“He’ll tell you?” I asked.
Agent smiled at me. “If I request the information, yes, Eduardo will tell me. We aren’t attorneys, Mickey. There is no tattoo artist–client confidentiality. There is merely trust. There is a reason you are here, Mickey. There is a flow to the universe, a path it has to inevitably follow.”
Oookay, I thought.
“Ema came into this shop for a reason. She ended up asking me to be her tattoo artist. That has led to you being here. Do you understand?”
No, I thought, while saying, “Sure.”
“Plus, well, Ema has a pure spirit. A delightful chakra. If Ema tells me you need to find this man, you need to find the man. It is that simple.”
Ema blushed. “Thanks, Agent.”
He winked at her. I again wondered how they knew each other and how, at her age, she could have so many tattoos, but hey, I had my secrets too.
“Please wait here,” Agent said, “whilst I call Eduardo.”
Oookay, I thought again. The woman kept singing “So hum.” Man, that was getting annoying. I looked out the window. Spoon sat in the car. Ema said, “Maybe we should have left the window open a crack. Like with a dog.”
I smiled. A man in front of us was getting a wrist tattoo, the needle scraping the skin. He had his eyes squeezed shut, but tears still leaked out. I thought again about Ashley with her pearls and sweaters and wondered how I had gone from searching for that preppy beauty to a New Age tattoo artist named Agent.
More irony?
“Here you are,” Agent said, appearing with a flourish. He handed Ema a slip of paper. The name on it was Antoine LeMaire. The address was in Newark.
“Thank you, Agent,” Ema said.
“Yeah,” I said. “Thank you.”
“I would join you on this quest,” Agent said, “but I have another engagement.”
Ema said, “Work?”
Agent shook his head. “Yoga class.”
“Are you still working with Swami Paul?” Ema asked.
“No. The heat of that Bikram was messing with my red chakra. It was making me angry all the time. I’m all about Kundalini right now. You should try it, both of you. I mean, look at me.” He spread his arms. “I’m all white lately.”
Oookay.
We started for the door when Agent called out, “Mickey?”
I turned.
“You, like Ema, have a pure spirit. You have blessed energy centers and true balance. You are a protector. You look out for others. You are their shelter.”
“Uh, thanks.”
“And because of that, you have a certain wisdom. You understand that you know nothing about this man you seek. You should be careful before bringing others into his space.”
Agent met my eye and I caught his meaning. I nodded. “Thanks for the heads-up.”
He gave me a little bow. “You should consider a tattoo. It would look good.”
“I don’t think they’re for me,” I said.
“Yes,” Agent said with the most knowing smile on his face. “You are probably right.”
chapter 13
WHEN WE GOT BACK IN THE CAR, Ema said, “Put the address in the GPS.”
“No,” I said.
“What?”
I had caught Agent’s warning, but I wasn’t sure I needed it. Here was what I knew about Antoine LeMaire: He had broken into a school and Ashley’s locker. He had broken in and assaulted Dr. Kent. In short, there was an excellent chance that he was a dangerous man. I could take risks—that was on me—but I wasn’t about to drag Spoon and Ema into that particular hazardous zone.
That would be, uh, red chakra.
“It’s getting late,” I said. “I’ll drop you guys off.”
“You’re kidding,” Ema said.
“No. We aren’t going when it’s dark.”
Spoon said, “Maybe we should stop at that lamp store first.”
“Huh?”
“So we can buy Mickey a night-light,” Spoon continued. “You know, him being scared of the dark and all.”
Ema smiled. “Yeah, little Mickey need a nighty-lighty? Maybe a blankee too?”
I just looked at her. She shrugged an apology and said, “Drop off Spoon first.”
I did. Spoon directed me to a two-family house on the outskirts of Kasselton. There was a small truck parked in the driveway. The truck had a crossed mop-heads logo on the side. Cute.
When we pulled up, the front door opened. A man and a woman in their forties appeared. The man wore a janitor’s uniform. The woman had a business suit. The man was white. The woman was black.
Spoon shouted, “Mom! Dad!”
He ran up the stoop and they all greeted one another as if a hostage standoff had just ended. Ema and I watched in silence. I felt a pang of envy, but I felt a bigger pang of responsibility. Look at this kid with his loving parents. I couldn’t risk putting him or Ema in danger.
Spoon pointed at our car. His parents smiled and waved to us. Ema and I waved back. Ema said, “Wow, look at them.”
“I know,” I said.
They disappeared into the house.
“So what’s the plan?” Ema asked.
“We both go home. We do a little online research, see what we can find out about our tattooed friend Antoine LeMaire. We meet up in the morning and discuss.”
“Sounds good.” She pulled the door handle. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Wait, I can drop you off.”
“No need,” Ema said.
“You live around here?”
“Close enough. Bye.”
“Wait.”
She didn’t. She got out of the car and started down the road. I debated following her, but she quickly veered right and vanished into the woods. I thought about pressing the issue, getting out of the car and running after her, but I had my secrets—wasn’t Ema entitled to hers too?
I was worried that Uncle Myron might be home. How would I explain driving the car? He knew that I had a fake ID. When he first found Mom and me in that trailer park, I was working under the name Robert Johnson at a nearby Staples. Still, I don’t think that he would like me driving illegally to a tattoo parlor or anyplace else, for that matter.
I parked in the garage, grabbed something to eat, and headed down to the basement. I Googled Antoine LeMaire, but nothing useful came up—not even a Facebook page or Twitter account. Pretty much nothing. I put the address into MapQuest. From the satellite photograph, the area looked pretty seedy. I could also see that it was right next door to a place called the Plan B Go-Go Lounge. I frowned and again thought about where my search for Ashley was taking me.
I looked to the wall of old basketball greats.
“What’s all this have to do with Ashley?” I asked out loud.
The posters did not reply.
I heard noise above me and then I heard Myron yell, “Mickey?”
“Homework!” I shouted back. Homework was a great word to ward off unwanted guardians. When you yelled, “Homework,” parents always left you alone. It worked better than a cross keeping away a vampire.
I stared down at my desk. My laptop was beat up from travel. My dad bought it three years ago when we were in Peru, and so it had been around the world several times over. Funny. I don’t have any of his possessions. He had taught me that they were irrelevant. A ring isn’t my dad. A watch isn’t my dad. None of those things would bring comfort. As my dad had explained to me, no true joy was ever found in a “thing.”
But oddly enough, this laptop seemed more personal, more “him,” than any of those more classic items might. He had spent time on this laptop. He had composed letters, worked on progress reports, looked up information on this machine. I thought about that sometimes, about his hands on this keyboard.
We each had our own folder—Dad, Mom, and me—and I clicked on his. I moved the files in order from when they were most recently opened. For a moment I was surprised to see one opened only six weeks ago, but then I remembered. Uncle Myron had searched this computer, looking for clues about his brother’s fate.
The last file he’d opened—the most recent—was called “Resignation Letter.” I clicked on it and the document appeared: