Read Online Dirty Kiss by Rhys Ford - Free Book Online Page B

head. “How have you been?”
     
    “Nothing worth mentioning.” I settled into a chair, watching as Scarlet made short work of her face, layering a more sedate foundation with a flick of delicate fingers.
     
    “You’ve come for something, no?” Dark eyes met mine in the mirror. “I saw the card you gave the doorman. You’re a private investigator now, right? Did you get tired of being a cop?”
     
    “Cops got tired of me being a cop,” I said. It was the only concession I was going to give the past. I had other things I needed to deal with. “I’m here about Hyun-Shik Kim’s suicide. I thought maybe you’d be able to talk to me about him.”
     
    “Hyun-Shik?” Her fingers stilled, and the ghost of her Adam’s apple bobbed in her throat. “Oh, you don’t want to sniff around the Kims, honey. Big teeth lawyer.”
     
    “Papa Kim is the one who hired me. My brother, Mike, does some work for him.”
     
    “Mikio McGinnis is your brother? Ah, I should have known.” She turned, her eyes wide with surprise. “You’re prettier than he is. He must be jealous.”
     
    “You know my brother?”
     
    “He does some work for my lover, sometimes. Nice man. I’ve met him a few times. Hyung hires his men to take care of driving me if someone else can’t.” She pushed her vanity bench back, stepping behind a dressing screen. The robe was flung up over the edge, a splash of tangerine against the brown wood. “Do you have a Japanese name too? Or just Mikio?”
     
    “It’s Kenjiro, but I never use it,” I called out over the screen. “Mike’s first name is Colin. He hates it.”
     
    “Colin’s a nice name.” She stepped back out, dressed in a pair of black pedal pushers and a white man’s shirt. Leaving the tails out, she fluffed at the back, satisfied with how the fabric fell over her trim backside, and sat back down at the vanity to undo her hair.
     
    “I used to call him Colleen.” The memory was a good one. Nothing infuriated my brother like minimizing his masculinity. “Probably why he hates it.”
     
    “But you’re here for Hyun-Shik, not small talk, yes?” Scarlet plucked the diamond hair picks from her hair, setting them into a velvet case. “I don’t really know what goes on upstairs, baby. Not really.”
     
    “Scarlet, I know how these places work. I’m sure you know something, maybe?” She gave me a glance in the mirror, briefly meeting my eyes before she plucked at the bobby pins along her sweep. I pressed closer, leaning in until we were almost touching. “I’m just looking for some information. Something about Hyun-Shik’s death doesn’t work for me, and I want to know why.”
     
    “Boys like you are trouble, dongsaeng,” she said. “You poke at things you should leave alone. What happens when it comes back to you?”
     
    “Is there something I should be worried about?” I tried for a reassuring smile but wasn’t so sure I pulled it off. “Hyun-Shik killed himself, or someone helped him do it. Either way, I was hired to see what I could find. What can you tell me? Anything?”
     
    Scarlet pulled her hair free, letting it fall in a black wave down her back. Working her fingers around her temples, she undid the last of the bindings and picked up a hairbrush, separating out hanks of hair to finish untangling the strands. For a minute, I thought she wasn’t going to say anything to me. Then, with a sigh, she began to talk.
     
    “Hyun-Shik started coming here when he was in college. His father bought him his membership,” she said, waving the brush at my reflection, warning me to shush.
     
    “Kim bought his son the membership? The same man that insists his son wasn’t gay?”
     
    “Anything I say to you here isn’t going to go anywhere, yes? You keep it between us. I like you, honey, but I’m not going to start trouble for the Kim family. Hyung depends on the father to do business for him.” Waving her finger under my nose, she nearly hit me with the end