21

“WE CAN DO THIS THE EASY WAY OR WE CAN DO THIS THE HARD WAY.”

Otto’s voice carried in the dim, dank basement of Solid Gold Pawn. He stood on the edge of the room, surrounded by the cardboard boxes of merchandise stacked against the walls. Champ was off to one side, his hulking frame perched in front of the room’s only doorway. His massive forearms were folded across his chest.

In the middle of the room, Scotty sat at the metal table. Otto stared at him—the filthy goatee, the tattoos snaking up his arms, that dumb-shit tribal tattoo winding across the left half of his face.

“What’s it gonna be?” Otto said.

“The hell are you talking about, O?” Scotty said.

The only light in the room came from the single lightbulb dangling from the ceiling directly above Scotty. The glow was hazy and faint, but it was enough for Otto to see the fear in Scotty’s eyes. No matter how street-tough Scotty’s voice sounded or how hard the scowl on his face was, his eyes didn’t lie.

“The easy way or the hard way,” Otto said. “What’s it gonna be?”

“I got no idea what—”

“The easy way, you admit you squealed to the cops about me. The hard way, I make you admit it.”

Scotty’s eyes skittered over to the stairway, to the hulking monster standing in front of it. He looked back at Otto, shook his head.

“Squealin’ to the cops?” Scotty said. “You out of your mind? O, man. I got no—”

“Last chance,” Otto said. “Devon Peterson—he was shaking me down. You’re the one who gave him my name. You told him all about me. Admit it.”

“I’m telling you, man, I got no idea what you’re talking about,” Scotty said.

Otto looked over at Champ.

“Looks like it’s the hard way,” he said.

Champ nodded. He uncrossed his arms and picked up a cinder block resting on the ground near his feet. He held the cinder block in one hand, carrying it across the room with no effort or struggle at all, as if it were made of foam instead of forty pounds of solid concrete.

When he reached the table next to Scotty, Champ hefted the cinder block up and slammed it onto the steel tabletop. It landed with a loud metallic thud that echoed in the small room.

Scotty stared at the cinder block, only a few inches away on the table. He fidgeted in his chair.

“Put your hand on the table,” Otto said. “Spread out your fingers.”

“Wait a sec,” Scotty said. The street-tough inflection in his voice wavered. “Hold on.”

“Put your hand on the fucking table. The left one.”

Scotty cautiously set his left hand on the table, a few inches away from the cinder block. He slowly spread out his fingers. His chest rose and fell with his nervous breathing. He looked away from the cinder block and hung his head.

“Okay,” Scotty said. His voice was so low it was almost a whisper.

“What was that?” Otto said.

“I said, okay,” Scotty said, still staring at the ground. “It was me. I gave your name to that cop.”

“You fucker,” Otto said. “You fucking piece of shit.”

Scotty lifted his head and looked at Otto. The fear in his eyes was gone, replaced by a wide-eyed, maniacal desperation.

“I had to do it—you gotta believe me, O,” Scotty said, the words spewing from his mouth in a frantic rush. “This cop was shaking me down. He’d come to my tattoo shop every two weeks. All my money was going to this bastard; I told him I couldn’t pay no more, he threatened to plant drugs on me and arrest me.”

Scotty paused a moment to catch his breath. He was breathing so heavily he was practically hyperventilating. The hand spread out on the table was trembling.

“I already got two strikes,” Scotty said. “A third woulda ended me. Woulda been lookin’ at the next two decades of my life in prison. So I told him about you, said you were who I bought from, the next man up on the food chain. I had to tell him. You gotta believe me, O, I wouldn’t—”

“Do it,” Otto interrupted. His eyes locked with Champ’s.

With a lightning-fast movement, Champ raised the cinder block into the air and smashed it down onto Scotty’s splayed-out hand. There was a sickening squishing sound as Scotty’s hand was crushed between the block and the table. Bones snapped. Scotty screamed. Or cried. Or just yelled. It was impossible to pinpoint the exact sound coming from his lips.

“Do it again,” Otto said.

Champ lifted the cinder block and smashed it back down on the table before Scotty could move his hand out of the way, crushing Scotty’s hand between the cinder block and the table again. More bones in Scotty’s hand crunched, snapped like twigs. Scotty screamed even louder.

Otto walked over to Scotty and grabbed him by the throat, leaned in so their faces were only inches apart.

“I coulda broken your right hand, you piece of shit,” Otto said. “I coulda messed your right hand up so bad that you’d never ink another tattoo for the rest of your worthless life.”

Up this close, Scotty’s blubbering cries were earsplitting. His breaths were short and choppy. Tears streamed down his face.

“But I didn’t,” Otto said, his hand still pressed against Scotty’s throat. “Your right hand’s fine. You can keep inking your tattoos. I’m a pretty nice guy, ain’t I?”

“Yeah,” Scotty said.

“What was that?”

“Yeah. You’re a nice guy.”

Otto gave Scotty’s throat a final hard squeeze and shoved him backward.

“You remember this. You remember how nice I am. And if you ever think about pulling something like this again—”

“I won’t! I promise!”

“You better not,” Otto said. “Now get outta here.”

Scotty stood up from the table. His hand was bloody, the skin bright pink. The hand hung from the end of his arm like a limp, deflated balloon. Scotty cradled his left hand with his right, keeping it steady.

Otto watched as Scotty ascended the stairs, his sobs and heavy breathing fading as he disappeared upstairs. Once he was gone, Otto turned to Champ. “Nice work.”

Champ nodded.

Otto looked down. There was a bloody handprint on the table, a few smudges of blood streaking out from it. Otto grabbed an aerosol can of disinfectant and a rag from a shelf in the corner of the basement. He sprayed disinfectant all over the tabletop and wiped away the mess.

He could’ve killed Scotty—probably should’ve, too—but he’d made his point. And in some ways, hearing Scotty’s screams, seeing the anguish on his face, was more satisfying than the tranquillity of a dead body. He’d keep a close eye on Scotty, but he was sure that the son of a bitch had learned his lesson. He wouldn’t dare make another mistake like this.

Otto wiped the final streak of blood from the tabletop. He threw the bloody rag into a trash can, and the two men walked back upstairs.

“SO, WHO IS THIS GUY WE’RE MEETING?” GARY ASKED AS HE PULLED THE Corolla off the highway.

“He owns a bar I used to go to all the time,” Rod said beside him. “Me and this guy, we had us some wild times.”

“And why are we seeing him?”

“Because he owns a tattoo shop, too. I’m hoping he can identify one of those tattoos on the guy’s arms.”

“The guy owns a tattoo shop and a bar?”

“I know, right? They’re right next to each other, too,” Rod said. “I’ve seen it lead to a bunch of bad decisions. Good for business, though.”

Gary stopped at an intersection, then drove through it, the car’s headlights cutting through the night. Not even an hour earlier, he’d been dead tired, ready for bed—but finding the security-camera footage at the storage-rental facility had energized him.

Ten minutes later, Gary pulled into an empty parking lot in front of two businesses. Dirty Dozen Tattoo was the business on the right. Magnificent Seven was the bar on the left.

Inside, the bar looked like the type of place Gary remembered Rod hanging out in before he met Sarah. It was old and dirty, with walls covered in cheap faux-wood paneling. Next to the bar was a seating area with roughly ten wooden tables and mismatched chairs. In the corner, by the hallway that led to the bathrooms, was a broken Ms. Pac-Man machine and a few shuffleboard tables.

Even though it was almost ten p.m., the man behind the bar was the only person inside. He was at least 250 pounds, some of it muscle, some of it bulk. He had a thick beard. Various tattoos littered his arms. An eagle on one wrist. A spiral design on the other. Curls of barbed wire around one forearm.

“Rod Foster,” the man said. “Jesus, haven’t seen you in a while.”

“Hey, Lucas,” Rod replied. They slapped hands in greeting, and Rod introduced Gary as his brother. Gary shook one of the big man’s hands.

“Where the hell have you been, man?” Lucas asked Rod.

“Went and got myself married,” Rod said.

“Now, why would you go and do a dumb thing like that?”

“I met a girl. She’s amazing. Beautiful. Smart.”

“Is she blind, too? What’s a girl like that doing with a guy like you?”

Rod smiled. “I ask myself that question every day.”

“God, I’m gonna puke,” Lucas said. “Don’t tell me you’re here to get her name tattooed on your arm.”

“No.”

“Your ass?”

“Not there, either.”

“So, what’s up?”

“I came here because I got a few questions for you.”

“Sure. Pull up a chair. Either of you guys want a beer?”

They both declined. They sat down on barstools across from Lucas. Rod pulled the security-camera still frame from his pocket and set it on the bar.

“We’re wondering if you can help us identify any of the tattoos on this guy’s arms,” Rod said. “Anything at all. What the tattoos mean, who could’ve inked them—anything.”

“Who is this guy?”

“Long story.”

Lucas stared at the picture. “Well, a few of these are prison tattoos.”

“How can you tell?”

“Edges aren’t as refined. They use homemade guns, ink from urine and blood. They’re sloppy.”

Gary nodded. Though it didn’t really help them, it was interesting. He stayed silent as Rod continued with questions.

“What else?” Rod asked.

“Most of these, they’re just designs. Don’t mean anything. No logic or reason behind them.”

“What about the tattoo on his upper left arm?” Rod continued to prod. “It looks like a word or a bunch of letters.”

Lucas squinted, focused on the tattoo. “Yeah, it is,” he said. “It’s a word, all right.”

“What does it say?” Rod asked.

“Gimme a sec.”

Lucas left the room and returned a moment later with a small cylindrical magnifying lens, the type Gary had seen jewelers use. He examined the picture with it.

“Edgewood,” Lucas said after a few seconds.

“Edgewood?” Rod asked.

“It’s a neighborhood in the southern part of the city. A lot of people get their neighborhood tattooed on their body. It’s a pride thing.”

Gary knew the Edgewood neighborhood. It was a small, nasty five-square-mile section of the city where carjackings, assaults, even murder were practically daily occurrences. Infested with drugs, crime, and people who took part in both.

“Do any other tattoos stand out?” Rod asked.

“Like I said, most of them are just random designs,” Lucas said. “Could mean something significant, or could just mean that he thought it looked cool.”

Gary grabbed the sheet of paper. “Thank you so much for your help,” he said. “One final question: Do you have any idea which tattoo parlor did his tattoos? Do you recognize a style or design—something like that? We’re trying to find the man in the picture, and we don’t have much to go on.”

“Find this guy? Jesus, why the hell would you want to find a guy like him?”

“We’ve got some questions for him,” Rod said.

“Well, if he has Edgewood tattooed on his body, chances are that’s where he lives, hangs out. Probably where he was born. And if he lives in Edgewood, I’d be willing to bet that’s where he got most of his tattoos. I’d go to the neighborhood and show this picture to every tattoo artist I could find. A guy with this many tattoos, someone’s bound to recognize him before long. The tattoo community is a close one.”

“Thanks, man,” Rod said.

“I’d watch out, though,” Lucas said. “This guy doesn’t exactly look like the type who’s gonna invite you in for milk and cookies.”

•   •   •

“SO,” ROD SAID AS THEY WALKED TOWARD THE COROLLA. “EDGEWOOD.”

“Yeah,” Gary said.

“Can’t say I spend a lot of time in that part of the city.”

“You and me both.”

Gary held the printed still frame from the security camera. As he walked across the parking lot, he stared at Shamrock’s scowling face and his arms, covered in prison tattoos. Just looking at him, Gary had the feeling that taking him on would end badly. But if he had any doubts, all he had to do was think of Beth, think of how close he was to losing her.

“So, what’s our plan?” Rod asked. “Are we just gonna drive around Edgewood, visit tattoo shops, show people this photograph, and see if anyone recognizes him?”

“That’s as good of a plan as I can come up with.”

“Think we have a chance at finding him?”

“Maybe. Edgewood’s not that big.”

“Probably too late to get started tonight,” Rod said as he and Gary sat down in the Corolla. “I wouldn’t want to be anywhere near that neighborhood this late.”

“Tomorrow,” Gary said. “We’ll go then.”