Sue Grafton - R is for Ricochet

"Of course. You want to take it up with us?"

He smiled, shaking his head fondly. "Always in a hurry. We have time."

At 1:00 A.M., he gave me the promised haircut, me sitting on a stool in the loft bathroom with a towel draped across my shoulders, Cheney with a second towel wrapped around his waist.

I said, "Most of the time I do this myself with a pair of nail scissors."

"So I see." He worked with ease and concentration, taking off very little hair, but somehow making the whole of it fall together in tidy layers.

I watched his reflection in the mirror. So serious. "Where'd you learn to cut hair?"

"I have an uncle who does this for a living. Salon on Melrose, 'Hair Cutter to the Stars.' Four hundred bucks a pop. I figured if I washed out of police academy I could do this instead. I'm not sure which option was more horrifying to my parents, my becoming a cop or a guy who does women's hair. They're otherwise decent folks, barring the inherent snobbery."

"Last time I had a really good cut, you know who did it?"

"Danielle Rivers. I remember that." Cheney's attention had shifted to the nape of my neck, where he was busy snipping away, trying to even out the line.

Danielle Rivers was a seventeen-year-old hooker he'd introduced me to. He'd recently been transferred to vice, part of the regular rotation system at the police department, while I'd been hired to track down the killer of Lorna Kepler, a beautiful young woman who was caught up in porno films and sex for hire. He'd put me together with Danielle because she and the victim had been cohorts.

I said, "Danielle was appalled when she heard how little I earned – half of what she made. You should have heard her riff on investment strategies, all of which she picked up from Lorna. I wish I'd taken her advice. Maybe I'd be rich."

"Easy come, easy go."

"Remember the sandwiches you bought in the hospital cafeteria the night she was admitted?"

He smiled. "Man, those were bad. Ham and cheese from a vending machine."

"But you added all the stuff that made them edible."

He gave me a hand mirror and kissed me on the top of the head, saying, "All done."

I turned, holding the mirror so I could check the cut in the back. "Oh, wow. It looks good. Thanks." I glanced down at his towel, the two ends of which had parted in front. "I like your friend. Must be showtime and he's popped his head out to check the audience."

Cheney glanced down. "Why don't we go in the other room and see if we can catch his act?"

Eventually we slept, curled together like cats.

Friday morning, we dragged ourselves out of bed at 10:00. We showered and dressed, and then walked over to Cabana Boulevard, where we had breakfast at a little beachside cafe. Cheney didn't have to go to work until later in the day, having been scheduled for another shift in the surveillance van. Back from breakfast, we stood and chatted at the curb until we ran out of things to say. We parted company at noon. He had errands to run and I was ready to be alone. I watched until his little red Mercedes disappeared from sight and then I followed the walkway around to the backyard.

Henry was kneeling in one of his flower beds, where nutgrass was popping up. He was barefoot, wearing cutoffs and a tank top, his flip-flops lying on the lawn nearby. Eliminating nutgrass requires patience. The weed multiplies by way of threadlike roots and tiny black rhizomes that spread underground, so simply yanking the stems free does nothing to the plant's underlying structure, which goes on merrily reproducing. The small pile of weeds Henry had successfully uprooted resembled nothing so much as a cluster of spiders with frail legs and bodies the size of blackened match heads.

"You need help?"

"No, but you can keep me company if you like. There's something satisfying about going after these things. Ugly-looking little buggers, aren't they?"

"Disgusting. I thought you got rid of all the nutgrass this spring."

"Ongoing process. You never really win." He sat back on his heels briefly, then shifted so he could tackle the next section.

I kicked off my tennis shoes and settled in the grass, letting the sunshine wash across my legs. Henry's dark mood had lifted, and while he was still subdued, he seemed almost himself again.

"I see you had company last night," he remarked, without looking at me.

I laughed, feeling the blush begin to mount in my cheeks. "That was Cheney Phillips. STPD. He's a friend of Lieutenant Dolan's," I said, as though that were relevant.

"Nice?"

"Very. We've known each other for years."

"I thought it must be something of the sort. I've never known you to be impulsive."

"Actually, I am. It just sometimes takes me a while to work up to it."

There was a companionable quiet, broken only by the sound of Henry's trowel chunking in the ground.

Finally, I said, "Is Lewis still in town?"

"He flies home tomorrow. I feel better about him, in case you're wondering. I don't want to see him just yet, but we'll work it out in due course."

"What about Mattie?"

"Oh, that's probably for the best. I never expected the relationship to turn into anything serious."

"But it might have."

"'Might' doesn't count for much. I generally find it wiser to deal with what is than with what might have been. Having made it to the ripe old age of eighty-seven without a long-term romance, there's no reason to suppose I'm even capable of such a thing."

"Couldn't you at least call?"

"I could, though I'm not sure what that would accomplish. She made her feelings clear. I have nothing else to offer and nothing much to add."

"What if she called you?"

"That's up to her," he said. "I don't mean to sound like a sad sack. I'm really fine."

"Well, of course you're fine, Henry. It's not like you're crushed because you've dated her for years. On the other hand, I thought you were great together and I'm sorry things didn't work out."

"You were picturing… what?… a little trip down the aisle?"

"William got married at eighty-seven, why not you?"

"He's impetuous by nature. I'm a stick-in-the-mud."

I threw a handful of grass at him. "You are not."

Reba called at 5:00, interrupting what I realized in retrospect was an award-winning nap. I'd stretched out on the bed with my favorite John le Carre spy novel. The light was soft. The temperature was mild and the sheet I'd thrown over me was the perfect weight. Outside I could hear the dim buzz of a lawn mower, followed by the pft-pft-pfi of Henry's Rain Bird, firing jets of water across the newly trimmed grass. Thanks to my sleep deprivation of the past two nights, I sank out of consciousness like a flat stone settling lazily to the bottom of a lake. I don't know how long I might have gone on like that if the phone hadn't rung. I put the handset to my ear and said, "Uh-huh."

"This is Reba. Did I wake you?"

"I greatly fear you did. What's the time?"

"Five minutes after five."

I checked the skylight, squinting in an attempt to determine if the sun was coming up or going down. "A.M. or P.M.?"

"It's Friday afternoon. I was just wondering what you'd heard from your guys."

"Nothing so far. Cheney's currently on surveillance, but I know he's trying to reach his contact in Washington, D.C. It may take a few days to set up the meeting. With so many agencies involved, the protocol's tricky to negotiate."

"I wish they'd get on with it. Beck's back Sunday night. I don't want to have to deal with him if I'm doing this."

"I can appreciate that. Unfortunately, Cheney's dependent on other people and he can only push so hard. Doesn't help we have a weekend coming up."

"I guess. You want to go someplace later? We could have dinner."