Everything was offered in “the new neutrals,” which looked like the same old dreary Washington pavement palette, as if the designer had washed the rainbow of colors, mixing them in the tannic waters of the Great Dismal Swamp. Pink became dead mauve, light blue became battleship bilge, green became dirty khaki. And “crisp gray” was simply a contradiction in terms. The whole collection could be called “The Death of Summer.” In fact, it might be Lacey’s headline.
The second wave on the catwalk ushered in the first celebrity model, who was greeted with a gasp from the audience and a wave of laughter. Marcia Robinson waltzed out under the spotlights in her pink suit, carrying Bo Peep’s staff, and followed by three handsome men in skimpy lamb costumes. Applause and laughter erupted. Marcia pranced down the runway and winked at the crowd. Lacey surveyed the audience’s delighted reaction, and her eyes landed on the Stylettos table. Beau’s seat was empty and so was Polly’s. A wave of sheer panic shot through her. She had never liked Polly, but she had to warn her somehow that a haircut from Beau would be the wrong ’do to die for.
Escaping from the ballroom as unobtrusively as possible, she fought her way through the backstage crowd. A newsman from Channel Nine was combing over his thin spot and adjusting an egregious gray tie with a geometric pattern. So many reporters
in
the show, so few covering it. The event would score perhaps a paragraph or two from the “Reliable Source” in
The Post
Style section and a half page in the “Party Line” gossip section of
The Times.
A pretty anchorwoman from Fox stopped Lacey. “Great suit! I love it. Which designer? Are you in the next segment?”
Lacey pressed on. When she ducked back into the styling area, no one was there. No guards. No stylists. No models. She tried to tell herself that Beau and Polly had left for a quick romantic rendezvous. The stone in her stomach said otherwise.
The makeshift styling stations were concocted from conference tables and standing mirrors, lining two sides of the room. Burgundy brocade hotel chairs were scattered everywhere at odd angles, left just as they were when the last models were herded out. Bottles of gels, cans of hair spray, combs, brushes, curling irons, and scissors littered the tables. Towels were casually flung over every surface. And the stylists must have dropped everything to sneak in the back to see the show. They all wanted to see Marcia, Stylettos’ star client. They might not be back until the intermission.
Lacey thought she heard a noise in the dressing area and she headed there. She couldn’t see anyone; she headed farther back. It resembled an enormous walk-in closet. Racks of clothes nearly lined the walls, blocking the exits. Street clothes were carelessly thrown on hangers and chairs, along with alternate fashion choices that had been discarded. Even the department stores’ staffs had abandoned their posts to get a glimpse of naughty Marcia in her pink suit with her lost lambs.
The lights were dim and it seemed too quiet, much too quiet. The hair rose on the back of Lacey’s neck, as if a cold wind had picked up and tickled her spine. She checked her tape recorder in her purse, wishing it were Vic’s gun.
This is the moment, Lacey, where the stupid heroine goes into the basement even though she knows that the monster is lurking there. The movie music swells—Oh, don’t be silly!
She shrugged off her fears and continued, compelled by sheer journalistic idiocy, curiosity, the need to find Polly. Lacey tiptoed to the back of the room. No one was there.
They must have left the ballroom as soon as the lights went down. Before that, the area would have been crawling with models, stylists, dressers, and assistants.
Suddenly, the smell of blood stung her nostrils and made her eyes water. Slumped against the wall, between two clothes racks, half sitting, half leaning over on one knee, was Polly Parsons. Freshly dead. Still warm. Her eyes were wide open in shock and her mouth sagged. A thin cut ran along her throat and made a necklace of blood. Lacey stifled a scream and gagged.
Polly’s hair had been hacked off nearly to the scalp. Lacey didn’t touch her. It was obviously too late.
So much for my no-gun, no-phone plan. A phone. Got to find a phone. Or a guard. Or Vic.
Chapter 28
Beau could still be there. Anywhere. She bent down to see if he was hiding in the hanging garments, like a little boy playing in a closet. She didn’t see anyone. She crept back to the salon, senses tingling.
The makeshift styling salon also looked empty. If she could cross the room, there were phones down the hall and people milling around, even security guards. But then she heard a clinking sound. Someone had thrown a comb against the closest mirror. Lacey turned to glance into it. He was behind her.
Stupid move, Lacey. You’re in the basement now. And here’s the monster.
Beauregard Radford was waiting for her with a grin on his face. He was holding a bloody straight razor, his weapon of choice, and a hank of hair, muddy brown with silvery blond highlights.
He waited for her to turn around. He was playing with her and it made her mad. “Damn.”
His laugh had an unpleasant high-pitched ring to it. She looked around for the nearest exit. It was behind Beau Radford.
“Damn, damn, damn.”
Beau laughed again. “I got your note. It was sweet.”
“You’re a pervert, Shampoo Boy!”
“Don’t call me that.” He said it pleasantly enough.
“Which? Pervert or Shampoo Boy?” Beau blocked her way to the door, which he had taken the precaution of closing. In the other room was the dead Polly and doors blocked by clothes. She did not want to see Polly’s blank eyes again—or walk into a trap. Beau looked amused.
“How about Razor Boy?” she said. “You like that better?”
“You have such beautiful hair, Lacey.”
“What’s left of it, you freak! Look at these bangs. I can’t wear bangs!” she said.
That’s right. Poke the bear. Think for a change.
He lunged at her. She dodged behind a chair and backed into a table. “I like your hair. It’s prettier than Polly’s,” he said. He threw the bloody hank at her. The mess hit her in the chest and slid to the floor. It occurred to her that the dark streaks it made would have been even worse on a lighter suit. Marie had told her to wear red.
“You son of a bitch. This is new.”
“I thought it was funny when you slid into the mud.”
“Where are all the stylists?” she asked. She was frightened, but she gathered steam from pure adrenaline. Her face was burning.
“Watching the show. Now it’s time for a little fashion show of our own.” Beau seemed very calm, almost as if he’d taken a tranquilizer.
A salon is full of weapons, Jamie had told her at Angie’s funeral, describing their game, Salon of Death. On the right side of the nearest table was some rebellious stylist’s cigarette lighter, on the left was a hot curling iron, still plugged in, a hand mirror, mousses, gels, hair spray. She whirled around and grabbed the hair spray and reached for the lighter. Beau advanced on her. She turned back to face him.
“Stop right there, Shampoo Boy.”
“I don’t like it when you call me that, Lacey.”
“I don’t like my haircut.” She flicked the lighter with her right hand and aimed the spray can with her left.
“What’s that supposed to be?”
“It’s a blowtorch, college boy.”
He laughed. “Come here. I’ll be your stylist today. A little off the top?”
“Wait a minute, Beau. Don’t you want to talk to me, tell me why you’re doing this?”
“Like on some lame TV cop show? Oh please. It would take hours, sweetheart, not that I couldn’t get into that. Maybe with you all tied up.” He stood still, imagining the scene. “Maybe in one of the salons at midnight. My salons.”
“Your salons? That’s why you killed your father?”
“It was his fault. Get help, he says. Get help. Hell with that. I help myself. So Lacey, should I tell you I love hair, or did you figure that out already?” He took one step toward her. Lacey flicked the lighter again. He stopped.
“Why Angie? Why Tammi? And your father?”
“Let me cut your hair. I’ll tell you all about it,” he purred.
Keep him talking, Lacey.
“So it is the hair and not the videotape? What about the videotape?”
He sighed. “The stupid videotape. It was for Mother. I tried to track it down for her. Angie didn’t have it. Tammi didn’t have it. And there were other things I wanted. Things they did have. Their hair was so beautiful.”
“Why did Josephine want it?”
Don’t tell me they died because Josephine asked this idiot to get the video for her!
“Who knows, who cares? Some scheme to get to Dad. But Angie and Tammi wouldn’t let me touch their hair. They kept saying no to me, and nobody says no to me. I just wanted a lock of hair. They wouldn’t let me cut a simple lock of hair.”
“What about Polly?”
“Polly was different. Polly wanted me to do something with her hair.”
“Where is the videotape now?”
“I don’t have the freaking videotape! If she wants it, she’ll just have to find it herself. I only want your hair. I already have a lover’s lock of it.” Lacey flashed back to the attack at Dyke Marsh. “I want more. I want to razor off your hair and take it home with me. But this time no biting. Never bite your stylist.”
“Did it hurt?”
“Not like this will.” He swished his razor at her. Lacey took a step back. Beau didn’t like talking as much as she had hoped.
“Scared you, didn’t I? Gee, this is fun. Wish we had all night.”
“It’s been swell for me too, Beau.”
Lacey prayed that she had her finger on the right side of the hairspray nozzle. She flicked the lighter and sprayed into the small flame, creating a huge ball of fire. Beau was singed and jumped back, but so did Lacey, and she dropped the lighter.
Beau kicked it out of the way. Lacey still hung on to the hair spray. He moved toward her and she sprayed again. This time she scored a direct hit to Beau’s eyes. He yelled. She grabbed a hand mirror to throw at him. It bounced off his forehead and clattered across the floor. He lurched toward her, blinking his eyes.
She yanked a hot curling iron out of the wall socket and lashed out with it. He reached for her and she burned his left hand. He screeched in pain.
Sizzle in the city
, she thought. But his right hand still held on to the razor.
“Bitch! Now I’m really going to make it hurt.” He peered through swollen red slits, tears running down his face.
“Drop the blade, crybaby.” Lacey backed away, holding the curling iron like a sword, and sprayed him again in the eyes with the hairspray. He howled. She threw the curling iron at his face and turned around to grab something, anything. There: a pair of long-bladed dressmaker’s shears. She saw him rush toward her in the mirror and she twisted around just in time to dodge the edge of his razor. He was swinging wildly with his right hand, clawing at his eyes with his burned left hand.
“You’re going to pay, you bitch. You’re mine. I’m going to put your hair inside my pillow, so at night I’ll smell you, you and your sweet dead hair. Mine forever.”
She sprayed his eyes again. The can sputtered out and she threw it in his face. An enraged Beau blindly threw his razor at her. She ducked. She heard it bounce off a mirror. He dove at her with outstretched hands, roaring. Lacey crouched and held the shears straight out with both arms locked, just as if she were aiming Vic’s gun. She held her breath. As his hands reached her hair and pulled, she felt the blades go in just above his belt buckle. It wasn’t easy. He pulled harder. She gave the shears an extra push. He let go of her hair. He backed away.
Beau shrieked like a kamikaze going down. He waved his arms at her, then grabbed his stomach. He looked at the blades in his guts and the wet spot beginning to form on his black T-shirt. He turned over a chair as he crumpled, sliding down on his back, the long shears sticking up from his belly, his chest heaving.
Lacey’s legs felt like rubber, but she stood up in spite of feeling shaky and light-headed. She stared down at Beau.
Absurdly, Lacey remembered her high-school first-aid class, where she was warned never to pull out a sharp implement from a puncture wound, whether an arrow, a stick, or a pair of scissors, which of course she was warned never to run with. Leave the pulling out to an expert. Lacey was more than willing to wait, even though her fingerprints were on the weapon.
First aid, my ass,
she thought. She retrieved her note and her hair from Beau’s jacket pocket. She gazed at him twisted on the floor like so much dirty laundry.
This is the bastard who killed Angie and butchered your hair.
He was still alive. The shears moved up and down with the rhythm of his breathing.
Styling debris was everywhere. Her reflection in a dozen mirrors was disheveled from every angle and dark stains marred her crimson suit. A box of tissues and a small shiny pair of styling scissors caught her eye. With the scissors, she bent over the now-quiet Shampoo Boy, grabbed a hunk of his hair, and swiftly cut it off at a ridiculous angle. It was a horrible yet satisfying feeling. She had no idea how long the whole episode had lasted. It seemed like hours.
She became aware of a commotion in the hall. There were sounds of footsteps and shouting. She wrapped the lock of black hair in a tissue and wiped the styling scissors free of fingerprints and hair. She replaced the scissors on the shelf and stuffed the tissue-wrapped hair in her pocket, her heart still pounding, her breath ragged.
Welcome to the Salon of Death.
The door burst open and people poured through it.
Vic Donovan was the first one in, followed by two guys who seemed to be taking his orders. They were followed by a chicly attired Josephine Radford, who screamed and had to be restrained by Vic’s people from pulling the bloody shears out of her son’s midsection. Lacey noticed that Josephine was looking rattled yet impeccable in a deep lilac Chanel suit.