To Thine Own Self Be True

by Judy Clemens

  “Right.”

  Unless his family really was covering for him.

  “So what did he and Rusty talk about?”

  “Making an appointment to get together.”

  Why was Rusty wanting to see him? That must’ve been the idea Rusty had had the night before, because we hadn’t talked with Thunderbolt at all.

  “And did they set a time?” I asked.

  “Apparently not.”

  “Why not?”

  “Thunderbolt didn’t know. Said Rusty hung up on him in the middle of the call.”

  “Have you been out to see him, or did you just talk to him on the phone?”

  “We saw him at his shop in Pennsburg. He obviously doesn’t like cops, and we couldn’t get him to sway on his and Rusty’s conversation. Said he couldn’t remember anything more.”

  “Did you believe him?”

  “I had no choice.”

  I needed to talk to Thunderbolt.

  “And Gentleman John? If he was the last one to talk to Rusty, it makes sense John would know where Rusty went.”

  “Mr. Greene says he never talked with Mr. Oldham. Says Rusty left a message telling him they needed to talk about Thunderbolt. He doesn’t have the message anymore, but the phone records back it up, since the call lasted less than half a minute.”

  I thought about it. “If Rusty found out something about Thunderbolt, he might call Gentleman John to check it out, if the guys knew each other.”

  “Maybe. But Greene’s not saying, and neither is Thunderbolt.”

  “Maybe I’d have better luck.”

  “Maybe. But we don’t know what went on with Thunderbolt and Rusty. If there was a problem, I don’t want you walking into it.”

  “Sure.”

  Shisler was quiet. “You won’t do anything stupid?”

  “Of course not.”

  Shisler promised to keep in touch, asked the same of me, and hung up.

  I looked at the clock. It was now past noon, and I prayed Thunderbolt hadn’t gone out for lunch. I found his number and dialed.

  He answered, sounding disgruntled. “Cops were already here,” he said. “Can’t you guys leave me alone?”

  “I’m not a cop,” I said. “I’m Rusty’s friend. And Wolf’s.”

  “Well, goody for you. I’m not.”

  “Look, Thunderbolt, all I want to know about is your phone call with Rusty.”

  “What about it?”

  “He hung up on you?”

  “Yeah. Said he wanted to make an appointment, but never did.”

  “Why?”

  He was quiet. “Look, I’m in the middle of a tattoo. The cops already got me behind schedule, ’cause I had a before-hours appointment they messed up. If you want to talk, you’re going to have to call back. Say in an hour or two.” He hung up.

  I stared at the phone and thought that Mandy’s name for Gentleman John would fit this jerk, too. But I was damned if I was going to sit around waiting to call him. I put my coat back on, trotted out to my truck, and took off for Pennsburg.

  Thunderbolt’s shop sat on a side street with only one lane plowed open. I circled around the block until I found a place to park. I wasn’t sure it was a legal spot, but if they wanted to ticket me, they could go ahead.

  By the time I got to the parlor, my cheeks were numb and my eyes watered from the brisk wind that had started up. I pushed open the door and stepped inside, where I halted in surprise. Besides being warm, the parlor was also clean and well-lit. Flash decorated the walls, and while Thunderbolt’s art lacked the fire and detail of Wolf’s or Rusty’s, it was at least semi-interesting and well-organized.

  A small waiting area held a leather couch, with a colorful mat covering the floor. A bookshelf with photo albums sat beside the couch, along with a few tattooing magazines on a small table. Behind the waiting area in an open work area Thunderbolt—for it had to be him—was bent over a woman who lay on her stomach on a padded table. Lance was tattooing a Native American design on her lower back, made up of reds and greens, and from what I could tell, it looked okay. Her upper back was covered with a sheet, and her legs with a warm blanket.

  Thunderbolt glanced up. “Be with you in a minute.”

  I stood there, watching and studying the tattoo artist. He was a tall, fit-looking man, his long black hair lying in a braid down his back, his skin unseasonably dark. A tanning booth or self-tanner, I figured. Trying to look deserving of the ancestry he claimed.

  There weren’t any other closed doors in the place, except for one proclaiming itself a bathroom.

  “Okay if I use that?” I asked, pointing at the door.

  He looked up. “Sure. Be my guest.”

  I walked toward the bathroom, taking a moment to peer into a back room which had no door shutting it off. Chairs, a little kitchen area, and an autoclave. No kidnapped tattoo artists.

  Getting to the bathroom, I opened the door and stepped inside. It was exactly what it claimed to be, with no room to hide anything, let alone a person. I studied the insides of the medicine cabinet for a minute—ibuprofen, hand cleaner, and Band-Aids—before flushing the toilet, in case he was listening for it. I headed back out to the main room.

  Thunderbolt leaned close to the woman’s back, working on a small detail, so I stood in the waiting area and thumbed through what looked like the newest photo album. Lots of roses, barbed wires, and crosses. Competent work, but nothing real imaginative. I stopped when I found a photo of a teen-ager with a swastika on his neck. I glanced up at Thunderbolt, disgusted he’d stoop to doing hate work. When I looked back at the photo, I paused again. The kid looked familiar. Dark hair, dark brown eyes…

  “Take a rest for a little bit,” Thunderbolt said to the woman. “I’ll be right back.”

  He walked over to me, his assessment taking in the tattoo on my neck. “What can I do for you?” he asked, pulling off his latex gloves.

  “Stella Crown. We talked on the phone a little while ago.”

  His face hardened. “I told you to call me back later.”

  “I know. But Rusty and Wolf are missing, and I can’t wait any longer.”

  He rested his hands on his hips and looked around the room, his nostrils flaring. “Fine. You can talk to me while I work.” He went back to the woman and sat in his chair, pulling on another set of gloves and picking up the machine. I hoped he wouldn’t take his irritation out on the poor customer.

  “Rusty called you last night?” I asked.

  He grunted affirmation.

  I continued. “He was going to make an appointment to come see you today. Talk to you about your problems with Wolf.”

  His head jerked up and the woman on the table flinched. “Problems? You call stealing flash a problem? I call it a felony.”

  I resisted telling him his work wasn’t worth stealing. “Okay,” I said. “Whatever you want to call it. You stopped legal proceedings a while ago. October?”

  He looked down at the woman, but didn’t seem to be really seeing her. She, however, was entirely too aware of him and what he held in his clenched fingers. She met my eyes with her wide, fearful ones, and I raised my eyebrows, thinking she was crazy for staying anywhere near that needle.

  “October?” Thunderbolt said. “That sounds right. Finally realized the wheels of justice weren’t going to turn for me. I was spending a fortune for recognition that wasn’t ever going to come.”

  I tried not to let my feelings show on my face. “And have you spoken to Wolf since then?”

  He looked down at the machine, as if wondering what it was doing in his hand. “Not that I can remember. If I did, it wasn’t about him stealing flash.”

  “So you haven’t been threatening him?”

  “Threatening him?”

  “He’s missing, and Mandy’s dead.”

  He spun around. “Look, lady, the most I threatened him with was suing his ass. Not hurting him or his old lady.”


  So Rusty had remembered that right.

  “What were you telling Rusty last night that made him hang up on you?”

  He shifted in his chair, like he was going to start tattooing the woman again. “Nothing, really. I can’t remember.”

  I stepped forward into the tattooing area. “Don’t even try that bullshit with me. You know good and well what you were talking about.”

  Thunderbolt froze, the needle almost touching the woman’s back. “I’m telling you—I. Don’t. Remember. It wasn’t a big deal.”

  I moved closer and leaned over Thunderbolt, my face inches from his. “You gave that line to the cops because it’s the sort of thing you do. It’s not going to work with me.” I stood there, unmoving, until the woman on the table rolled out from under Thunderbolt’s hand.

  “I’m outta here,” she said.

  “Wait,” said Thunderbolt. “I’ll finish it.”

  “Not till you’re done talking. Tell the woman what she wants to know, or I’m getting somebody else to tattoo me.”

  Thunderbolt stared at her for a few moments, then lowered his face to his hand and rubbed his eyes. “Fine. Take a seat in the waiting area, and I’ll be with you in a couple minutes.”

  She wrapped the sheet loosely around herself and stalked over to the couch, where she chose a magazine and rolled onto her stomach to read.

  “So?” I crossed my arms over my chest.

  He leaned back in his chair and rolled it away. “Rusty and I were talking about Wolf and Mandy.”

  Big surprise.

  “What about them?”

  “Rusty thought I might know where Wolf was, and who killed Mandy. Or at least have some ideas.”

  “Did you?”

  “Sure. I mentioned that political group they’re involved in, whatever it’s called.”

  “Artists for Freedom.”

  “Yeah. That. Plus, I heard there were some guys they’d pissed off. Well, Mandy had done most of that, I guess.”

  “Names?”

  He shook his head. “Just stories that came down the grapevine. Gangbangers, drunks. Dopeheads.” He stopped.

  “That’s it?” Not enough to cause Rusty to go storming off, not telling Becky where he was going.

  Thunderbolt stood up and walked around his chair toward a shelf, where he fiddled with instruments as he spoke. “He asked me about some guy named Tank, who I haven’t had the pleasure of meeting yet.”

  “Not really a pleasure, believe me.”

  “Yeah, well, and he asked me about Gentleman John.”

  “What about him?”

  “Rusty seemed to think he had a lot of motive, with Wolf and Mandy going after his business. But a lot of people wanted to see John go down. I don’t know why it would be just the Moores he had a problem with.”

  “You know him pretty well?”

  “I guess. We went to a convention together a little while ago. Since his wife left him we bunk together sometimes, save money on hotels.”

  I remembered John’s ringless fingers. “When did John’s wife take off?”

  “A while ago. Last year sometime, in the middle of all his lawsuits. We actually saw her at a convention this summer, since she took up with another artist. Pretty uncomfortable.”

  “Yeah, I guess.” I thought about John’s wife. “Did John blame Wolf and Mandy for his wife leaving him?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. He mentioned them, but he talked about lots of other people, too. He blames the entire community.”

  Gee, he wouldn’t want to blame himself for bad business practices.

  Thunderbolt continued. “His daughters left him, too, you know.”

  I remembered their pictures, two ordinary, teen-age girls. “He said they graduated, and that’s why they moved out. They wanted to be in Philly.”

  He snorted. “They’d barely thrown their grad hats in the air before they were outta there. The penny-pinching and lawsuits had gotten to them, too, just like with their mom.”

  “And this is what you were talking about when Rusty hung up?” I asked.

  He made a face. “I guess. I really didn’t think about it any more.”

  I raised my hands to press on my temples, and Thunderbolt flinched. “I mean it. It didn’t seem like a big deal.”

  “Rusty didn’t say anything more about coming over here?”

  “No.”

  I studied Thunderbolt’s eyes for a hint of deception, but all I saw was irritation.

  “Now can I get back to my customer?” he asked.

  I sighed. “I guess.” It’s not like he was going to admit to me that he’d kidnapped Rusty and was hiding him out back.

  I guessed I should check out back.

  On my way to the front door I watched as the woman slid her feet to the floor and returned to the tattooing area. I glanced at the photo album I’d been paging through, and walked over to check out the picture of the teen-ager again. My breath caught. I remembered where I’d seen the kid before. On the wall in Gentleman John’s studio, right next to the twins. It was John’s nephew.

  I held up the album. “Thunderbolt. You remember doing this kid’s swastika?”

  He saw the photo and his nostrils flared. “What about him?”

  “You know who he is?”

  He shrugged. “Nobody special. Just some kid who was having a hard time finding somebody to tattoo him.”

  “Yeah. Some people have standards.”

  His jaw bunched. “Money gets tight sometimes.”

  “Whatever. What was his story?”

  “I don’t know. It was a few weeks ago.”

  “Come on, Thunderbolt. Think.”

  He sat back, letting out a huff of air. “Well, he said he and his friends had been looking for a place, but then most of them got busted for something. He still wanted to get it done. Solidarity, you know.”

  My skin prickled. Eve Freed had told me about a group of skinheads who were trying to get hate tattoos. They’d been arrested after attacking Billy.

  It seemed Gentleman John’s nephew was one of them.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  The run back to my truck was a slippery one, and while I did my best to dodge the icy patches, I slipped several times, once hard enough I swore when my knees hit the ground. When I finally reached the truck I fumbled my keys out of my pocket, dropping them into the slush by the curb. Continuing to curse under my breath I picked them up, jammed them into the lock, and swung myself into the seat.

  There had to be a connection. Gentleman John’s nephew helped to attack Wolf and Mandy’s son, and now Mandy was dead and Wolf was missing. Was there more to the skinhead group—or Gentleman John—than Shisler realized?

  I glanced at the photo of John’s nephew I’d ripped from Thunderbolt’s album. Did this kid somehow mastermind the whole thing? Or was it his uncle? And why?

  I hit my steering wheel. What wasn’t I seeing?

  Think.

  I spun out of my parking place and drove too fast through town, hitting Route Six-sixty-three to head back home.

  Gentleman John’s nephew, a lovely skinhead, was part of a group who attacked Billy because Wolf wouldn’t do their tattoos. But by the time Mandy was murdered and Wolf was missing, most of the kids were in jail. No way could one kid pull this off. Unless there were more kids. Or a kid and his uncle.

  But…

  My heartbeat slammed in my throat. Why was Gentleman John’s nephew going to somebody else for his tattoo? Why not just have John do it? He didn’t have any scruples. He would’ve tattooed the whole gang of them.

  But they didn’t ask him.

  When it came right down to it, to trusting someone to give him a tattoo, the boy didn’t go to his own uncle. He went to one of his uncle’s worst enemies. Wolf and Mandy helped clamp down on Gentleman John’s business, causing his wife and daughters to leave him, and now even his nephew. It might’ve been one loss to
o many.

  I skidded around the corner onto Allentown Road, driving recklessly toward Lansdale, where I could only hope Shisler would be waiting. I wished desperately I had Nick’s cell phone.

  I’d seen Gentleman John’s place. His house and his studio. Wolf wasn’t there.

  Too many minutes later I pulled into the parking lot at the Lansdale Police Department, stopping in what was probably an illegal spot. I slammed the truck into park and ran inside. The receptionist’s head shot up with a spark of fear in her eyes.

  “I need Detective Shisler,” I said. “It’s urgent.”

  The woman wasted no time in picking up her receiver and punching a button on the phone. Before I knew it, Shisler was banging through the door.

  “What?” she said.

  I held out the picture. “You know this kid?”

  She looked at it. “Sure. That’s Darren Wilcox—one of the skinheads who attacked Billy Moore. He’s on probation. Why do you have that?”

  “It’s Gentleman John’s nephew,” I said. “He got a tattoo at Lance Thunderbolt’s.”

  She chewed on her lip. “Tell me why that’s important.”

  I took a deep breath to calm myself. “Wolf and Mandy helped destroy John’s entire family. His wife left him, his daughters, and now even his nephew.”

  “And you think—”

  “John’s gotta have Wolf and Rusty. He’s got them both. I’m sure of it.”

  Visions of John’s closed door in his parlor swam before my eyes. I’d believed him when he told me it led to a bathroom. What if it didn’t? What if Wolf had been behind the door? Gentleman John’s opera music would’ve drowned out any noises coming from that back room. Assuming Wolf was still alive to make any.

  “Okay,” Shisler said. “Say he’s got Wolf. He has Rusty, too?”

  “Rusty hates John. I’m guessing Rusty went to confront him after talking to Thunderbolt, and now he’s a captive, too.”

  I remembered the voice mail Rusty had left and tried to push down my anger—at Rusty for going without me, at Lucy for being on the phone, at myself for missing all the connections.

  “But what did Thunderbolt say to Rusty?”