September 12, 2006 (idea)

Miss Belinda's House of Beauty and Soul Food takes up a whole city block in Leimert Park. Fifteen years ago Belinda Parker bought an abandoned old department store and set up shop. Lotsa folks laughed at her. That drafty, old eyesore was a white elephant and had brought nothing but heartache to all six of its previous owners. Belinda must have been lucky number seven, because after fifteen years she'd manage to fill every nook and cranny of that building with something profitable. The Soul Food kitchen she'd started took up the entire second floor, and on friday nights or sunday mornings the wait could be as long as an hour. They sold all kinds of crap on the third floor, groceries, religious candles, cards, adult novelties, cigarettes and cheap chocolate. And the first floor was taken up by the salon.

It was a woman world's with hot pink and mint green wallpaper and gleaming white and gold hair dryers as far as the eye could see. Belinda had the aesthetic sense of an old-west whore, and for some reason the women of this city responded to it. Even a no-nonsense babe like Dixie had been known to book a spa day here. Me? I ain't been anywhere near here since I had a falling out with Shalene a few years back. Belinda don't take kindly to anyone who upsets her girls, and Shalene and I get along as well as snakes and mice do.

I'm standing outside this House of Beauty and Soul underneath a palm tree. Its shadow looms over the street, chilling me; nevermind that the sun's out and it's going to be a scorcher.

I ain't welcome in this place, but it's where I gotta go next. So I go. I push through the big brass and glass revolving door and I stand in the lobby. I was hoping that maybe Miss Belinda had taken the day off or went on vacation, but no, there she is big as day staring down at me. She's a woman you don't want to cross. She stands almost six feet tall, and if she's put on some pounds from her cooking it don't mean she lost any of the muscle underneath. Her hair is braided in cornrows so tight it looks like they oughta squeak. The look she's giving me is anything but friendly, "What you doing in my place Rick? You know I don't like trouble. You always stink of trouble."

"Ms. Carter, you know I don't want any bad blood with you. I wouldn't come here if I had any other choice, but I need to see Shalene."

"You want to see Shalene, you make an appointment same as anybody else," she looks down at my hands, "You're a nailbiter. Maybe a manicure would pretty you up some. But Shalene ain't working today, so your luck's ran out."

"You know it ain't nails I want to see Shalene about. And I know she's here, working or not."

She eyes me up and down and cracks her knuckle; gemstones sparkle from rings on every finger. I'm worried that she's gonna start getting hostile, and that's the last thing I need, but

then she says, "Could be she's here. What makes you think she wanna see you?"

I say, "Pretty sure she don't want to see me. But I need to see her, and I know the fact that's she's nitro and I'm glycerine won't stop her from working with me if I can meet her terms. And I think I can."

Belinda sighs, "She said you'd be by today. Said I was supposed to try three times to stop you and then take you on back if you kept insisting. She's waiting in VIP room for ya. Can't see why, but come on."

I follow Belinda back past through the salon, past hair stylists blow-drying, washing, dyeing and cutting. There's a thick smell of aquanet, lye and burnt hair. Some of the girls that know me glare in my direction. Belinda's long spread the word that I'm no-good and I pay them no mind. At the end of the main styling room Belinda pulls aside a tapestry with naked people skipping through a glade and reveals a staircasing spiraling down. I follow her into the bowels of the House of Beauty and Soul.

Belinda keeps a room in the basement to pamper special customers. She calls it the Arabian room. Peacock feathers and velvet throw pillows everywhere, and paintings with names like "The Ravished Odalisque" hang on the wall. The lamps are all covered with red silk scarves. She pipes in eastern-sounding music and fills the air with clouds of cheap insense. It's god awful enough to embarass Rudy Valentino. Last time I heard there was a wait two months long to reserve the room. We walk in silence towards the soothing sounds of Enya or Yanni or whoever the fuck is playing in that room. We reach a beaded curtain which Belinda plunges through without brushing aside and I follow.

Sitting in all her glory and smoking a Virginia Slim out of a cigarette holder is Shalene. She's the Mistress of Nails at Belinda's place and since she got that title she's been putting on airs like she's the Queen of Sheba. Today she's wearing a red velour pantsuit worked with rhinestone birds that glitter in ice blue and green. Her eyeshadow is in the same arctic green and blue as those birds and makes snowfields beneath the pencil-thin arches of her eyebrows. Her lips are painted the same color as movie blood. She sees me and waves one of her deadly, taloned hands at Belinda, indicating that we should have a little privacy.

Belinda leaves. Shalene beckons at me with her other claw and I move closer to her side. We've known each other since we were both snot-nosed punks glaring at each other from opposite sides of the playground. She was a skinny, hateful girl who grew up into a wiry, meanspirited woman who uses too much hairspray. But she was probably the best clairvoyant in the city and I needed her help and I say as much, "Shalene, I need your help."

"Ha. I knew you would, you no-good, know-nothing grifter. Call me a two-bit, tea-leaf readin' bitch and then have the nerve to crawl back to me. I hope you burn. I been waitin' for this day for three years. There ain't nothing you can offer that'll make me help you so you might as well --"

"How about money?"

I see that larcenous gleam in her eyes, "How much money we talking about?"

I have her wriggling on my hook already, "More than you make in tips here in a month. If we play it right, maybe enough for you to finally be able to move out of that double-wide in Tustin. Tornado season's coming."

She sucks in a breath, "You know how to get a gal's whistle wet," then her eyes narrow, But this can't be no easy-peasy japanesy job, otherwise you'd just finish it and hand over that moolah to your best friends, Jack Daniels and Jim Beam. What kind of bullshit you getting me caught up in?"

"Oh, the usual kind that comes when someone offers me four times my regular fees plus expenses without blinking."

"So, you're neck deep and wanna borrow my shovel. Alright, I'm in. Give me the skinny."

I tell her everything that had happened so far, from my meeting with Avery, to what I could remember about Andrew Laveau and my abduction and bargaining session with Clover. She nods at points, shakes her head at others and finally says, "Give me a second."

Her eyes take on a faraway, glassy look and the temperature in the room goes from pleasant to icebox. I sit for a couple of minutes shivering and chattering my teeth before she snaps back. She stares at me and says, "You ain't involved in nothing nice. That Clover plans to kill you soon's you give him what he wants, but if you don't give him what he wants he'll kill you anyway. And Avery's nose ain't clean neither. But I got a way out. If we get to the kid before you meet Clover tonight, we change the rules of the game on him. After we deal with Clover we got just what Avery wants and way to bargain for your rightful reward, maybe more. We play this right, we walk away with a whole lot of filthy lucre and more importantly, alive."

"So, you're coming with me?"

"Of course I am. And don't think it's 'cause I give a rat's ass about you. I wouldn't spit on you if your eyebrows caught fire. But if you get your damn fool self killed, I don't get paid. So let's grab the kid and work from there."

"Okay, we taking my car?" I ask.

"Fuck no," she yells, "I am Shalene, Mistress of Nails. I ain't going 'round in some broke down hoopty. We'll take mine. We need to arrive in style."

Shalene slipped on a pair of dangerously high-heeled mules and grabbed a monogrammed keychain from a hook on the wall. She went through the curtain of beads and again, I followed.

part of the wordmongers' masque