“Girl,” Avery tells me half an hour later. “Your own mother wouldn’t know
you.”

“Yeah, well, she never did,” I mutter but have to admit Angelo has done
quite a job on me.

“I look like a high priced ‘ho.”

“You look like a rock star. Now put some clothes on to go with that hair
and makeup and let’s go find your girlfriend.”

“Did I say I was going?” I ask, but there’s not a lot of force behind it
and she grins at me.

“Yeah, but you didn’t say you weren’t. And since the bad guys don’t know
me or my car and wouldn’t know you if you walked up and kissed them that
whole ‘protecting her’ thing is now bunk.”

I cut my eyes to the side and meet hers in the mirror and then turn slowly
around.

“What?” she demands. “Do you think I’m stupid?”

“It’s not just her though. I mean, she’s a cop. She’s armed. She knows
the people too and she knows the risks. But Magda, the one she’s staying
with…she’s got a kid.”

“Yeah? And she’s a cop too, right? She’s probably got guns in every room
and an alarm system and she’s from the Mission. We’re born smart here.”

“And with very good hair,” Angelo adds.

If he’s succeeded in making me look like I might go on tour with the Dixie
Chicks, he has turned himself into a thinner, eye-liner- wearing- Antonio
Banderas.

“It’s not just that,” I say, avoiding her eyes.

“Oh yeah. I remember,” she says, running a finger along the side of her
face in thought, gazing up at the ceiling and swaying slightly. “You’re an
emotional chicken shit too. So what? You think that’s some amazing big
deal you get to look all haunted and tortured over? For fuck’s sake~~ stop
running. Go talk to her. I saw that email. She deserves it. So suck it
up and fucking go do it.”

I sigh hard and then look up at Angelo, who is poised, eyes wide as if
fearful I’m going to start screaming again. I smile at him and pat his
shoulder reassuringly.

“I think you should do Avery,” I tell him, “Doesn’t she deserve a make over
too, Angelo?”

“Do me, baby,” Avery tells him, winking.

“She’s exquisite as it is; it won’t take near as much work,” he murmurs.

“Gee, thanks,” I say sarcastically and he blinks long lashes barely brushed
with mascara at me, clearly confused.

“Never mind.” I pat his shoulder gently. “Where did you say your meds
were? Coat pocket, right?”

I dig the small brown plastic vials out and eye the labels. Risperdol and
Thorazine.

Oh goody.

“This is some heavy duty shit, dude. They don’t give you this for ADHD.”

“Oh,” he says calmly, delicately sweeping blush across Avery’s already
magnificent cheekbones while she pouts her lips out at herself in the
mirror trying not to giggle. “I’m a paranoid schizophrenic.”

“Ah. That’ll do it,” I say trying to hide my alarm as I turn away.

“Yes,” he says tranquilly. “Those pills are only for when my hair is very,
very dirty though.”

“Hmm. And what about if you wake up and you just have a bad hair day? Or
what if you have to wear a cap and you have hat hair for an hour or
two? What do they give you then?”

He thinks, frowning, then reaches for the dark gray tube of L’Oreal Le
Grand Curl mascara. “I don’t know. They were very small and green. An
ugly green,” he repeats, shuddering. “A sort of grassy pale chartreuse
bordering on aqua.”

“Yuck,” Avery and I both say together and I can see exactly what she’s
thinking as our eyes meet in the mirror again.

“How long has it been since you had the green ones, Angelo?” she asks him
and he shrugs, shaking his head.

“It’s been several shampoos ago.”

“But you’re really, really calm right now Angelo,” Avery says. “That his
name on there?”

The last was to me and I nod. “And this address, Angelo? Where is this?”

“That’s the shelter I stay in when they have room.”

“What doctor gave you these and told you you’re schizophrenic?”

“He was in a hospital they took me to once. This horrible man vomited in
my hair. I went crazy.”

“Well, who wouldn’t,” Avery tells him, patting him consolingly on one leg.

“It was disgusting. I hit him with a chair. And then I threw him out a
window.”

“I’d have shot him,” I assure him, in my little corner fortress which is
now feeling ridiculously unnecessary and rather melodramatic. “Did the
same doctor give you the ugly green pills?”

“Oh no,” he says, pausing for a moment to carefully work a stray curl back
behind one ear. “That was another doctor years ago.”

S’Phear has been conspicuously off line the entire day. The message beside
his name in MSN messenger tells me he’s out to lunch; earlier it had said
he was unavailable. There’s nothing new from him in the window and I sigh
and jam a hand up through my hair in exasperation, eliciting a shriek of
alarm from Angelo.

”Oops,” I apologize.

I check for a dial tone on the new no-contract cellular I've purchased, punch in the code

to access their system, then dial Legaspi’s number for the second time in two days.

“Don’t faint or anything,” I tell her when she answers. “It’s me
again. Are you busy right now?”

“I’ve got a patient here, yes. We’ll be done in another fifteen
though. Why?”

“I need a psych consult.” I pause and add, “Not me.”

“Darn,” she says lightly. “Can you get them here or do I need to meet you
at a hospital?”

It occurs to me that someone might be watching the house and office still
and I hesitate.

She misreads my hesitation and asks, “Is this person violent?”

Two people they don’t know, a vehicle they’ve never laid eyes on and me
with brilliant red hair and ‘ho makeup; just people showing up in front of
an office for an appointment~~

“Have you noticed anyone parked on your street or driving by over and over?”

“No,” Legaspi says calmly. “Except of course for Jinny and Magda and Kate
who apparently have appointed themselves our personal body guards and think
we’re helpless. Is this person violent? Do I need to have a uniform here
or possibly a tranquilizer ready?”

“Not unless you plan on puking on his head,” I assure her.

I make Avery drive down two cross streets before we turn to actually
approach the house, trying to make certain there are no suspicious vehicles
or joggers before we actually pull to a stop and get out.

“The only thing suspicious on this street is us, Cooper, going down every
fucking side street,” Avery says, rolling her eyes.

“Well, but see how I’m looking down at this piece of paper and then looking
around? It’s like we’re looking for the right address because we’ve never
been here before.”

“Ooooh,” she says, eyes wide. “Cop shit. Top secret cop shit.”

“God, you just love to give me crap, don’t you?”

“Yes. Yes, I do. Because it’s obvious that not enough people have given
you crap in your life otherwise you wouldn’t be so damn cocky and obnoxious
and arrogant.”

“I think she probably would be,” Angelo says from the back seat.

“Hey now, you’re supposed to be on my side,” Avery tells him in the rear
view mirror, grinning. “Remember, she was kicking our asses out of that
motel room not three hours ago. And let me tell you right now,” she adds
looking at me over the top of her small mirrored shades, “If you ever try
to tell me anything remotely similar to that bullshit again? I am slapping
you so hard you’ll go bald.”

“Oh, no!” Angelo exclaims horrified.

“Oh, yes.”

“Kinda harsh, don’t you think?”

“Harsh my ass. You were jumping up and down on the bed screaming at us
like some kind of irate blonde Nazi, finger pointing and everything~~ You
know why I live at home? I mean, do you think I never left and I just sit
around and mooch off my dad?”

I wisely decide to remain silent and stare out the rear window at a silver
mini van that has made the last turn with us and is running really close to
our rear bumper.

“I moved out when I was eighteen, got an apartment with two other girls and
I had a good job, a good job in Los Angeles as a legal secretary. And then
my mama got sick. Breast cancer. And I moved home because she couldn’t
take care of the twins and do her chemo and radiation and that ‘ho Maylene
had disappeared again so Trevor was working three jobs to make it. Trent
was only a sophomore in high school and Poppy~~ he sacks groceries at a
Market thirty hours a week on top of his job as a pastor~~ he couldn’t
work and take care of them and Mama. And then she died and I couldn’t
leave. And then Trevor was killed. I have responsibilities.”

I clear my throat uncomfortably and see the van behind us has turned into a
driveway. I half turn and see the garage door going up and lean back,
relaxing.

“I’m sorry,” I say and I am.

“Well, you should be. Nasty thing for you to say.” She leans and pats me
on one knee kindly. “’Course now that I know it’s because you’re just a
big ol’ woosy pussy~~”

She bursts out laughing at the look I give her.

“Can you just tell me which one it is now? Or do we have to go buy some
camouflage and trot up and down rolling under hedges?”

“We can go now. It’s that one there.”

“What? That pink thing?”

“Hideous, isn’t it?”

“Horrifically so,” she agrees and looks at Angelo in the rear seat. “Can
you handle that pink, Angelo?”

He’s staring at it wincing, clearly in deep psychic distress. He swallows
and rubs his hands down both thighs.

“I’ll try,” he says doubtfully. “It is nauseating, though.”

“Absolutely,” I agree and get out, opening the rear door for him. “What
color would you call that, Angelo?”

“Pepto-Bismol,” he says weakly, one hand over his mouth.

“Yeah. That’s what I thought too.”

Legaspi is standing on the other side of the glass door as we walk down the
sidewalk and approach the front porch. She has the expectantly pleasant
expression one dons when confronting total strangers walking up to a place
of business; it’s clear she does not realize it’s me.

She opens the door with an amiable smile, prepared to introduce herself,
hand extended and I take it, shaking it as I grin and say, “I see you lost
the wrist cast.”

“Coo~” she starts, then stops, blinking and shakes my hand
energetically. “Yes. Just yesterday.”

“This is Avery,” I say, “And this is Angelo.”

She extends her hand for him to shake but he bends elegantly and brushes a
kiss across the back, in absolute visibly ecstatic raptures.

“Oh,” he says reverently.

Legaspi’s eyes widen and cut to mine.

“He is loving your hair,” I tell her.

Angelo wiggles like a puppy, beaming. “It is incredible!”

“Oh,” she says, recovering smoothly. “Thank you.

“It is magnificent!”

“Thank you. Again. I think it’s too curly, myself.” She pulls at the
loosely gathered pony tail on her neck, smiling brightly.

“No, no~~ It’s perfection. It’s not just ‘perfect’. It is perfection.”

“Now tell her about the color of this house,” I interrupt him as he’s
clearly about to start rhapsodizing further.

“Oh,” he says, voice dropping into despair, shoulders suddenly drooping.

Legaspi’s face mirrors his sadness as she watches and she sighs and reaches
for one of his hands and pats it, leading him inside.

“I know. It’s dreadful. How do you feel about green for it instead?”

He brightens immediately; “A teal? Or more of a spruce?” and then
shuddering, “Not chartreuse. Please, not chartreuse.”

“Oh God, no,” Legaspi says, slightly appalled. “I was thinking something
in the teal family, yes…”

Avery winks at me and holds her hand up for me to high five. We duck
inside where Legaspi is maneuvering Angelo into the sitting area of the
office. She glances up at us and then waves towards the back yard.

“Let Angelo and I visit for a bit and then we’ll join you outside. There’s
lemonade or iced tea in the fridge there. Help yourselves.”
 

She joins us in perhaps forty five minutes. I’m in the hammock and half
asleep; it’s an actually halfway decent sunny warm day and I’m soaking it
up like a lizard while Avery lounges back on a lawn chair, face tilted up
to the sun, lemonade glass propped on her thigh in a slack hand.

“Well?” I ask looking up when Legaspi’s six foot shadow blocks my sunlight.

“Well,” she says sinking down on the grass. “I don’t feel I should venture
a diagnosis on the basis of one interview but I can’t say I see him as
being terribly dangerous or even drastically mentally ill.”

“Not paranoid schizophrenic?”

“I doubt it. Unless he’s heavily medicated at the moment.” She looks up
and I shake my head, then dig the pill bottles out of my back pocket.

“I should have given you these to begin with but I didn’t want to spook
him. He’s not real clear on the last time he had any but it sounds like at
least a week or two. And where is he anyway?”

“He’s using the phone to call his mother,” she says absently, reading the
labels on the prescriptions, smooth forehead wrinkled in an annoyed
frown. “I should have known,” she says rolling her eyes. “Just like
Carlisle to over medicate. Christ! Thorazine and Risperdol.”

His mother. I’m surprised at the pang that flashes through me. I can’t
tell if it’s jealousy that he has one to call or if it’s some bizarre
feeling of being slighted because he needs to call her… I mean, who got him
off the street, bought him clothes, cleaned him up and set him loose with
hair dye? Who let him put make up on?

I clear my throat frowning. “Yeah. Heavy duty shit. So you don’t see any
sign of psychosis?”

“Well, he’s eccentric, certainly. There’s some form of
obsessive-compulsive disorder and what feels to me like some low level
functioning autism… But schizophrenic? No. I wouldn’t think so. He
might be bi-polar. Has he been violent, said anything about hearing
voices, anything about people out to get him, following him? Has he said
anything that would make you think he’s a schizophrenic? Because you’ve
dealt with them. You’d recognize it.”

I can feel Avery’s eyes on me and I shrug, feeling freaked out before
remembering Legaspi has read my file and there’s obviously a great deal in
it.

“No, he’s just… odd. He’s obsessed with colors and hair but other than
that…” I hesitate, digging at a torn cuticle on one thumb. “He doesn’t
have that look, you know, that glazed, hunted scary thing in the
eyes. Haunted. Vacant. His skin is clear~~ He wasn’t even terribly dirty
for being a street person. He doesn’t have that smell.” I look up at her
and ask, “You know that smell? Schizophrenics have a smell.”

She nods, plucking at grass. “It’s a combination of bad hygiene and
medication.”

I refuse to look at Avery as I sit up.

“I don’t know. I think they have a smell, just them. It’s like sour
metal, hot wires and sour metal someway. So you don’t think he needs that
shit?”

She shakes her head, shrugging slightly. “I think Carlisle prescribed it
because he’s hired by the County to supply medication for these homeless
shelters under some sort of contract although they recycle a lot of their
medications off John Does, unclaimed bodies. They don’t want to mess with
these people. They want them quiet and doped up and preferably
unconscious. Any time one of them gets loud, upset, disorderly… they shoot
them up or hand them pills. It’s not really the shelters fault. They
can’t counsel everyone that walks in and needs a bowl of soup and a place
to sleep. And if the person causes problems too many times they refuse to
take them at all, so someone just giving him drugs is a kindness in a
way. But it means their real problems are never dealt with.”

“Where’s his mother?” I ask her and she waves a vague hand southward.

“San Diego.”

“She coming to get him?”

There’s a little flicker in her eyes at my words and I can feel my own
brows swooping downwards in a frown, because of course I heard the slight
sound of sulkiness in my voice too.

“I don’t know. I just asked him if there might be someone worried about
him, someone he’d like to let know that he was alright…”

I nod and she rocks backwards, lifting a knee and lacing her fingers around
it, then winces slightly and rubs at her mended wrist distractedly.

“So what’s with the hair? You in disguise?”

“Yep. As a ‘ho. Does it work for me?”

“Oh, yeah. I like it. “

“It still hurts?” I ask after a couple of minutes during which she has
continued to absently rub at her arm.

“Just a little. What are you going to do with Angelo?”

I blink. “Do with him?”

“You know… are you doing to drop him off at a shelter, do you want me to
see if I can get him admitted somewhere… that kind of thing.”

I look at her, stumped. “I was just going to take him back to the motel
with me.”

Legaspi nods, chewing a corner of her lip in thought.

“You know, I can’t tell you he’s not psychotic on the basis of one
appointment. There’s family history I’d need, medical records~~ I can run
him through some data bases, see if he’s ever been admitted for anything
violent, ever been a mental institution at all although he said he hasn’t.”

“So... what are you saying, here? That you don’t recommend I give him a
bed and food?”

She shakes her head, sighing. “That’s not what I’m saying at all,
Cooper. I’m saying this is a guy who told me he met you beside a dumpster
outside a convenience store drinking beer just four or five hours ago. I
just don’t know if this is a good idea for either one of you and I don’t
want to piss you off, but I have to say it. You brought him here. To me.
That gives me the prerogative to say it.”

I grimace, wrinkling up my nose and look at Avery for back-up.

She lifts her hands and shakes her head and says, “Don’t stick me in
there. Leave me out of this part.”

“Chicken.”

“Asshole.”

“Twat.”

“Prick.”

We’re grinning happily and giggling when Legaspi clears her throat.

“I hate to interrupt this charming discussion, but seriously, Cooper. What
were you planning on doing with him?”

“I thought I’d run him, make sure he’s not wanted,” I lie and when she
snorts and looks upward shaking her head I stop.

“What?”

“You’re not going to run him because what are you going to do if he is
wanted? You couldn’t turn him in for what he’d face in jail anymore than
you could run over a dog or a kitten.”

“If you did you’d just bail his ass out, so save the money,” Avery puts in,
chuckling.

“You’re staying out of it, remember?” I demand and then ask, without
looking at Legaspi, “So what would you recommend then? Since I brought him
here and something about prerogative, blah blah blah.”

I wave a hand around and she puts her head back and laughs.

“Christ, you’re a piece of work… What would I do with him? Hmm. Well,
I’d take him down to Kerry and get tests run on him; blood screens, check
him for HIV, VD, STD’s, Hep, all that good stuff, see if he has any
chemicals in his blood stream, try to check for prior admits on him, see if
anyone at the ER and Psych Services recognizes him, has worked with him in
the past or seen him…”

“And then?”

She sits up and shakes her head. “I don’t know.”

“Bullshit. “ I say standing up, grinning down at her. “You left him in
your house and he’s using your phone to call his mommy. We both know you’d
find him a place. So, you know…” I clear my throat uneasily and find
myself fidgeting, so I shove my hands in my pockets.

“So…?” She looks bemusedly expectant, smiling slightly, waiting for it.

“Help me. Help me get him somewhere.”

Her grin is brilliant and ecstatic. I look at Avery and roll my eyes,
shaking my head.

“Now, did that hurt?”

“Yes, actually. It gave me a pain right~~” I turn around and extend a hand
behind me and point, “~~here.”


END OF FIFTY SIX