by Mike Faricy
We chatted for a couple of minutes. Taylor clearly enjoyed his afternoon at school. Halfway through the meal, I remembered the notebooks I got and said, “Hang on a second. I picked something up today.” I hurried out to the front room and grabbed the bag then went back into the kitchen. “Not sure you can use these. It’s more from my era, but I got you some notebooks and pens for homework or whatever. I suppose, in today’s world, everything’s on a computer.”
“Oh, thanks, this is great, Dev. I can use these, honest. I always leave my computer in my locker at school because, well, I don’t know where exactly I’ll end up at night, and if it got stolen, I’d be in big trouble.”
“You can bring it home here. I promise not to steal it.”
“Yeah, I know you won’t.”
“Only because I probably couldn’t figure out how to turn the thing on, let alone do anything on it. Now, you have any plans for tonight?”
He gave a sad smile and said, “No one wants to hang around with a guy like me.”
“Well, I think it’s time we start letting them know what they’ve been missing. You remember those girls going to Inkredible, the tattoo place.”
“Yeah, Ramona Williams and her friends. I told you, everyone at school was talking about it.”
“Right, so I talked to Dennis this afternoon. He’s the owner of the place. I’m going to head down there in a bit and see him. I wondered if you might want to come along.”
“But aren’t the girls going to be down there?”
“We’ll be down there before they will, and we’ll leave when they arrive. Here’s my thought, The girls will see you there and just might spread the word back at school that you’re Mister Cool. You gotta work these angles, Taylor.”
“Won’t they think I’m following them?”
“No, because you’re going to be Dennis’s pal, and it’ll look like a coincidence that they arrived just as you were leaving.”
He seemed to think about that for a long moment, and then a smile spread across his face. “Yeah, let’s do that.”
We parked right in front of Inkredible and walked in. A female artist with sky blue hair was working a tattoo pen on a woman’s leg. The two women were carrying on a casual conversation as the artist slowly worked her way up the leg. I glanced over, focused on the process for a brief moment, and had to look away. Taylor seemed to be fascinated and stared, or maybe he was just admiring the leg.
“Hey, Dev, long time no see,” Dennis said, stepping through the beaded curtain hanging over the doorway. He was wearing cowboy boots, starched jeans with a crease, and a long sleeve shirt. The sleeves on the shirt were rolled up, exposing two muscled arms and a lot of artwork.
“Dennis, great to see you. This is my pal, Taylor. Taylor, this is Dennis Richards. He’s the man in charge.”
“Taylor, nice to meet you,” Dennis said, shaking hands. “Why don’t you guys come on back to my office, and we can chat.”
We followed Dennis through the beaded curtain and down a hallway with framed images of tattoo artwork. “Grab a seat, fellas,” Dennis said as he sat in the high-back leather chair behind his desk. The walls in the office were covered with more framed images of tattoo artwork.
“Dennis, did you do all this artwork?” I asked, looking around the room.
“Oh, some of it. It’s what I loved to do. As a matter of fact, it’s what actually got me into the business. But, being a business, and my business, I don’t have the time to do artwork anymore. Now Taylor, Dev mentioned on the phone that you’re in school with the girls that are coming down here tonight. What can you tell me about them?”
“Oh, well, I mean, we go to the same school, but I don’t really know them. I just sort of know who they are, but we never talk or anything.”
“You know this Ramona?”
“I know who she is, but that’s all.”
“Well, she seems pretty nice. I enjoyed talking with her. I guess she got the other three girls involved, and they’ll be coming down tonight and asking me all sorts of questions. Dev, I guess it would be kind of like talking to a movie star for them,” Dennis said and laughed.
“Yeah, a horror movie star.”
“Some days, that’s not far from the truth.”
“So, Dennis, if you’re not doing the artwork, who is? You said Ramona gave you a bunch of new ideas.”
“Yeah, now I just have to find someone to come up with the sketches. Tough work, and on a normal day, we just don’t have the time. It may not look like it now, but that’s only because it’s Friday night. We’ll be jammed all day tomorrow with walk-ins. During the week, we have to schedule appointments. We’re open until ten. Friday night is our slow night, and we close at eight, just to take a break. Don’t get me wrong. That’s not a complaint. I’m blessed to have the right kind of problems.”
“What images did Ramona suggest?” Taylor asked.
“She had some pretty general ideas, but they were good, the usual, butterflies, dragons, lions, skulls, you know that kind of stuff. The key is the new design. I just have to try to find someone to come up with new designs.”
“Would it be okay if I tried to come up with some designs for you?”
“You? Why are you interested in tattoos?”
“Not so much. I mean, I like them and all. I just don’t think I want one. But I’d love to try to create some artwork for you. I’ve had some art lessons, and my uncle is a painter.”
Dennis seemed to think about that for a moment then spun around in his desk chair and grabbed something off the credenza behind him. “Here’s a sketch pad and some colored pencils. We call this ‘Flash art.’ The sheets in this tablet are eleven by fourteen. Figure maybe five or six images on a sheet. Sketch it out first and experiment on other paper. This paper is strictly for your final design. If I like your design, I’ll pay you for it. Okay?”
“Yeah, okay. Thank you, Mister Richards. I’ll get on this right away.”
“You can call me Dennis, please. Now, be prepared. I’m going to turn some and maybe all your images down. It happens to all of us. Don’t let that discourage you. It’s happened to me a half-million times. It’s part of the business. Got it?”
“Yes, sir.”
Dennis smiled at that just as the woman with sky blue hair poked her head in the office and said, “Dennis, sorry to interrupt, but there are four girls out front to see you. They said they had an appointment.”
“Okay. Tell them I’ll be right out, Stacey. You have any questions, Taylor?”
“No, I’ll get on this right away, Dennis. Thank you so much.”
“Dev, you’ve been rather quiet. Any questions?”
“No, Dennis, thanks for the info and for taking the time to see us.”
“My pleasure. Let me walk you guys out. I think it might be a good idea if we mention you’ll be doing some design work, Taylor. Trust me, no one knows better than Dev and me about girls who don’t want to be around us.”
Taylor got a nervous look on his face. Dennis gave me a wink, and we walked out to the front room. The girls were seated on a bench along the front window. They looked up from their cell phones as Dennis continued chatting with us, and their eyes grew wide at the sight of Taylor.
“Once again, Taylor, thank you for taking the time and offering to help us. We’ll be very interested in the new images you come up with. Dev, good to see you. We’ll be in touch.”
“Thanks, Dennis,” Taylor said then nodded at the girls and said, “Hi.”
I gave Dennis a long handshake and said, “Thanks so much, Dennis.”
He smiled, turned toward the girls, and said, “Ladies, come on back and let’s talk.”
Outside, Taylor jumped up and down and pumped his arm. “Oh, Dev, that was so cool. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.”
“Yeah, it went a lot better than I could have hoped. You doing some sketches for Dennis, I couldn’t have planned it any better. The girls were in shock, and I’m pretty sure the first thing the
y’re going to do when they finish talking to Dennis is text a hundred of their closest friends and tell them just how cool you are.”
As soon as we got home, Taylor excused himself and rushed upstairs to begin sketching. I let Morton out into the backyard, dished up a bowl of ice cream, and settled down in front of the TV. I thought for a moment and then pulled out my cellphone and called Gladys. I ended up leaving another message, my third. I clicked onto the Schitt’s Creek series and lost myself in a world more insane than mine.
I let Morton out a little after ten, got the coffee ready for the morning, and we headed upstairs. I knocked on the guest room door.
“Hey, Taylor?”
“Yeah, Dev, Come on in.”
He was seated at the small desk, sketching something out in one of the notebooks I’d picked up. “Oh, just working out some ideas here,” he said and half-turned to face me.
“Good for you. How’s it going?”
“Well, it’s going. I’m in the early stages right now.” Sheets of paper torn from the notebook were folded in half and scattered across the desk and on the floor.
“You want me to keep Morton in my room?”
“Oh, no, he’s okay in here. Besides, he might give me some ideas.”
“Okay, good luck. I’ve got to be up and out early tomorrow. I’m meeting someone at my office around nine. I don’t know how long it’s going to take. Help yourself to breakfast, clean up any mess, and if you decide to go anywhere, leave me a note. Okay?”
“Yeah, see you tomorrow at some time, and Dev, thanks for tonight. That was totally awesome.”
“Yeah, it was. I’d say right about now you’re probably the most popular guy in school.”
That brought a smile to his face.
Chapter 23
I was up before my alarm went off. I did an extra careful job of shaving, and then, after my shower, applied a moisturizing cream to my face in anticipation of meeting with Annette Dinicci at my office. I grabbed a quick breakfast of peanut butter toast and two cups of coffee while I deleted virtually all of my emails. I debated getting Morton out of Taylor’s room but decided to leave the two of them alone and headed down to the office.
I parked across the street, pulled the paintings out of my trunk, and hurried upstairs to the office. I was greeted by a partially opened door that had been kicked in sometime in the past twelve hours. The trim on the doorframe was shattered and lying on the floor. There was a large boot print on the door right next to the doorknob. A number of files and sheets of paper were scattered across the floor. Fortunately, my computer was still on my desk and looked to be in one piece.
As I set the paintings on Louie’s picnic table, I wondered who in the hell would be stupid enough to break in here? It’s not like there was anything of value, well, unless there was maybe something in a file. But that seemed rather doubtful. I noticed one of the hairdressers across the way staring at me. I gave a wave and walked toward her.
She unlocked the door as I approached. I’d completely forgotten her name, but fortunately, she wore a name tag. “Hi Rochelle,” I said, hoping my reading her name tag wasn’t too obvious.
“Hi, Dev. If you want your hair done or a pedicure, we’re not open for another forty minutes.”
“Not to worry. Hey, it looks like someone broke into our office last night. Did anything happen over here?”
“ No nothing, thankfully. A break-in? Oh, God, that’s not good. I know the doors were locked downstairs because I was the first one here this morning and had to unlock them when I arrived.” She looked past me and saw the files and papers scattered across the floor. “Did they take anything?”
“Not really. They tossed some files around, but I can’t tell if anything was stolen. With the exception of our coffee pot, we don’t really have anything worth taking.”
“I think everything’s okay here, but I had better check our supply room just to be sure. You know, maybe talk to the insurance guys down on the first floor. They’ve got security cameras on the front door, and they could check their images. Maybe their camera picked up someone breaking into the building.”
“That’s where I was planning to go next,” I lied. “Let me know if anything turns up missing on your end.”
“If something was stolen out of here, they would have had to have a key to get in. I’ll pass the word, and we’ll keep an eye out. Hope nothing important was taken.”
“Thanks, Rochelle. I’ll keep you posted.”
I pulled the door closed to our office then hurried downstairs to the insurance office. Bud Friehoff is the agent. The door to the office was open, but no one was seated at the receptionist’s desk.
“Hello, is anyone home?” I called.
“Yeah, yeah. How can I… Oh, Dev,” Bud said, stepping into the reception area. “What’s up?”
“Someone broke into our office last night. Everything okay here?”
“Last night?” he asked and shook his head. “I’m not aware of any problem.”
“They kicked in the door, rifled through some files but didn’t touch the computer on my desk. There’s really nothing up there worth stealing unless Louie was involved in some case I’m unaware of, but I think he would have told me.”
“God, I don’t think anything… well, wait a minute, follow me. Let’s look at the security images. We’ll be able to see if someone entered the building. Hopefully, we’ll be able to get a look at someone heading up the stairs,” he said. He led me down the hall to a dingy, windowless room with three computer screens. The screens images were black and white. One monitored the front door to the agency and the lower third of the staircase leading up to the second floor. The other two screens monitored the reception area and what appeared to be Bud’s office.
“What time did you lock up last night?” he asked.
“Maybe a little before five.”
“Okay, and the hairdressers close at eight on Friday, so let’s start there. He typed in yesterday’s date and 8:00 PM. The screen suddenly brought up an image and began to move forward. It took maybe thirty seconds to get to 8:23 PM. Bud stopped the screen as an image of Rochelle and another woman I recognized appeared on the screen.
“That’s the hairdressers leaving for the night. They’re usually the last ones to leave.” He typed in something and said, “The scan will stop on any activity. A couple of minutes later, it stopped as a figure appeared at the foot of the stairs. The time on the screen read 12:56 AM.
“Oh, dear, not a nice looking person. Do you recognize him?”
I did, unfortunately, the bald thug with the blisters all over his face who worked for Tubby. He was the driver in the SUV the night Tubby was parked across the street from The Spot.
“Yeah, he works for one of my awful clients.”
“Not those two fat guys I see around here occasionally?”
“Yeah, I’m afraid so. That would be Tubby Gustafson and Fat Freddy Zimmerman. This guy was driving the car for Gustafson the other night. I’m trying to remember his name, Larry, Lester, no wait, Lyle. Yeah, that was it. They called him Lyle.”
“Tubby Gustafson, really… It looks like a bit of a blotchy face on this guy here. Hmm-mmm, I wonder if he’d be interested in some special health coverage? Let’s see when he comes back down,” he said and pushed a key on the keyboard. About five seconds later, another image froze on the screen. As Lyle came down the stairs, he appeared to be holding his right wrist and stared directly at the security camera. The time on the screen was 1:11 AM.
“Oh dear,” Bud said, focusing in on Lyle and enlarging his face. “Dreadful, absolutely dreadful. Well, he was up there for no more than fifteen minutes. Any idea what he was after? He doesn’t appear to be carrying anything. Looks like he might be in some pain.”
“No idea what he would be looking for. It’s not like we have anything of value up there. Just files, and if anyone wanted their file, all they’d have to do is ask, and we’d give it to them.”
“Well, one o
ther thing springs to mind. This gentleman was able to access the building seemingly without a problem. Apparently, he had a key. I’m going to call the landlord and request the locks to be changed on the front door.”
“That’s not a bad thought, Bud. I’ll do the same. Is there a way you could print off those two images for me?”
“Not a problem at all. Good idea, give the police more to go on.”
“Yeah, they’ll hopefully have this guy by the end of the day,” I said, and the printer fired up and spit out copies of both images.
“Good luck with this, Dev. I’ll call the landlord in just a moment.”
“Thanks, Bud. Listen, sorry to take up your time, much appreciated.”
“You’re going to report this to the police, aren’t you?”
“Oh, absolutely,” I said, having no intention of doing so. “I’ll go back upstairs and call them right now.”
“Excellent, nip this problem in the bud,” he said and then laughed at his little joke.
‘A little late to nip Tubby Gustafson in the bud,’ I thought. “I’d better run. I’ve got someone coming in at nine. Thank you again for your time, Bud.”
“Glad to be of service, Dev. You need any coverage, we’re always here.”
“Thanks, Bud. You stay safe,” I said as I hurried out of the agency and up the stairs.
Lyle breaking into our office. I was ninety-nine percent sure there was nothing in the office that Lyle was interested in. I wasn’t even sure he could read, which eliminated him searching my files. That left Tubby Gustafson, and there was nothing I could think of that Tubby would be interested in. So, it had to— Wait a minute. I stopped just outside the office door and thought about the six Eli Cummings paintings. That had to be it. Tubby had been shocked to see them yesterday. He’d stared at them, recognized them. It was the paintings. He’d sent idiot Lyle to get the damn paintings.