The Inner Circle

28

"Mr. Laurent, your next appointment’s here,” the girl called out from the front of Wall’s Barber Shop, a long narrow shop that held seven barber chairs, all in a single row, with Shoeshine Gary up near the front door and local favorite James Davenport cutting hair in chair one.

Laurent glanced at her from the very last chair in the back, but never lost focus on his current-most vital-client.

“I should get back. It’s late,” Dr. Palmiotti said from the barber chair.

“Don’t you go nowhere. Two more minutes,” Laurent said, pressing the electric razor to the back of Dr. Palmiotti’s neck. Cleaning out the tater patch-that’s what Laurent’s grandfather used to call cleaning the hair on the neck. The very last part of the job.

“So your brother…” Laurent added, well aware that Palmiotti didn’t have a brother. “If he needs help, maybe you should get it for him?”

“I don’t know,” Palmiotti replied, his chin pressed down against his chest. “He’s not that good with help.”

Laurent nodded. That was always President Wallace’s problem.

This close to the White House, nearly every business had at least a few hanging photographs of local politicians who’d helped them over time. Since 1967, Wall’s Barber Shop had none. Zero. Not even the one from Newsweek, of Laurent cutting President Wallace’s hair right before the Inauguration. According to the current owner, in the cutthroat world of politics, he didn’t want to look like he was taking one side over the other. But to Laurent, the blank walls were the cold reminder that in Washington, D.C., when it all went sour, the only person you could really count on was yourself.

“Just be sure to say hello for me,” Laurent said, finishing up on the doctor’s neck. “Tell him he’s in my prayers.”

“He knows that. You know he knows that,” Palmiotti said, trying hard to not look uncomfortable.

Laurent wasn’t surprised. Like most doctors, Palmiotti always had a tough time with faith. Fortunately, he had an easy time with friendship.

With a tug at his own neck, the doctor unsnapped the red, white, and blue barber’s apron and hopped out of the chair in such a rush, he didn’t even stop to check his haircut in the mirror. “You’re a magician, Laurent. See you soon!”

But as Palmiotti was paying the cashier, Laurent looked over and noticed the hardcover book with the bright red writing-A Problem from Hell-that was still sitting on the shelf below the mirror.

Palmiotti was at the cashier. There was still time to return it to him.

Instead, Laurent opened the drawer that held his spare scissors, slid the book inside, and didn’t say a word.

As usual.