straights, too. Do you put coffee in a mudslide? Can you make a margarita? A rum runner?”
    The choirboy kept hitting Helen with questions he knew she couldn’t answer. Then, when she was thoroughly beaten, he returned the job application she’d painstakingly filled out. “Come back when you know one end of the bar from the other,” he said. His tone implied that would be the thirty-first of never.
    Helen’s confidence was going downhill as fast as a real mudslide. She used to evaluate intricate pension-payment plans. Now she did not know what kind of gin went into a martini.
    Helen was determined to find another job. She would not work for a thief and a drug pusher. So on her day off, Helen put on her black suit and went looking for work. Instead, she found a series of humiliations.
    Helen didn’t want to dip into her precious stash to fix her car, and that made her search harder. She had to find something within walking distance of her apartment. This morning, she’d already walked three long miles in the hot sun. Her feet burned from the sunbaked concrete sidewalks. She had a blister on her right heel. Her suit was sweaty, which meant another dry-cleaning bill.
    After the choirboy sneered her out the door, Helen approached the next place warily. This bar looked like some place where Myrna Loy would drink, right down to the chrome cocktail shakers. It was dark and cool inside, and Helen was grateful for that. At least she’d get to sit down while she was being insulted.
    The bar was opening