Love You to Death

by Grant Michaels

  “Where’s Tobias?” she asked.

  Without a word I made for the phone. I quickly called Station E and told them that I’d forgotten my ward there.

  The desk sergeant half-chuckled and said, “It’s no problem. The little tyke’s been keeping us entertained.” It seemed strange that the very people who’d imprisoned Laurett Cole were the same ones being entertained by her son. The officer continued, “Do you want to come and get him, or should we bring him by in the cruiser?”

  “If you could drop him off, that would be fine,” I said, but Nicole interrupted me.

  “Don’t you think the boy’s been through enough today?” she asked.

  Confused and feeling helpless, I shrugged.

  Nicole frowned in dismay. “Tell them I’ll go get the boy. It looks like this situation needs a real woman to set it right.”

  I explained to the sergeant that Nicole would pick up Tobias shortly. Then I hung up and turned to her.

  “Doll, I’m stressed out. It was a simple mistake.”

  “Does your stress have anything to do with the lieutenant?” How could I confess that those seemingly innocent moments in the men’s room with Branco had derailed my sexual notions about myself? Tea-room trade has never been my style, yet those few minutes alone with Branco had struck a new chord within me. With horror I wondered, Was I a latent piss-pig?

  “Nikki,” I said blithely, “it’s my day off. I don’t have to explain myself.”

  “You never do anyway. But as for your day off, you just trot on over to your station and take this walk-in who just arrived.”

  “But, Nikki—”

  “Stanley, I did you a favor this morning, and I’m doing one now. Is it so much to ask?”

  “But there are other people who can take her.”

  “But I want you to take her, and I want you to make sure you keep her in the chair until I return with the boy.”

  “Why?” I asked—but when I saw the woman, the answer was clear. At Snips we take walk-in business, provided the clients pass our unofficial, unstated, undocumented requirements. Requesting a specific stylist, for example, gives an advantage. For this woman, though, one thing alone got her past Nicole at the gate: the full-length chinchilla coat she was wearing. Nicole was mesmerized by the sea of frosty grey fur that billowed around the woman as she rose from one of the spacious lounge chairs in the waiting area. She removed the fur coat with a languid flourish and handed it to Nicole.

  “Keep this safe, would you, honey?” she said to Nicole with a condescending tone, though she appeared to be only a few years younger than Nicole, who is on the other side of fifty.

  Nicole smiled broadly. “I promise I won’t let it out of my sight.”

  The woman continued, “My boyfriend would scream if I lost it, even though it is insured.” She threw her head back and laughed, as if she’d just told us a joke. Little did she realize that she and Nicole were roughly the same size, and that the coat would be tried on—nay, worn to Station E to pick up Tobias— while I dealt with the woman’s over-processed hair. Her problem? She was a suicide blonde—dyed by her own hand—and in desperate need of color adjustment, along with industrial-strength moisturizing.

  I handed her a robe and showed her the way to the dressing room, then returned to Nicole. “Run your fingers through that hair, doll, you’ll ruin a manicure.”

  Nicole nodded, caressing the fur coat that was still lying in her arms. “She’s an out-of-towner, but the boyfriend’s local.”

  “How’d you find that out?”

  “She told me his name and even where he works,” Nicole replied, proving once again that she could extract almost any fact from anyone. “I swear she wants to share him with me.”

  “Nikki, I’d think twice about acquiring another fur coat. Those animal-rights folks can get pretty nasty.”

  “Stanley, the meat and bones are used for pet food, so the whole carcass is utilized, just like the Eskimos and Native Americans did.”

  “No,” I exclaimed in mock disbelief.

  “I swear it’s true. She just told me that now. Ask her yourself. Her boyfriend is with Kouros furriers. She’s staying at the corporate suite at the Ritz.”

  How could I expect Nicole to sympathize with the unglamorous side of the animals? To her, all the earthly critters were arranged in a simple pecking order, the topmost rung of which was occupied by the noble humans, and the best of those were manicurists. Whatever resided below was at the disposal of those above. I’d often argued that the roaches and the rats shared the rung above us, and they knew enough not to destroy us, just to live easily off us.

  A cab tooted its horn in the service alley, and Nikki slipped out the back way. I caught a blurred gray glimpse of her leaving, wrapped in the fluffy fur coat. She’d be warm, if politically incorrect, on her mission of mercy to rescue Tobias.

  With the woman now seated in my styling chair, I began my diplomatic but stern lecture about using hair-coloring chemicals at home. She replied, “But I don’t do my own hair. My previous hairdresser … well, he had a little problem with drugs.”

  Which explained her fried hair. Unfortunately, chemical abuse is not limited to the sinks and styling chairs in hair salons. The personnel are susceptible too. I was lucky that my addictive side satisfied itself mostly with food.

  I began working on the woman’s hair, applying artfully blended color to the roots only. The rest of the hair shaft needed loving kindness, not more ammonia or peroxide. I’d treat that part separately, later on. While I applied the color, I mulled the facts I knew so far about last night’s killing. When you and your client aren’t idly chattering, hairwork can actually be a kind of meditation. Fortunately this woman only purred, which helped me think quietly to myself. I was still concerned that the poisoned truffle was supposed to be on Prentiss Kingsley’s plate last night. If that was true and things had gone according to plan, then Prentiss would be dead now, and the case would be completely different. So was the killer waiting for the next best chance to get him? Or was Laurett simply trying to shift the blame from herself and her intentional killing of Trek Delorean? Had I naively fallen for her deception? It always seemed to come to that—what the police believed versus the claims made by the victims and perpetrators of a crime. For my part, I didn’t like the doubt that was growing inside me. I wasn’t sure whether a friend of mine, namely Laurett, was involved in this killing by choice or by accident. The police thought she was guilty all the way. I didn’t want to.

  I finished applying color to the woman’s hair, then wrapped it all in plastic and left the chemicals to oxygenate their way to a miracle. While it all cooked quietly, I went to the back room and poured myself a cup of coffee. Since it was technically my day off, I added a shot of Nicole’s cognac to it. Drinking on the job is forbidden, but Nikki wasn’t there to scold me. Besides, she was playing her own pranks. So, sipping my brew, I pondered what my next move would be. Prentiss Kingsley was the intended victim, but I’d already tried and failed to find him. Perhaps Liz Carlini or Dan Doherty might know something that would explain why someone was trying to kill him. I chose Dan Doherty as my next subject, since he lived in town. I’d pay him a call as soon as Nicole returned with Tobias.

  To extend the time my client would be in the chair, I suggested that I do a temporary rinse to color the abused hair shafts without causing further damage. That way the hair would have a chance to grow out healthy again. I did chop about three-quarters of an inch off the fried ends too.

  By some psychic miracle I timed the finishing touches on the woman’s hair to coincide exactly with Nicole’s return from Station E with Tobias, again through the back door. The woman never guessed that her coat had taken a crosstown excursion without her. When I finished my work, her golden hair had a sheen and glow she’d never seen in it before.

  Tobias ran into the shop and tackled my legs.

  “Uncle Stan, you forgot me.”

  “I’m sorry, Tobias. It was a mistak
e.”

  My new client eyed me in the mirror. “Your nephew?”

  I nodded and almost immediately felt the familiar, intentional pressure of a forearm rubbing against my hip. Working with people, you get touched a lot. Sometimes it’s accidental, sometimes it’s friendly, sometimes it’s loaded.

  “I love what you did for my hair,” she said.

  “I just gave it what it needed.”

  She stared directly at my reflection in the mirror. The steady gaze of her eyes into mine conjured for me all the tawdry experiences of her life so far, and she asked, “Are you so good with other parts of the body?”

  I winked and smiled. “Some think so.”

  She went and changed back to street clothes, then got her fur coat from Nicole. After paying my exorbitant fee at the front desk, she returned to my station and reached inside her small beaded purse, which was just big enough to hold about two thousand dollars … and a lipstick. Her manicured, bejeweled fingers pulled out a crisp twenty-dollar bill. “You’re a genius,” she said. “I’ll be back next week.” Then she left the shop in a swirl of plush dead animal skin.

  “Beware of heavy tippers, Stanley,” said Nicole.

  “Don’t be jealous, doll. You can always have the boyfriend.”

  “So can you, probably.”

  “I could never date an animal killer, never mind a straight man.”

  “Straight hasn’t stopped you before.”

  Since it was almost closing time—earlier on Mondays—I joined Tobias in the waiting lounge. I read to him from one of the fashion magazines, figuring I might launch his sense of style early, on the right track.

  Nikki asked, “Aren’t you leaving?”

  “I thought I’d stay around and have a drink with you.”

  “You must want another favor.”

  She was right, but I couldn’t admit it.

  Shortly after, with the shop closed and locked, Nicole and I were having a cocktail in the back room. Tobias remained out on the shop floor, happily playing cosmic battle scenes with the aluminum rollers and the plastic rods at my station. Nikki lit a cigarette, one of her custom-blended fags from Perretti’s, robed in pastel-tinted rice paper. Tonight’s choice was the palest teal blue, which she lit and smoked with the kind of ritual reserved for Japanese tea. Meanwhile, I was facing the question of what to do with Tobias that night. This incipient child-care problem was going to require special tact and diplomacy, especially tonight, when I needed time to visit Dan Doherty and press him about the intrigues and politics between matronly Gladys Gardner Chocolates and her chic-bitch sister, Le Jardin Chocolatier. Nicole had adamantly stipulated that she wouldn’t take Tobias overnight. That was last night, though.

  “Uh, doll … ?” I began tentatively.

  ‘‘No, Stanley,” she replied sharply. “You may not have a cigarette. You’ve already tried numerous times and failed. If you want to waste cigarettes, try one of the commercial ‘lite’ variety, and leave mine alone.” For dramatic emphasis, she downed a generous mouthful of cognac.

  I swirled my bourbon-and-bitters in its environmentally responsible glass-glass. “It was something else, doll,” I said, staring pensively into my drink.

  Nicole eyed me cautiously. “You must want me to take the boy tonight.”

  I nodded, feigning a troubled brow.

  Nicole continued, “Because you want to question some people about the killing.”

  I nodded again, ever more gloomily.

  “And the lieutenant’s not helping you again.”

  I shook my head a despairing no, but inside I was happily relieved, since she was saying all the hard parts for me.

  Nicole sighed, gently rolled the accumulated ash from her cigarette, took another deep, pleasure-filled drag from it, and said, “All right, Stanley. I’ll watch Tobias tonight.”

  “Oh, thanks—”

  She raised her finger at me. “Quiet. The boy shouldn’t hear this.”

  “I’ll make it up to you, Nikki.”

  “There’s no need, since it will be just this once. It’s not to become a regular thing. Taking care of him was your idea, not mine. Though I don’t approve of placing him in the court’s custody, neither do I want a child in my life, especially at my age.”

  “Consider him a lovable grandson then.”

  She glared at me. “You’re treading on thin ice, you ungrateful ageist.”

  “Sorry, Nikki. I just need the time badly. As usual, Branco’s got the case just about solved and closed already, and here I am believing, hoping, that Laurett really didn’t kill anyone, and I’m trying to prove it.”

  Nicole raised her glass to me and said, “Stanley Kraychik, the people’s hero.”

  “Or all-time fool,” I replied.

  We drank, and my bourbon went down warmly, leaving its pleasant aftertaste of burn and sugar.

  Nicole said, “Sounds like you still have doubts about Laurett.”

  “I don’t know. I want to believe her, but her story is as neat and tight in its own way as Branco’s, and I never accept his side of things.”

  Nicole said, “Laurett does have a lawyer, Stanley. Chaz fully intends to get her acquitted.”

  “But does he care about what really happened, about the truth?”

  “He’s not the villain you make him out to be.”

  “Nikki, I never accused him of villainy. Arrogance, chauvinism, and greed, perhaps, but not villainy.”

  “Chaz has been good for me, Stanley, and he agreed to represent Laurett at no charge.”

  “That’s just until she’s acquitted. Then he’s probably going to sue the City of Boston for damages on her behalf.”

  Nicole nodded. “Along with the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. But anything you can do to help him now will be greatly appreciated by me, personally.”

  I gulped the rest of my bourbon. “Thanks for taking Tobias, doll. I’ll call later to check up on him.”

  “There’s no need, darling. Besides, Chaz will be with me tonight.”

  “Well, maybe I should talk with him then.”

  “Why?”

  “Didn’t you want me to help him?”

  Nicole paused. “I don’t see the need yet. Chaz is quite competent. If he wants you, he’ll call you.”

  That was Branco’s attitude too. Why was Nikki suddenly becoming cool with me? Usually she was like a protective older sister who could refuse nothing to her baby brother. For some reason, recently, there was distance. I suspected that Charles was at the root of it. Though he liked to portray a smart young professional, tolerant in his actions and progressive in his words, I sensed a latent bigot to the atom. And in my lexicon, bigot equals homophobe.

  Nicole continued, “Don’t forget that tomorrow is my day off, and I don’t intend to keep Tobias with me all day.”

  “But I’m working here.”

  “I’ll send him to you in a cab.”

  “Maybe it’s better if I come by early, for coffee, and pick him up in person?”

  She paused again. “I suppose that will be fine,” she said with obvious reluctance.

  “Around eight?” I said.

  Nicole grimaced. I suspected what she wanted was an uninterrupted morning with Charles. Then she softened.

  “Well, with the boy there, we’ll probably all be awake anyway. And since you’re coming for coffee, would you pick up something from Sally’s Kitchen? Chaz adores her stuff.” Sally’s was an excellent bakery that used butter, sugar, cream, and chocolate—life’s basic nutrients—in such imaginative combinations that the resultant clogged arteries seemed a minor consequence to the velvety oral pleasures her baked creations produced.

  “Yes, ma’am,” I said with a salute. “In return for one night’s baby-sitting, I’ll bring one cream tart with pine nuts for Mas’ Chowz.”

  I got up, reapplied the multiple layers of winterwear and donned my mukluks—again. I felt like Nanook of the North setting out into the wintry blast. I kissed Nicole good-bye, gave T
obias a big hug, and left the shop. I’m ashamed to confess how free I felt without having Tobias with me. After this visit to Dan Doherty, I was looking forward to going home for supper and a short rest, then maybe heading out again for some fun and relaxation. It hadn’t even been twenty-four hours, and already I abhorred parenthood. Then again, being a Gemini with Gemini rising, how could I possibly expect to be tied down by anything, especially a young boy?

  8

  KAFKA REDUX

  OUT ON THE STREET IT HAD BEGUN to snow. It wasn’t the usual February sleet that stings your face like a thousand tiny needles. Instead the snow was the big, wet, heavy flakes that you could catch easily on your tongue. It was friendly snow, which I took as a good omen. I even got a cab easily, and I headed for Dan Doherty’s place. I hadn’t called him first, which might seem rude, but there’s an advantage to showing up unannounced and catching people off guard. There’s also the possibility of a wasted trip, but I took the chance.

  Dan lived in a trendy new housing concept called the Nouveau Côté du Sud, which some of us remember as the South End row houses. One whole block of the tiny houses had been razed and replaced by a self-contained community of urban bungalows. A new ten-foot brick wall completely enclosed the block, providing privacy to the contented new residents while also insulating them from the terrors of the real city outside. At the main entrance a uniformed guard sat in a heated booth. I told him who I wanted to see, and he rang Dan’s cottage to announce me. After some brief remarks on the phone, he turned to me and said, “You can go right on in.”

  I entered the complex and walked through a brick-paved maze of evergreen-lined paths. They were snow-free and dry, heated from within the pavement. These folks didn’t have to suffer the inconveniences of snow, at least not while on their own sacred property. I got to Dan’s unit and rang the door buzzer. When the door opened, a tanned, blond stranger stood there in shorts and a T-shirt—not exactly New England winter togs.

  “Hi,” I said, oozing vacuous charm. “I’m here to see Dan Doherty.”

  The stranger looked me up and down, then said flatly, “Dan’s not here.”