The Missing Ink Read Online Free PDF Page A

embarrassment as he apologized profusely. When I reached him, I touched his arm in support, and he nodded at me.
    The woman must have been in her sixties, according to the skin on her neck, chest, and hands, but her face was smooth as silk. Either exceptional Botox or a fantastic face-lift. Maybe both. Her hands clutched several shopping bags, and she flipped her hair back over her shoulder as she stared at my arm, taking in the whole garden scene, her expression showing disgust. She looked from me to Joel, noticing now the Betty Boop intertwined with a black-and-red geometric design on his left arm, the skeleton and hatchet prominent in the sleeve on his right, and the barbed-wire tat around his neck.
    “Be more careful next time,” she said to Joel, flouncing past.
    Joel chuckled. “She needs to loosen up,” he said when she was out of earshot.
    “Maybe we should give her some tats on the house,” I suggested. “Hey, did you notice that big guy with all the ink? He was across the canal.” The canal wasn’t that wide; it was a mini-illusion. How else would it fit in a mall?
    Joel frowned. “Yeah, I saw him.”
    “Look familiar?”
    “It’s not my work, but that eagle that wrapped around his neck was pretty cool.”
    Now that he mentioned it, my memory flashed on it. It was cool, but that didn’t mean the overall package wasn’t creepy.
    Joel started walking toward the shop, and I fell into step beside him. “So, who is he?” he asked.
    “I don’t know. But he was watching me, and it was uncomfortable.”
    Joel immediately looked concerned. “In what way?”
    I told him about how he aimed his finger at me and pretended to shoot.
    His concern deepened. “I can call a couple of people and see if they know who he is. It was enough ink so someone should be able to identify him just on a description.”
    Joel knew everyone in the tattoo business in Las Vegas.
    “That would be great. I don’t want to run into him again.” Major understatement.
    Joel started to breathe a little more heavily. All that weight was a chore to carry around.
    “Pretzel for breakfast?” I asked.
    Joel took a bite. “I’m going to start Weight Watchers next week.”
    I nodded, like he really would this time, instead of going out after a couple hours and sneaking some Häagen-Dazs or gelato or Godiva chocolate on his break. It wasn’t my place to say anything.
    “That woman was pretty rude,” I said to change the subject.
    “I shouldn’t have stopped short.”
    “So what? She didn’t have to talk to you that way.”
    “You’re right, but she’d had some fabulous work done. And she’d been shopping at Privilege. They’ve got gorgeous stuff.”
    Joel’s tats belied his nature. The ink, his size, the blond braid that hung down his back, and the hoop earring—as well as the long chain looped into his jeans pocket that kept him from losing his keys—indicated a brawny, tough guy. His tone told a whole different story. He’d never talked about a boyfriend, but he never talked about women, either, unless it was to comment on their clothes or shoes or plastic surgery. It made Ace uncomfortable, but Ace had his own problems, so he kept his mouth shut.
    “So, what are you going to do about that guy?” Joel asked as we reached the shop.
    I pushed the door open. I tried to be nonchalant. “Unless I see him again, nothing. I mean, I could’ve been overreacting.” I knew I wasn’t, and Joel was onto me.
    He shook his head. “Don’t underestimate it. You knew he was watching you, and you don’t know why.”
    Bitsy was standing on her stool, helping Ace straighten a new painting over the front desk. Ace’s most recent artwork was a rip-off of Ingres’s Odalisque —he’d taken to doing his own comic-book versions of classic paintings that also included da Vinci’s Mona Lisa, Vincent van Gogh’s Starry Night (although it could invariably be argued that it’s already a cartoon), and Botticelli’s Birth of Venus (which