Midnight Madness

One of them honed in on Nicky’s orange spandex pants. The other one honed in on Shirlie’s twenty-two-year-old breasts.

Marly gaped at The Hammer. “What—are you doing here?”

“I thought I’d just stop by to see if you had time to—“

“I’m all booked up,” said Marly. “Sorry.”

“Actually,” said the ever-helpful Shirlie, “you had a cancellation at two, and, as you can see, Deirdre is more than ten minutes late, so you could take him now.”

“Fabulous,” said the governor with a smile that would have had Mother Teresa on her back within ten seconds. He stuck out his hand. “I don’t believe we’ve met. I’m Jack.”

“I know who you are!” gushed Shirlie. “Ohmigod, you’re twenty-times-better-looking-than-on-television! Sometimes the makeup’s too heavy and the color’s off and they make you look orange, know what I mean? And close-up shots with that gooky powder can be soooo gross, right? Anyway, I’m Shirlie! Welcome to After Hours, the salon and day spa!”

“Er, thank you, Shirlie,” said Jack.

“So do you like public speaking, or does it bother you? I just hate public speaking.” Shirlie babbled. “My palms sweat and I shake and I always wonder if I have lipstick on my teeth or mascara smeared under my eyes or my bra strap is hanging out. You?”

“Well, I don’t have those particular, uh, issues, but I do know what you mean.”

“Ohh! I wasn’t trying to say you’re a drag queen or anything, you know? I mean, that would be pretty funny, The Hammer with his bra strap hanging out, ha, ha, ha!”

“Ha,” agreed Jack, politely. He cast an alarmed look at Marly.

“Did someone say drag queen?” Nicky skipped up.

“No.” Marly was emphatic.

“I could have sworn someone said it!”

“Governor, if you’ll follow me into one of the spa treatment rooms, we’ll use that so you have privacy.” She shot him a tight smile and put her hand on his shoulder to steer him back there. The two secret service apes lunged forward, one with his hand in his jacket.

Her eyes wide, Marly said, “I specialize in color, not assassination or recreational kidnapping.”

They didn’t crack a smile, but The Hammer did. “It’s okay, boys. I tried to tell you, that really was art camp she attended in her junior year of high school—not an Al Qaeda training program. All she can do is draw me.”

Dear God. They really had done a background check—a thorough one. They knew about…Suddenly furious, she said in clipped tones, “Wouldn’t I have murdered him yesterday morning, boys, scissors to the jugular, if I had such festive plans?”

She turned on her heel and marched away, wishing that her rubber flip-flops would bang across the floor instead of whisper silently.

“Temper, temper,” Nicky murmured before she was out of earshot.

“Ohmigod,” said Shirlie. “She is so, so, kidding around. I mean, she’s not violent. I heard her be really rude to a telemarketer once, but honestly, that doesn’t count. They call at the worst possible times, don’t you think? And they’re so pushy.”

“Yes,” Jack said. “I think I’ll just…go get my color done, now. Thanks.”

Marly heard his wingtips clip-clopping across the cement floor, walking on her painted water. And then he was in the doorway, his eyes on her face. The security detail had followed, of course. “Can we leave Frick and Frack outside for a moment?” she asked.

Jack turned his head. “Frick? Frack? Do you mind?” Then he stepped inside and shut the door behind him.

“I’m sensing a definite hostility here,” he said. “Should I have called for an appointment?”

“Yes,” said Marly. “But that’s not the point. The point is that I didn’t give you permission to dig into my background. It makes me angry and uncomfortable.”

He nodded. “I’m sorry. It’s just SOP, I’m afraid. Standard operating procedure.”

“Why? I didn’t come asking for the job—you picked my face out of a magazine! And now those goons probably know the first boy I kissed and the brand of my underwear.”

He opened his mouth to say something and then apparently thought better of it. “Would you rather I left, Marly? The last thing I want is to make you angry.”

The governor is apologizing to me. Me, Marly Fine, hairdresser. How weird is this?

She gave a fierce yank to her braid and then tossed it behind her shoulder. “No. I don’t want you to leave.” Alejandro would kill her. And…she was curious. She might as well admit it. There was a certain level of intrigue to this situation.

“Good. Because I really don’t want to.” Jack smiled that drawer-dropping smile of his. She could feel his sex appeal tugging at her own drawers. God, the guy could be president one day, elected by a vast turnout of howling women in heat.

“Would it make it up to you at all if I told you the first girl I kissed, or the brand of my underwear?”

She made a sound of exasperation.

“Her name was Teresa Miller, and we were twelve. And it’s Neiman Marcus.”

Great. I really needed to know that he wears designer—

“Boxers, by the way.”

—boxers. She held up a hand, palm out. “Too much information.”

She pulled over a hard plastic chair from the corner, and patted the seat of it. “Sit.”

“I can’t roll over, instead?” But he did as she asked.

“Do you want to stay gray near the temples or go more silvery?”

“Silver sounds great.”

“Okay. Then I’m going to go and get the supplies I need to mix the color for you. Can you keep Frick and Frack under control while I do that? I’ve never poisoned anyone by hair follicle yet—still practicing.”

He grinned.

She opened the door, said, “Don’t shoot,” and walked right past the goons. Their expressions were as deadpan as those of the Queen’s Guard. All they needed were some tall dead animals on their heads like their British counterparts and they were good to go.

She mixed her color in a plastic bowl and took it, with a paintbrush, back to the room where she’d stashed the governor. They squinted at the bowl of gook suspiciously.

“Would you like to test it for explosives?” Marly asked. “Sniff it? It smells really nice.”

Frick exchanged a glance with Frack that probably meant, in security-detail speak, that he’d love to crush her windpipe so she couldn’t mouth off anymore. She flashed him a lovely smile and shut the door again in their faces.

“Did you paint the mural in this room?” The Hammer asked. “It’s great. Very…whimsical.”