Karen Olson - Driven to Ink

He slid the blue car into a spot in front of Goodfellas Bail Bonds. Jeff eased the Pontiac into one two spaces away.

Parker climbed out of the car. But instead of going into Goodfellas, as I expected, he sauntered down the sidewalk and stopped in front of Jeff’s shop.

Jeff sat up a little straighter, his hands tight on the steering wheel as he leaned forward. I held my breath. The shop was closed. I assumed the door was locked. Was Parker going to break in?

Turns out he didn’t need to.

The door to Murder Ink swung open, and Parker went inside.

We hardly had time to register what had happened when my phone rang. Tim. I flipped it open. “Hey,” I said.

“That license plate. On the blue car. I got it.”

“It’s Will Parker’s, isn’t it?” I asked.

“Parker? No. It’s that Love Shack guy. Martin Sanderson.”

Sanderson?

Jeff had opened his door, and I put my hand on his arm to stop him from getting out right away as I said to Tim, “I’ll give you a call back, okay?” and flipped my phone closed. “Where are you going?” I asked Jeff. My phone started to ring again, and I saw it was Tim. I turned off the ringer and stuck the phone back in my bag.

“Someone let him into my shop,” he said, his eyes dark with anger. “My mother’s at Rosalie’s. I’m with you. No one else has a key. The shop was locked. I was here earlier and made sure everything was shut down.”

Okay, so he had a legitimate reason to be concerned. If it were my shop, I’d be the same way. I pulled my arm away and nodded. “Okay,” I said, opening my door.

That caused him to pause.

“You are not coming in with me.”

“I am so.”

“I told your brother I’d take you home, and I can’t have you getting hurt or anything on my watch.”

I glared at him. “I’m a big girl, Jeff. I can take care of myself.”

I expected him to come back with some nasty retort, but instead he chuckled. “You’re right about that. Just stay behind me, okay?”

We got out of the car and walked slowly up to the corner of Goodfellas. An alley between Goodfellas and Murder Ink stretched back to another alley where Jeff usually parked his car and smoked with the Mexicans who cooked at the Chinese take-out place on the other side of his business.

“I’m going down here,” he whispered, “in the back way. Hopefully, I can catch them by surprise. But you stay here, in case someone comes out this way. Can you whistle?”

I cocked my head at him and rolled my eyes. “I pucker up and blow, right?” I asked, making my voice all husky and Lauren Bacall-like.

He caught himself before he chuckled. “Nice to know you’re a Bogie fan,” he said, then went down the alley, around to the right, and out of sight.

I leaned against the side of the stucco building that was Goodfellas Bail Bonds. I’d never seen anyone go in or out in all the time I’d known Jeff, but then again, their clientele might keep odd hours. Much like a tattoo shop.

I was concentrating so hard on watching the shop that when my cell phone rang again, I nearly jumped. I leaned down and felt around in my bag for my phone, finally finding it and flipping it open.

“Where’s my Godiva?” Bitsy asked without saying hello, her tone definitely frosty. “Where did you get off to?”

I kept my eye on Murder Ink’s door as I gave it all to her in a nutshell. I wondered what was taking Jeff Coleman so long. Was he inside with Parker and whoever had let Parker in or was he waiting for the right moment to go in the back way?

“You could’ve called earlier,” Bitsy chided, interrupting my thoughts.

“I’m sorry,” I said, and I truly was. I didn’t need Sister Mary Eucharista on my shoulder to remind me that I was shirking my duties.

“When will you be back?”

Still nothing at Murder Ink.

“I’m not-” I started to say when the tattoo shop’s door suddenly flew open and Will Parker came scrambling out with Jeff Coleman on his heels. “Gotta go-call you right back,” I said, uncertain whether I could keep that promise.

Will Parker was coming toward me, and I stuck my foot out in the sidewalk.

He tumbled over it, did a somersault, and somehow landed back on his feet, like some sort of Cirque du Soleil acrobat. Come to think of it, maybe he had been with Cirque at one point. He was a performer, after all, and you couldn’t throw a cat in Vegas without hitting one of those Cirque shows.

The image of him wearing tights for that Renaissance show had bothered me; a leotard would’ve been much worse.

I didn’t have much time to ruminate, though, because Parker was halfway down the block with Jeff behind him. He wasn’t even huffing and puffing. Maybe it was his Marines training. He certainly hadn’t been off the cigarettes long enough to make a difference.

I hesitated to go after them. I wouldn’t be able to keep up, most likely, and as I glanced back at the shop, I couldn’t help but wonder where the person who’d let Parker into the shop in the first place was. Had Jeff managed to tie him to a chair or something before chasing Parker?

I tentatively went toward Murder Ink and peered in the window below the neon sign advertising tattoos. The sign was off, which made it easier to focus.

Jeff’s tattoo stations looked as they normally did: chairs, shelves, flash lining the walls. I didn’t see anyone else in there.

I pulled the door open and stepped inside.

Yup, everything looked normal in here. I touched the top of a box of baby wipes as I stood in one of the stations, checking everything out.

It all seemed so normal that I felt myself relax a little. So when I heard someone clear his throat, my heart started pounding.

The light from the window caught the wisps of his white hair, illuminating them.

“Bernie?” I asked, my heart racing.

Bernie Applebaum was holding some sort of quilted thing. He held it up, and I could see now that it was a bag.

“Sylvia wanted me to pick this up for her,” he said.

For a second, I wondered why. Jeff had been on his way to Sylvia’s for a change of clothes, and he could’ve stopped here and picked this up on the way. But then I remembered it was Sylvia, whose requests usually didn’t make much sense to anyone but her.

“So you let Will Parker in,” I said.

Bernie was staring out the window at the street, and the sound of my voice seemed to startle him. He ran a hand over the top of his head, smoothing out the sparse white hairs.

“Oh, oh, yes,” he said, looking at me again. “Is that his name? He said he was here for a tattoo.”

Really? Will Parker had just had his tattoo touched up-by yours truly. I doubted that’s why he was here, but couldn’t figure out another reason.

Of course it could’ve been my own vanity, wanting to think that Parker wouldn’t come to Jeff Coleman for another tattoo if he’d been happy with the one I gave him.

Okay, so I’d conveniently forgotten that Will Parker said he lived at an In-N-Out Burger and was driving a blue car that was all smashed up as though it had been in an accident and that Lou Marino was hit by maybe a blue car.

I hoped Jeff had caught him, but since he wasn’t back yet, they were probably halfway down the Strip by now.

“So you don’t know him?” I asked.

Bernie shook his head and indicated the quilted bag. “She said it was yellow. Is this yellow?”

It was a mishmash of fabrics, and some did have yellow in them. “I suppose,” I said and had another thought. “Why did you let him in? The shop is closed. You couldn’t help with a tattoo.”