the dining-room chairs in the middle of them. “Sit here,” I said. She sat down, looking quite pleased and happy.

The radio was turned on, playing music. “Was there any news while I was gone?” I asked.

She glanced up at me. “Oh, yes. Wasn’t it in the papers?”

“What?” I demanded. “For God’s sake, what?”

“That deputy sheriff’s condition is improving, and they say he’ll probably recover.”

I sat down weakly and lit a cigarette, the haircutting forgotten. I hadn’t realized how bad the pressure had really been until now that it was gone. I hadn’t killed any cop. The heat was off me. Even if they caught us, they could only get me for rapping him on the head. Of course, there was still the matter of Diana James, but that was different, somehow. I hadn’t actually done that. She had. And Diana James wasn’t a cop.

“Has he recovered consciousness yet?” I asked.

“No, but they expect him to any time.”

“There’s one thing, though,” I said. “He recognized you, remember?”

“Yes,” she said carelessly. “I know.”

“That part won’t help,” I said, wondering why she was so unconcerned about it.

“Oh, well, they seem to be certain enough that I was there anyway,” she said. “His identification won’t change anything.”

I should have begun to catch on then, but I fumbled it. The roof had to fall in on me before I realized why the news about that deputy sheriff made her so happy.

“Well, Pygmalion,” she said, “shall we commence? I’m quite eager to begin life as Susie Mumble.”

I was digging through the pile of women’s magazines. “There’s more to it than a haircut,” I said. “You have to learn to talk like Susie.”

“I know. Just don’t rush me, honey.”

I jerked my face around and stared at her. She was smiling.

“You catch on fast,” I said.

“Thanks, honey. I’m tryin’ all the time.” She had even dropped her voice down a little, into a kind of throaty contralto purr. I was conscious of thinking that her husband and Diana James and even the police force had been outnumbered from the first in trying to outguess her.

I found the magazine I was looking for, the one that had several pages of pictures of hair styles. Some of them were short-cropped and careless, and they looked easy. I had a hunch, though, that they weren’t that easy.

She was sitting upright in the chair, waiting. I folded the magazine open at one of the pictures and put it on the coffee table where I could see it and use it for a guide. I looked from it to Madelon Butler. The long dark hair just brushed her shoulders.

She glanced down at the picture and then at me with amusement. “You won’t find it that simple,” she said. “Carelessness is very carefully planned and executed.”

“Yes, I know,” I said. I took the scissors out of the bag and went into the bathroom for a towel and comb. I put the towel around her shoulders, under the cascade of hair. “Hold it there,” I said.

She caught it in front, at her throat. “You’ll make an awful mess of it,” she said. “But remember, it doesn’t matter. The principal thing is to get started, to get it cut, bleached, and waved. Then as soon as my face is tanned I can go to a beauty shop and have it repaired. I’ll just say I’ve been in Central America, and cry a little on their shoulders about the atrocious beauty shops down there.”

“That’s the idea,” I said. I pulled the comb through her hair, sighted at it, and started snipping. I cut around one side and then stood off and looked at it.

It was awful.

It looked as if she’d got caught in a machine.

“Let me see,” she said. She got up and went into the bathroom and looked in the mirror. I went with her. She didn’t explode, though. She merely sighed and shook her head.

“If you were thinking of hair dressing as a career—”

“So it doesn’t look so hot. I’m not finished yet.”

“All right,” she said. “I’ll tell you what you’re doing wrong. Don’t cut straight across as if you were sawing a plank in two. Hold the comb at an angle and taper it. And let each bunch of hair slide a little between the blades of the scissors so it won’t be chopped off square.”

We went back and I tried again. I’d left it plenty long intentionally so the first two or three runs at it would just be practice. I cut the