Тимоти Уилльямз - Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 126, No. 3 & 4. Whole No. 769 & 770, September/October 2005

Nino, despite his faux-European accent, loved taking the mick. And Joy, with her well-developed internal focus, was easy bait.

“Don’t you go lighting no cigarettes, Joy-lene.” Nino always used her full name. Real loud. He knew she hated it. “Else you’ll blow this place sky high.”

Nino had a point. All those solvent-based nail treatments. Those acetone-soaked wads choking the bin. And Lord only knows how much lacquer supporting that enormous swelling of hair.

Joy’s reaction — a one-finger salute and a tart smile that was pure Starlet Frosted Ice — was conveniently reflected in the mirror at Nino’s work station.

He was giving me the once-over with a blow-dryer. I was pulling out all the stops to make a big impression at a job interview that afternoon.

Ed Gillespie, chief-of-staff on the daily rag where I’d cut my teeth as a journo, was scouting for a new crime reporter. And after two years on the women’s-interest pages, I was baying for blood.

This is all history now, but I remember the incident clearly. Partly because it was later the same week that Joy scarpered with one of Nino’s talented young apprentices, an accessory barely half her age. The same day I heard I’d got the job I’d coveted for longer than I cared to remember.

Nino was a mess when I turned up that afternoon with a magnum of brut to thank him for the blow-job. Hair all over the floor. He was usually such a stickler for cleanliness.

“It’s that Joy-leeeen!” He screamed the name when I forced him to open the solid brass security door and let me in. “She’s had her sights on Troy for weeks! Been making eyes at him in my mirrors!” He ripped a scented tissue from the box I offered and dabbed his eyes. “Now I’ll have to train up someone else for next month’s State Crowning Glory Championships.”

Ever the pragmatist, I cracked open the champers, found two coffee mugs in the staff kitchen, and helped Nino get blind.

Which is how I came to have a jackhammer in my head on my first morning in crime.

“Gottacaseforyadowntown.” Ed Gillespie doesn’t talk — he aims and fires. Like a machine gun. He thrust a piece of paper with an address into my hand.

“Somepoofterhairdresserlookslikehetoppedhimself.”

It’s not the best way to hear that one of your principle confidants is dead.

I guess my pallor may have deepened a shade, because I felt Gillespie’s miss-nothing grey eyes crawling all over my face. Wondering what’d possessed him to hire a Goth, maybe.

“Cops’reontheirwaynowsogetyourprettyassdownthereseewhatfacts-youcanfind.”

Did I have the stomach for it? You bet. A misspent youth watching old gangster movies wasn’t a total waste.

I swallowed a couple of Panadeine and hit Nino’s salon in record time.

The place was already crawling with cops.

A big slab of beefcake in a tailored suit was up back near the wash basins, sharing a joke with a swarm of uniformed officers. And a guy in a blue boiler suit was showing a lot of interest in the empty magnum Nino and I had shared the previous day.

I grabbed a uniform as he pushed past with a bin liner. “Who’s your chief?”

“Lou Pirelli.” He indicated towards the suit up back.

I did a mental shuffle of the files I’d memorised for the interview with Gillespie. “Flash” Lou Pirelli. New Homicide chief. Ex-Drugs Squad. 190cm. 95kg. Drives a red Mercedes sports — very, very fast.

Mama did warn me about fast men. So my alarm bells would’ve been ringing even if the Armani-clad lump of muscle hadn’t been carrying on as though he was at a joke fest. And poor Nino barely cold.

If he’d been up-front I might’ve blamed the solvent haze still clouding the atmosphere around the manicure table.

My mouth hardened as I relaxed my grip on the uniform. “Thanks.”

I sashayed towards the circle of jokers. The group fell silent. Works every time.

“Hi, boys,” I breathed, and offered Pirelli my press pass.

He glanced at the plastic without looking at me, then read my name aloud. “Sig-our-ney Dunlop.”

There was a ripple of laughter as the jerk deliberately mangled my French Christian name.

“Sigourney,” I corrected. “Rhymes with horny.”

I saw the guy’s nostrils flare — just enough for me to pitch my question.

“What’s the theory here, boys? Accident? Murder?”

“Suicide,” Pirelli said, regaining his bonhomie. “Electrocuted.” He was tinkering with a screwdriver and a Black & Decker Commander with optional “finger dry” attachment.

“Not possible!” I spat.

The beefcake’s eyebrows tilted upwards, the bonhomie racked down a notch.

“Hey, I knew Nino. Only yesterday we got drunk together.” I explained about the magnum.

Pirelli put down the dryer and picked up a big bag of peanuts off the counter. He began cracking shells, tossing peanuts and catching them in his mouth.

Eventually he spoke. It was kind of garbled, due to the nuts. “So you got drunk together?”

“Nino had a couple of... personal issues. Nothing serious.”

“But serious enough to get seriously drunk...”

“Listen, the guy was making plans for next month’s State Crowning Glory Championships. He wasn’t about to top himself.”

Pirelli cracked another load of peanuts. “So, you think it was an accident?”

“Hardly. Nino was a stickler for safety.”

“So what is your theory, Dunlop?”

“I think someone else was involved.”

Pirelli’s good humour flagged momentarily. Those big jaws slammed down hard on the fistful of nuts, then he spoke.

“Why don’t you get on and do the job that chip-wrapper employs you to do, and leave the theories to us.”

“Sure,” I summoned my most professional smile as I retrieved a card from my bag and handed it over. “This is my direct line. I’d appreciate a call if there’re any developments.”

Then I made a dignified exit. Or tried to. Given the ripple of laughter that tailed me across the salon.

I cornered the guy in the boiler suit as I made my escape. “The monkey always so cheerful on the premises of the recently deceased?”

“Nah.” The boiler suit grinned. “He’s celebrating.”

“Celebrating what?”

He lowered his voice. “Wife left yesterday...”

There was another burst of laughter from up back.

Some joke about burning rubber.

I left with one fact.

Of which I was certain.

Pirelli was a pig.

In every sense.

Pirelli and I were married in a civil ceremony ten days after his “decree absolute” from Joylene came through.

Okay, so let me explain. Sure, the guy’s humour is maybe a little offbeat. He’s addicted to peanuts. And in private he calls me Bunnikins — sheesh! But if you like your beefcake wrapped in Armani, then you have to admit Pirelli is one attractive package.

Besides, from my point of view, the union was one helluva career move.

“WassamattawithyouSigi?” Ed Gillespie wanted to know when I announced I’d be marrying the chief superintendent. “Most-girlsjustwannamarryf’money.”

Joy had her own booth in a city department store by this stage. I saw her when I travelled up to choose a suspender belt to match my scarlet stilettos for the wedding.

But she didn’t acknowledge me. I’m not even sure she remembered me as one of Nino’s clients. I blamed the solvents.

Things might have been different had I ever asked her to do my nails.

We spent the honeymoon giving his house a makeover. He wired up the study to accommodate my computer, scanner, and printer, leaving me to repaint the Joylene-inspired kitchen.