Page 8 of Rome
“No problem, man. Take care,” I said, then headed back to clean up my workstation so I could get the hell out of here.
I had just finished giving everything a final wipe down with the disinfectant when Picasso arrived for the day and stuck his head in the doorway of my suite. He was my co-manager and had mentored me during my apprenticeship. He was also a club brother, and at one time, someone I considered a friend. I wasn’t too sure about that last part these days.
“You headin’ out?” I glanced up at the sound of his voice and tried to hide my disgust at his appearance. He had been looking rough for a while now, but today, he looked flat-assed ragged. His long hair, normally pulled back into a braid when he worked, hung in greasy strings around his shoulders, his previously well-kept beard had given way to a wiry, bushy mess, and he had what looked to be permanent dark circles under his eyes. His T-shirt was wrinkled and ripped at the collar and his faded jeans looked filthy. I eyed the cut he was wearing, thinking he looked like a disgrace to the club, not to mention to our shop.
“Yeah, I’m done with Jimmy. Did you have appointments coming in?” Unlike me, Pic had always loved to do late-night and weekend appointments. He’d said on a few occasions over the years that he liked those hours because it gave him a legitimate reason to be out of the house while his kids were awake.
“I love ‘em and all, brother, but damned if their screaming and whining and shit don’t work my last nerve,” he’d told me the last time the subject had come up. I’d told him he was a fucking fool, and that his wife and kids deserved better. He’d gotten pissed off and we hadn’t spoken about it since.
“Nah, but I’m gonna hang around ‘til close to help Dax with any walk-ins.”
Dax was a newer tattoo artist and hadn’t built up a full client list yet, so he got stuck with a lot of the walk-ins. He didn’t mind and knew that we’d all had to pay our dues that way in the beginning. He wasn’t a member of the MC, but he’d been around the life enough that he was cool with it.
I grabbed the bag of trash that I’d gathered up and headed toward the back door leading to the alley where the dumpster was. I brushed past Pic, who was wandering down the hall to his suite, wrinkling my nose at the faint smell of stale cigarettes and body odor that clung to him. Shit, it’s a good thing he didn’t have any appointments today. I’d hate to have him leaning over me for hours on end smelling like that.
It didn’t really surprise me that he didn’t have anything on the books today. It had been that way for months now. He’d started slacking off about a year ago, or at least that’s when I’d started noticing it anyway. He’d just been late for appointments at first, then started missing them altogether or canceling them at the last minute with some dumbass excuse. His long-time clients had hung in there for a while, but most had finally booked with me, Dax, or Saint, our other full-timer and also a club brother. A few had just gotten pissed off and jumped to another shop entirely, despite the discounts I’d offered them to stay.
He hadn’t brought any real money into the shop for a while, just doing a few easy walk-ins here and there. It wasn’t a coincidence that most of those were for younger, attractive women. Three months ago, I’d caught him getting a blow job in exchange for a crappy infinity symbol on the wrist of a girl who’d barely looked fucking legal. I’d checked her ID before she left, and she’d only turned eighteen the month before. Pic was pushing his mid-forties, and he looked every bit of it. On top of that, I was pretty sure she’d been drinking before she got there, which was a huge fucking no-go for a variety of reasons. I’d laid into him about it, but he’d just shut me down.
“We’re fuckin’co-managers, Jag. That means you ain’t my boss, so back the fuck off.”
I’d caught him two more times since then, though God only knows how many times he’d done it without me knowing about it. I saw him fucking a woman in his tattoo chair once, and a couple of weeks later taking another one into the bathroom in the back of the shop.
Dax had come to me ten minutes after the woman left, to report that he’d found what he thought might be coke residue in the bathroom. He’d been right. There had been a dusting of white powder left on the countertop, and a goddamned empty baggie on the floor next to the trash can.
I’d confronted Pic, but he’d denied knowing anything about it. Swore up and down that he hadn’t seen her take anything. I could tell he was lying out his ass, and by the way he was acting, I figured she hadn’t been the only one snorting blow in there. I’d debated what to do about it for a couple of weeks but had finally decided I needed to tell my dad, who was not only the President of the MC, but had also personally invested in the shop when it opened.
That hadn’t been an easy fucking conversation, but I’d told him everything. He'd been royally pissed by the time I was finished but had asked me to sit tight on the info until he could check into it a little. It was clear that something else was going on, but I wasn’t sure exactly what. King didn’t seem inclined to share his suspicions just yet.
I took a few minutes to update the inventory of ink and cleaning supplies, making a mental note to place an order on Monday, a day earlier than usual. Even without Pic doing much actual work, Dax, Saint, Lacey, and I had been busier than ever. That’s why it made no sense that the shop wasn’t making quite as much of a profit. It wasn’t noticeable at first – some months are better than others in any business. But now, for the third month in a row, our profits have been slightly down.
I’d been so busy trying to cover for Pic that I hadn’t had a chance to really dig into the books to figure out why. I knew that costs of supplies had increased – hell, with inflation the way it was, costs were up everywhere. We’d upped our rates though, so that should have offset things, but maybe we hadn’t raised them enough. That was one of the things that King was looking into, and I was happy to have that headache taken off my plate.
I gave a final look around my space, and, satisfied that it was all in order, slipped my cut back on. I always hung it up at my station before inking anyone. The last thing I wanted was ink smeared on the leather, or even worse, on my patches. I locked up the room, then stopped at the front desk to let Lacey know I was leaving.
“I’m heading out. Saint should be here soon for that cover-up he’s been working on. Send the walk-ins to Dax if you can.” I hesitated before clarifying, “Pic isn’t really in the best shape to lay down ink today, so he’s a last resort, got it?”
Lacey gave me a knowing look and nodded. “You got it, boss man.”
“Oh, and before I forget, can you make sure my schedule is cleared from one until three on Friday? I want to go to Abby’s next doctor’s appointment because her blood pressure was a little high at yesterday’s visit.”
“Sure thing. Let me pull it up.” She tapped on the keyboard and clicked the mouse a couple of times before the phone rang. I glanced around the reception area as she answered it, half-listening as she scheduled a consultation for Saint for next month.
I felt a sense of pride whenever I looked at our shop. We’d redone the space a little over three years ago, getting rid of the faded paint and dated décor that had been there as far back as I could remember. I’d designed the new space, with input from Abby and Saint. Pic had thought it was a waste of money and had been so pissed when the club voted to proceed with it that he refused to even look at the plans, let alone offer any ideas.
The walls and baseboards were painted black in the lobby and reception area, with flames in shades of yellow, orange and red painted in a 3D technique on the lower half of the walls. We’d had the old floor tiles removed, then we’d painted the concrete floor underneath with a durable epoxy coating in the same shades as the flames. The whole effect made it look like the room was engulfed in fire, and it was a fucking cool as hell way to incorporate the flames that were part of our club’s patch. The 5thCircle Guardians name was a nod to the book, Dante’s Inferno, so fire was kind of our thing.
The black upper walls made the perfect backdrop for the framed photos of the badass tats we’d done over the years, as well as a few neon signs mixed in. We’d put mirrors on the ceiling to reflect some light into the space. Black leather chairs and chrome and glass side tables in the waiting area completed the look.
Lacey’s piercing station was in a small room just to the left of the reception area, with an identical room to the right that we used for client consultations. We had a small office directly behind the front counter that Pic and I shared when we dealt with the administrative shit. There were two long hallways, one on either side, which led from the reception area to the four workstations.
When I’d planned the remodel, I’d designed the workstations as four private suites, to give our clients the comfort and privacy they needed. Our previous set-up had been semi-private booths, and we’d had to use partitions to provide privacy for those getting inked in spots requiring nudity. Now, Saint and I had suites along one hallway, and Pic and Dax on the other.
All of the spaces aside from the lobby and reception area were painted white - I wanted everything to appear clean and bright – with mirrored ceilings in the tattoo suites and piercing room so clients could lie back and watch their work in progress. Each of us had personalized our spaces with framed photos of our work, or in some cases, designs airbrushed or stenciled directly onto the walls. A unisex bathroom, a small break room, and a large supply closet located along the third hallway at the back of the building rounded out the space.
Lacey finished her call just before the buzzer on the front door sounded, and two giggling young women stepped inside. I deliberately turned my back on them when one of them eyed me up and down, then nudged her friend.
“I’ll be right with you, ladies,” Lacey said, glancing up at them for a moment before returning her attention to the computer screen in front of her.
