Skin After Skin - PsyCop 8

by Jordan Castillo Price

  Sure, he’d feasted on my dick like a starving man, but we didn’t kiss, so it was totally not gay.

  Whatever.

  He’d fled sometime after the big event and I was currently alone. If he’d left behind a dent in my spare pillow, I’d erased it with all my tossing and turning. Too much booze. Too little comfort.

  I like a good roll in the sack as much as the next guy, but something about this one rubbed me wrong. He was totally hot to trot, but the way he interacted with me, I could’ve been anybody. No pillow talk. Zero. Zilch. Once all the grunting and moaning was over, we had nothing to say to each other. Literally nothing. So I had pretty low expectations when I checked to see if he’d texted any parting remarks. Instead I found a voicemail from Pilar waiting for me.

  “Hey, I got an interview at Cashmere so I’m calling in sick. Can you take my 12:30? I couldn’t get her rescheduled, but everyone else should be okay…. Cross your fingers for me.”

  I stared at the phone as I considered what this message meant to me, other than a heads-up to drive myself in. Did I even want her to get the job? It would shift the whole dynamic at Luscious if she was no longer there. Ralph would need to hire another stylist—would he score someone with experience, or grab another Junior straight out of cosmetology school? And where would that leave me in the pecking order?

  It was a pensive drive. First my date turns out to be vaguely disappointing, then my morning sounding board goes missing. Obviously I didn’t expect Pilar to work at Luscious for the rest of her life—especially given the way Ralph went out of his way to shit on her—but there was no question that once she was gone I’d be one lonely soul.

  All my stewing landed me at work before the doors were even open, so I popped over to the coffee shop across the street. Mid-morning I’d normally have my pick of tables, but a cluster of tourists in matching T-shirts had the place stuffed to the gills. Tourists don’t move like regular people. They’re oblivious to everyone around them, wandering directly in the path of anything with purpose. And if it wasn’t bad enough that I had to keep stopping to let various people drift by, across the chest of each ugly T-shirt was printed, Rediscover: The Couple’s Vacation.

  And I realized that at the tables, they were all paired off and holding hands.

  Gag me.

  As I waited for my cafe con leche, I attempted to look anywhere but the cloying displays of affection by keeping my eyes fixed hard on the bakery case. That’s when I heard my name. Once. And again. Like maybe someone had called it a few times. And maybe that someone was none other than my nemesis.

  “Curtis—over here.”

  I accepted my beverage with a sallow smile and turned to face Red. The day just kept getting better. And it wasn’t even eleven o’clock.

  Red put down a book he’d been reading and gestured eagerly at the empty seat across the table from him—the only empty seat in the whole damn shop. Normally I’d be thrilled to join him in a game of cat and mouse, but I was tired. Hungover. Strangely disillusioned. I glanced out the window. The murky skies had darkened, and now it was misting. I could hardly go drink my coffee outside. My hair would wilt, and I’d be damned if I went and hid in my car while I waited, as if I was too much of a wimp to face up to Red.

  And so I sat.

  “No one calls me Curtis except telemarketers,” I said.

  “Not even your momma?”

  “Not unless she’s trying to make a point.”

  “I didn’t mean to offend you.”

  If I was offended by anything, it was the playing it safe remark, not the use of my proper name. “Did I say I was offended?” I stared him right in the eye to show him I wasn’t intimidated. Unfortunately, neither was he. His eyes were dark and melancholy, with tantalizing depths lurking just beyond my reach. With natural assets like that, I could see how his penetrating gaze left his clients dazed and reeling. “It takes a lot to piss me off.”

  “What would you prefer I called you?”

  “Whatever tickles your fancy. After all, a word is just a word. It’s the intent that matters.”

  When I bait Maxine by quoting her to herself, half the time she’s so oblivious, she thinks we’re just agreeing. Red was too sharp for that. He recognized his own words, but by accepting them at face value, he deliberately ignored my mockery.

  He dropped the subject of my name and asked, “There’s not a referral program in place at Luscious?”

  I was relieved he only wanted to talk shop. That, I could manage. “Just loyalty reward type coupons. I don’t bother giving any out, myself. If someone doesn’t want to see me again, I’m not gonna twist their arm.”

  I considered what I’d just said, and wondered if I was, indeed, talking shop.

  Of course I was. If I bared my vulnerable underbelly to anyone, it sure as hell wouldn’t be Red.

  “Miss Brinkman decided to go blonde after all, thanks to you.”

  “Detective,” I said absently. “She’s a cop.”

  “That’s one lucrative appointment. But Ralph seemed put out when I told him you’d done the referral.”

  Weird. You’d think our boss would be excited that I was a team player and was embracing the new guy. With our little chat about the customer wine fresh in my head, though, I couldn’t discount the idea that Ralph presumed the embrace involved nightcaps and pillow dents.

  “There’s no referral system in place,” I said. “We never needed one. And a friendly piece of advice: if you suggest a referral program, Ralph won’t take kindly to you telling him how to run his business, whether you’ve worked in ritzier shops or not.”

  I could have added that as a gay man, Red probably shouldn’t pique Ralph’s jealousy by acting too friendly toward me in front of him. But that would be like standing up on the table and announcing I was boffing the boss, so I left him to figure out that tidbit himself.

  An incoming text dinged, and I checked my phone. I’d never bothered to key the number in to my contacts but I did recognize the west suburban area code. I tapped it open….

  And there was the busboy’s dick.

  A photo of it, anyway. Dark, slightly blurry. But I’d recognize that formidable Sicilian bush anywhere.

  I closed the app and pocketed my phone without replying.

  “Do you need to answer that?” Red asked. I didn’t know him well enough to tell if the question was laced with sarcasm.

  “It’ll keep.”

  “So listen,” he said, “the other night…it wasn’t my intent to insult you.”

  Right. I’d hate to be on the receiving end when he was feeling catty. “By all means, say what you mean and don’t sugar-coat it, I’m just saying it’s not fair to judge my entire M.O. based on Square Days. I mean…it’s Square Days. Oompah music. Lederhosen and knockwurst. Smocks and sideshows.”

  “And you felt like you were being forced to make a spectacle of yourself out there on the sidewalk. You worry about people soaking up more than you’re willing to give. So you protected yourself by not caring.”

  “I care plenty, Sigmund Freud. I’m just not willing to waste a five-star performance on some freeloader I’ll never see again.”

  “I understand,” he said with such surprising gentleness I did a double-take to see if he was putting me on. I didn’t think so. Then again, I hardly knew the guy. He watched me pondering my coffee for a long moment, and eventually said, “There are other ways to keep yourself safe. Mindfulness. Meditation.”

  “You’re serious.”

  “Absolutely.”

  Of course he was. In fact, I couldn’t even imagine a scenario in which the vegetarian with his high ideals didn’t want me to plunk down cross-legged and chant om. Except I didn’t quite see the connection. “What does that have to do with safety?”

  “The thoughts we think—they matter. We’re more than just our physical bodies. Sensitive folk like us, we got to stay grounded.”

  I scoffed. “No one has ever accused me of being sensitive. Not even once.
”

  “I’m not talking the emotional sense of the word.”

  “Then you lost me.”

  He gave me a long look, lowered his voice, and said, “It’s obvious you read people.”

  “And? Everyone reads everyone. It’s called body language.”

  “It’s called telepathy.”

  I laughed so suddenly I damn near shot coffee out my nose. I was shocked that someone as smart as Red actually believed in psychic ability—those bizarre statements Uncle Sam issued back when I was more worried about scoring my drivers license and flirting with college boys willing to buy me beer and stroke my teenage dick. “Sorry, no. If you’ve fallen for that dog and pony show, the word you’re looking for is gullibility.”

  He slid his book across the table and said, “Read this—just the first few chapters—practice it for a week, and see if it doesn’t make a difference in the way you feel.”

  I turned it face-up. Mindfulness Methods. Before I could roll my eyes over the vapidly blissful cover model meditating on a beach, my phone dinged again. I slipped it from my jacket, glanced at the 847 area code on the incoming message, and pocketed the thing without bothering to subject myself to another tedious dick pic.

  Across the table, my coffee companion watched me with a cryptic half-smile. I’d give him one thing—our little chats made interesting conversation. Even if he did believe in fairy tales.

  * * *

  I did manage to work in Pilar’s 12:30 without keeping the client waiting too long, but the woman cringed away from me like she thought I might shave her bald and pierce her septum. As if I’d waste a killer look on a frump like her.

  Elsewhere in the salon, the Bitch was back in town, a.k.a my favorite uptight detective, Carolyn Brinkman. I found myself gazing longingly at the color station while Red sweet-talked Carolyn through the beginning of the blonde phase of her life in his patented low, reassuring tones. He wasn’t flirtatious, not the way the rest of us were when we thought it might put someone at ease or coax a bigger tip out of their wallet. But he was so present, so focused, it blew right past flirtation-level and landed solidly in the realm of intimacy.

  Must’ve been all that “mindfulness” he touted. If I didn’t know any better, I might’ve been jealous of all that quality attention Carolyn was getting. Because my constantly dinging phone was now bulging with Italian sausage, but I could hardly call it intimate.

  I was doing my best not to stare. After all, I didn’t want Red to know I found him grudgingly fascinating, not when he didn’t return the sentiment. I only had half an eye on them when they bolted up from the hairdryers and rushed over to shampoo like someone’s life depended on it. And she’d only been processing for fifteen minutes, tops.

  Since my new consult was still flipping through a style guide trying to make up her mind, I excused myself and went to see what was going on. Everything about Red’s body language screamed urgent, but I did my best not to fan the flame. Even from a dozen feet away, I could tell Carolyn’s hair was at the most brassy stage of lift. In layman’s terms, clown orange. “Can I help?”

  Red said, “She needs to go. Right now.”

  I was about to try and lighten the mood (if not the poor woman’s hair) by asking if it was really life or death. But given her profession, it probably was. I hunkered down opposite him and said, “Give me the spray. You’ll rinse her a lot faster with two hands.”

  “You’ll be right out the door in no time,” he murmured as we worked. “I’ll give you my personal number. Soon as you can spare two hours, call me, day or night, and I’ll have you as blonde as Grace Kelly.”

  “Are we almost done?” she asked.

  “Trust me,” I said. “You do not want to go walking around with traces of bleach on your head.”

  “I know.” The furrow between her brows deepened. “But this timing really…sucks.”

  “We can tuck most of it into a scrunchie,” I told Red.

  “That’s a plan.” Right there in shampoo, he towel-dried, worked through a swipe of leave-in conditioner, and wrapped up as much of the brassy mess as he could.

  We did our best, but the results were still appalling. Our stern detective looked worse than a teenager who’d attempted to go platinum with a quart of household bleach.

  “Don’t you worry,” Red told her. “It might look bad now, but that’s still healthy hair. We just need to finish what we started.”

  She caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror, blanched, and said, “For my professional reputation, I sure as hell hope so.”

  She rushed out the door without paying. The receptionists both pretended not to notice. “Any idea what the big emergency is?” I asked Red.

  “She didn’t say.”

  Maybe not, but her body language gave some pretty solid hints. The situation was ripe for a remark about my so-called psychic telepathy, but I just couldn’t bring myself to wisecrack. Whatever had called her away was something urgent. Something bad. I returned to my current client who’d decided on a trim, told her I could add some layers that’d really frame her face, and got to work giving her the same basic haircut she’d walked in the door with. It was perfectly fine and she seemed happy enough, even though halfway through her cut, the dick pics started pouring in so fast and furious I had to excuse myself yet again to block the damn number, disgusted with the way Red managed to one-up me without even trying. He gave out his number to people having genuine hair emergencies, while I wasted mine on idiots with nothing better to do than keep reminding me of my latest underwhelming encounter.

  Before the tip envelopes were passed out that night, I made a point of demonstrating that I could be just as considerate as Red by handing him one of my special personalized cards. “In case you need backup with Detective Brinkman, feel free to give me a ring. Contrary to popular belief, I really do enjoy hair.”

  “Thank you.” Red pocketed the card.

  Damn it.

  Now I couldn’t even get off on making cutting remarks—not when Red blithely ignored all their sharpest edges.

  Chapter 11

  When I gave Red my number, I didn’t think he’d actually call. Too self-sufficient. Too proud. And yet I stayed in that night, so perhaps I did have some inkling he’d tap me. Could have been some kind of reverse psychology at play: by reaching out, he was reinforcing his vast capacity for independence by demonstrating that he thought it was completely appropriate to call at quarter to twelve without reminding me to bring massage oil and a party-sized box of condoms.

  Though he did request a bottle of wine.

  Not for him, of course. He didn’t drink—so he said—but I picked up three bottles just in case he changed his mind.

  He buzzed me in, met me at the door and took my coat. “Thank you for coming.” Tonight, on his home turf, his body language felt different. His posture was nowhere near as rigid as it was at Luscious, and when he absently massaged the back of his neck, the gesture felt vaguely vulnerable. “Carolyn’s on her way. She was pretty upset, and I thought it would be a comfort to her, having you here.” He and I must have had entirely different definitions of the word comfort. He stowed the wine, then beckoned me over to the breakfast bar. “Come take a look.”

  Though he’d painted the standard-issue white walls a sunny yellow and added some colorful Asian floral prints, the place was still underfurnished. The only thing on the countertop was a tablet. I planted my elbows beside it, opposite him. He woke it up to a news video, hit play, and the broadcast stuttered to life. A grim female reporter stood in front of a police station with a crowd milling all around, though at first glance it looked like all the action was newscasters getting in each others’ shots.

  The reporter said, “Chicago police have a suspect in custody linked to the disappearance of at least three young women. Fifty-two year old Edgewater resident Hugo Cooper is being held without bond. Sergeant Owens of the Twelfth Precinct has stated that while the investigation has been expedited to the PsyCop Sex Crimes Uni
t, he declines to confirm any details about the victims at this time.”

  “There.” Red tapped the pause and pinch-zoomed in. “On the stairs, with that big man. That’s her in the background.”

  “Back up.” I said. He reversed a few stops and we watched it again. The woman he’d spotted was wearing a beret—and a black suit is a black suit—but something about the way she tugged her jacket down was definitely familiar.

  “That’s it, just those couple of seconds?”

  “That’s it. But her job, the timing, the hat….”

  True. I tapped back and watched it again. The guy she was with herded her like a bodyguard. He did his best to keep himself between her and the cameras. He was big, but there were so many news crews surrounding the place, he couldn’t block them all.

  I zoomed out, backed up, and watched one more time. “Hard to tell with those stairs if that’s her walk.” In the sidebar, breaking news loaded with the title PsyCops Question Killer. The suit in the video-still looked suspiciously like Carolyn’s broad-shouldered handler.

  I tapped in.

  “At this time I can confirm that Mr. Cooper abducted at least three women from a local shopping center, assaulted them, and held them in his home for a period of time we’ve yet to determine.” The broadcast’s lower third identified him as Det. Jacob Marks CPD PsyCop Unit. He didn’t look anything like the shysters you see on talk shows claiming they could read your past lives and predict your future. More like someone Central Casting had sent over to play a psychic cop on TV. Smart, classically handsome, and just intimidating enough to bully any skeptic out of his good common sense. “One victim escaped and alerted a neighbor. She’s currently being treated for her injuries.” He paused, frowning…finding his “official PsyCop” character’s motivation. “The bodies of two more women were discovered at Cooper’s home. We’re not at liberty to release any names until we have a positive I.D. and contact the families, but right now our top priority is identifying the victims.”