Pretty In Ink

by Karen E. Olson

  I parked next to a beat-up old blue pickup truck, my Mustang looking out of place here and way too classy. I made sure my CDs were out of sight before I locked all the doors.

  The pawnshop door and front windows were lined with bars. I pushed the door open and stepped inside.

  A long glass display case stretched from my right all the way around the perimeter of the room. Inside, stones sparkled, timepieces ticked, delicate china pieces leaned easily against velveteen holders, old toys in mint condition were positioned just so.

  On the walls, electric guitars, light fixtures, paintings, and sports team jerseys hung suspended from hooks. Mountain bikes were stacked three deep behind the display case at the back of the shop. Televisions and VCRs and DVD players were stacked on shelves.

  It was neat and orderly. Not what I was expecting.

  A big man-not fat, just muscular-came out from behind a door I hadn’t noticed and walked toward me, behind the case. His bald head shone in the glow of the bright lights; he had tattoo sleeves and wore a Yankees T-shirt.

  “Can I help you?” he asked.

  “I’m looking for Wesley Lambert,” I said.

  He frowned. “Who?”

  Okay, so maybe this wasn’t the place. But I had another idea. “Trevor McKay sent me over here.”

  At the mention of Trevor’s name, the man’s face grew dark, his eyes narrowing at me. “What does he want?”

  “He’s pawned a pin here; it’s got stones, and it looks like a queen-of-hearts playing card.”

  “He hasn’t been in with that in a while.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Listen, lady, I’ve helped him out. I know he needs the cash, and for some reason he always comes back for it, so if I give him a hundred bucks I know he’ll end up paying me more than I paid him because of interest.”

  Interest?

  He must have seen the question on my face, because he sighed and said, “Say you want to pawn something. I give you a percentage of what I think it’s worth. You’ve got thirty days to come buy it back, for the same price I gave you plus interest.”

  So that’s how it worked.

  “Do a lot of people buy their own stuff back?”

  He waved his hand to indicate everything in the shop. “Sometimes they do; sometimes they don’t.” He reached inside the glass display case and pulled out a pair of diamond studs that shone in the light. “These are a steal.”

  I studied them a second, then shook my head. “I’m not here to buy anything. I’m just trying to find Wesley Lambert.”

  “And I told you I don’t know who that is.”

  As he said it, his eyes skirted over toward where he’d appeared from. Made me wonder whether he was lying, if Wesley wasn’t back there somewhere. But I wasn’t exactly sure how to find out unless this guy played along.

  I figured I’d try to throw him off again, so I pulled the sketch I’d just made out of my bag. “Do you know this man?” I asked, showing it to him.

  He glanced at it, and his face froze for a second; then he said, “What are you, police?”

  I shook my head. “No. I own The Painted Lady, a tattoo shop.”

  He looked like he didn’t believe me, but then his eyes ran up my arm and over the dragon head that stuck out of my tank top on my chest. He nodded. “You’re Brett Kavanaugh.”

  I didn’t like it that strangers knew my name.

  Before I could say anything, he added, “Jeff Coleman talks about you.”

  Of course. Jeff. He hung with nefarious people; this didn’t surprise me. Then I realized: The roulette guy had said Jeff did his ink. Maybe Jeff had mentioned me to him as well, and he just recognized me from a description. Maybe that’s how he knew my name.

  I began to feel a little silly.

  Until I had another thought.

  Why did the guy run, then? Why not just stick around and continue on our winning streak?

  The pawnshop guy was looking at me expectantly.

  Oh, right.

  “You didn’t by chance have some sort of… well… disturbance or something here this morning?” I asked.

  “No. Should I have?”

  “Guess not.”

  This guy wasn’t any help. I stuffed the sketch back in my bag, said, “Thanks for your time,” and walked toward the door.

  As I stepped outside, a man was walking quickly to the pickup truck parked next to my Mustang. I took another step, and he spotted me. We weren’t that far away from each other, and I recognized him.

  It was the guy from the roulette table.

  Chapter 14

  My first thought was that I did a lousy job on that drawing. His eyes weren’t nearly as close together as I’d remembered, and his nose was longer. But he was pretty.

  And he was getting into the truck, a panicked look on his face.

  I stepped up my speed and almost ran to the truck, which started to back away. I hit the hood and he honked the horn, startling me and rendering me momentarily deaf. I looked up into the cab and saw him grinning at me as the truck screeched out of the lot, heading north.

  I got into the Mustang as quickly as I could, trying to keep the truck in sight. But by the time I got to the street, the pickup was gone.

  I hung my head in defeat, my hands on the steering wheel. What to do now?

  I could go back into Cash & Carry and try to lean on that big guy about the guy in the truck. I had a feeling he knew him. But I doubted he’d be willing to help me out.

  I could drive around checking out all the city’s pawnshops. That might take a while.

  Or I could go up to Murder Ink and pump Jeff Coleman for information. We’d never been friends, but I’d helped him out over the summer and we now had a grudging respect for each other. He just might be able to ID that guy, if he’d done the ink.

  I chose door number three.

  Goodfellas Bail Bonds was next door to Murder Ink, and across the street was the Bright Lights Motel, whose name seemed an oxymoron. There was nothing bright about the dingy concrete building, and there were no lights. Just a bland sign that advertised HBO and hourly rates.

  I shuddered as I parked in the motel’s lot and crossed the street.

  Jeff Coleman looked up when I came in. “Hey, Kavanaugh, what are you doing on the dark side?”

  He was inking a guy’s back-a basic skull and crossbones; couldn’t he be more creative? Oh, yeah, Jeff only did flash, the stock tattoos that lined the walls of his shop.

  “Got some questions.”

  The machine stopped whirring for a second as he frowned at me; then it started up again as he resumed what he’d been doing. “Pull up a chair.”

  While The Painted Lady has separate rooms for each tattooist and client for privacy, Jeff’s shop let it all hang out in the open. There were three stations divided only by short cabinets and shelves, on which I noted the baby wipes, inkpots, piles of sterilized needles in their packages, and boxes of black latex gloves.

  I have blue gloves-a little more cheery.

  Jeff inherited his business from his mother, Sylvia, who was one of the women pioneers in the tattoo business. He was maybe ten years older than me, with a salt-and-pepper buzz cut and tattoos covering his arms and chest. He was a couple inches shorter than me and skinny, but looking at him now, I thought maybe he’d put on a little weight-or at least had been working out a bit.

  A quick glance around told me that this was the only client at the moment, and Jeff was the only tattooist in the place. I grabbed a chair on wheels from one of the other stations and rolled it near Jeff.

  He grinned at me. “Now you can see a master at work.”

  “Yeah, right,” I said, although for someone who did only flash, Jeff did have a certain style, a way of shading and coloring that stood out. I would never tell him that, though. For sure he’d use it against me at some point.

  I pulled the sketch of the pretty boy out of my bag and stretched my arm out so he could see it. “Do you know this guy?”


  The machine stopped again. The client lying facedown on the flattened chair mumbled, “Are you done?”

  “No,” Jeff said, then saw my expression. “Not you.” He turned back to his client. “No, we’re not done yet. Give me a second, okay?” He peered more closely at the drawing. “Guy’s eyes are too close together.”

  I felt my heart take a leap. “So you know him?”

  “Did his ink. Queen of hearts. Maybe last year sometime?”

  Sounded good to me, but…

  “How do you remember?” Sometimes I couldn’t remember what I had for lunch two days before.

  He tapped the side of his head and smirked. “Bionic brain.”

  I made a face at him, and he chuckled.

  “I remember because I did three of them at the same time.”

  “Huh?”

  “There were three guys. All came in late, maybe two in the morning or so. I remember because two of them were dolled up, like women. Weird.”

  My heart jumped again.

  “There were three?”

  “Yeah. Hey, Kavanuagh, what’s up? What do you want with a bunch of trannies?”

  “They’re not transvestites,” I said patiently. “They’re drag queens.” At least I thought so. “There’s a difference.”

  Jeff rolled his eyes. “Could’ve fooled me.”

  “This guy wasn’t dressed up, though,” I said.

  “How do you know that?”

  “If he was, then you wouldn’t recognize him as a guy, only as a girl, right?”

  He shrugged. “Okay, Kavanaugh, you’re right. This guy wasn’t in drag.”

  “Do you know this guy’s name? Do you have a file?”

  His expression grew concerned. “Why are you looking for him? What did he do?”

  I figured I should keep it simple. “I met him this morning in New York New York. We were playing roulette.”

  Jeff’s eyebrows shot up into his forehead. “You? Really?”

  “So what’s wrong with that? Can’t I gamble?”

  He shrugged. “You just don’t seem to like it.”

  “And you’re the big expert on what I like and don’t like?”

  “Don’t get your panties in a bunch, Kavanaugh.” He chuckled. “Your face turns red when you get mad.”

  I hadn’t noticed before, but now I did: My face was hot, and I knew it must be almost as red as my hair. Jeff Coleman brought out the worst in me. I struggled to get back to the matter at hand.

  “So the picture, the guy, what’s his name?”

  But he wasn’t going to let it go.

  “Did you win?”

  “What?”

  “Did you win? At roulette?”

  I felt myself blush even deeper.

  He let out a large chortle. “You did, didn’t you? Kavanaugh, no one wins at roulette. At least not to live to tell about it.”

  Okay, I got it, the reference to Russian roulette. I wasn’t born yesterday.

  “How much did you win?”

  “None of your business.”

  “You were playing with this guy?”

  The conversation veered so fast back on track that I got dizzy for a second. I found myself telling him the whole story, how we kept winning, and then how he said my name and took off trailing chips when he realized his mistake.

  “You inked those tran-I mean, drag queens-for that show, didn’t you?” Jeff asked.

  I nodded. “Yeah.”

  “And this guy was with drag queens when I inked him.”

  “Okay.” And then I got it. “You think that he knew me because of Trevor and Stephan and Kyle?”

  “If the dress fits.”

  I snorted. “Ha-ha, funny.” I had another thought. “Did you tell him about me? I was talking to a guy in a pawnshop this morning who knew me because you’d told him about me and my ink.”

  “What are you doing in pawnshops?”

  I shrugged, indicating I wasn’t going to elaborate. He made a face at me.

  “Okay, be that way. Maybe I’m just trying to help you out, get you some business.”

  “Don’t do me any favors.”

  “Oh, I forgot, you’re above all this.” He cocked his head to indicate the flash on the walls. “So maybe I told a couple people about you.”

  “This guy, too?”

  “Could be I mentioned you; I don’t remember.”

  “But then why did he run away from me?”

  “I’m not a freaking psychic, Kavanaugh.” Jeff turned back to his client. “Ready?” he asked him, picking up his machine.

  “Hey, you didn’t tell me his name,” I said. “Can you show me his file?”

  “Client confidentiality,” Jeff said, touching the needle to the guy’s back again.

  I couldn’t fault him for not telling me. I probably wouldn’t tell me, either. As tattoo artists, we do have an obligation to our clients to keep their information confidential, sort of like psychiatrists and doctors. Getting a tattoo is deeply personal, and I’ve had clients tell me stuff they’d probably never told anyone else. Still, I got up off the chair and shoved it away with maybe a little too much force. It rolled back toward the cabinet and slammed into it with a loud crash.

  Jeff didn’t even look up.

  I slung my messenger bag across my chest and started to walk out. “Thanks for nothing,” I tossed behind me.

  “Rusty Abbott.”

  I stopped and turned. Jeff was grinning at me, and he was waving the tattoo machine around like a cowboy with a six-shooter.

  “His name is Rusty Abbott. He’s Lester Fine’s personal assistant.”

  Lester Fine, the actor running for a senate seat.

  Chapter 15

  I headed back to the Venetian, my thoughts all mixed up like scrambled eggs. Now that I knew his name and whom he worked for, I could track Rusty Abbott down. I could ask him why he ran at the casino this morning, and why he took off on me this afternoon in that truck. But I had an uneasy feeling that he wouldn’t want to talk to me and might keep ducking me. He did run away from me. Twice.

  What if he was the guy with the champagne last night? Jeff said he inked two other guys at the same time. Why didn’t I push for their names, too, while I was at it? That was stupid of me. Jeff had caved more easily than I thought he would when I asked about Rusty, surprising me into forgetting about the other two guys. Now he might just give me those names, although I was sure he’d try to make me beg. It would be out of character if he didn’t. I’d just have to suck it up and call him later about it. Granted, playing-card tattoos weren’t exactly a rarity, especially in Vegas. I had no reason to think Rusty Abbott or the other two he was with that night had anything to do with what happened at Chez Tango.

  Except a nagging feeling.

  Why had he run?

  I kept coming back to that.

  I was stopped at a light when I looked over at a strip mall and saw another pawnshop. It was a block up from Cash & Carry, just past the Sahara, like Trevor had said. Why not check this place out, too? I was here.

  I inched over into the left-hand-turn lane, hearing the horns behind me. Too bad. The light turned green, and I pulled into the parking lot. The name of the shop was Pawned-clever. There were some wordsmiths at work here. It wore the same ubiquitous bars over its windows as Cash & Carry, and again neon signs advertised I’d get a good price for my gold jewelry.

  Maybe if nothing else, this was a sign that I should get rid of that engagement ring. I really had no idea why I was holding on to it. It wasn’t as if I was waiting for Paul to come find me. It had been two years. I’d moved on; he’d moved on.

  Pawned was not as tidy as Cash & Carry. It looked like the local landfill. Piles of discarded bicycles, kids’ toys, skateboards, Rollerblades, televisions, computers, and various sporting equipment were scattered throughout the small space. It, too, had a long glass case, but instead of the neat displays, jewelry and watches were clumped together in spots, with large empty spaces b
etween them.

  A short, emaciated guy with a couple of teeth missing and tattoos crawling up his arms and across his neck leered at me.

  “Can I help you?” he asked, his voice unnaturally high.

  “Was there some sort of incident here this morning?” I asked, noting now the cameras in the corners of the room.

  “Incident?”

  “Were the police here for any reason?” I wished that Joel were with me. Guys tended to talk to other guys in a way they’d never talk to me.

  “Where’d you get your ink?” he asked, ignoring my question.

  “Most of it in Jersey,” I said. “You?” I added, to be polite.

  “Murder Ink.”

  I nodded. “I know Jeff Coleman.” Maybe that would give me an in with this guy.

  “Nice guy.”

  Well, I wouldn’t go that far, but I nodded again.

  “You a cop?” he asked.

  Same question as in Cash & Carry. I didn’t think I looked like a cop, but maybe some of Tim and my dad had rubbed off on me.

  I shook my head.

  “Private dick?”

  Now, that would be an interesting career choice. But I shook my head again.

  He was looking suspicious. I had to give him something.

  “A cop came to my shop looking for one of my workers. He said she was involved in an incident at a pawnshop; he wanted to talk to her.” I paused, then added, “She’s got derringer tattoos.” I pointed to my inner upper arms. “Here.”

  He licked his lips. “Hot chick. Came in here this morning.”

  “What happened?”

  “Cop didn’t tell you?”

  I shook my head.

  “She came in asking about a pin I had. Fancy thing, rubies and diamonds. Like a queen-of-hearts card. I told her I didn’t have it anymore. Guy who pawned it bought it back.”

  Charlotte already knew that. What was going on?

  The guy wasn’t done yet, though.

  “Funny about that pin.”

  I frowned. “What?”

  “Every week I get a list from the cops of things that are stolen. You know, like in robberies or stuff like that.” He paused. “Two days ago, I got the list. That pin was on it.”