Inked Destiny

pipe.

That’s how Puppy had gotten tagged with the street name. Beer, meth, didn’t matter what was being offered, he was like a cachorro on its madre’s tit.

Puppy gave up the pipe. Sleepy took a long draw. “Motherfuck, this is good stuff,” he said, getting the flash that made his dick go instantly hard.

He took a second hit before passing the dope to Puppy then picking up the cellphone and looking at the picture Drooler sent from the shop. It was making him crazy not knowing who this guy was and why he was asking around about him.

The only thing he could think of was that it had something to do with Lucky. Fucking Cathal Dunne must have made Lucky talk. Using drugs maybe. Or torture. Lucky would never have given up a homie otherwise.

Lucky wasn’t a coward. An order came down and he’d take care of business. The only way he wouldn’t, especially when Jacko did the asking, was if something bad happened.

Sleepy speed-dialed Drooler. “Come on, man, answer your fucking phone.”

But he knew Drooler wouldn’t if his uncle was out in the shop. Drooler wouldn’t even text; he wouldn’t risk his tio’s temper. The man wouldn’t use his fists there, but he’d sure as fuck use the heel of his boot on any phone he caught being used while someone was on the clock.

He got voicemail. “I’m dying here, ese. Call me!”

He put the phone on the couch and held out his hand for the pipe.

Puppy made a little whimpering sound, like they were littermates and he was getting knocked off the teat. Motherfucker might already have been blooded a couple of times, but he wasn’t going to lose the nickname anytime soon.

Sleepy sucked the last of the meth into his lungs, feeling energized, ready to hunt down the guy asking around about him and beat out some answers.

The cell chimed. Drooler.

“Yo, homie,” Sleepy said.

“Emilio didn’t want to give anything up. He said he wanted to stay uninvolved.”

Sleepy lunged to his feet. “He’s going to change his mind when I get there.”

“Chill. Chill. I worked it. You’re going to love this. Might even get some money out of it. Guy was just doing a favor for some tattoo artist friend of his. Supposedly got a book deal going down and needs pictures of the guys she’s put art on.”

“She?”

“Yeah. Yeah. I think Emilio said she. I’m outside on break. I go in to ask, I won’t get back to you for a while.”

“Don’t bother man.” She. There was only one she who’d ever put ink on him, and he felt the burn of those places like they’d suddenly come alive and were trying to drag him down and make him feel like a loser.

Bitch. But his eyes skittered to the crystal pipe on the table.

He’d shaken the habit off once. Even come up to San Francisco to stay with an older sister to get clear of the gang scene. Homies down in LA didn’t appreciate him covering those tats. Fuck him for letting Justine talk him around to it. But hanging with Lucky who was in tight with Jacko and on his way to being made had smoothed that shit over and now he was sporting new art showing the tie to his boys.

Etain. That was who covered up his old gang tats. “Emilio give you the guy’s name?”

“No. But somebody else said Derrick something. Said he was a tattoo artist, too, worked at a place called Stylin’ Ink.”

Stylin’ Ink. Yeah, seems that was the place Etain worked too.

“Thanks, homie.” He took off his shirt and made the muscles ripple, picturing himself in a book.

* * *

Cathal pulled to a stop behind Sean’s Hummer, tension like a vise grip squeezing him, and not eased by the constant presence of the ominously silent Heath. Guard? Or bodyguard? The distinction was important.

He’d made himself go by Saoirse earlier, made himself walk past the alley where he’d left Cage to deal with the body. He’d subtly watched his newly acquired companion for a sign Heath knew what had happened but had gotten no hint as to what the Elf thought. Why now and not last night?

A stab of guilt came and went for not swinging by Stylin’ Ink after his meetings. And then a sharper stab because it was a relief to be away from the supernatural.

Yeah right. He caught himself rubbing the tattoo on his left arm. When he concentrated on it, he could feel a low hum. Confirmation Etain was alive? Or warning he was in the presence of someone not human?

He got out of the car, pulling his cellphone from his pocket and dropping it onto his seat. Probably overkill given Sean’s electronics, and the high probability of there being a powerful jammer in the Hummer. Heath also left the car but didn’t make a move to follow him.

“What have you got for me?” Sean asked.

Christ. Now the dancing began. “How about an update first.” In case Sean decided he wanted no part in this when presented with the would-be killer’s phone.

“Derrick give you anything on last night’s meet?”

“If he’s at Stylin’ Ink, he might have told Etain something, but I haven’t seen or talked with him since he left with the sketches.”

“Okay. Long things made short. We narrowed it down to seven persons of interest, including two that are possible but not probable given they’ve supposedly fled the country. Today I scratched another three off the list.”

“That from your police meets?”

“More like from my superior skills of investigation, and the reason you pay top dollar and are damn lucky I’m willing to work for a Dunne.”

Cathal managed to suppress a grimace but apparently he had another tell given how quickly Sean said, “You want to go ahead and just spit it out? Or are we going to play dodge ball here?”

He pulled the cellphone, now wrapped in a bar towel, out of his jacket pocket and placed it on the console between them. “It’d be better if you don’t know how I came by this. Plausible deniability and all that. Best guess, it’s a burn phone. Only been used once.” This time he did grimace. “There may or may not be any recoverable prints besides mine.”

Sean made no move to either pick up or uncover the phone. “This tied into your father’s business?”

Cathal felt like scrubbing his hands over his face. But a lifetime of experience told him it wouldn’t make any of this go away. It never had. It never would.

“How do I answer that?” Part stall. Part frustration.

“What about, ‘Why, yes, Sean, it certainly does. In fact it’s connected to that last matter you involved me in. And yes, it comes as a surprise to me too that instead of being cunning and patient, my father and uncle are apparently batshit crazy.’ Does that work for you?”

“Yeah, yeah it does.”

“And how do you fit into this equation?”

There was only one place an honest answer would lead. Fuck. He’d known it would go down like this, but he needed a neutral party. More than that, he needed a friend he could trust, not that he’d break from his lifelong conditioning to communicate through subtext rather than laying the truth out in cold light. “Violence breeds more violence.”

“And sometimes violence is the only way to end things.”

It startled him to hear Sean say it, though it shouldn’t have. Sean had known what would happen to Brianna and Caitlyn’s rapists. He’d been a cop with an up close-and-personal look at how well criminals worked the legal system.

“They go after you?” Sean asked.

“Seems like it.”

“Hence the phone?”

“Yes.”

“If I get prints and a name associated with them, any point in trying to locate the owner?”