The cool razor slid down my neck. The scent, eyes shut: warm shaving cream on the back of my neck.

Spring air blew in the front door, and out the back.

“That’s about it,” said the barber. I blinked my eyes open; admired the cut.

She was younger than me. Thirty-two I guessed. Fit, and rocking a mullet with a streak of hard pink. Wore a hot pink choker too. The razor hung casually in her hand. This was her third time cutting my hair.

With her free hand, the barber dried my neck with a towel.

“Looks good,” I said, checking myself out.

The barber admired it herself. “An-hour-and-five-minutes good?” She put her wristwatch where I could see.

I flashed her a smile. “We started late.”

“You showed up late.”

Taking the cape off me with one hand, she beat their hair out of her razors, and threw the dirty towel on the far end of her desk with the other.

With a hitch in my right hip, I worked my way up from the old wrought-iron chair. It buckled as I hopped off, but the barber ignored this. Chair wasn’t broken. Chair had character.

The girl led me past the row of chairs, where another four worked on clients in a harsh light that did nothing to illuminate their faces.

A curtain fell into place behind us, and the air took on a smoky quality. I took a seat in one of the two beat-up leather chairs.

She sat down behind the counter, and I asked her how much I owed. When she told me how much, I gave her two twenties over the counter.

“Just give me five back,” I said.

“Thanks.” She flipped through a book of dates. “Six weeks good?”

“Please,” I said, but it came out stiff because I had just noticed a woman in the corner of the room, watching me. Her gaze bored into me, and it flashed through my mind that she might know me, professionally. A cigarette hung in front of her lips, grasped in two fingers.

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The barber got me down for six weeks later, and I think I tipped again— I don’t know how much. I was distracted. Might have been ten dollars. It doesn’t matter. The woman was watching me, and I recognized her.

When I got up to leave, she followed me, and when I stepped out the open front door onto the sidewalk, she locked step with me.

On the street, I relaxed. If things had gone down indoors, things would have ended badly.

She was sixty, but she was fit in a way yoga bands won’t do for you. The cropped denim jacket I’d seen on my way into the hair salon was slung over one shoulder. The other shoulder had a red tattoo.

We were on mainstreet, just before Six, and a couple of warehouses filled our view. Little shops lined the street on both sides, and cars had to push through the stream of pedestrians.

“Got a light?”

I shook my head. “How’d you get a light for that one?”

She dropped the cigarette and stamped it out, no break in her step. “The girl in back lit it for me.”

“They let you smoke in there?”

“Showed her my carry.”

Sure she did. We kept walking. But I wondered what she had under the denim jacket—if it would come into play. I stopped walking.

She faced me. “You know why I’m here.”

“Maybe,” I took a look around. Street was crowded. “Are you here to talk, or—?”

She laughed. “There’s a kid went missing, fifty years ago.”

The job. “You had me until ‘fifty years ago.’ What kind of job—?”

“Before he went missing, his stepfather died and was buried without an autopsy. But his daughter—”

I raised a hand, but she went on.

“His daughter saw what happened.”

“How old was she?”

“Old enough to remember.”

I sighed.

She went on smoking. “A five year old kid isn’t very strong, but his stepdad was sick...”

“You think I’m gonna take this job?”

“I think that kid’s still alive. And Liza, this job is off the market. The client found somebody who’d take the job, but if you and I could solve it first?”

“No.”

“But you’ll think about it?” She insisted and her voice dropped to a whisper. “You and I, we have history. The two of use together could manage it. And if you don’t want my name in your records, we can leave off after that. You won’t hear from me again.”

“It’s that much money, huh?”

“In the right neighborhood, I could retire off it.”

“I’ll think about it.”

She—you don’t need to know her name—She walked away. I knew where to find her.

Thinking things over, I stood a while in the shadow of the brick warehouse. Strikes me I’ve been doing a lot of that lately: standing and thinking. Maybe it’s about time, I thought.