Perri O'Shaughnessy - Unfit to Practice

Paul struggled to assimilate it all. He wasn’t used to having so much thrown at him at one time. Nina was going to run him ragged with all these people. But he had to agree, with the file gone and Nina’s notes on the events of that night gone along with it, Angel and Brandy needed to make their report to the D.A. and the South Lake Tahoe police even if he had to drag them there by their crimped and moussed hair. He and Wish would have to roust them from Angel’s beauty salon right after the meeting. Paul liked barbershops with their phallic striped poles and no-nonsense razor jobs where the tacit guy agreement called for lickety-split efficiency, and he couldn’t understand why women had such a different take on the same operation. What exactly did women do to their hair that could possibly require an entire afternoon?

“Angel’s salon is located in Harveys Casino, in the basement,” Nina said.

Paul said, “I think Angel and Brandy have to come first. If this fellow Cody is the one with the files, he’ll come after Brandy. It’s possible. Telling it all to one of the deputy D.A.’s over at the courthouse may or may not get them adequate protection. Brandy shouldn’t be at home alone.”

“She’s worried about her fiancé,” Nina said. “He seems to have disappeared. It’s another unsettling event of the weekend that may or may not be connected to the theft of the files.”

“It’s a lot, Nina. I don’t think we can bodyguard Brandy plus look for the boyfriend and get the other work rolling, too.”

Nina said, “I have an idea. I’ll see if Andrea can put Brandy and Angel up at the Tahoe Women’s Shelter. Brandy shouldn’t go back to Palo Alto, especially if her boyfriend isn’t there.”

“Excellent,” Paul said. “Give us a chance to try to untangle a few things. The sisters have to come first. There’s some major exposure there, and I think it goes beyond speculation.” He pushed his chair back.

“We’ll crack it,” Wish said. He got up and gave Nina a serious nod.

Paul and Wish went outside and slid into Paul’s Mustang. Wish drew on his sunglasses and smoothed back his hair.

“Let’s roll,” he told Paul.

D OWN BELOW HARVEYS CASINO, through caverns measureless to man, amid the video arcades and Mexican restaurants and the boutique bursting with burlwood bears, Paul and Wish found a curtain of orange crystalline beads framed by an archway. Beyond that, a door with a glass insert advertised the salon. On the glass, painted in flesh-pink and sea-green tones, Cupid shot an arrow toward filmy clouds shaped into the words Angel’s Heavenly Hair.

Wish shoved the beads out of the way and stepped through, followed by Paul, who took a battering as the beads, released by Wish, fell back into his face.

“Oops,” said Wish.

The stench of primitive chemistry greeted them as they pulled open the door. A chime rang, unnecessarily announcing their arrival into the small room.

Several female faces turned to look at them, looking both intrigued and astonished. They had entered the forbidden precincts.

A young woman with brown hair, dressed in a long soft skirt, stepped up to a kind of podium. “Um,” she said, flipping a notebook open and picking up a pen. “What can we do for you?”

“We’re here to see Angel Guillaume and Brandy Taylor,” Paul said, handing her his card. “Are they here?”

At the back of the room, a girl with white tips to her choppy hairstyle, a mouth full of pink tissue squares, and hands full of hair nodded so vigorously a few of the tissues flew. “Mmpf,” she said. She wore a pale blue apron with a white badge in the shape of Gabriel blowing his horn over her breast. Angel, it said.

The girl who had greeted them said, “I’m Brandy. Why don’t you sit down and wait here for a minute.” Pretty and young, she curved sweetly enough to guarantee Wish couldn’t take his eyes off her.

“My pleasure,” he said.

She dimpled at him. Wish sat down on a prissy brass-legged bench in front of a window. He picked up a magazine with pictures of women with long hair, short hair, tall hair, wide hair, but he was distracted, watching Brandy walk away. Paul continued to stand while Brandy took the spike-haired blond by the arm and steered her through a pastel curtained doorway in back.

Angel’s the punk star, he thought, making his quick classification. Brandy’s the gentle dreamer. Another woman with an angel badge came rushing out from the back, brandishing a pair of scissors like a relay runner who has just been passed the baton.

“I’ll finish you up,” she told the lady in the front chair with twists of cone-shaped aluminum on her head.

“If I wanted you, Jill, I would have asked for you,” said the lady. Jill smiled, bent over, and gave a vicious yank to a metallic cone.

“Hey!” her client said.

“Oh, I’m so sorry. Did that hurt?” She winked at Paul. “How do you know Angel?” she said a moment later. They could all hear the whispered voices rising from behind the curtain.

“I don’t. Not yet, anyway,” said Paul. “Mind telling me what you’re doing there?”

“Frosting,” she said, then laughed at his expression. “I’m streaking her hair. It brightens up a dull look. Helps transition ladies to gray.”

“You saying my hair’s dull and gray?” asked the client.

“Oh, come on. Would I insult you? You’re one of our best clients,” Jill answered without answering.

“Angel, I don’t have all day,” called the other woman in curlers.

The whispers stopped. Angel came out first, smoothing her apron. She put a hand on the woman’s shoulder, said a few words in a low voice, and walked up to Paul, followed closely by the girl in the skirt. “Follow me, okay?”

“After you,” Wish said. They all squeezed out the door into the walkway right outside the salon. Slot machines pinged all around them.

“Nina’s waiting. We have an appointment set up for you,” Paul said.

The two women looked sick. Brandy said, “Mr. van Wagoner, I don’t know if we can go through with this. We went back to my house in Palo Alto last night and there’s still no sign of Bruce. I’m scared. I don’t think we should tell anyone anything. Maybe Cody kidnapped Bruce!”

“And I’m worried about my family.” Angel bit her lip.

“What should we do?” Brandy asked, agitated. “Tell the police Bruce’s kidnapped? I don’t even want to see the police. I want to stay out of this thing. Maybe he’s fly-fishing somewhere in Alaska for a few days with some client of his who’s got money to burn. That’s more logical, more real. That guy, Cody, why would he go after Bruce anyway?”

“Right! He’d go after us!” Angel said. “He won’t be thinking about my kids and my husband. They’ll be safe because he’ll want me or my sister. We want to hide until they all go away.”

“Where?” Paul asked. “Where would you go?”

Brandy looked at Paul and Wish. “Somewhere only we know.”

Angel shook her head. “I’m so confused. Oh, man, this is the point on TV where people don’t tell the police what they know and get whacked.”

“Nobody’s going to get whacked,” Wish said, horrified. “We’d never let that happen.”

“You have no choice,” Paul told them. “The police can arrest you as material witnesses if you don’t come forward. Believe me. Talking to them is the wise thing to do.”

“Can’t Nina just tell them what we told her?” Brandy asked. “She knows the story.”

“You have to tell the D.A. what you saw,” Paul answered, tired of arguing. “Let’s go.”

“And exactly who are you, anyway?” Brandy asked Wish.

“She sent me to protect you,” Wish said. “Don’t worry.”