Big Silence
Page 30
“And streets and telephones and airplanes,” said Mr. Photopopolus.
“I’m going to shoot someone today,” said Wayne softly, looking at the elegant letters painted on the window more than forty years ago by his father saying this, indeed, was the Clean Cut barbershop.
“That a fact?” said Monty.
“Yes.”
Monty had heard crazier things in his decades of scissors, razors, and combs. Wayne was harmless, a little off, but harmless. Customers babble. You listen, nod your head, let them tell you they were about to make millions or shoot the latest blond rock star.
“Something eating you?” Monty said.
“No, nothing special. It’s just the day I’m going to shoot someone,” said Wayne again, very softly, calmly, looking in the mirror to be sure Monty was cutting his hair just the way he liked it, not too short. Too short and his face looked like a balloon, like John Candy.
“You got to kill somebody, kill Dwight Spenser,” said Mr. Photopopolus. “No loss there. You gotta kill somebody, kill Spenser, get it out of your system, rid the world of an anti-Greek. I thought a couple times about braining him with a bedpan.”
“I don’t know Spenser,” said Wayne.
“Room next to mine,” said Photopopolus. “Must be a hundred years old. God’s keeping him alive to punish those around him who’ve screwed up their lives. I’m eighty-six. He’ll outlive me. The bad die ancient. You know what I’m saying?”
“I know what you’re saying,” said Wayne. “But I’ve got to kill someone important.”
“Like who?” asked Photopopolus.
“Lee Cole Carter,” said Wayne.
“And that’s who?” asked Photopopolus.
“Country singer,” said Monty dreamily, still thinking about the miracle of the world, the wonders of a comb, the marvel of the scissors in his hand. “Mother and father live in one of the high-rises on Sheridan. Top floor I hear. Lee Cole Carter won the Grammy last year for singing something about dirty women.”
‘“Hard Drinking Woman,’” Wayne said. “Youngest country-and-western singer to win a Grammy. He’s in the city now visiting his parents. Heard it on the radio.”
“Done,” said Monty, sweeping the sheet out from under Wayne’s chin so that the hairs on it floated neatly to the floor like snowfall in a glass bubble. Monty twirled the sheet like a toreador and laid it neatly in one movement on the empty barber chair next to him. It was Monty’s trademark. That little move. Been doing it for thirty-six years.
Wayne got out of the chair. He always gave Monty a dollar tip. Wayne always said, “Thank you kindly, Mr. Czerbiak, sir.”
He did this time, too. Photopopolus had put down the magazine and was walking slowly, stoop-shouldered toward the chair. He looked like a gnome with a secret. Photopopolus had perfected the knowing look to hide his basic lack of intelligence.
“You got a gun?” Monty asked Wayne, wrapping the cloth around Photopopolus’s wrinkled neck. “You going to shoot someone, you need a gun. Am I right or am I right?”
“Yeah,” said Wayne. “I’ve got a gun.”
Wayne went out the door and onto the sidewalk in front of the mall shops. The gun in his pocket belonged to his father. Kept it loaded in a drawer in the shop. Until today.
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copyright © 2000 by Stuart M. Kaminsky
cover design by Jim Tierney
978-1-4804-0025-2
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