Karen Olson: Ink Flamingos

“I’m not surprised,” I said. “Your mother is the stuff legends are made of. Did she ever come by to take the pictures?”

“No. My mother refused. How did she put it? Oh, yeah: I won’t let myself be exploited in that way .”

Good for her.

“So you’ve never met her?” Jeff was asking. “Ainsley Wainwright, that is.”

“I never even saw her blog until today,” I admitted. “Why?”

Jeff was quiet for a moment, and I waited. I started to have a bad feeling about this.

“She’s got pictures of you. On her blog.”

Pictures of me? On a blog?

“You didn’t see them?” Jeff asked.

“I only saw that picture of Daisy’s flamingo, which was the latest post. It threw me for a loop. I didn’t even look at anything else on the blog.” I’d left the laptop in the office when I’d been in there with Flanigan. I held the phone to my ear as I left the staff room and went out into the hall.

Bitsy was sitting with her back to me at the front desk. Joel was still with a client, and Ace was who knew where. Probably at that oxygen bar, Breathe, a little ways down the walkway along the canal. He was addicted to the aromatherapy oxygen. But I supposed it could be worse.

I went into the office and shut the door. A small lamp on the desk was the only light source. I flipped up the laptop and saw it was asleep. I hit the POWER button and the picture of the infected tattoo came up on the screen.

“Have you ever heard of anyone dying from an infected tattoo?” I asked Jeff.

“No. Is that how she died?”

“I have no idea. No one would tell me how she died.” There. There was the blog. I scrolled down, but didn’t see any pictures of me. “Where are these pictures?” I asked.

“You have to go back a couple weeks. I thought you knew.”

“Do you check this blog regularly?” I asked, hitting the link for all the posts for the past month.

“Never heard of it until she contacted my mother. It’s not exactly remarkable. There are others like it. Better, actually.”

I agreed.

“You haven’t found it yet?” Impatience laced his voice.

“Keep your pants on,” I said without thinking. Uh-oh.

“Are you sure about that, Kavanaugh?” Teasing replaced the impatience. “I could-”

“I got it.” While I was glad I could interrupt Jeff, I was stunned by what I was seeing.

Under a title that read “Sin City’s Famous Painted Lady,” Ainsley Wainwright had posted not one, not two, but about ten pictures of me in various locations. Walking along the canal outside my shop, looking in the window at a pair of shoes at Kenneth Cole, holding a cup of gelato in St. Mark’s Square, with Joel outside the Walgreens on the sidewalk.

In every picture, my tattoos were prominent: the half sleeve with the Japanese koi wrapped in a sea of greens and blues; Monet’s water lily garden on the other arm; a close-up of Napoleon riding his horse up the Alps on my calf-an homage to Jacques-Louis David, my favorite painter; the Celtic cross on my upper back-why did I wear a halter top?-and she’d even zoomed in on the head of the dragon that came up over the low scoop neck of my tank top.

I felt violated.

I had not given this woman permission to take my picture and put it on this blog. I hadn’t been aware of any cameras in my vicinity at any time. I would not have given permission even if I’d known. I was a walking advertisement for my shop, but I did not like the idea of being exploited.

Which was exactly why Sylvia had said no to her when Ainsley had asked to put pictures of her up on the blog.

“You take a nice picture,” Jeff said, as though he knew what I was thinking and wanted to make it a little better.

It didn’t work.

“Do you think I can sue her?”

“Probably not,” Jeff admitted.

“Can I make her take down the pictures?”

“Probably. But you realize once something’s on the Internet, it never really goes away.”

“That’s not exactly reassuring,” I said.

“It’s the truth. Listen, Kavanaugh, would love to shoot the crap with you all afternoon, but I’ve got a client coming in. Stop up later if you want to see how an expert really works.” He barked a short laugh and hung up.

I set the phone down next to the computer as I stared at the picture of me and Joel outside Walgreens. I was in the foreground, in sharp focus; Joel was behind me, a little fuzzy. I tried to think about where the person with the camera would be to get this particular shot. Maybe the palm tree-laden median between the lanes on the Strip. How could I not notice someone with a camera? Because cameras aren’t exactly a rarity on the Strip. All those tourists taking pictures of each other in front of the Duomo at the Venetian; the Eiffel Tower at Paris; the fountains at the Bellagio; the Roman columns at Caesars.

A soft knock on the door.

“Come in,” I said, feeling totally deflated.

Joel’s head peeked around the doorjamb.

“Are you okay?”

Was I? First I find out my friend died, and then this.

“I’m not sure,” I admitted, moving the laptop around so Joel could see for himself.

He stepped inside and moved to the desk, leaning over so he could see the laptop screen. His brows knit into a frown, and he looked up at me. “What’s this?”

“Apparently this blogger took pictures of me and put them up on her blog. Without my permission.” The more I thought about it, the more it bothered me. Should I call Tim and report this? The cops were bound to look for Ainsley Wainwright anyway, since she took the picture of Daisy’s tattoo and then Daisy was found dead. And the room Daisy was found in was booked by Ainsley Wainwright.

“This is me,” Joel said, noticing the Walgreens shot. I nodded, putting my head down on the desk. “This morning I didn’t even know this thing existed. It was better that way.”

I felt Joel’s hand on my back, rubbing in a circular motion. “It’s not so bad, Brett. At least you’re all dressed and stuff. And she didn’t take any pictures of you eating. That could be really embarrassing.”

Got to hand it to Joel to see the silver lining in this. Another tap on the door.

“Come in,” Joel and I said together.

Bitsy’s eyebrows rose high on her forehead when she saw me with my head down, Joel rubbing my back.

“Are you okay?” she asked me. “Are you sick? Do you need some aspirin?”

“I’m fine,” I said, although not exactly confidently.

“Someone took pictures of her,” Joel said, pointing at the laptop.

Bitsy came over to the desk and pulled the laptop to the edge so she could see.

“At least there are no pictures of you picking your nose or anything,” she said. Okay, another silver lining. “It’s really not so bad, is it?”

How to explain the feeling of violation?

“You know,” Bitsy added, “this is a pretty interesting blog. These tattoos are really good.”

She turned the laptop so we could see the tattoos she was talking about. Elaborate designs, detailed portraits, work I would be proud of if I’d done it.

“You’re in good company,” Joel said.

My cell phone rang. Jeff Coleman again.

“I thought you had a client,” I said without any other greeting.

“Nice to talk to you again, too, Kavanaugh,” he said sarcastically, then, “I forgot to tell you.”

“Tell me what?”

“To read the comments.”

“What comments?” A butterfly started flittering around in my stomach.

“The comments on the blog post about you. Figured you should know.” He hung up.

I didn’t really want to look at them. But I couldn’t help myself. I reached over to the laptop and scrolled back up to the post about me and looked at the link for the comments. There were three.