“No problem,” he said, rolling his eyes. “Just one thing. No pocket squares, and no ties.”
* * *
Two hours later, Kerry returned to Spammy with a blue-gray Harris tweed sport coat and cashmere scarf from her now favorite vintage clothes dealer, and charcoal-gray slacks and a white dress shirt bought on sale at Bloomingdale’s.
She unpacked her shopping bags for Murphy’s inspection. He gingerly touched the fabric of the sport coat. “Not terrible,” he said.
“Can I make one more teensy suggestion?” she asked.
“Hell no,” he retorted. “I got trees to deliver. Mind the store while I’m gone.”
As soon as Murphy pedaled the bike back into the stand, she pounced.
“You need a haircut,” she said flatly. “The whole ‘work up front, party in the back’ mullet look is history.”
“I was gonna cut my hair before Friday. I even sharpened my scissors.”
“I’m talking about a real haircut. Also, your beard needs trimming. You look like a wooly mammoth.”
Murphy recoiled in genuine horror. “You want me to let a stranger cut my hair and trim my beard?”
“News flash, big bro. There are professionals who do that for a living. And they don’t use pruning shears.”
“Nuh-uh. That’s a slippery slope. Next thing I know, you’ll be wanting me to get a manicure or something. There’s no going back after that.”
Kerry caught his big paw in hers. The skin was dry and calloused, the nails grimy, the cuticles cracked. “These look like the hands of a serial killer,” she said.
He snatched his hand back. “Don’t start.”
She started anyway. “Get a haircut, dude.”
“Fine,” he said, with an exaggerated sigh. “I won’t like it, but I’ll do it.”
She handed him a slip of paper with the name and address of the place Patrick had shared with her.
Murphy read it and scowled. “Salon Stephanie? Is this your idea of a joke? I’m not getting a haircut at some beauty parlor.”
“It’s Salon Stephanè. That’s French for Stephen. Patrick gets his hair cut there. You’ve got an appointment at three Friday, and I pre-paid a deposit, so don’t even think of being a no-show.”
chapter 39
On Thursday, after a mostly sleepless night, Kerry woke up with a sense of dread—cold, gray, damp dread, a reflection of the weather outside the trailer.
Murphy was asleep, facedown in his bunk, but Vic arrived early, eager to make some extra Christmas money. She explained her mission and left him in charge of Queenie and the tree stand, while she set out to look for Heinz.
It had sleeted overnight and partially melted, and within fifteen minutes of sloshing through the melting muck, her shoes were soaked through to the skin.
Her first stop was at a liquor store just down the street. She’d made a sketch of Heinz, and slid it through a slot in the plexiglass window that separated the clerk from the customers.
“Have you seen him lately?”
“Old guy, wears a dusty coat and walks with a cane? Don’t think I seen him lately.”
She ducked into the Red Dragon a few doors down. The girl at the counter had pixie-cut hair and bangs dyed bright blue. She studied the sketch. “I think my grandma knows this man. Hang on.”
The shop’s windows were steamed over with condensation and the place smelled heavenly, like roasting meats, ginger, and garlic.
A moment later, the girl was back with a wizened old woman dressed in a spotless long white apron. She spoke to the woman in what Kerry assumed was Chinese. The woman nodded and answered rapid-fire, finishing with a dramatic miming of coughs.
“She says this is Heinz,” the girl translated. “Always gets the number three combo. Grandma says he was here Saturday, and he coughed a lot. She said you should tell him to come back and she will fix him her special broth.”
Kerry got more discouraged with each stop. Either people didn’t know Heinz, or they recognized him, but hadn’t seen him in at least three days. It was sleeting again, and she pulled the hood of her jacket over her damp hair, shivering and imagining Heinz out in this weather.
Three blocks away, she spotted Salon Stephanè, and an optician’s shop, Owl Opticals, and remembered that Heinz had said he encountered Austin after getting his glasses repaired.
The bell on the door jingled to announce her arrival. The front counter was vacant, but soon a middle-aged man in a white lab coat came bustling from the back room. “Help you?”
“Hi,” Kerry said. “This is going to maybe sound creepy, but I’ve been looking for a man I think might be one of your customers. His name is Heinz?” She produced her sketch.
“Heinz Schoenbaum? He was in here just the other day getting his glasses repaired.”
Kerry felt a glimmer of hope. Now she even had a last name for her elusive friend. “Yes! He told me he’d been here. But I haven’t seen him in a few days, and I’m getting worried.”
The optician crossed his arms over his chest. He was tall and thin, with a shiny bald head, and stylish Elton John–inspired glasses with sparkly oversized frames.
“What’s this all about?” he asked. “Not to be nosy, but what is Heinz to you?”
“He’s a friend. My brother and I run the Christmas tree stand over by the park, and he stops by there every day. Without fail. Until this week. The last time I saw him, he had a terrible cough, and he seemed really run-down.”
“I noticed he seemed under the weather,” the optician admitted.
“If I just knew where he lives, I could stop in and see if he’s okay,” Kerry said, her voice echoing her mounting desperation. “You must have an address for him, right?”
“Sorry, but no way I can share a patient’s private information with you.”
She’d expected that answer, but plunged ahead. “Do you know if he has family locally? Someone who’s looking after him? I swear, I’m not a stalker.”
The optician seemed to waver for a moment, but then shook his head. “All I can tell you is that he’s never talked about family, but then, Heinz isn’t much for idle chitchat.”
Kerry felt like crying, and the optician must have sensed her despair. He stepped over to a desktop computer, muttering as he typed. “I could lose my license for this.”
“I’ll never say a word to anyone,” she whispered. “Cross my heart.”
“No good. The only address I have for Heinz Schoenbaum is a post office box,” he reported, looking up from the computer. “But I can tell you he lives in the neighborhood. Once, after I’d dilated his eyes, I tried to call him a cab, but he wouldn’t hear of it. Then I asked if I could call someone to walk him home, but he said he lived only a few blocks away.”
“Doesn’t really narrow it down,” Kerry said. “Thanks, anyway.” She turned to go.
“Hey, miss,” he called out. “Can you let me know if he’s okay? Heinz has been a customer here for decades. He was my dad’s patient, before he retired.”
“I promise I’ll let you know,” Kerry said.
* * *