Karen Olson - Driven to Ink

I parked on the sixth level of the parking garage and took the elevator to the level for the Grand Canal Shoppes. Once the doors opened, I turned to the left and then to the left again and through the sliding doors that led into the mall.

The developers probably would take issue with me calling it a mall, but that’s what it was. Granted, there wasn’t a Sears or JCPenney like at home in New Jersey, but the high-end stores, like Barneys New York, Shooz, Kenneth Cole, and others, that lined the walkway running along the fake Venice canal and surrounding St. Mark’s Square did constitute a mall, in my opinion. So what if it had ornate gold trim and paintings of cherubs on the ceiling with fake sky and clouds, and musicians and dancers dressed in Renaissance garb who entertained the tourists and shoppers, rather than a hokey North Pole setup with cotton-ball snow and Santa at Christmastime?

I sidestepped a couple of the aforementioned tourists as I reached the end of the canal, where gondolas were waiting to pick up their next fares, and pushed open the door to The Painted Lady.

Because it was a high-end mall, we weren’t allowed to advertise that it was a tattoo shop. We looked more like an art gallery. Ace van Nes, one of my tattooists, paints comic book versions of famous works of art. Today we had da Vinci’s The Last Supper , Ingres’s The Valpinçon Bather , and David’s The Lictors Bring to Brutus the Bodies of His Sons hanging on the walls. The blond laminate flooring clashed in a good way with the dark mahogany desk at our entry-way. Four individual workrooms were divided and closed off to the public. In the back, a sleek black leather sofa and glass-top coffee table served as our waiting area. We also had a staff room with a refrigerator, microwave, and light table, as well as a small office.

Bitsy kept everything in order. That was why I kept her on when I bought the business two and a half years ago. And while we had four rooms, we had only three artists at the moment: Ace, Joel Sloane, and me.

Ace was in Bitsy’s usual seat at the front desk.

“Hey, boss lady,” he drawled. He’d been calling me that for the last month or so, and even though I kept asking him not to, he persisted.

“Where’s Bitsy?” I asked.

“I’m fine. How are you?” One of Ace’s eyebrows rose higher than the other. It gave his handsome face a comedic look, and I couldn’t help but smile.

“Fine, fine.”

“Heard you had some excitement this morning.”

I bet he did. Bitsy couldn’t keep her mouth shut about anything.

“I’m not sure I’d call it exciting,” I said. “Where’s Bitsy?”

“She’s in with Joel.” Ace cocked his head toward Joel’s room. The door was closed. Something was up. Joel never closed his door unless a client specifically asked for privacy or he was tattooing a particularly private body part. Before working here, he’d tattooed in street shops, where most of the stations are all out in the open. He doesn’t like being closed in if he doesn’t have to be.

I took a step toward the room, but Ace’s voice stopped me.

“They’d hoped they’d find it before you came in.”

My heart had jumped up into my throat, and it took me a second to ask, “Find what?”

Ace sighed. “Joel’s clip cord. It’s missing.”

It couldn’t possibly be the same cord. Mr. That’s Amore had been in my trunk since yesterday, and Joel was working yesterday, so it couldn’t be. As I’d told Tim earlier, I hadn’t taken any equipment home with me and didn’t keep anything in my car. But it did seem odd that I’d discovered a body with a clip cord around its neck, and now we had a clip cord that had gone missing.

“I used the extra one yesterday,” Joel was saying. “I don’t know what I did with it.”

Bitsy was riffling underneath Joel’s shelves, where he kept extra baby wipes, boxes of latex gloves, and inks. Her face was bright red, her breath ragged. I’d never seen her so undone. She was obviously making the connection, too, between what had happened this morning and Joel’s missing cord.

“I knew it was here,” she kept saying. “I put it right down here. I know I did.”

Joel and I shook our heads at each other and shrugged.

“Who was in here yesterday?” I asked Joel.

“Well, besides me and Bitsy, I did a couple of tattoos in the morning and three, I think, after lunch. It was a busy day.”

Bitsy stood up with her hands on her hips, staring at the space where she insisted she’d put the clip cord, as if it would miraculously appear telekinetically.

“So Ace didn’t borrow it?”

“Why would he?” Joel asked. “He’s got a couple in his room.”

I knew that, but I had to ask. I had two clip cords in my room, too, so would have no need to borrow anyone else’s.

“A client wouldn’t take it,” Joel said. “Would they?”

“It’s got to be here somewhere,” Bitsy muttered, shoving between me and Joel as she left the room.

“It probably got put somewhere, and we’ll find it later,” I said. “She’s jumping to conclusions.”

“You have to admit it’s a little weird,” Joel said, going over to his shelves and taking another look.

I didn’t help. I really was beginning to think this was just hysteria. There was absolutely no reason why anyone would take a clip cord from our shop.

Bitsy was scouring the appointment book when I came back out, leaving Joel to his own search. Ace was nowhere to be seen.

“He went out to that oxygen bar for his fix,” Bitsy said, referring to Breathe just down the walkway from the shop. Ace was addicted to the aromatherapy oxygen pumped through his nostrils at the trendy “bar.” He said the pretty Asian girl who massaged his back while he was hooked up wasn’t bad, either.

Joel lumbered past, his hefty frame looking-dare I say it-maybe a little less hefty.

I forgot about the clip cord for a second and asked, “Joel, have you lost weight?”

He grinned. “I’m on the Atkins diet. I’ve lost twenty-five pounds. You noticed?”

While I was pleased he was losing weight, I was dubious about Atkins. “You mean you’re only eating meat?”

“Haven’t you noticed he’s not eating the buns with the burgers?” Bitsy asked without looking up from the appointment book. She was the queen of multitasking.

I guess I’d been remiss. But Joel wasn’t holding it against me.

“I’m eating salads, too.”

“How long?”

“About two weeks.”

“No, I mean, how long are you going to be on it?”

“Brett”-he scowled-“there’s no time limit.” He reached for the door.

“Where are you going?” Bitsy looked up from the book. “You’ve got a client coming in ten minutes.”

“I want to take a walk around the canal. I’ll be back.”

As the door closed slowly behind him, Bitsy and I looked at each other.

“Exercise?” I asked.

“It won’t last,” Bitsy said. “You know how many times he tried that Weight Watchers.” She went back to her book. “His clients yesterday were a Ronald Haugen, Jessica Storey, Mark Wilkinson, Dan Franklin, and Tony Perez. But not in that order. Franklin was first. Then Perez, then Storey, Haugen, and Wilkinson.”

“Why does it matter what order?” I asked.

Her head shot up, and she stared at me, her bright blue eyes flashing. “Maybe because it makes me feel good to think there’s some sort of order in this chaos.”

I wasn’t quite sure how to respond to that, so I asked, “When’s my first client?”

“Not until three o’clock.” Her head was buried in the book again. “I rescheduled you.”

I figured I’d get some stencils done in the meantime, so I went into the staff room and sat at the light table. I’d been working on a portrait of a woman’s daughter who’d passed away earlier in the year. A pile of manila folders sat perched on the edge of the table, and I picked them up and leafed through them, looking for mine.