A Body to Dye For

by Grant Michaels

  I appreciated the fifty-cent word, but all I’d done was use the natural springiness of her hair to find the best direction for the waves, rather than force them into submission with tight curls. I’d have to admit, for a mature woman, Vivian Brickley looked damn good, due in part to my ministerings, of course.

  She got up from the chair and patted her hair. “It’s so soft, too. Kudos to you, young man. I think I’ll take myself to lunch now and read the rest of my magazine.” She gave me a good tip and said, “That’s a fine bow tie you’re wearing.” She left the shop in high spirits.

  Within minutes Nicole came by my station. “Find out anything from Matron Jolly Jowls?”

  I related the basic facts: Vivian Brickley was a retired private teacher, she and Roy Brickley were almost newlyweds, she came from the West, and she liked to travel.

  Nicole pressed me. “That’s all?”

  “Well, she seemed very interested in knowing how I’d met Calvin and her husband. She suspects somebody of something, but I don’t know whom or what.”

  “I’ll tell you what I think, Stani. I don’t trust the good-natured, doddering-older-woman act a bit. It’s just a ploy to get what she wants.”

  “Nikki, that is an agist remark!”

  “Open your eyes, darling. Vivian Brickley and I are the same vintage. Now, imagine us standing side by side. Which one would you believe on the witness stand?”

  “Doll, don’t put me on the line like that.”

  “Oh, you!” Nicole huffed impatiently. “She didn’t fool me one bit!”

  I went back to work. A few hours later, when I finished my last midday appointment, I had the receptionist call a cab for me. “To Cambridge!” I yelled across the salon.

  Nicole heard me and glanced up from the fingernails she was covering with frosty peach-colored enamel. “Where are you off to now?”

  “Back to the drawing board.” I wanted to nose around the Choate Group some more, maybe find out why Mrs. Brickley was so interested in how I’d met Calvin and her husband.

  “Don’t forget your four o’clock appointment with Mr. Channel Eight.”

  “How could I miss my favorite butch anchorman?”

  I grabbed my leather jacket and bounded out of the shop. When the cab pulled up, I told the husky driver my destination and handed her a twenty-dollar bill. “That’s your tip, hon. Pedal to the metal!” She moved the cab through Newbury Street traffic like a Maserati and slid us onto the entrance ramp to the Massachusetts Turnpike. I quietly studied her close-cropped hair and the hint of a mustache on her upper lip while we broke the speed limit all the way to the Cambridge exit. From there I directed her to the Choate Group. When I got out of the cab I said, “If you wait here, there’s another twenty to get me back to town on the same magic carpet.”

  Her work shirt had the name Bob stitched onto the pocket. She said, “You got a deal.” Then she turned off the motor and pulled out a copy of Leisure Life magazine.

  Today, Patrick, the receptionist, almost smiled at me. “Here to see Ms. Doughton again?”

  “Exactly.” I wondered what drug had caused his upward mood shift.

  He beamed and said, “Your name again please?”

  “Kraychik.” I pronounced it clearly, “Stanley Kraychik.”

  Patrick looked confused. Perhaps he was remembering that I’d been Carlisle Harrington yesterday. “And you’re to see Ms. Dough-ton concerning what matter?”

  “The same as yesterday.”

  As he pressed buttons to call Jennie, I said, “That’s all right. She’s expecting me.” I walked by his desk into the skylit atrium and went directly up the ramp to her office.

  I stuck my head in the door to her office and asked, “Got a minute?” The air smelled of recently chewed peanuts.

  “What do you want?” There was a wheeze in her voice, probably from large quantities of goobers consumed without a suitable beverage.

  I said, “I got to see the police reports yesterday.”

  “So?”

  “The story you told them and the story you told me don’t agree.”

  She shrugged.

  I said, “I want to know which version is the truth.”

  “My mother taught me never to lie to the police.”

  (Unlike my Czech grandmother, who warned me as a child never to tell them the truth. What would she have thought of her favorite grandson, Stanislav, named after a heroic Slavic warrior, now reduced to a Back Bay hairdresser who was a stoolie for the BPD?)

  Jennie continued, “I see you got to meet the boss yesterday.”

  “Did he say anything to you afterward?”

  “He’d seen us talking and asked me what you wanted.”

  “What did you tell him?”

  “That’s for me to know, isn’t it?”

  “I’m surprised he’d even care. I talked to him myself, after all.”

  “I think it’s your manner,” said Jennie, “the way you buzz around like a persistent flying insect. It’s bothersome.”

  “Mr. Brickley didn’t seem to mind. Actually, he seems like an easygoing kind of guy. But I wonder why his wife would care where I met him?”

  “You know his wife, too?”

  “I did her hair this morning.”

  “You sure do get around, mister.”

  “I meet a lot of people working with the public, Jennie. But, do you have any idea why his wife would care where I met Mr. Brickley?”

  “Maybe it’s all the time he spends at his gym instead of here at the drafting table, or at home at his conjugal duties.”

  “I would think she’d be happy with such a physically fit husband.”

  “I hear there’s more action at his gym than what happens on the exercise equipment.”

  “Meaning?”

  “If you don’t know, mister, I’m certainly not going to explain it.”

  “Well, I don’t see anything wrong with keeping fit,” said Stanley the health-club hypocrite.

  “Health is one thing, but those physical culturists take it to a perverse degree. I know it’s hard to believe, but I was a size ten when I started working here. With the hours I have to work now, though, health clubs and regular meals are a luxury I don’t have time for.”

  I looked sadly at the big woman who’d literally lost touch with her body. She lived at the other end of the same spectrum of those people who also measure their life’s experience in pounds and inches—the fitness addicts.

  “Maybe you work too hard, Jennie.”

  “Maybe some people don’t work hard enough. In the end, someone else always has to make up for it.”

  Why did I think of the grasshopper and the ants?

  Jennie went on. “Roy Brickley may be fit as an athlete, but he’s a senior partner in this firm, and he can’t even maneuver a French curve anymore.”

  Something about that sounded provocative.

  “Jennie, I’m sorry to hear how hard your life is, but I still think we can help each other.”

  “Why don’t you just give it up! Why should I even waste any more time with you?”

  “Because if you can help me find information that convicts Calvin, you’ll land up with that promotion instead of him. You can finally get even for all those times you had to work extra to pull his share of the load. Would you rather see him released and get that job from you?”

  “Of course not! But what can I do about it?”

  “Just listen to me.”

  She sat back and made the chair groan under the strain of her weight. “Go ahead. Talk. Waste some more oxygen.”

  I leaned toward her, hoping to seem more earnest. “You worked with Calvin, right? You saw him eight hours a day.”

  “Hah! On a good day he might put in four hours. Claims he’s paid for what he knows, not what he does.”

  “Jennie, you have complete access to the computer. Go in there and read his calendar. Find out everything he was doing before Roger Fayerbrock arrived in Boston. You work here. You know wher
e all the important stuff is.”

  She listened, but she didn’t look convinced, so I continued the harangue. “The other day you said you had ways of finding out things. Well, now’s the time to use them.”

  “You don’t miss anything, do you?”

  “I miss plenty.”

  “So you want me to spy for you, is that it?”

  “People have done worse things to find answers.” Was this espionage business contagious? I wondered.

  “I can’t do that!” she exclaimed. Her huge body jolted, then rebounded softly for a moment.

  It was time to pull out all the stops.

  “Jennie, are you just going to sit there and let this all happen to you? This is your chance, the big one, to take control of things around you. You can create a new life for yourself, but you have to do something.” I was sounding like the promotional hype for a self-help program when a word from Mrs. Brickley’s New Yorker popped into my head. “Jennie,” I said, “this is your peripeteia!”

  She rocked around in her chair. It teetered dangerously on its flimsy pedestal. Finally she spoke. “That’s a big word.” She pulled out a cigarette and lit it. “And I know what it means, too.” She rocked herself in a cloud of smoke and thought a while. “Okay,” she said. “You give a pretty good spiel. I’ll look around, see what I can find.”

  “Good! You still have my card?” I asked. She nodded. “Just keep your eyes and ears open. If I don’t hear from you soon, I’ll be back.”

  “I’m not promising anything.”

  “Just think of that job.”

  As I was leaving her office, she said, “You’re pretty brazen to wear a bow tie around here.”

  “Why?”

  “Wasn’t that ranger strangled with one?”

  “So the story goes.”

  “The boss hasn’t worn one since the killing.”

  “Does he usually?”

  “He and Calvin both. They usually look like the Bobbsey Twins.

  “Well, I wear them because they’re fun.” And, I thought, because they get different responses from people.

  I left Jennie’s office and trotted down the ramp. Coming up the ramp toward me was Roy Brickley. “Back again, eh?” he asked as his eyes admired my tie.

  “I, uh …”

  He smiled and said, “My wife just called from downtown. She’s delighted with her new hairdo.”

  “I’m glad she’s pleased.”

  “It’s all thanks to you.” He waved me off and walked forcefully up into Jennie’s office. He didn’t even question my presence there. Maybe he believed I really was on Calvin’s side. For a minute, I watched Jennie and Roy Brickley through the glass wall of her office. She handed him a packet of papers, then she pointed to me. Mr. Brickley turned and looked, but he didn’t acknowledge me. The two of them weren’t saying much to each other, but I still wished I were a fly on the wall. When I walked out the front door, Bob the cabbette was waiting to whisk me back to the shop.

  On the fast ride back, I thought about my pep talk to Jennie, and I thought about what I should do to change the course of events so far. I felt that I was getting nowhere. Everything was vague and frustrating. I needed to change my whole vision and do something. I needed to expand my mind. Those words jogged my memory, and that’s when the answer came to me: Go West, young man. It was an extreme course of action, but it was time for me to take control now.

  When I got to the shop, I nabbed Nicole by the elbow and dragged her to the back room. “Nikki,” I said breathlessly, since my heart was racing, “I have an idea. I’m probably crazy—”

  “You are crazy, darling,” she interrupted. “What’s happened to you? Your pupils are dilated.”

  “Nikki, I want to go to California.”

  “Certainly, Stani,” she said calmly, as though dealing with a psychotic. “Next spring on your vacation—”

  “No, Nikki. I mean now. Tonight. I want to go to Yosemite and poke around in Roger’s end of the world.”

  Nicole was speechless.

  I said, “Its the only choice I have right now.”

  “If that’s what you believe, Stanley, then you do need a rest.”

  “Nikki, I’m not finding answers here. Nothing!”

  “Stanley, you must drop this silly notion right now. It’s ridiculous!”

  “But the killer is still free!”

  “That’s not your concern.”

  “It is!”

  “No, it isn’t.”

  “So, what should I do? Just wait around until the next time Calvin comes in, then just frost his hair as usual? Is that your solution?”

  “Even if Calvin is guilty, and even if he is acquitted, there’s nothing you can do about it.”

  “But I’m sure there is, Nikki! There has to be an answer somewhere. Someone knows something. And if that person isn’t here in Boston, then maybe they’re out in California, where Roger came from.”

  “And don’t you give me any line about Roger! I won’t stand by and watch you turn your life upside down for a man you splashed around with for twenty minutes. I don’t care what kind of fantasy he was for you.”

  “So you think I should just pretend nothing happened?”

  “I think you should know when to accept things you can’t change.”

  “You sound like that old prayer.”

  Nicole sighed in exasperation. “Stanley, if for no other reason, your running off to California is simply irresponsible. What about your appointments?”

  “You can reschedule them, and Abbey can come in for the critical ones.” Abbey was an old friend of Nicole’s from New York who occasionally styled at the shop. “And Ramon can handle the walk-ins. One dip and clip by him and they’ll appreciate the value of reserving time with me.”

  “Don’t be so sure. He does very good work.” Nicole paused and looked me straight in the eye. “Well, as usual, I can see you have your mind made up already, with everything all neatly planned. Just how do you intend to pay for this little excursion?”

  “Ah, Nikki, there’s the rub. Most of it can go on plastic.” Then I gave her my younger-brother-in-trouble look. “But I’ll need some cash from the till.”

  Nicole hooted loudly. “You want me to finance a wild-goose chase to California?”

  “Only part of it, and it’s not a wild-goose chase. Now, will you help me?”

  Nicole sighed heavily again. Then she shrugged. “What are friends for?”

  “Thanks, Nikki,” I said, and hugged her. Immediately I called my travel agent and made the arrangements. At least he was pleased to hear I’d be traveling! I’d have to go standby, but if I got on, my plane would leave Boston at eight o’clock that night and arrive in California five and a half hours later at ten-thirty the same evening. Already I liked the idea of a place where time was created just by flying there.

  After calling some friends to cancel my weekend plans—my annual appearance at Chez-Chez—I spent the rest of my working day anticipating my first trip to California. Sure, it was a serious kind of trip, but I was also eager to see the part of the country where they grew them like Roger.

  Later, when I got home, Sugar Baby greeted me with a trill and a stretch. I bent to pick her up and found an envelope lying on the carpet. It had been slipped under the door. The note inside was composed of letters cut out from magazines:

  kEEp OuT oR YoU’ll Be jOiNIng tHE rAnGeR

  First I wondered which magazine the letters came from, then I wondered who left it for me, and finally I thought, How melodramatic!

  9

  CALIFORNIA, HERE I COME!

  WITH THE BALMY CALIFORNIA WEATHER I was anticipating for the next few days, I packed my bags for a tropical cruise. Anyone who’s been to San Francisco knows what a delusion that was.

  While I packed, I glanced occasionally at the note I’d found under the door when I came in. The words were so similar to the phone message from yesterday that I assumed they must have come from the same person. But, like t
he phone call, the note didn’t frighten me so much as pique my curiosity. Whoever was pulling these pranks had seen too much second-rate film noir, and instead of scaring me, the threats seemed almost silly. I didn’t understand their purpose. Still, I recalled every person I’d seen since Roger was killed, trying to guess who might be doing it. There was Calvin; his downstairs neighbor Hal Steiner; his lover, Aaron Harvey; his colleague Jennifer Doughton; and his boss, Roy Brickley, with wife Vivian. There were also others, like Nicole; my friend Eduardo; Lieutenant Branco, with all his cohorts; and various clients, but I was sure none of these had sent the note or made the call.

  Nicole arrived to pick up Sugar Baby. She’d agreed to keep her while I was gone, in spite of her belief that animals do not belong in human dwellings. For her part, Sugar Baby, who is usually aloof and barely tolerant of other people, adores Nicole. They get along famously, and I often explain to Nicole that it’s because they’re so much alike, which she adamantly denies. In any case, Sugar Baby would be pampered with Alaskan crab and tournedos while staying with Nicole at her suite at Harbor Towers.

  When I showed Nikki the note, she said, “Stanley, this is the second time someone has threatened you.”

  “It might be the third, doll. Remember that reckless Boston driver last night?”

  “You don’t think … ?”

  “All I know is that someone is trying to scare me off, but their methods are so tacky, I can’t take it seriously.”

  “The car was not tacky, Stanley.”

  “The idea of it was.”

  “You’ve called the lieutenant about this, haven’t you?”

  “I’ll call him when the time is right.”

  “And when, pray tell, is that?”

  “When I’ve got everything I can from the note.”

  Nicole said sarcastically, “Then maybe you should peel the letters off the paper and see if there are any clues on the back side.” Immediately I grinned. “Oh, no!” she exclaimed, rolling her eyes, for she’d unwittingly given me an idea.