by Jeff Johnson
I found the Smiling Dragon Tattoo Emporium based on Obi’s directions, pulled into the parking lot of a Chinese food place across the street, and studied the place. It was even worse than Obi described.
The Leering Snake Turnstile Graveyard was the kind of tattoo shop that I most feared and despised, even without stepping through the door. It was in a mini mall as described, sandwiched between a Vietnamese hair-and-nail salon and a video game outlet called Gamestar. A tattoo shop in a mini mall, or even worse a full-sized mall, was deeply wrong on many levels. It not only spoke of poor taste and the damning commercialization of the art, but the actual owner was almost certainly an extra-shitty member of the already shitty Wall Street class, showing up for some profit and sporting humiliation now that the brutal work of cleaning up after Wally’s generation was done. The sign out front was predictably huge, not neon but some kind of cheap Malaysian thing that you might find dangling from the facade of a franchise tire chain or a diet hoagie place. An art prison, churning out license plates, where custom was a word from a different language, children’s coloring book was as good as you would ever get, and every shift was exactly, precisely eight hours long. Getting there early or staying late could be confused with joyful enthusiasm, and that kind of attitude would make everyone suspicious.
Inside, I knew, there would be three or four high-speed hacks like Bling, stencil jockeys who paid more attention to their hair than they ever did to learning how to draw. The walls would be covered with Sailor Jerry knockoff flash, primitive, flat, watercolor garbage interspersed with sheets purchased off the Internet, and maybe a dozen or so imitation Ed Hardy generated by the most ambitious ape in the mix. I rolled the windows down and slouched low in the seat, lit up a cigarette.
Three minutes before noon, a cherry-red ’67 Chevy lowrider rumbled into the mini mall parking lot. It was an expensive ride, with chrome spinners on the wheels and dual tail pipes that rumbled close to the frequency of the devil’s voice. I sat up a little, my heart rate rising pleasantly. My hands were instantly sweaty.
The Chevy door yawned open like a coffin lid and out stepped Jason Bling. A feeling of immense delight bubbled up through my thundering chest and I almost laughed out loud.
Bling was a big kid, and he carried it with a trademark, slightly bowlegged swagger. Some people had cat spines, some dog. Bling was rigid Doberman. He was dressed as Obi reported, in some kind of rockabilly getup; a new white T-shirt with a pack of cigarettes rolled into the sleeve and straight-leg jeans folded up four inches over construction boots. The look was complete all the way up to his shellacked pompadour.
Bling flicked the tail end of a cigarette in front of the hair-and-nail place next to the shop and unlocked the front door. A few minutes later, the lights came on inside and the CLOSED sign in the window turned around.
Bling’s new place of scab creation was open for business. I sure liked his car.
Two more artists showed up in the next few minutes, both of them decked out like Bling. One was a fat guy driving a Honda motorcycle and the other was a small, hard-faced kid driving what had to be his girlfriend’s Mazda. There was a stuffed panda dangling from the rearview and a PINK sticker on the bumper. I pegged the kid instantly as the artist in the group. He was carrying an art bag, so he’d been doing homework, which meant he had appointments. One foot out the door headed up into the real game, plus he had an actual girlfriend, so he and Bling undoubtedly hated each other. Possibly useful.
At one o’clock Bling came out and smoked another cigarette, talking on his cell phone the entire time. It was an old pattern of his I remembered all too well. When he’d worked for me, he’d spent as much time on his cell phone as any fifteen-year-old suburban cheerleader. I’d considered his two-cell-phone phase mildly humorous at the time. He leaned against the side of his car and jabbered, occasionally tossing his head back in flamboyant, hair-flipping laughter. A couple of very young women in flowery shorts, flip-flops, and halter tops went into the Smiling Cash Machine and Bling followed them in, pausing briefly to hard-scratch his crotch through his jeans.
Around four, I finally drove down to a mini-mart a few blocks away and got two bottles of water and a few beef and green chili taquitos, then I parked just a little up the street and continued the stakeout.
Just after six Bling ambled out, hopped into his car, fired up the V8, and headed north. I pulled in behind him a few cars back, put my sunglasses back on, and slouched to the side.
Eventually he pulled into the gravel parking lot of a newer-looking bar called the Madison. He was still on his phone as he locked the car and checked his hair and teeth in the reflection of the window. Satisfied, he sauntered inside.
The parking lot was relatively full for a Thursday and I had to take a fierce leak after the two bottles of water, but I decided I couldn’t risk going in or even losing sight of the Chevy. I was peeing into one of the empty bottles when my cell phone rang. Delia. I tucked the phone under my chin.
“Tell me you found him. Tell me you found him and robbed him because he already sold your stuff or lost it.” I don’t know how I could hear her holding her breath, but I could.
“I’m looking at his car right now. I’m also peeing into an empty water bottle.”
“You mean you’re touching yourself even as we speak? You’re lucky this isn’t Microsoft or I’d sue your pervert ass.”
“You wouldn’t believe this. The idiot is dressed up like an extra from The Lords of Flatbush.”
“Hmmn,” Delia mused. “It’s a step up from Vanilla Ice.”
I grunted and meat-tapped the mouth of the bottle.
“So what’s next?”
“How are the cats?” I countered. Delia sighed explosively.
“Fine! Pinky bit me already, but in his defense my fingers smelled like French fries.”
“He does that because you make him happy. Just don’t try to touch him while he’s eating, and don’t try to stop him when he’s having his toilet water. He hates that.”
“Duh.”
There was a long silence.
“Be careful,” she said finally. Her tone was different. “I just talked to Nigel and Mikey. They want you to call as soon as you’re done. I’ll be at your place getting sticky stuff on your crappy porn. Waiting. Pacing.”
It was my turn to sigh. “Call you later. Promise.” I thumbed the phone off.
Bling came out of the Madison a few minutes later, accompanied by a meaty Mexican guy with an oily, cratered face and a tiny ponytail, wearing a Nike track suit and lots of gold jewelry. They got in the Chevy and talked for a few minutes. The Mexican guy got out and went back inside the bar. Bling sat still in his car for a moment and then his head dipped out of sight once, then twice. Snorting coke, off a knife or a CD cover. He checked his nostrils in the rearview and rubbed them, fired up the Chevy, and gunned it out of the parking lot, spraying the other cars with loose gravel to mark his exit.
Bling drove faster then. I followed him down Water Street, slumped low, only a single car back. He took a left at Poplar and roared up the hill, blasting his horn at a minivan that tried to change lanes and then at a sturdy old woman at a crosswalk. I dropped back a few cars, just in case the coke had already made him paranoid. It had certainly made him more aggressive.
That was why I almost lost him as he rounded a corner and took a hard right through a red light. My molars hurt as I hit the gas and took the corner thirty seconds behind him, pushing the little four-cylinder rental. I caught sight of the Chevy a few blocks down, roaring to a stop in a parking space in front of a seedy cinderblock one-story apartment complex. I came to a stop behind a van just up the street and got out, pulling my bomber jacket out behind me.
Bling was on his cell phone again. This time I was close enough to hear him laughing at something, a throaty, contrived thespian spaz of a thing that never sounded friendly. He kicked his car door closed and flipped through his keys as he approached an apartment door. I came up quietly behind h
im, head down.
“Late,” I heard him say. The parking lot was conveniently empty of people. He slid his key into the lock and swung the door open. As he passed through the doorway, I put on a burst of speed and raised a hand like I was waving to him, in case anyone was watching out a window. I caught him square in the center of his chest with the heel of my boot as he turned to close the door, knocking him backward into the room.
I nudged the door closed behind me and locked it without taking my eyes off of him. Bling was lying on his back, clutching his chest, clucking out a dry heave sound. He let out a pitiful moan and glared up at me. His eyes went wide with the shock of recognition.
I pulled on the gloves from the pocket of my bomber jacket and then took out a gleaming ball bearing and held it up to show him between my thumb and forefinger.
“Hello,” I said softly. “Fucker.”
All the lights in Bling’s apartment were off. No TV. No radio. We were all alone, which was good, as it meant I wouldn’t have to beat the shit out of one of Bling’s girlfriends for trying to shoot me.
“Assault!” Jason Bling choked. “Your ass is going to fucking prison!”
He started to fish something out of his hip pocket and I nailed him hard in the shoulder with the toe of my boot. His cell phone skittered across the filthy linoleum floor. Bling let out a hiss.
“Real shithole you got here,” I observed. Most of his stuff was in cardboard boxes with the lids ripped open. There was a stack of pots and pans on the floor of the kitchenette to my right. The only other furniture in the entire place was a king-sized poster bed from a low-end eighties porno flick in the center of the single bedroom, with a large plasma-screen TV propped up on milk crates at the foot of it. The walls were bare white with handprints and general smears. Bling’s clothes were scattered on the floor around his Cadillac bed, and it was obvious that he’d been walking back and forth over them, leaving flat trails of unwashed feet and parking lot grease. The entire place smelled like sour Chinese mustard and ripe ass. In an instant, I realized Jason wasn’t planning on moving any time soon. He’d never bothered to unpack.
“Where’s my Roland Norton flash?” I asked quietly, standing over him. For whatever reason he was mad as hell. I cocked my head, curious.
“Fuck you!” he screamed, his face twisted with fury. His wind was already back.
“You wanna call the police, you stupid prick? I do. I know three things right now, Jason. One, you have some coke in your pocket. I know you do because I saw you buy it. Two, I have a signed statement in my pocket from everyone at the Lucky Supreme saying that they will gladly testify against you for the theft of the Roland Norton flash”—a lie, but it sounded good—“and three, I know a pill-slinging fuck-up like you doesn’t have a bank account. Noooo, not you. You have a great big wad of cash in here somewhere, don’t you buddy? Maybe a shitload of pills in the same box? Bet that’ll look sweet when the cops find it.” I took my cell phone out. “Got your little rolled up pussy nuts in order?”
Jason deflated like a balloon. His expression morphed from homicidal wrath to weaselly furtiveness in a single heartbeat. His eyes flicked for an instant in the direction of the kitchenette. Busted.
“I didn’t steal a fuckin’ thing from you, Darby,” he said with all the firmness he could squeeze out of his chest. “I have no idea what you’re talking about. Just get the fuck out of my place. Get out of here and it’s like you were never here at all. You’re a psycho, man. Full blown. You slipped in your head somehow. I get that. But you better just go.” He made his voice gentle. “Go and get some help man, like from a shrink or a—”
“Wrong.” I started mock dialing. Bling’s eyes bugged out.
“Wait! Just fuckin’ wait a minute!” I could see the gears in his greasy head spinning like the wheels in a slot machine, hoping a stall would land him on the triple cherry. I waited.
“Well?”
“That’s kind of a puss move, isn’t it?” he said, a hint of a sneer touching his lips and eyes. He edged back a little. The red in his cheeks was draining away, replaced with white as blood pooled around his organs. Bling was getting ready to fight. “Calling the cops?”
“It’s either that or beat you within an inch of your life and then tear this place apart. You know I don’t like cops, but I don’t feel like getting all sweaty. Plus these are my favorite pants.” I took a deep breath. My hands were shaking as I flipped a cigarette out of my pack. Jason noticed and cracked a telling smile.
He came up fast, swinging a haymaker with his good arm. I lifted on my toes and then dropped into it and hammered him in the soft underside of his breadbasket, my first two knuckles wrapped around the ball bearing, angled down a little so that the weight of my descending upper body mass was behind it. A great whoosh of smelly air gusted from his gaping mouth and he went down again. I kicked him hard in the side and he instantly vomited. Then everything seemed to pause. He seemed dead for a moment, and then one hand scrabbled out in a blind palsy through his slimy white puke, like he was groping after a key.
I dropped on him, ripped the chain off of his biker wallet, tied his hands behind his back, ran the clip under his belt and hooked it. There was a single disco-era lamp in the living room on the floor by his bed. I ripped the cord off and tied his hands again, using the rest of the wire to loop around his neck in a half-assed ghetto hog-tie. Bling struggled as the cord bit into the underside of his prominent Adam’s apple. His sweat tripped it back and forth over the bump, so I pressed my knee into the center of his back and cinched the cord tight in place on the underside, leaving him just enough room to breathe.
Bling watched me out of the corner of one rolling eye, coughing violently, as I picked up his wallet. I riffled through it, my heartbeat loud in my temples. No bank card or credit cards, no driver’s license. Lots of little slips of paper with women’s phone numbers and a small stack of Smiling Dragon Tattoo Emporium business cards. The card for a car detailing place. Another one for a barber shop. Three hundred and forty-six bucks. I pocketed the money and dropped the wallet in the puddle of puke, splashing his face with a fan of droplets. Bling let out a choking protest.
“Dinner’s on you,” I said, even though he was too stupid to catch my little joke. Sometimes I break the tension just for myself.
His keys were in his left pocket. I dug them out and looked them over. One of them was a round, toothy nub, the kind that usually fit into a bike lock. I read the writing on the side. Sentry. A safe key.
“Bling, Bling, Bling,” I tutted. “What kind of idiot are you to keep a crappy safe key on the ring you carry around in your pocket? You think your zitty coke dealer pal in the tracksuit never noticed? You’re damn lucky I came along when I did.”
The safe was in the kitchenette, bolted into the back of the cabinet under the sink, so poorly hidden behind a reeking, overflowing trashcan that I’d have found it in less than a minute, even if he hadn’t given it away by flicking his eyes there when I brought up his stash. I swept the trashcan out, scattering rotting take-out boxes across the floor. There were maggots, which sharply, instantly fucked up my already terrible mood. Bling moaned and cursed behind me as the smell filled the place.
The snub key fit neatly into the lock of the squat plastic safe. I flipped the top open and whistled at the bundles of used bills. On top of them was a shiny new gun. I took one of the bundles out and skimmed it with a gloved thumb. An even thousand, mostly in twenties. There were sixty-one bundles in all. I scooped them out and set them on the counter. It was only a moderate amount of money when it came to yuppie houseplant drugs and about a third of the value of my Roland Norton collection. Below the bills were two plastic bags, one packed with Valium and a smaller one with a few hundred Oxycontins. I left the drugs for the moment. When we got to the question and answer period I could hold them hostage over the toilet.
“Your moonlighting gig is pretty much twenty-watt, kid,” I called in a casual voice. “I need a bag of some kind for
all this cash, Bling. Where you keep ’em?”
“Fuck you,” he croaked.
I walked past him and stripped the grubby pillowcase off his bed, then went back into the kitchenette and shoveled the money into it. When I was done I walked back into the living room and kicked over one of the boxes. CDs, clothes, and assorted junk scattered across the floor. It took less than ten minutes to thoroughly destroy the place. No Roland Norton flash anywhere. No artwork of any kind. Not even art supplies. Bling struggled a couple of times as he got his breath back, but quieted down again whenever I paused to look at him. There were two closets in the place, both empty. The bathroom was a nightmare, with a moldy shower curtain and a toilet bowl full of orange water with a black and green freckled rim. Bling was out of toilet paper, but there were a few fast food napkins on the back of the toilet. A forever dry toothbrush sat in a little nest of hair on the edge of the sink. I was glad I was wearing gloves as I probed around and finally opened the medicine cabinet. No toothpaste. Just an empty bottle of aspirin and a tube of cherry ChapStick with no lid. When I was done bulldozing the entire place a second time, I settled across from him on top of an upturned milk crate.
“Showtime, scooter.” I gestured at him with the gun, patted the rolled-up sack of cash in my lap. “You want to keep this money, you better tell me where my flash is.”
“Untie me,” he wheezed.
“Nah.”
“Jesus man, you have my gun! I think you broke something in my chest, Darby. I need a fucking cigarette. Please!”
I thought about it for a minute. It would be stupid to untie him, exactly the kind of stupid Delia had warned me about.
“Fine. You do anything dumb and you die like half the other jackasses with a gun like this.” I pointed at him with the barrel of his shiny toy. “With every single bullet in your own motherfucking piece.”