Page 42

Just a Barber

Happy wife, happy life.

All kinds of men sat in Hector’s barber chair, and more often than not, that’s what the smart ones would say. They would catch Hector’s eye in the mirror and impart that wisdom as though they were giving him the keys to the kingdom. Hector was a quick study, and he made those four words his mantra. His life was good because his wife was happy.

Brenda loved her new job at the casino, so Hector whistled while he hung a sign that said “back in 30 minutes”

in the barbershop window, scanned the parking lot and, finding it clear, locked the door behind him. Three stores down the strip plaza, next to the bowling alley, he exchanged greetings with the bakery owner and purchased six donuts, four chicken empanadas, a salted caramel brownie, and a Diet Coke.

Splotches of grease began to blot the brown paper bag as it sat on the passenger seat of his truck, and the aroma of gently spiced chicken filled the cab. Moments later, Hector exchanged pleasantries with the burly casino security guard and gingerly set the bag beside the visitors list as he signed in and clipped on a guest key card. The guard pointed him toward the elevator.

Stepping into the basement corridor, Hector swung the bag and whistled as he strolled down the hallway, noting where the cameras were mounted. He passed the security command center and the casino bank and then turned the corner and was met by a young intern-type who escorted him the rest of the way and swiped them both into the maintenance room. Hector waited by the door, holding the paper bag in both hands, like an offering. The intern approached Brenda, sitting at a computer station across the room, and announced Hector’s arrival.

The offending slot machine Brenda had told him about stood in the center of the room, ignored. At the far end of the space, a half wall of windows gave on to a lunchroom. Vending machines stood against the wall, and Hector could see a kitchenette outfitted with a coffee machine and microwave. Six people sat around the long lunch table. Hector surmised they were Padma and her investigators from India. Hector watched Padma, particularly. He had seen her a few times around the casino and had overheard Hank talk about her. Nothing specific, just that she was ambitious.

Now that she figured so prominently in his wife’s life, Hector paid careful attention as Padma reached down and fiddled with the chair’s controls until her seat rose a few inches. She looked down the length of the table, and Hector noted her dark scowl and followed her glare. As he scanned the five men in the room, he was reminded of the childhood game, which of these is not like the other? What had Brenda said that funny-looking guy was called? Right. Farid, The Fiscal Falcon. Hector knew men like him from his days in El Salvador. Men who adopted predator names as a badge of honor, or more accurately, a shield to hide behind.

Hector watched Farid look up from his phone and toward Padma. Goosebumps traveled up his arms when her expression instantaneously morphed from sinister sneer to sunny smile. Just like that. Her whole demeanor changed in a blink, as if she were a mythical shapeshifter. Hector took note. Ooh. She was good. Scary good.

Hector returned his gaze to the far end of the table and took in the other four men. He recognized their type. Professionals with barely perceptible bulges against their rib cages and at the hems of the pant legs he could see through the open door. Hector’s shoulders tensed. This wasn’t the type of team he wanted for Brenda. These men weren’t here to look at surveillance tapes or bank records.

“Thank you, Hec-toro. I could have ordered in. I wouldn’t have minded.”

He smiled and handed her the lunch bag. “Then I wouldn’t have had the chance to see you. Do you think you’ll be very late?”

“I don’t know. I feel as long as they’re here”—she gestured to the lunchroom—“I need to stay. Just in case something comes up.”

She walked him the few steps to the door and said in a low voice, “You came because you wanted to see them, didn’t you?”

Hector winked. “You know me, Mr. Curious. I like to know who you’re talking about.”

“Who do we have here?”

Brenda and Hector turned to see Farid approach them. The small man held his shoulders back and offered a smile of crooked teeth that Hector imagined some people found disarming. Hector caught glimpses of pink gum being tossed about by his tongue. Brenda introduced her husband, and Farid extended his hand. It was wet and limp. Hector hated bad handshakes. He looked into Farid’s eyes, and something twinged in Hector’s gut; he’d seen eyes like them before, and he hadn’t liked them. This man was no mere accountant.

“Do you work here, Hector?”

Hector kept his smile even. “Oh, no. I’m just a barber.”

Brenda interjected. “He came to drop off my dinner.”

She held up the greasy bag as proof.

Farid ignored Brenda. “A barber. I might be in need of a trim if I’m here a couple more days. I don’t suppose you make house calls?”

“Not typically. But I could make an exception.”

Farid chuckled. “I like a man who sees opportunity. Nice to meet you, Hector. Excuse me. I have to make a call.”

He strode down the hall, and the door shut behind him.

Brenda said, “That’s the one I told you about.”

“I thought so.”

He kissed her cheek and whispered, “You be careful of them. Text me if you need me.”

“I can handle myself, Hec-toro.”

“Oh, I don’t doubt that for a minute. I’m worried for them.”

He winked and took one more look at the group in the lunchroom, then whistled as he sauntered down the hall and turned away from the elevator instead, taking the stairs up to the ground floor, out the rear door, checking the locks on his way, as was his habit. Then back to the barbershop, to wait.

He turned the lights on, took the sign off the door, and busied himself sharpening his straight razor, with an eye on the parking lot. About half an hour later, he spotted Pam’s van swing into a spot at the far end. He finished his task, picked up a package, and slipped out the back door.

Hector was curious about this conversation. The women owed him a hundred grand, and either they didn’t have it, or that Farid dick was right and they were in with their husbands and this visit was to deliver payment. There was only one way to find out.

Hector rapped on the van’s side panel and smiled at the squeals of surprise from within that rolled into giggles as he opened the door, jumped inside, and slid it closed behind him.

“I brought donuts.”

He offered the package.

Pam was mopping up spilled water from the front of her shirt, but Nancy smiled and selected one coated in powdered sugar. Shalisa spun around in her front seat and plucked the chocolate dip from the box.

Pam turned her knees around to face the group and settled on a Boston cream.

Hector scanned the van and didn’t see anything resembling a package of cash. Okay. This should be interesting.

He sat back. Pam and Shalisa looked at Nancy, apparently waiting for her to speak.

Nancy brushed the powdered sugar from her lips and swallowed. “Um, Hector. We appreciate you taking on our little job, but we think there’s been a hiccup.”

Hector sighed. He set the donut box on the van’s floor, stopped smiling, crossed his arms, looked hard at Nancy, and waited.

She gulped.

He kept his eyes on her. He was a patient man. But he slowed his blinks, hoping she sensed the clock was running.

She wiped her hands on her jeans.

“Hector, we paid you for a job—”

“—You partly paid me for a job.”

“Um, yes. We partly paid you for a job . . . you partly did.”

Hector raised his eyebrows but otherwise remained still.

Nancy picked at a seam in the upholstery. “Actually, the only part of the job you did was take our money. Um. Uh, hmmm. How do I put this? We have reason to believe—”

“—Oh, for fuck’s sake, Nancy,”

Pam interjected. “Hector. You helped our shithead husbands fake their deaths, and you took our money. They’re not dead, and you double-dipped.”

Of all the things that Hector imagined being said in this van, that was not one of them. He nodded slowly, careful not to confirm their accusation. “Double-dipped?”

He’d bet it was Larry who fucked up. Tapping away on that laptop the whole time Hector had been at his mother’s house. Hank had questioned Larry, and he’d said he knew what he was doing. Hector had glanced at his hired man, sitting in a chair by the front door, and he’d raised an eyebrow back to Hector.

But Pam had a point. Maybe he had gotten greedy. Ethically, it was wrong to take money for something he didn’t do. But, as he often told Brenda, sometimes in the business of bad people doing bad things to other bad people, you just try to be the last bad person to make a move.

Shalisa said, “Yeah. Double-dipped. We paid you to kill them, and then we caught Larry checking his email.”

Figures.

Nancy said, “Not only do we not owe you a hundred thousand dollars, we want our fifty-thousand-dollar deposit back.”

Hector chuckled. “Sorry, ladies. I’m not set up for refunds. You wanted them gone, and they are. And I made that happen. So the fee stands.”

Nancy gasped. “You can’t charge us for something you didn’t do.”

“I’m not going to argue semantics. You wanted your husbands out of your lives. And they are. Where’s my money?”

Pam answered, “We don’t have it. Whether we owe it to you or not—and we dispute we do—we don’t have it. Your shithead clients canceled their life insurance policies and left us fucked. For life. With nothing.”

So they knew about the insurance. And really? How could those guys fuck their wives over? Some husbands. Hector felt bile rise in his throat. But then he reconsidered. Their wives had hired him to kill them, after all.

“And it’s your fault,”

Pam added.

“My fault!”

Hector was astounded. “How’s it my fault?”

Pam said, “They canceled the policies because they didn’t want their deaths investigated because they weren’t dead. They weren’t dead because you helped them fake their deaths. Ergo, it’s your fault we don’t have the money.”

Hector had never heard ergo used in a sentence before.

Pam said, “Do you know why they ran?”

“Nope.”

No need to reveal more than he had to.

Nancy said, “You didn’t ask?”

“Nope.”

Pam scooched closer. “Hector, we’re in a bit of a pickle. The casino thinks Hank and the guys stole a lot of money, and they want it back. Hank’s boss thinks we know where it is. And she’s brought in this . . . intimidating guy from Mumbai. They have links to organized crime, so we expect they won’t be doing everything, you know, by the books. This guy is threatening to kill us if we don’t give it back.”

Pam looked to Nancy and Shalisa, who nodded.

Once again, his Brenda had read the situation correctly. She told Hector that Farid’s visit had rattled Pam. Brenda knew the guy was bluffing, because he had no solid proof Hank and Dave had stolen any money, let alone millions. He had no proof because, as Brenda pointed out to Hector, he and his team hadn’t looked for any. They hadn’t switched on a computer or opened a binder. So far, The Fiscal Falcon’s only move to flush out the money had been to threaten Pam.

But she and the wives didn’t have the money—if they did, Hector would have an envelope of cash in his hand, and he’d be out of the van by now. Those gals were fucked. But it wasn’t his problem. “That’s too bad, Pam. But I suggest you worry about me. I want my hundred grand. Get it. Nice chatting, ladies. Talk soon.”

He leaned forward and reached for the door handle.

Pam raised her voice. “You’re going to tell our husbands to give the money back.”

Hector stopped; his hand rested on the door. He couldn’t have heard that right. “Sorry, can you repeat that?”

“We need you to go tell our husbands to give the money back to the casino to save us.”

Hector sat back down, rubbed his jaw, and then reached for a donut. He needed time to process. He selected a plain one; that wasn’t as messy as the others. He chewed. Swallowed. Took another bite.

Finally, he said, “You realize they know you hired me to kill them?”

“What?!”

The women all straightened with horrified gasps. “Why?! Why would you tell them that?” Pam demanded.

“It seemed like a good idea at the time.”

Hector took another bite.

“Doesn’t that breach some kind of confidentiality understanding?”

Nancy demanded.

Hector scrunched his face. “We don’t exactly have client-hitman privilege.”

Nancy glared at him. “How could you do that?”

She looked out the window and then back and asked in a quieter voice, “How did they take it?”

Hector shrugged. “Reasonably well, actually.”

He avoided eye contact. “Um. They may even have been a bit impressed with your . . . ingenuity.”

Nancy sat back. Her head cocked.

Shalisa said, “Well, if they’d been more honest with us from the get-go, we may have been more impressed with their ingenuity too. If we’d ever known they had any.”

Pam waved to stop the conversation. “None of that matters. What’s important now is we’ve got to give that casino thug that money back or he’s going to kill us. You need to tell our husbands and get the money.”

Hector wiped his fingers on his jeans. “Let me get this straight. You know they know you wanted them dead. And now you want me to ask them for a favor?”

Pam shrugged. “Uh-huh.”

He put it another way. “You want me to ask them to give back that money?”

Pam said, “More than ask. We want you to get it.”

“And why in the world would I do that?”

The women exchanged glances, and Pam spoke. “If you don’t, we’ll tell that creep from Mumbai not only are our husbands alive, but you know where they are.”

Hector could deny that. But it was one thing to say he didn’t know where the guys were, and another to not have it beaten out of him. Hector made sure not to show it, but Pam had played a good card. He mentally lined up his own cards on the table. He knew from Brenda that Padma and Farid didn’t have proof Hank and his guys had stolen the money. It was just a hunch. But if Pam told Farid the husbands had faked their deaths . . . that would be all the proof they needed to know that millions of casino dollars were out there.

That Farid dirtbag wouldn’t believe the wives didn’t know where that money or their husbands were, and he’d double down on his efforts to make them talk. Thirty seconds into that discussion the wives would send Farid’s guys to him, no way around that.

Unless he got rid of the wives first. That could solve his problem. He looked from Pam to Nancy to Shalisa. That was one way out of this mess. Otherwise, if the wives told Farid about him, and those guys came for him, he could take care of himself, but it wouldn’t be easy. Did he really want to take that on? And Brenda could get caught in the crossfire. But if he killed the wives, he wouldn’t have to worry about them talking to Farid.

It didn’t take Hector long to figure out his next move.

* * *

Hector was folding laundry when he heard Brenda’s key in the apartment lock. He leaned against the doorway, lining up the seams in the sleeve of his wife’s favorite pair of flannel pajamas. Cream, with a pattern of tiny dogs sprinkled across it.

She closed the door behind her, kicked off her shoes, and flung her arms around his neck. He reached down to kiss her and felt complete with her body pressed against his.

“How was my conventionally employed wife’s day?”

“Oh my God, Hec-toro!”

She undid her pants, stepped out of them, and grabbed her pajama bottoms from across his arm and wiggled into them. Then she whipped off her shirt and bra and grabbed her top, still warm from the dryer. She took his hand and dragged him to the sofa, where she flopped down. Hector sat at the end, and she lowered her feet—a little smelly, but not too bad—onto his lap.

She stretched. “Hec-toro, I can’t tell you how nice it is to finally be living a normal life.”

He rubbed her toes. He’d wash his hands later. He loved her, but jeez, she needed more absorbent socks. “You don’t miss your P.I. work?”

“Not a bit. I didn’t realize how much I’d like working somewhere normal. Not sitting in my car following dickweed husbands to dodgy motels. Having a desk and a restroom nearby. Not having to pee in gungy gas stations. Life is so much easier. Did you hear from the wives?”

Hector filled Brenda in on the minivan conversation. He waited for Brenda’s reaction.

Brenda sat up. “It’d be good for me too. If the casino gets the money back, Padma said our careers would be set.”

Hector leaned over to tuck a strand of hair behind Brenda’s ear. “I’m not so sure I’d believe everything Padma says.”

He thought back to observing Brenda’s boss at that lunchroom table, and how her expression had so quickly flipped from dark to light.

Dark and light. He looked at his wife. Hector knew he lived on the dark side of life and his amor on the light. Now that her light had shone on him, he needed it. While Brenda flirted along the edges of his dark, Hector didn’t want her any closer. Ever. He was careful with that, and seeing Padma in that lunchroom made him aware of how dangerously close Brenda was to crossing that line. Padma was in an even dicier situation because good people can do bad things for only so long before they turn bad themselves. Padma seemed poised to turn. Hector hoped she would choose otherwise. But she wasn’t his concern. Brenda was. And he had to be more careful with her.

He said, “Maybe we should cut our losses and walk away from this. I don’t know if I can get the husbands to give the money back.”

Brenda winked at him. “You always say you can get anyone to do anything, if you hold a gun to their head.”

She leaned in to kiss him.

He kissed her back, then Brenda rested her head on his shoulder. Hector sighed. On the other hand, he could finish this and then be done.

He pulled out his phone and opened up the airline app. “Actually, you get better results if you hold a gun to their friend’s head.”