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The day after that Chili had a couple of visitors come in the shop looking for him, a big colored guy he had never seen before and Ray Bones.
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    â€œThey cut straight hair in this place,” Bones asked Chili, “or just fags?”
    Times changed. Fred and Ed were gone and a couple of guys named Peter and Tim were doing hair of either sex in an art deco backstage-looking setup, light bulbs around rose-colored mirrors. They were okay. They had Chili combing his hair straight back, no part, like Michael Douglas in Wall Street.
    Chili had changed too in the past dozen years, tired of showing respect to people he thought wereassholes. Momo had been okay, but guys in his crew would come down to Miami on vacation and act like hard-ons, expecting him and Tommy to show them around, get them broads. Chili would tell the hard-ons, “Hey, I’m not your pimp,” and they’d give Tommy a bad time because he was Momo’s nephew and had to go along. The result of this situation, Chili was phasing himself out of the shylock business, only handling a few regular customers now who didn’t give them any trouble. He was also doing midnight car repossessions for small loan companies and some collection work for local merchants and a couple of Las Vegas casinos, making courtesy calls. He had chilled down a few more degrees too.
    Still, he couldn’t help saying to Ray Bones, “The way you’re losing your hair, Bones, you oughta let these guys style what you have left, see if they can cover up that scar. Or they can fit you with a rug, either way.”
    Fuck him. Chili knew what was coming.
    There weren’t any customers in the shop. Ray Bones told Peter and Tim to go get a coffee. They left making faces and the big colored guy backed Chili into a barber chair, telling him, “This man is the man. You understand what I’m saying? He’s Mr. Bones, you speak to him from now on.”
    Chili watched Mr. Bones go into the back hall toward the office and said to the colored guy, “You can do better’n him.”
    â€œNot these days,” the colored guy said. “Not less you can talk Spanish.”
    Bones came out with the collection book open, looking at all the names of who owed, the amounts and due dates in a green spiral notebook. He said toChili, “How you work it, you handle the spics and Tommy the white people?”
    Chili told himself it was time to keep his mouth shut.
    The colored guy said, “The man’s talking to you.”
    â€œHe’s outta business but don’t know it,” Bones said, looking up from the book. “There’s nothing around here for you no more.”
    â€œI can see that,” Chili said. He watched Bones put his nose in the book again.
    â€œHow much you got working?”
    â€œAbout three and a half.”
    â€œShit, ten grand a week. What’d Momo let you have?”
    â€œTwenty percent.”
    â€œAnd you fucked him outta what, another twenty?”
    Chili didn’t answer. Bones turned a page, read down the entries and stopped.
    â€œYou got a miss. Guy’s six weeks over.”
    â€œHe died,” Chili said.
    â€œHow you know he died, he tell you?”
    Ray Bones checked the colored guy to get some appreciation, but the guy was busy looking at hair rinses and shit on the counter. Chili didn’t give him anything either. He was thinking he could kick Mr. Bones in the nuts if he came any closer, then get up and nail him. If the big colored guy would leave.
    â€œHe got killed,” Chili said, “in that TransAm jet went down in the Everglades.”
    â€œWho told you?”
    Chili got out of the chair, went in the back office and returned with a stack of Miami Heralds. Hedropped them on the floor in front of Bones and got back in the chair.
    â€œHelp yourself. You find him on the list of victims, Leo Devoe. He’s Paris Cleaners on Federal Highway about 124th Street.”
    Bones