Juiced by the drugs and whiskey, Bobby Lee grinned. “Okay, okay.” He started to raise his hands in surrender.
Spider cursed. “Keep your hands down!”
Bobby Lee put his arms at rest beside him. It was hard to be still. With the drugs and the music working, he wanted to be up and dancing. More than that, he wanted to be with Lorna, his girl. He closed his eyes and thought about that.
The tattoo gun started buzzing again. Pain seeped back into his skin.
“You spell Lorna with two o ’s, don’t you?” Spider asked.
“What?” Bobby opened his eyes again and tried to peer down at his chest.
Spider barked laughter that echoed even over the heavy metal. He put a big hand on Bobby Lee’s forehead and pushed him back into the chair.
“Man, relax,” Spider guffawed. “I’m just screwing with you.”
Bobby Lee lay back.
“I know it’s spelled with a u,” Spider said.
Irritated, Bobby Lee reached for the pistol tucked into his waistband.
Spider’s demeanor changed in a flash. He dropped a hand to Bobby Lee’s arm and trapped it against his body. “Hold on there, boy.”
“Let go!” Bobby Lee shouted. “I ain’t in here for you to make fun of.” He held on to the pistol, but Spider’s strong hand prevented him from pulling it.
“Chill, bro,” Spider said. “I was just havin’ a little fun.”
“It ain’t fun for me. That’s the name of my woman. I don’t want it spelled wrong.”
“It ain’t gonna be spelled wrong.” Spider held up a forearm. There in ink he’d written Lorna. “Got her name right here. As long as you spelled it right, I spell it right.”
Bobby Lee stared at the man a little longer, then relaxed in the chair.
“We cool?” Spider asked.
Bobby Lee nodded. “Cool.”
“Then you just get mellow, bro, ’cause we’re in the home stretch.”
But before Spider could start in with the ink gun again, Bobby Lee’s cell phone rang. It was just a track phone, a cheap, disposable handset he’d had Lorna purchase for him. He waved Spider off, pulled the phone out of his pocket, and flipped it open.
“Got some bad news, man,” a voice said after Bobby Lee answered. “Lorna told the cops where you are. They’re on their way there now.”
Panic flooded Bobby Lee as he scrambled up from the chair despite Spider’s protests. He wasn’t going to jail. No way.
1 2
›› Spider’s Tattoo Shop
›› Doggett Street
›› Charlotte, North Carolina
›› 2033 Hours
“Something I can help you with, man?”
Shel looked at the slim young woman behind the counter to the right of the door inside the shop. She was dressed in black jeans and a black Anthrax concert T-shirt. She was pale enough to pass as a vampire. Metal studs gleamed in her eyebrows and at the bottom of her lower lip. Her long blonde hair was the color of old bone.
“I wanted to see about getting a tattoo,” Shel said. He let the Texas drawl slide naturally into his words. In the military he’d learned what he called “TV talk,” that flat Midwestern accent used by news anchors and sports announcers.
The woman looked at him and smiled. “You don’t seem the type.”
Shel smiled back and stepped toward the counter. His gaze took in the closed-circuit monitor hanging from the wall.
“And what type do I seem like to you?” Shel asked.
The woman folded her arms and leaned a hip against the counter. “Mama’s boy. Joe Average. Joe Military.”
Shel knew he couldn’t help looking military. Even when he was in disguise-even better ones than his current effort-he still looked like a Marine poster boy.
“Actually,” the young woman went on, “you look like you could be some superhero’s secret identity.”
Terrific, Shel thought. But he kept his smile in place. “Actually, it’s worse than that.”
She cocked an eyebrow and waited.
“I’m afraid of needles,” Shel said conspiratorially.
The woman looked at him askance. “A big guy like you?”
“I know. Shameful, isn’t it?”
“Well…”
Shel nodded and shrugged. “If I hadn’t met this girl, and if she wasn’t into tattoos, I wouldn’t be here tonight.” He paused. “And I have to be honest-unless I see something I really want, I’m not even getting one.”
“A girl, huh?”
“Yeah.”
“Pretty?”
“Yeah.” Shel shrugged again. “I guess that makes me sound pretty dumb, huh?”
“As long as you don’t do anything really stupid, you should be okay.”
“What’s really stupid?” Shel asked.
“Getting her name tattooed on you. Then you have to explain to all your other girlfriends why you got that one’s name… wherever you put it.”
“Maybe I won’t show it to them.”
The young woman grinned. “Oh, they’ll look for it. I would.”
“I could just date only girls with that name,” Shel suggested.
“Right.” The woman took a book down from a shelf over the counter. “Got some designs here you might like. Small. Distinctive.” She looked at his biceps. “Big as your arms are, I’d check out some tribal tats. That would look cool.”
Shel grinned again. He’d learned a long time ago that women of all ages liked his grin.
Noise erupted from the back. The door opened, and Bobby Lee Gant stepped into the room with a 9 mm pistol tightly gripped in his fist. He was young and thin, at least twenty pounds too light for his five-foot, nine-inch frame. He wore holey jeans, square-toed boots, a Confederate flag bandanna that held back his greasy hair, and a motorcycle jacket without a shirt. Drops of blood glinted in the center of a tattoo of a skull with a rose clenched in its teeth. Lorna was inscribed beneath the skull.
“Hey, Bobby Lee,” a gruff voice said. “Get back in here, bro.”
Judging from the young man’s jerky reactions and his unfocused gaze, Shel figured Bobby Lee was higher than a kite. Shel didn’t move. Beside him, Max set himself, hunkering low and getting prepared to separate and go for the pistol.
Shel signed to Max, and the dog sat with a quiet but forlorn whimper. Max wasn’t used to quietly sitting out while guns were in evidence.
Bobby Lee whipped his pistol toward Shel. “Get your hands up!”
›› 2033 Hours
When Remy saw three unmarked sedans suddenly whip by the end of the alley, he knew something had gone badly wrong. Or was about to. He slid his Beretta out from under his shirt and held it ready as he catfooted through the alley toward the tattoo parlor’s rear exit.
His cell phone buzzed against his hip. He braced against the wall in the deepening dark of the approaching evening and slid the phone out so he could read the caller ID as it buzzed again.
A loud voice sounded inside the shop. Someone screamed.
Caller ID showed that the call was coming from NCIS headquarters in Camp Lejeune.
Remy pulled the earpiece connector from his shirt pocket, slipped it into his ear canal, and tapped it to open the line. “Gautreau.”
“Remy.” It was Will’s voice, calm and intense at the same time.
“Yeah.”
“We just got word from Charlotte PD that the FBI is on-site at your twenty.”
The sound of running feet echoed down the alley.
“Oh yeah,” Remy agreed. “They’re here.”
“Where’s Shel? He’s not answering.”
“Shel’s inside.” Remy tried the back door. It was locked.
“What’s going on there?”
Remy watched helplessly as four men entered the alley from either end. They carried flashlights and military-style assault rifles.
“Put the pistol on the ground!” one of the arriving men yelled. He wore an FBI jacket over his bulletproof vest. “Do it now!”
“You might want to get hold of the FBI,” Remy stated calmly. He let his pistol drop to hang from his finger. “Let them know that you’ve got two men out here working this.”