by Carmen Amato
A woman of indeterminate age, enveloped in a dotted plastic poncho, sat in one of the swivel chairs in front of the mirrors. A young girl, with a wad of gum in her mouth and electric blue streaks in her own hair, was doing something with the woman’s head that involved foil wrappers and toxic-smelling brown glop.
The girl looked at Emilia questioningly as she twisted another piece of foil into her customer’s hair.
“I’m looking for Vikram,” Emilia said.
“You got an appointment?” The girl champed her gum as she slathered glop on another unfortunate strand of hair.
“I need to talk to him about his wife,” Emilia said.
The girl paused to wipe her nose on the back of her hand. Emilia realized that the customer in the salon chair had her eyes closed. She appeared to be sleeping. Or maybe the stink of the hair potion had asphyxiated her and no one had noticed.
“She’s dead.”
It took a moment for Emilia to realize the girl was talking about Vikram’s wife, not her client. “I know,” Emilia said.
“The funeral was yesterday.” The gum circled the girl’s mouth, slid over her lips and back.
“Is Vikram here?” Emilia asked.
The girl pasted more glop on the woman’s head. “He’s only talking to customers.”
Emilia walked over to the desk and turned the appointment book so she could read the entries. There were entries for Vikram and Juana, who presumably was the blue-haired stylist. Emilia wrote her first name in Vikram’s column. “Now he’s got a customer.”
Juana made a big show of putting down her bowl of glop, digging out a cell phone, and pressing buttons. “You got a customer,” she said into the phone and broke the connection. She picked up the bowl again and turned to look at Emilia, as if remembering something difficult. “Have a seat. He’ll be right down.”
Emilia took a chair by the desk and idly flipped through one of the beauty magazines. She rarely read fluff like that, even more rarely bought makeup. The hairstyles were all layered or colored or updos; styles worn by guests at the Palacio Réal. And Christina Boudreau.
A man came around the side of the partition, smiled vaguely at the three women in the room and went to the desk. He had caramel skin and ageless features that spoke of a blended heritage. His hair braids, woven with tiny beads that clattered by his shoulders, suggested the Caribbean, rather than Mexico, yet he wore a long white tunic that Emilia had seen men wear in news stories about India or Pakistan. Below the tunic he had on jeans and loafers that were shined but not new.
He looked at the appointment book, then raised his head. “Emilia?” he asked. “What would you like done today?”
His words flowed with an attractive Jamaican lilt. Emilia stood up. “Are you Vikram Trinidad? The husband of Yola de Trinidad?”
“Yes, of course.” He suddenly looked to be on the verge of tears and hid it by crossing to the second salon station and rattling the combs in a glass cup of blue solution. “Thank you for your sympathies.”
“I was sorry to hear of her passing,” Emilia said. She didn’t know why she should be so taken aback at the obvious display of emotion. Perhaps Pedro Montealegre’s reaction to the news of his mother’s death had led her assume everyone would have the same reaction. “I’d like to ask you a few questions about her.”
“We shall style and talk, no?” As if to cover his tearful state, Trinidad plopped Emilia into the swivel chair, used the foot pedal to raise the seat, and draped a giant dotted plastic tarp around her neck, trapping her arms under its weight. “Maybe a perm today, no?”
“I’m not--.” Emilia had barely started to speak when Juana’s toxic potion got the better of her and she began to cough.
Trinidad took out her ponytail holder and fluffed her hair over her shoulders.
“I’m not really here for a new hair style,” Emilia said, managing to swallow another cough. She tried to find the edge of the plastic tarp. The pink polka dots seemed to be everywhere. Her similarly swathed neighbor in the other chair was still asleep.
“Maybe some highlights, no?” Trinidad doused Emilia’s head with cold water from a spray bottle and combed it out. “This is the Academia de Belleza Trinidad. You want the best style, you come to Vikram.”
Emilia looked into the mirror through the strands of hair in front of her face. Trinidad’s face was more composed, as if his work was a solace. “Maybe a quick trim,” she conceded. “Like in the magazine.”
Trinidad beamed, grabbed a magazine, found a page, and waved it in front of Emilia. “A beautiful look for you, no? Something a little fancy.”
Before Emilia could answer he’d stowed the magazine and squirted enough water on her head to wash an elephant. Emilia waited while he examined his selection of scissors and razors, making a show of laying everything out on the shelf in front of the salon chair. When he began combing out her wet hair she started with an easy question. “How long were you married to Yola?”
“Two years.”
“How did you meet?”
He hesitated. “A mutual friend.”
Emilia wondered if it had been a pimp. “I knew her family,” she said.
“Yola knew a lot of people,” Trinidad said carefully. He began snipping Emilia’s hair.
At the other workstation, Juana popped her gum a few times and set a timer. She took her bowl and applicator to the sink across the room, washed them out and left them on the rim. “Ten minutes,” she said to Trinidad. She stepped into the street with cell phone, and a pack of cigarettes in hand.
Emilia glanced at the client whom Juana had left. The woman now had a full head of foil wrappers yet hadn’t moved a muscle since Emilia had walked into the beauty school. The pink polka-dotted plastic covered her from neck to knees and every fold was exactly the same. The woman’s eyes remained closed.
“Did you know Yola when she called herself Yolanda Lata?” Emilia asked.
Trinidad’s snipping stopped. “Yes.”
“Did you know she had children?”
“Yes.” He sighed and began snipping again. “Two. Grownup children.”
“I’ve been looking for the girl,” Emilia said leadingly. She watched Trinidad’s reaction in the mirror as he combed and snipped, combed and snipped. “Lila Jimenez Lata. She’s gone missing and I wondered if Yolanda—I mean, Yola—had seen her recently.”
“She didn’t come to the funeral,” Trinidad said. “She probably doesn’t even know her mother is dead.”
Emilia felt her heart race. “She was here before? When?”
“Maybe two months ago.”
“Do you have her phone number? An address?”
Trinidad shook his head. “It was the first and only time Lila was ever here. They argued. Lila had a new boyfriend and she was going someplace with him. Yola didn’t like him.”
“Do you know where this boy was going to take Lila?”
“No. It was Yola’s business, not mine,” he said.
He made a funny noise in the back of his throat. When Emilia looked in the mottled mirror she could see his face working with the effort not to cry. “I know that Yola died of a drug overdose,” she said. “Can you tell me what happened?”
“We were here,” he said and jabbed his scissors at the ceiling to indicate the second floor. “Sunday evening. A little before 8:00 pm.”
“Did she go out?”
Trinidad owned the cabinet under the mirror and took out two toothpaste-sized tubes. He got Juana’s bowl from the sink and began mixing orange and black goo from the tubes into the bowl. “I went to my friend’s house to watch the boxing, no? He has a big television and we sometimes go there. Yola didn’t want to go. She said she didn’t feel right. Sometimes when she said that I knew she missed the drugs. I shouldn’t have gone but I did. She wasn’t here when I came home.”
“Had she ever done that before?” Emilia asked. “Go out without telling you?”
“I knew what Yola was when I married her,” he said.
“The whole time I wondered when she would leave. And she did, in the way I always feared.” He began pasting dye onto Emilia’s hair, using foil wrappers like the other stylist. “When she didn’t come home, I called and called. When she didn’t answer I started looking. Talked to everyone who knew her. Went to all the hospitals. Finally, to the morgue.”
“I’m sorry,” Emilia said.
Trinidad’s hands moved rapidly, creating foil rolls over Emilia’s head. He stepped back. “Good. Now we wait for the color.” He discarded the empty tubes of dye. “If you want, you can look through Yola’s things. See if there’s anything about Lila.”
Still swathed in her pink dotted tarp, Emilia followed Trinidad up a flight of stairs and into a small apartment. The building was old and the walls were faded stucco but the furniture was decent and a flat screen television dominated the living room. Trinidad led her into a bedroom with a double bed under a thick cotton spread, a rocking chair strewn with women’s clothing, and a dresser topped with perfume bottles, makeup, and a capiz shell dish. Trinidad touched the dish. “This is where Yola always put her phone.” He told Emilia to look around, then left.
There was so little in the room that it barely took five minutes to rifle through the dresser and check for hiding places. In the bottom dresser drawer Emilia found a sheaf of mementos: a wedding day photograph of Yolanda and Trinidad, their marriage license, a faded photo of a little boy who would one day call himself Pedro Montealegre, another of a toddler girl. A strip of photos taken in a booth, similar to a strip Emilia had once found of Lila and Pedro together, revealed four recent poses of Yolanda and Lila with their arms around each other.
Emilia sank onto the bed. In all the months she’d been hunting for Lila, all she’d known was that the girl had wanted to find her mother. This was the first confirmation that Lila had found the mother who’d abandoned her as a toddler.
Mother and daughter looked like sisters, rather than mother and daughter, mostly due to the amount of makeup Lila wore. In two of the pictures Yolanda was holding a cell phone as if taking a selfie at the same time. Her phone case was bright pink and had a “Y” outlined in rhinestones on the back.
Emilia went into the living room and showed the photo strip to Trinidad. “This is Yolanda and Lila, isn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“Can I keep this?”
Trinidad agreed and they went back down to the salon where he busied himself taking out the foil from Emilia’s hair, rinsing it in the sink, and then exclaiming over the improvement. Emilia could barely bring herself to look. When she did her mouth fell open. Her hair was streaked with a harsh ruby color. Red tentacles leached out of the center of her head.
She managed to smile weakly at Trinidad, who was obviously very pleased with the result. “Just what you needed,” he beamed. “You’re young. Have some fun with your looks.”
It’s just hair, Emilia reminded herself before she cried. “Can you tell me more about Yolanda—er, Yola’s friends?” she asked.
“You know Alfonso?” Trinidad asked as he pummeled Emilia’s hair with a blow dryer.
“He’s a dealer?”
“A pimp. When Yola needed drugs he’d help her find a way to pay.”
“You think Yola introduced Lila to Alfonso?”
Trinidad sighed. “Maybe. They were alike, you know. Even in those pictures you can see Yola in her daughter’s eyes.”
“Do you know where I can find Alfonso?”
“No, but I know that he’s little.” He held his hand at his hip. “Only this tall.”
“Madre de Dios,” Emilia murmured. Chavito. He was talking about Chavito. All of the detectives knew the dwarf who pimped out most of the girls who worked the streets across from the Fuerte San Diego fortress. Not exactly glamor territory but a steady stream of tourists visiting the museum inside the fort made it worthwhile.
The timer rang, making them both jump. The woman in the other salon chair opened her eyes, saw Emilia’s red streaks in the mirror, and screamed.
Chapter 15
By the time Emilia got to the Mercado Municipal it was late in the afternoon. She parked in a relatively safe street a few blocks west of the market and stopped inside the entrance where an older woman with scarred hands was grilling quesadillas on a flat steel comal griddle set on an open flame. A small child stoked the fire, which crackled inside half a steel barrel perched on homemade wrought iron legs. He giggled and pointed when he saw Emilia’s hair.
The smell of tomatoes, cheese, and onions bubbling together over the open flame made Emilia’s mouth water and she realized how much coffee she’d been drinking lately in lieu of food. She ate two quesadillas standing up by the grill. When she was done she asked the woman if she knew Juan Fabio, the junkman.
“Which one is he?” the women queried.
“The one named Juan Fabio,” Emilia said.
“Which junkman?” The woman tossed another tortilla on the comal, her face damp with sweat. Two customers jostled for a spot near the small griddle. Emilia moved on.
The Mercado Municipal was a warren of corrugated iron stalls arranged in rows and divided by narrow pathways. The fearless shopper could find everything there from holy candles to skinned pigs to baby formula and everything in between. It was a high crime area and tourists were recommended to stay away but there were still booths that sold sea shells and tin ornaments and black barro figurines for the unwary to buy. Tourists were always calling the central police number to report being pickpocketed or having bags stolen. As far as Emilia knew, no one ever followed up on any of those calls.
There was more than one entrance into the market and she’d ended up by the food section. Vendors showcased their offerings by stringing up scrawny red carcasses that could be cats or jackrabbits or odd cuts of beef between the uprights of the booths. A bloody board invariably waited for the vendor to chop off as much meat as the customer could afford. The rest of the carcass would be put back on display and some unlucky late shopper would be left with just the head or feet.
Emilia stifled a retch as she plowed through, often having to turn sideways to pass through the narrow aisles full of dawdling shoppers and aggressive vendors. The meat section gave way to the fruit and vegetable stalls where the attar of rotting fruit was as cloying as the butcher smells.
She kept going, turning into a section devoted to containers: woven palm baskets, plastic tubs and buckets, melamine bowls and cups. In the aisle, two old ladies argued over plastic tumblers decorated with cat cartoons and Emilia had to practically shout “Permiso!” before they let her get by. The baby section was next, booths full of disposable diapers in clear plastic-wrapped bundles of 10 or 20 stacked next to cans of baby formula, cloth bibs, and boxes filled with assorted jars of baby food.
Dogs and cats in cages dominated the next aisle, along with bags of dry pet food. Emilia passed flowers and a shoe repair stand, a few men selling picture frames, and then she was in an aisle with candles on both sides, pillars of wax decorated with pictures of Our Lady of Guadalupe, San Juan Diego, and San Miguel el Arcángel. There were plain wax candles besides the religious ones, candles that smelled like apples or melon, candles that had strings and plastic coins wrapped around them to bring luck and wealth.
A turn down the next aisle and Emilia was in junk heaven. The booths were larger, each a second-hand store. Many had garish signs advertising their wares. A pig advertised Everything For The Home, while a pirate pointed to Hidden Treasures. The best sign incorporated a half-naked hula girl whose grass shirt spelled out Chatarra. Junk.
Emilia drifted up to the first stall on the right. Musical instruments in varying shades of tarnish hung from the ceiling joists alongside pots, pans, buckets, and handled washtubs. Bundles of fabric were piled on top of appliances, jostling for space with plastic crates of toys, Christmas ornaments, pocketbooks, hand tools, and plastic dishes.
“You need kitchenware, señora?” A greasy man in a dirty plaid shirt flashed a smile
at Emilia, revealing a gap where two upper teeth had once been. The gum line was dark with disease. He shoved aside some crates and fingered some curtain fabric. “Drapery. Like new. Or maybe you’re looking for sheets? What size bed?”
“Are you Juan Fabio?” Emilia asked.
“Juan Fabio,” the man scoffed. He thrust a bundle at Emilia. “He has nothing new. This is the best chatarra stall in the entire mercado. You need something pretty for your bedroom? This is where all the ladies come.”
The bundle was a bedspread made of some quilted material stiff enough to be sharkskin. Emilia set it back on top of what appeared to be an ancient washing machine. “No, thanks, not today.”
The vendor unhooked a heavy iron pan from a hook in the ceiling. “See, French iron. Cast iron makes the best guisados. Good for catching a man.” The vendor winked. “Or teaching a lesson if he looks around, no?”
“Maybe I’ll need it for Juan Fabio,” Emilia said archly.
The old man hooted with laughter. “Last on the right. The best corner.”
Two stalls down on the left, the vendor had evidently seen the exchange with the cast iron pan because he held out the exact same pan as Emilia passed. “Five hundred pesos,” he sang out as Emilia neared. “Best price for a pretty señora.”
“Five hundred?” Emilia asked. She could buy it new for less. “I heard Juan Fabio has the best prices.”
The vendor shook his head and frowned when he couldn’t get Emilia to handle the pan. “He doesn’t have the good stuff.”
Emilia gave a little backwards wave as she kept going down the aisle. The stalls on either side were a blur of old and new, colors and scratches, chipped edges. Emilia could have bought an entire household, from pictures of the Virgin of Guadalupe to a drain stopper and everything in between. There was everything except marked prices. Negotiations determined final cost. The vendors were sharp and experienced; Emilia was sure no one came away from the market with a bargain.