Purley called a name that sounded like Joffe, and one of the dicks on a chair by the partition got up and came.
“Yerkes is going to lunch,” Purley told him. “Go along and stay with him.”
“I want to phone my wife,” Tom said resolutely.
“Why not? Stay with him, Joffe.”
“Yes, sir.”
They went, with Tom in front. Purley and I moved out of the way as the customer approached to pay his check and Fickler sidled around behind the cash register.
“I thought,” I said politely, “you had settled for Carl and Tina. Why does Tom have to have company at lunch?”
“We haven’t got Carl and Tina.”
“But you soon will have, the way the personnel feels about cop-killers. Why pester these innocent barbers? If one of them gets nervous and slices a customer, then what?”
Purley merely snarled.