Black Hawk Tattoo

Chapter 1-2

“What time is it?” Rob asked, ignoring the watch on his wrist.

Gabe checked his own wristwatch. “Around five.” He opened his bottle and took a deep, grateful swallow, then leaned back against the counter, wondering absently if his sweat would leave an ass-print on the glass.

“Cool.” Rob stretched and coiled up from the chaise lounge. He slid his long feet into his sandals and stood. “I’m heading out. Lock up whenever you want. I don’t think we’ll get much more business today.”

“Sure,” Gabe said. “As long as you take the baby with you.”

“f**k you, asshole,” Hype said. Then she ducked her head and mumbled, “Sorry,” when Rob arched a single eyebrow at her.

Gabe just smirked. “Ah, you can stay,” he said, making like it was an enormous sacrifice on his part. “But you’re going to have to help clean up later.”

“Yeah?” Hype perked up like she’d just been given a prize. “Can I use the autoclave to sterilize the ink tubes?”

“Yeah,” Gabe said. “But you’re going to have to finish those flash you started before I let you touch anything, okay?”

He figured Hype would argue, but she just nodded eagerly for once. She all but scrambled around the counter to rummage in the cupboard for the sketchbook Gabe had pretended he didn’t want.

“All right, then,” Rob said. He’d been watching everything from the door with a small grin, but now he gave them both a languid wave. “I’ll be back around noon tomorrow. Sammi and Arturo will be here in the morning, and Dee and Seb said they’re coming in after lunch, so you can show up whenever or take the day off. Just let me know.”

“Thanks.” Gabe took another drink as he watched Rob walk down the sidewalk past the window. Rob was going home to his wife and little girl, and Gabe kind of envied him for that. But a dead night would be cool if it meant he could get some sketching done.

* * * *

A while later, Gabe was sitting on the chaise lounge, quietly sketching Hype. She was back on the love seat, curled over her own sketchbook with her tongue sticking out of her mouth. He was wondering if he could get her from a different angle without her noticing when the door bing-bonged again.

Gabe sighed inwardly and stood, glancing at his watch as he went behind the counter. It was almost nine and had just gone dark outside, the heat of the day finally surrendering to the marginal cool of the evening. The front entrance was livable now, but the studio upstairs would still be like an oven. With Gabe’s luck, this new customer would want something that would take hours.

He bent to put his sketchbook safely back in the cupboard, and when he straightened, Hype was right next to him, her big cow eyes enormous.

“He’s a cop!” she hissed urgently to Gabe in a voice that likely carried right to where the customer was standing, leafing through the flash binders mounted on the wall. “He’s got cop hair!”

Gabe put his hand on her bony shoulder and leaned down a little so he wouldn’t broadcast to the world in general when he spoke. “What’d you do?” he asked, because she looked so genuinely worried, he couldn’t resist ribbing her. “I’m kidding!” he added when her eyes just got bigger. “But, seriously, he’s not a cop.” Though, yeah, the guy did have cop hair: short and bristly at the sides, barely longer on top but getting fluffy like it was growing out. Cop Hair had a three-day beard, too, as if he was purposely trying to look menacing. “And even if he is—”

“He is! He totally is!” Hype whispered so loudly, the guy shot a surprised glance at them. Gabe could feel himself blush.

“Even if he is,” Gabe continued, “he’s off duty and neither of us have done anything wrong, right?” He waited for Hype’s wide-eyed nod. “So go back to your sketchbook and quit annoying the customers!”

Gabe caught the very small twitch of Cop Hair’s mouth as he smirked, since he’d obviously heard everything. It was also clear he wasn’t interested in any of the tattoo designs he was looking at, which was a little weird. Normally when someone had a specific idea, they marched right up to the counter and shoved it under Gabe’s nose.

Hype went back to the love seat, walking around the guy as if he had the plague. She snatched her sketchbook and fled down the stairs.

“Sorry about that,” Gabe said. “She’s, ah…” He winced. “Fourteen.”

Cop Hair just nodded. “No problem.”

“Great,” Gabe said. He stayed behind the counter, watching silently as the guy flipped all the binders he’d been looking at back to their original positions. Most people didn’t do that, but Gabe had seen enough customers to know Cop Hair was probably just stalling. He finally came over to the counter, putting his hands on top of the glass the way almost everyone did.

“Are you Gabriel Navarro?” he asked without preamble. His gaze was as direct as his question. He had a scar above his right eye, Gabe noticed: a thick line that started nearly at his eyelid and ended up splitting his eyebrow. Not that it marred his face any. If he was a cop, he would’ve been good-looking enough for a recruitment poster, or a calendar. Or a centerfold, really, except his face was a little too thin, Gabe thought, sharpening his already angular features.

“Yeah,” Gabe said warily, wondering if Hype had been right for once, and then trying to figure out what he might’ve done worthy of a cop’s attention. The scar didn’t make the guy look any less cop-like. “Why?”

Cop Hair shrugged. “You’re listed online as one of the best tattoo artists in the city. That’s why I came here.”

“Oh,” Gabe said, feeling both proud and stupid. He knew he was blushing again; it was hot enough without all the extra heat in his face. “Well, that’s true. I am. So, what can I do for you?”

“You do original designs, right?” the guy asked, like he was worried Gabe might refuse.

“Sure,” Gabe said. “Let me get some paper.” He crouched down in front of the cupboard, grateful for the few seconds he’d be out of the guy’s direct line of sight.

The new customer with the cop hair couldn’t have been more Gabe’s type if he’d walked out of one of his sketches—the ones Gabe never showed anyone. Despite the unsmiling intensity, he was this side of beautiful, and Gabe groaned inwardly because he was sure he’d be blushing and stammering until the guy was inked and gone.

Gabe steeled himself for at least an hour of acting like a dork and surfaced from the temporary safety of the cupboard, grateful he’d actually remembered to get a pencil and his sketchbook. “Okay,” he said, trying to keep his eyes fixed on the sketchbook without looking like he was avoiding the guy’s face, “what were you thinking of, and where did you want it?” He was pleased he got out a full, coherent sentence.

“This,” the guy said quietly. He put a folded piece of paper down on Gabe’s open page and slid it across to him.

Something about his voice made Gabe look at him again as he unfolded the paper by feel. But Cop Hair had his eyes on the countertop, every part of him still, like he was holding his breath. His expression was practiced blankness.

Curious and more than a little apprehensive, and thinking of his conversation with Rob about what he would and wouldn’t ink, Gabe opened the picture. It was a line drawing, ordinary pencil on ordinary paper, obviously done by someone with no training and not much natural talent. But even so, he could see it was a helicopter, drawn to look like it’d crashed, if that was the meaning of the jagged lines.

“Is that meant to be a cross?” he asked, pointing at the drawing and trying very hard not to sound sarcastic. Very few people could draw as well as Gabe, but when they took the time to try to make the tattoo flash themselves it meant it was especially important to them, and Gabe always tried to remember that.

“Yeah,” the guy said, his voice even lower.

“Okay, cool.” Gabe looked up again. “You want mostly black, right? But some color? And showing the details?”

Cop Hair nodded. “If possible.”

“Sure, I can do that,” Gabe said. “Where do you want it?” Gabe’s gaze automatically flickered over the other man’s torso, from arm to arm, but if he had any other ink, it was hidden. “This is going to be pretty big, if you want this much detail in it.”

“On my back,” the guy said. “And I want other stuff in it, too, but I don’t know how to draw it. I can tell you,” he added, as if the fact he couldn’t draw was a failing.

“No problem,” Gabe said. He smiled, trying to break the weird tension that had stretched out between them, like they were whispering at a funeral.

“Great, thanks,” Cop Hair said. He didn’t smile back. He quickly wiped each of his temples and then cleaned his hand on his shirt.

“Hot, huh?” Gabe said, smiling again.

“What?” The guy seemed startled by the question. His eyes reminded Gabe a little of Hype’s.

“Nothing,” Gabe said quickly. It wasn’t like he’d get paid for small talk, anyway. He gently put the picture aside and pulled his sketchbook a little closer, picking up his pencil. He did a quick, rough copy of the crashed helicopter to have a visual of where it would be in the overall design. He’d do a larger, more detailed version of it later. “Okay,” he said when the helicopter was finished, “what else were you thinking of?”

“A desert,” the other man said immediately. “It’s crashed in a desert. Some of the metal’s blackened ‘cause it’s been burning.” He swallowed. “And, uh, it’s still on fire.”

“Oh,” Gabriel said softly. He added lines and shadows that were going to be charred metal and flame. He’d already figured this wasn’t just an idea he was designing but a memory, and he gritted his teeth so he wouldn’t ask what happened. “Do you want the sky in it as well?” he asked, but was already drawing it in before Cop Hair nodded in answer. “Dark, right? I mean, like sunset,” he added, and the guy blinked in surprise but nodded again. “I figured, because of how black you want it,” Gabe explained, feeling smug for a second. He glanced up. “This is going to be your whole back, right?” He dropped the pencil to touch the side of his hand to the nape of his neck. “To here?”

Another nod. “Yeah.”

Gabe sucked in a silent breath as he continued the sketch, already trying to figure out how to get the perspective right when the canvas was going to be a man’s skin. He scribbled in the sunset that he knew would be heavily brooding orange and yellow, then turned the sketchbook around and slid it back to the customer.

Cop Hair looked at it for a long time, bent close, with his fingers barely touching the edges of the paper. All his nails were ragged, like he bit them a lot. “Yeah,” he said finally, and Gabe let out the breath he’d been holding. “Yeah, that’s good.” He looked up, pushing the sketchbook back to Gabe again. “I want some words on it, too. At the top.”

“Like, between your shoulder blades?” Gabe got another quick nod in response. He held the pencil ready near the top of the paper, where he estimated the man’s shoulder blades would be. He waited.

Cop Hair cleared his throat. “God will judge me.”