Color Me Dead Read online

  “It would be terrible to be ready to start work and find out you are missing something,” Pete said.

  “Or you found something in your things that you didn’t expect,” Leander said. “Some guy said that he found a dead mouse in his box. Freaked him out.”

  “I guess it would,” Betina said.

  Nellie shrugged. “Storage areas and mice go together though. That doesn’t sound unsettling as much as careless on their part.”

  “We will check your things carefully, Pete,” I told him. “Fortunately your technique doesn’t require any special equipment.”

  Betina took his hands. “These hands and that eye of yours are the main tools you need.”

  “Magic hands and a clear eye,” Leander said happily. “And apparently the organizers are allowing people to replace anything that went missing—like for like.”

  “So let’s go make sure your things are all there,” I said. And with that we went into the ballroom.

  The place was a hubbub of activity. The center of the room was taped off into squares divided by aisles for the judges to walk along to watch. In each square was a chair and a stand, along with whatever the salons had sent ahead. At the moment people and boxes were spilling out of the squares as the competitors and their teams were unpacking and setting up.

  “Quite a mess,” Leander said.

  As we made our way to the square that had the number fifteen taped to it, we looked around, amazed at the complex arrangements. It might be a madhouse now, but during the competition spectators would be watching from auditorium style seats. A large monitor would be displaying the video from cameras that would show the competitors at work. “It says in the program that we get a video of you doing Betina’s hair,” I said. Pete already knew that, but I wanted to get him to feel some of the excitement of the event, not just apprehension.

  Pete went to his square and kicked at some empty boxes that other competitors had shoved there to make room to set up. A maintenance woman came by with a cart and, with a hooded glance at Pete, scooped those up. Pete checked out his chair, then picked up his box of supplies, put it on the table and started unpacking it, muttering to himself.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked.

  “Everything.” He looked around, seeming dazed. “This station… it’s going to be like cutting hair at the bus station. Look at this terrible lighting. And everyone else will be working so close. How am I going to focus?”

  His attitude alarmed Betina. “You calm down and stop making everything sound so awful.”

  He looked at her with surprise. “I’m just…”

  “I don’t care what you are. I know it’s big and scary, and that right now you’d rather be almost anywhere else. But the fact is that you promised me you’d give a wild and wonderful hairstyle, Pete Dawson, with an ‘o’. You told me if I grew out my hair you’d style it so it would knock men’s socks off.”

  “Betina nailed that,” Nellie whispered to me. I held my breath, wondering if Pete would collapse or snap back.

  “I know, but…”

  “No buts, Pete Dawson. We have a deal and I’m holding you to it.” She faced him and stared into his eyes. “You will focus on nothing but giving me the incredible cut you are capable of. This is my hair you are cutting and I won’t have you making me look like a witch. Whether you win or lose you are going to give me the best cut of your life. You hear me?”

  He smiled weakly. “Yes. Sorry. I’m just scared.”

  “Don’t be. Just cut my hair like normal and you’ll win this damn thing hands down. That isn’t as important as me getting a good cut, but it does matter.”

  It was easy to see that when it came to Pete’s ability, Betina was a true believer. She didn’t always think he took enough chances with hair styles—not enough for her taste anyway, but she knew he was good. Now her concern was that Pete wouldn’t be able to relax and just cut. She knew the style he planned would mean cutting her hair short and if he botched it...well, I didn't want to see the carnage.

  “You can do it, Pete,” I told him. “We all believe in you.”

  Betina nodded fiercely. “I don’t want to have to wrap my head in a turban and leave the country while it grows back out.”

  Pete still looked shaken. Leander took Pete by the arm. “Come on, dude. You need to take your own advice.”

  “My advice?”

  “What you always tell me before I play.”

  “But…”

  “About just doing what I do well, and that I can’t control the audience. This is no different than when I get a big gig, playing in front of people.”

  “It’s easy for you. You’re good.”

  “And so are you, man.” He motioned at us. “These people are your colleagues and friends. They didn’t encourage you to do this so you’d make an ass out of yourself. The thing is to do exactly what you tell me—you think about what you are going to do. You think about the beauty you are going to create and the head you are sculpting. Then do it. You not only have incredible ideas and skills, you have a model who is going to knock these folks on their ass. With her natural looks and what you can do… man, I feel sorry for these other chumps. They’re wasting their time.”

  I could see that Pete was calming down. Looking in Leander’s eyes he was getting a handle on himself. “Thanks,” he said, and let out a breath. “All of you, thank you.”

  I could see that Leander’s warm words reassured Betina too. She looked around the room as Pete went through his things, checking everything. “There are some nice looking guys in this room,” she said. I don’t think she realized she’d even voiced the thought, but she was right and it told me that any concern she had about Pete had fled for the moment.

  “And this is just the stylists and their friends. The really hot ones, the professional models who have been hired to have their hair styled, won’t even arrive until tomorrow.”

  Betina sighed. “There is hope for this weekend then.”

  # # #

  “Dave the dwarf,” Nellie said.

  Betina looked around. “Where?”

  “That’s not a politically correct thing to say,” I said.

  Nellie pointed. “Then someone better tell Dave because that’s what it says on the banner over his station.”

  I found myself looking at people assembling the most complex styling station I’d ever seen. The organizers gave everyone the same chair, but this one was specially made and, over it, just as Nellie had said, was a sign that read: DAVE THE DWARF. His station was just two over from Pete’s. There was a swarm of activity as the small crew of workers was assembling some other sort of apparatus that looked something like scaffolding on wheels.

  “You don’t have a clue what you’re doing, you idiot!” a squarely built man, no more than four and a half feet tall and presumably Dave, was shouting at a woman.

  “He has a big voice for such a little squirt,” Nellie said.

  “I heard that,” Dave said, spinning around and glaring at her.

  Nellie grinned. “So in addition to a lot of gear and a nasty temper, we know you have big ears and a thin skin.”

  “She’s in a bad mood,” I told him.

  “Who isn’t?” Dave said. “As if there wasn’t all sorts of theft going on, I’m beset with morons who can’t do simple mechanical things.”

  The woman he’d shouted at held out a wrench. “Why don’t you show me how it’s done then, genius? You don’t have to be tall to put this piece of crap together, but you need to know something about mechanics.”

  “That isn’t my job. You are supposed to know how to do it.”

  The woman put her hands on her hips. “I do. My crew does. But whoever took it apart to ship it here did a really bad job. They stripped some bolts and bent some joints. We are tacking things together while my people go find new parts. You aren’t helping any.”

  “I need to test it. You have to set it up so I can make sure it works. I’m giving a demo later today.”

/>   “We are doing what we can as fast as we can.”

  “Well do better.”

  The woman shook her head and got her crew back to assembling whatever the contraption was. As they worked Dave paced impatiently, muttering curses.

  Betina smiled at Pete. “I’m sorry, Pete.”

  “What for?”

  “Earlier I thought you were being nasty and short tempered.”

  “I was and I’m sorry.”

  She nodded toward Dave. “Now that I’ve seen nasty, I’ve downgraded your max bad mood to grumpy.”

  “Good to know,” he said.

  “What the…” someone shouted. “What happened to my combs?”

  A few stations past Dave the Dwarf people clustered around a woman who was waving something. Nellie grinned. “I’ll check and report back.”

  Satisfied that nothing was wrong with anything in his box of materials, Pete had Leander sit in his chair, taking the role of man getting a haircut. Pete operated the controls, tilting him back, turning around.

  Nellie came back shaking her head. “Ever see combs set in epoxy like a bug in resin? They are kind of interesting looking, but not very useful. Apparently she packed them in a clear box, and someone filled it with clear epoxy. Now it’s nothing but a solid block.”

  “An entire twelve pack of Krest Cleopatra rat-tail combs,” the woman moaned.

  “More sabotage,” Leander said. “This fits in with all the talk I heard about all the little things like that happening. Nothing earth shaking. It’s a good thing she found out ahead of time. Check your stuff carefully, Pete.”

  “I’ve got you covered, Mabel.” A tall, thin man with a goatee rushed into the ballroom waving a box. “Here is a complete set of combs for you, courtesy of Manus’ Scissors ’n Sessories.”

  The woman almost exploded with relief. “Thank you so much, Manus,” the woman said. She grabbed the box as if it was food relief for the catastrophe spot of the day.

  “Manus Jenkins playing the white knight for the lady in distress. What a joke.”

  I turned and saw Victoria standing behind me. I was sure that she’d accidentally dropped by to check out my young man. She would want to see him first hand.

  “Manus?” Betina said. “The scissors guy with the booth out in the lobby?”

  Victoria nodded. “The one and only. He sells more than scissors, although that’s his speciality.”

  “That’s him. He handles a lot of high-end salon tools and accessories,” I said.

  “Overpriced crap, more like,” Victoria said. “Of course, now he’s made another conquest. That woman probably will buy everything from him from now on.”

  “Makes you wonder…” Nellie said.

  “Who stuck her combs together? Why Nell, we might have common ground after all.”

  “You don’t like him,” I said, trying to get her to tell me what her grudge against him was.

  “No, I don’t. I think he’s crooked and opportunistic.”

  “Isn’t that something you approve of?” Nellie asked. “The opportunistic part, I mean.”

  Victoria scowled at her, then smiled and held up a finger. “He sponsored the competition, which means his booth is conveniently located to this disaster. There is a fascinating amount of sabotage going on and lo and behold Manus seems to be the only supplier at this venue—the rest are in the Expo. It does seem like a perfect chance to create his own opportunities.”

  “He helped that lady for free,” I pointed out.

  “And he’ll benefit. I mean, against my better judgement I had to buy a pair of scissors from him just now—at an exorbitant price too. My assistant couldn’t find mine. Fortunately he carries the same brand—for the moment.”

  “For the moment?”

  “He is introducing his own brand of scissors at this show — Manus Scissors. That will mean that he can’t carry the top brands any more—unless he does some fancy footwork they won’t want a competitor selling their product. That means he needs to have a successful introduction. And he’ll want to sell off his inventory. He isn’t even discounting it either, greedy bastard.”

  “His own brand?”

  “A design that he ostensibly came up with. I heard he’s having them made in Asia somewhere.”

  “Some of the best are Asian,” I pointed out.

  “The odds are that his will be real garbage. Fancy looking but made with junk materials and dressed up and marketed as top of the line products. Even so it’s a big gamble. That’s why he invested in sponsoring the event. Tomorrow I expect we will each be given a free pair of his new scissors—and these will be good. They’ll be made with decent materials to get us hooked. He’ll want to be able to say the winner used his new scissors to get this wondrous cut.”

  “But you won’t use them?” I asked.

  “I’ll try a pair of free scissors, but not for the competition. And I wouldn’t count on getting the same quality down the road. No I have my own preference anyway. No matter what Manus puts on my station I’ll use the ones I like.” She winked. “Then, when I win, the manufacturer might be willing to do a little shared promotion for me and their products.”

  “It seems like a lot of people here didn’t come just to cut hair,” Nellie said.

  “That’s just the opening act,” Victoria said. “If I win, I’m looking to capitalize with product endorsements. The woman Manus rescued, as you so quaintly call it, is trying to market some video courses on home hair styling.” She nodded toward a tall brunette setting up her station. “Sylvia over there wants backing to start franchising salons—she has some business model she thinks will make it viable for the lower end of the market.”

  “What kind of model?” I asked.

  “You’d have to ask her.”

  Then she turned and headed for her own station.

  I looked over at Sylvia. “I remember her,” I said. “She came to work for Victoria just when I left.”

  “And the frostiness makes me think it wasn’t a grand relationship,” Nellie said.

  “All this trouble makes me want to gather up all my things and take them up to our room,” Pete said. “They have all this security but things are happening anyway.”

  “That would be against the rules. You have to have everything you will use for the competition right here, Pete.” I held up the competition brochure. “They won’t let you remove anything today, and if you managed to get the things out, they won’t let you bring anything in tomorrow. The judges want to check all the stations before the competition.”

  “They must be afraid someone will sneak in some sort of super sauce that makes hair behave under voice control,” Nellie said.

  Betina stared at her. “What?”

  “Well, I thought I’d get a jump on the conspiracy theories.”

  “Someone has to be first,” Leander said. “Otherwise sales of tinfoil hats would be flat.”

  Pete shrugged. “Well, we don’t have anything special here. And I can’t think of any super sauce that will make my job easier, so I guess I’m good to go. I just have to hope no one messes with my stuff before we start.”

  “In all this chaos, who knows who should be in here? These little passes wouldn’t be hard to fake,” Leander said.

  “But most of the equipment isn’t special at all. What’s the point of sabotaging combs?” Betina asked.

  “Maybe to rattle the competition,” I said.

  “Or maybe to get attention.” Nellie nodded toward Gloria who was busy talking to the woman who had been sabotaged. “The media would pick up on the story, which makes the Expo more visible. A hairstyling competition is pretty dull, unless people think it’s worth pulling sneaky things to win.”

  “So your theory makes the woman who was sabotaged and the organizers equally suspect. And any report would name Manus as a major supplier of salon supplies,” I said. “That might give his new scissors a high profile.” Then I looked around. “Of course, this is all just speculation.”

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p; Pete agreed. “But fun. I guess we are done here for now.”

  “Until the demonstration.” I looked over at Dave’s station where the techs worked frantically while Dave shouted at someone over his cell phone. “Assuming there is one.”

  “If there isn’t we can come back for the body count,” Nellie said.

  “I’m going to rest a bit,” I said. “I’m already frazzled.”

  Pete took my arm. “You don’t know how nice it is to hear that I’m not the only one.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  “I need to check in on the dinner preparation,” Nellie said. When I gave her a warning glance, she winced. “I warned Aubrey to expect another call from me. Mothers get to be a nag—it’s in the contract.”

  “Unfortunately Sarah wouldn’t be thrilled with another intrusion into her day.”

  “She doesn’t merit much oversight,” Nellie said. That was true, so while Nellie called home I stretched out on her bed and closed my eyes. The room spun for a moment before I heard my phone ring, I grabbed it. It was James Woodley.

  “You’re on my turf,” he said.

  “Not for the first time,” I pointed out. “And I didn’t wait until someone was killed to come.”

  “Someone’s killed almost every day here. And you don’t come often enough that I can afford to miss an opportunity to show you yet another amazing part of my Crescent City.”

  “This city has too many names. It confusing. Big Easy, Crescent City, Nawleens, and a dozen other mispronunciations…”

  “That’s because it is so amazing that it appeals to a broad range of people. It needs a lot of names. What can I say?”

  “And this bit about me being on your turf?”

  “Ah yes. I’m working now, but it’s routine investigation and I’ll be done closer to early than late. I want you to bring your crew to meet me for a drink in the French Quarter. We can all chat, After that I want to treat you, alone, to a fantastic cajun dinner.”