I stayed right up behind him, until I knew for certain he was confident that I'd follow him all the way to Pleasant Garden. Then, as we drove down Eugene Street, moving away from the police station in a lazy zigzag, I cut off, did a U-turn across Battleground, and disappeared up Greene Street.
I knew I had mere seconds to escape, but I had one advantage my northern friend didn't-I knew Greensboro. I knew every little alley and more than that, I had a parking card to the BB amp;T bank building employee parking lot, courtesy of my lease with them for the Curly-Que Salon. While Tony would have to park, dismount, and begin his search, I could evaporate.
I slammed the VW into a basement-level parking slot, ran for the stairs and raced up two flights of steps to the Greene Street exit. I stood just inside the door, peering out for any evidence of Carlucci, and when I was sure he was still circling the garage, I lit out around the corner, past the Carolina Theater, and around the corner to the Curly-Que.
The bell tinkled as I ran inside and Bonnie looked up from her chair by the counter. Velmina was back at the shampoo station, carefully working on a little old lady. Rozetta, the receptionist, was making change for Bonnie's departing customer, an unlit cigarette dangling from her lips.
"Bonnie," I said, dashing over to her. "Help me quick!"
Bonnie's eyes widened. "Maggie, what's wrong?"
Unfortunately, everyone in the salon, with the exception of Velmina's customer, heard me. I had their complete and undivided attention.
"Hide me! A big guy, dressed in black, will probably come busting through that door in two minutes and he can't find me!"
Bonnie's customer turned around. She was a tall, slim woman with blunt-cut, strawberry-blond hair and freckles. When she moved I saw the gun clipped to her belt and the quick way her eyes moved to the door and back to me.
"I'm an intensive parole officer," she said. "You need help?"
Bonnie grabbed my hand and pulled me toward the shampoo station.
"Nah," she said, her voice like tumbling gravel, "this kinda crap goes on all the time. You might oughta hang around, though, just in case it gets interesting. Besides, he might be single." She laughed, choking it off into a smoker's cough.
"Sit down," she said, and threw a huge black cape over my body as she pushed my head back into the bowl of the sink.
"Hey," Velmina said, "he's gonna see her legs and know." Velmina sat her customer up, wrapped her head in towels, and walked over to my chair. "Here, do this." She knelt in front of me, pulled off my shoes and rolled the legs of my jeans up until they were tucked underneath the black vinyl cape. She grabbed a pedicure pan and quickly stuck my feet in the cold water.
"Oh God!" I shrieked. "It's freezing!"
"Can't help that now," Velmina said calmly. "It's all right, dear," she murmured to her now-anxious customer. "Foot problems. Had 'em all her life."
Bonnie dunked me under the warm water and began pouring shampoo onto my head.
Rozetta, not one to be left out, got up and grabbed a tube off the makeup counter.
"He'll see her face! Honestly!" She clacked up beside me in her four-inch stiletto heels and began slathering a thick cream on my face.
Bonnie cackled. "Oh, that's good," she said. "Green goop. Now she looks like a Martian!"
"Great!" I sighed.
"I think it's high time someone changed your look anyway," Bonnie said.
"Why don't we color her hair?" Velmina asked.
The parole officer was watching the door. "Big, black hair, black motorcycle jacket?" she yelled over the din in the salon.
"That's him!"
My heart began to dance up into my throat and my chest tightened. The bell tinkled, the door flew back against the wall, and everyone but Bonnie and Velmina's little old lady jumped.
"Well, son," Bonnie said slowly, "we can all tell you need a haircut, but don't bust the place down trying to get it!"
Rozetta slowly exhaled, placed the last dollop of goo on my face, and turned away. I kept my eyes tightly shut, afraid like the Indian legend that my soul might escape from my body if I inadvertently looked into his eyes.
"Do you have an appointment, baby?" she purred.
"No," Carlucci said, his voice as angry-sounding as I imagined he was. "I'm looking for Maggie Reid."
I heard him walking toward us, pacing and examining.
"You must not know, sugar," Bonnie said. "She don't work here on a day to day basis no more."
His steps drew closer, stopping a few feet away from the shampoo station. "Where is she?" he asked, but it wasn't really a question. It was a command. Produce her. Now.
"Now, honey, I know you were probably attached to her way of doing you, but really, put yourself in our hands, and you'll look every bit as good."
He moved a few steps, pulling open the door to the closet.
"Hey," Bonnie said, "what are you doing?"
His footsteps moved across the floor and I heard the bathroom door open. At the same time I heard the parole officer cross the floor, her flats making an authoritative slap as she walked up behind Carlucci.
"Excuse me, sir," she said.
I don't know because I couldn't see what she did, but I could only assume that she let him see her gun and her badge.
"If you're not here to get your hair cut, and if you don't have an appointment, well then I suggest you-"
"I was just leaving," Carlucci muttered. He crossed the floor, through the waiting area and over to the door. The women beside me held their breath, no one moving, except for Velmina's customer. Velmina's little old lady seemed to wake up out of her shampoo-induced stupor.
"Hey," she sang out, "was you looking for a little redheaded girl?"
Bonnie groaned under her breath.
Carlucci was sugar and spice. "Why, I sure was," he said. "Have you seen her?"
I held my breath, my toes curling in the frigid water.
"No," she said. "I just wondered. I used to have me a little redheaded girl what cut my hair, but she ran off with the circus. Ain't that some shit?"
Velmina laughed, a high-pitched, hysterical shriek of laughter. "No, Mrs. Watkiss, Maggie didn't join the circus. She's a singer."
Mrs. Watkiss belched. "I didn't mean her. I meant this girl I used to know, another redheaded girl. Why, I saw Maggie just-"
"Just last month," Bonnie interrupted. "She did your hair for Brian's wedding."
"That was it," Velmina cooed. "Now here, let me dry you off."
Whatever Mrs. Watkiss would've said was muffled by the thick white towel Velmina used to dry her hair, and Carlucci, sensing defeat, opened the door and stomped out.
For an entire thirty seconds, no one made a sound, until the parole officer called out "All clear!" As soon as she said that, we all screamed, jumping up to high-five each other and dance around the shampoo stand.
Only Bonnie seemed restrained. When I noticed this, I stopped and looked at her, our eyes locking. "Okay," she said, "what's all this about?"
The others stopped too, but Bonnie was having none of it. "Me and Maggie are going to have a little powwow," she said. "Velmina, you go on with your customer. And Charlene, I'll call you. Thanks for sticking around. The next cut's on me." Then she turned to Rozetta. "Good thinking with that face cream, but did you really have to crack open the hundred-dollar jar of Egyptian mud?"
Rozetta batted her long, fake lashes. "A crisis is a crisis. Besides, we get it wholesale for twenty bucks. Don't worry, I won't let it go to waste!"
Bonnie sighed as Rozetta walked away. "I got dogs smarter than that young'un," she said. "If she wasn't Mark's girlfriend, she'd be out of here."
"Now, Bon, you gotta admit that the cream idea was pretty darn slick." I pulled a tissue from its box and began wiping the gunk off of my face.