Free Killer Cuts: A Dead-End Job Mystery by Elaine Viets Page B

outfit as the last person seen talking to King before his death.
    “Miguel, do you have Honey’s dress in your apartment?” Helen asked.
    “No,” he said.”I threw it away.”
    “Where?” she said.
    “In the Dumpster in back of the salon.”
    Fear gripped Helen’s heart. “Phoebe heard us talking about that dress.What if she tells the police?”
    “She won’t,” Miguel Angel said.”She can’t go to the police because of her boyfriend, Ramon. He’s a drug dealer.”
    “The skanky guy with the brown hair and bad skin?”
    “That’s him.”
    “He looks like a rough-trade Fabio. His hair is dirty.You’d think Phoebe would at least wash it for him. Doesn’t he make deliveries for the shops around here? I wondered what she saw in him.”
    “A lot of white powder,” Miguel Angel said.”He delivers more than Cuban sandwiches. Besides, she was wearing a blue dress at the wed ding, too.”
    “But—” Helen said.
    “I am not going to worry. She has as much to lose as I do. Drug dealers’ whores do not go to the police. I’m safe.”
    Before Helen could say anything more,Ana Luisa softly interrupted. “Virginia is here,” the curvy blond receptionist said. “She’s scheduled for color, a cut and blow-dry.”
    “Just what I needed today,” Miguel Angel said. “Well, I will deal with it—and her.”
    Virginia’s clothes dripped designer labels. She was a gym-toned woman in that gray no-man’s land between fifty and sixty. And it was gray. Her roots were nearly an inch long, but she’d combed her hair to hide as much gray as possible. Some women thought they saved money by delaying their touch-ups. Instead, it cost them more. Their color grew dull, and Miguel had to give them new highlights plus color, in stead of a less expensive touch-up.
    Miguel Angel commandeered the darkly handsome Carlos, the as sistant to Paolo and Richard, the other two stylists, to wash Virginia’s hair. Helen brought a Diet Coke for her and a thick Cuban coffee for Miguel Angel. The demitasse cup was so small, there was barely room for all the sugar cubes he used.
    “Dear,” Virginia said in a syrupy voice, as Helen started to walk away. “Hey, you!” she shouted.
    Helen stopped.”Are you speaking to me?”
    “Yes. I think my parking meter has expired. Would you put some money in it?” She handed Helen two dollar bills. “I drive an eightysix Jaguar. It’s the black XJ6 in the lot behind Las Olas. I drive one of the real Jaguars, before they became Fords.You can’t miss it in the first row.”
    Ana Luisa helped Helen exchange the two dollars for eight quarters. Then Helen walked four blocks in the sweltering June heat and duti fully dropped coins into the almost-expired meter.
    Two hours later, Virginia’s hair was a glorious red-gold. She paid her bill, then handed out three envelopes.”This is for you,” she said, giving Helen the thinnest envelope. Carlos got a slightly thicker one. Miguel Angel got the third, and fattest, envelope.
    Helen opened her envelope and her eyes widened in surprise and disgust. “A McDonald’s coupon,” she said. “I hiked in the heat to her stupid car, and she tipped me with a McDonald’s coupon.”
    “You got one,” Carlos said. “I got two. She is a cheap bitch.”With his Latino accent, it sounded like c hip beech, which made the insult somehow endearing.
    “Did you get money?” Helen asked Miguel Angel.
    “I got coupons, too,” he said.”But because I did such brilliant work, I got five.”
    “And they are worth what? One one-hundredth of a cent?” Helen said.
    “They are worth nothing.And she is worth millions. She has a man sion on Hendin Island, and she inherited a share in her father’s autoparts business.”
    A standard tip for a salon like Miguel Angel’s was twenty percent for the stylist, which meant he should have had at least sixty dollars—more than the average woman paid for a haircut. Carlos should have had at least a ten spot, and Helen