I left.
II
The Goldenrod Barber Shop was in the basement of an office building on Lexington Avenue in the upper Thirties. I had been patronizing one of the staff, named Ed, for several years. Formerly, from away back, Wolfe had gone to an artist in a shop on Twenty-eighth Street, named Fletcher. When Fletcher had retired a couple of years ago Wolfe had switched to Goldenrod and tried my man, Ed, hadn’t liked him, had experimented with the rest of the Goldenrod staff, and had settled on Jimmie. His position now, after two years, was that Jimmie was no Fletcher, especially with a shampoo, but that he was some better than tolerable.
Goldenrod, with only six chairs and usually only four of them manned, and two manicures, was no Framinelli’s, but it was well equipped and clean, and anyhow it had Ed, who was a little rough at tilting a head maybe but knew exactly how to handle my hair and had a razor so sharp and slick you never knew it was on you.
I hadn’t shaved that morning and as, at noon, I paid the taxi driver, entered the building, and descended the stairs to the basement, my plan of campaign was simple. I would get in Ed’s chair, waiting if necessary, and ask him to give me a once-over, and the rest would be easy.
But it was neither simple nor easy. A medium-sized mob of white-collar workers, buzzing and chattering, was ranged three deep along the wall of the corridor facing the door of the shop. Others, passing by in both directions, were stopping to try to look in, and a flatfoot, posted in the doorway, was telling them to keep moving. That did not look promising, or else it did, if that’s how you like things. I swerved aside and halted for a survey through the open door and the glass. Joel Fickler, the boss, was at the rack where Carl usually presided, taking a man’s coat to put on a hanger. A man with his hat on was backed up to the cashier’s counter, with his elbows on it, facing the whole shop. Two other men with their hats on were seated near the middle of the row of chairs for waiting customers, one of them next to the little table for magazines. They were discussing something without much enthusiasm. Two of the barbers’ chairs, Ed’s and Tom’s, were occupied. The other two barbers, Jimmie and Philip, were on their stools against the wall. Janet, the other manicure, was not in sight.
I stepped to the doorway and was going on in. The flatfoot blocked me.
I lifted my brows at him. “What’s all the excitement?”
“Accident in here. No one allowed in.”
“How did the customers in the chairs get in? I’m a customer.”