I hopped into the Buick, deciding it wasn’t smart to leave it in the diner’s crummy parking lot. I’d take my chances along the street a few blocks over on Pine Avenue. I cruised around the block slowly until I spotted the tattoo shop on my left and pulled into the nearest empty curbside spot across the street. I locked the doors and crossed to investigate, dodging a couple of crates going too fast towards the beach. My lucky day, so far.
Archie’s was still several miles from Shanghai Ruby’s and squeezed in between a small empty used furniture store and a dental office. According to the chipped overhead signage pointing up, Doctor Pain’s gloomy unpopular door-less entrance led to a darkened stairwell and a second-floor probable horror chamber.
According to the crowd of potential customers nervously peering inside through Archie’s dusty windows, the little tattoo shop typically manned by an ex-sailor or a high school dropout seemed to be one of the more prosperous businesses on that side of the street. I wondered what the “Tooth Puller,” with his fancy college degrees or more likely correspondence school diploma, terrified customers and an empty patient chair most of the time, thought about that irony.
I entered andside-stepped a smiling couple just leaving with small bandages taped to their arms in what must have been an enjoyable afternoon. The whole place smelled like disinfectant and my boxing gym on Melrose. The walls of the room were painted a crimson red, bright enough to wake the dead, and covered in once colorful and now yellowed designs with matching prices affixed to each underneath. They were mostly traditional nautical themes from anchors and ships to mermaids, pinup nudes, and everything else patriotic in between. A large flickering neon sign overhead advertised “Design Flash- Pick your Poison .” Nice sales pitch, I thought.
Two husky, bare-chested young Marines with serious expressions and their uniform shirts tossed over an adjacent coat rack were sitting stoically on kitchen chairs on the opposite side of the room. Both were getting something memorable inked on their chests they’d later regret. A couple of wiry guys, one wearing an old sailor’s hat upside down and one bare headed, both with rolled- up sleeves advertising their own share of skin art on skinny, sinewy arms were hunched over their victims with buzzing machines in rabid concentration. The one with the dirty hat puffing a droopy cigarette must have sensed me enter and turned to see who was next. I nodded and smiled. He gave me a blank stare, then turned back around and blew a cloud of smoke out his nostrils across his customer’s fresh art work. He was now more than anxious to finish on the Marine and begin work on another sucker.
I fired up a Lucky, tipped my hat back, and waited, drumming my fingers on the counter, anxious for information from one of these two lunkheads. My anxiety wouldn’t speed up the process. I tried to settle in, glancing around again at the dingy design choices plastered on the walls. None looked appealing, and all looked like they’d been tacked there since before World War I. I thought about the cartoon designs the little pink- haired Candy had inked on her forearms and couldn’t find them on the wall. I wondered if she had more hidden underneath her waitress uniform. That crumb Chester must have seen them all from the familiar way she talked. What a loser. She deserved so much better but didn’t know it.
I double- checked my watch several times and noticed I wasn’t making much progress. The sound of the small electric tattoo machines whirred in the background, accompanied only by inaudible chatter from the brave customers in the chairs trying to bolster their own courage and the loud music blaring from a Philco radio on a side shelf. I noticed the lighting seemed to be a bit too subdued for performing these intricate operations, but nobody seemed to be complaining, so I guessed it didn’t have much effect on the accuracy of the design anyway.
I checked my watch once more and thought about Ruby’s down by the waterfront. I decided I’d let this ride a little longer and question whichever one of the tattoo clowns finished first. The little weasel Candy had described was important. I’d keep waiting. That little crumb was suddenly part of the big picture starring me in the face, but his description didn’t match with either one of the two with coat hanger arms working here today. At least not right now anyway. I’d have to be patient a little longer, something not in my nature.
The one with the cigarette smoke in his eyes finished up first as predicted and finally glanced around again, squinting to see if I was still there. He wasn’t disappointed on that score, but would be once we’d talked. I wasn’t there to get branded. He began hastily straightening up his workplace, putting his supplies neatly away, and shook hands with the grinning Marine plastered with a fresh bandage across his chest. Spinning around in his chair, he exited, anxious to hook another sap, before I’d lost interest.
“What can I do for you, mister?” he said, showing a mouth full of crooked teeth and desperately sweeping his hand towards the fly speck- stained designs on the walls like an exhibition of newly discovered Picassos. “Yeh got something picked out yet, friend?”
From the no-nonsense look on my face, he knew without a further pitch it was going to be a no-sale. He was overly eager to line his pocket with some of my dough, but it wouldn’t work. He pushed once more, hoping to influence my decision with a more aggressive angle.
“Come on, come on, buddy, I ain’t got all day. Which one? You must have decided by now, you been stand’n here awhile. Let me make a suggestion for you, ah-how about, ah…” He picked out something that looked like a rodeo cowboy on a bucking bronco. I winced and cut him off.
“Sorry to disappoint you, pal. I’m not here for ink. I need some information. Let’s cut out the sales crap, okay? I’ve wasted enough time here already.”
“But…” he interrupted.
“Just shut up, and I’ll do the asking,” I said, holding up my hand to prevent further interruptions.
The ex-swabbie looked more than disappointed, probably wondering why he’d rushed the last job. No telling what shortcuts he’d taken on his last design, but the Marine wouldn’t notice until he’d removed the bandage, and by then, he’d be out to sea anyway.
I continued, “I’m looking for a little guy that I heard works here.” I described the little runt Candy had seen and watched his face lock up. “He goes out with a platinum bimbo from time to time. You know him and the girl or not?”
“What you want him for, friend? Who told you he works here?” he said, becoming defensive and taking a step backward, not sure if he wasn’t going to regret his smart mouth.
His partner, overhearing our loud conversation, set his tattoo machine aside and left his customer unfinished, who was anxious to join his friend with the bandaged chest who’d already gone outside.
“I’ve got a message for him that I’d like to deliver personally. And tell me about the blonde, too.” I gave the two stooges a look that meant my patience was wearing thin, and I expected answers and pronto.
I decided to sweeten the deal and reached for my money clip and added, “Here’s a couple of fins for not giving me the needle, okay? Now let’s talk.”
“Yeah, yeah okay, thanks. I-I guess that sounds fair enough,” said the one with thestill-smoldering cigarette clouding his kisser and the well-worn sailor hat with Spike written across the unturned edge. He turned to get a confirming nod and a snaggle- toothed grin from his partner. They both decided to cooperate, stuffing the dough in their pockets.
“He works the second shift here sometimes if we’re busy.”
“Name?”
“Frank Murphy. He’s alright.”
“You know him long?”
“No, not us. We just met him a few weeks ago. He’s a friend of Archie’s.”
I shot him a puzzled glance. “I need more.”
He caught on without more prompting, “You know, Archie … Archie Bates, the guy that owns this shop.” He pointed over his shoulder to a partially faded black and white photo stapled to the wall showing a tall, well build mug with arms heavily plastered with tattoo’s giving the needle to another sucker grimacing in pain. “Archie said, he and Frank are old pals, did time together. Frank just got out of stir and needed a job, so….”
“What about the blonde, Spike?”
“You mean Gina?”
“Yeah, that’s her,” I said, that piece fitting together conveniently with the scrap of paper in my pocket.
“I think it’s his girl, a real classy dish too. Her name’s Slade, Gina Slade. She stopped by here a couple of times and they talked kind of quiet, like they had something they didn’t want us to hear. A real looker she is. We was jealous too, right Benny?” he said, jabbing his friend in the ribs and grinning. “He spends time in the slammer, you know, and then gets a dame like that when he gets out. What a lucky guy, ain’t he?”
“Yeah, real lucky,” I said, thinking back to that once beautiful babe, naked and cold as a fish on ice, sprawled on a rumpled bed in that dump that I’d just left a few hours ago. I just shook my head.
“You know her, mister?” he said smiling, watching for confirmation of his opinion.
“I’ve seen her, pal. She was some dish all right.”
“W-what do you mean was?” he said, catching my slip. He wasn’t so stupid after all. I lied my way out of it. “I mean, ah- the last time I saw her.”
“Oh, yeah, you’re right.”
“Frank going to be here tonight?” I said, changing course to lighten the message by sounding like I was familiar with the guy.
“No. Benny here,” he said, pointing to his pal, “he come in late so he’s go’n to run the show instead. You might try Shanghai Ruby’s on Neptune Avenue, maybe later this evening. Frank said he knows someone there and likes to stop in for a drink sometimes to shoot the breeze. Helps him settle his nerves, he said.”
I was going there anyway. I wondered what his connection there was, but these punks wouldn’t know. I said, “That’s reassuring for your customers, isn’t it?”
“W-what do you mean? He ain’t no jitterbug, mister. He’s clean and sober.”
“It’s nothing. Forget it, pal. I didn’t mean anything. Just ah-Ruby’s a popular place around here, right?”
“Oh yeah, sure.”
He didn’t get it. I let it pass, but sensed he was coming out of his stupor and might wise up this Bates character before I had a chance to grab him.
“You know where Frank lives? Maybe I can catch up with him there?”
“He lives around here in Long Beach,” Spike continued, blurting out on a winning streak, my dough already burning a hole in his pocket and thinking maybe more on the way. “I think he said it was somewhere off of Pacific Avenue, the Argosy Court apartments or…”
“Nix, nix,” Benny mumbled out of the corner of his mouth, jabbing him sharply in the ribs to clam up, but it was too late. He’d already blabbed too much. I salted his comments away, noting the crumb lived only a few blocks from the shop. If I played my cards right, I might be able to nail him at home.
Spike nervously grinned, showing off his yellow choppers again. He ran a dry tongue over the two in front stuck under his upper lip and then tried to backtrack over his faux pas by changing the subject.
“Say, mister, what did you say this is all about?”
If the little shop hadn’t been filling up with more dopey customers, I would have throttled the little bastard right then to get what I needed. I’d already waited longer than I’d planned on and was starting to build up a head of steam with the stall, but I’d let it ride to see if I could squeeze more out of either of these losers.
“I’m delivering an important message, re-member?” I was wrong. They’d run out of answers and were getting nosey.
I unbuttoned my suit coat and let them catch a glimpse of my holstered .357 mag. persuader. They glanced at each other and got the picture fast.
“Oh ye-ah, I guess so. Y-you look like somebody connected too,” one of the dim-wits mumbled, deciding to shut up with the questions.
I fished out a couple more fins, slid them across the counter, and said, “I suggest you two clowns keep our conversation under your lids. I don’t want to return and repeat my request, comprende?”
They both nodded nervously in tandem like a couple of attached Siamese twins and pocketed the extra grease equally fast with only a smirk. I had enough to go on and didn’t have to say more to clam them up. I slammed the door on my way out.
It was too early for Shanghai Ruby’s. I’d pick it up later. That joint was becoming more and more of a focal point in my investigation, and I was anxious to collect more information, but I didn’t want to miss that little punk Frank Murphy either. Fresh out of stir, Spike said. That was a new twist, and what did he have going that was connected to the dead blonde back at the Parrott. Did he even know she was dead already? I’d work on that angle soon enough.
I’d spent too much time at the tattoo shop already. I decided to check back with Rhonda at the office and see how she was doing and to inquire about a couple of calls I was expecting. I had a feeling that this case was going to crack wide open with something that was going to sail right past Sherman’s astute police department investigators. This was also much bigger than what I’d originally anticipated with McCullen. He might very easily be the next victim to turn up cold as a tomb stone, if I didn’t get the pieces into place soon enough. On that, I would also be wrong.