Shane and Carmen: The Novelization Ch. 04

"Are you going to put in anything about what you saw last night?"

"I don't know what it is I actually saw last night. That's what I hoped you'd tell me."

"I'll make a deal with you. I'll tell you something, on two conditions. First, nothing about what you saw can ever be in your article. When does it come out?"

"About two weeks, I guess."

"Okay, after it comes out, I'll tell you, but you also have to agree to the second condition. You have to promise me that you'll never, ever tell anybody, because if you do, a lot of innocent people will be hurt, there will be a big mess. Okay? It isn't just about me; there's people I have to protect."

Alice thought about it. "Sure, what the fuck. I agree. Two weeks from now, you tell me the big, deep, dark secret. Cross my heart and hope to die, I'll never tell anybody. Pinky swear." She held her pinky finger out, ready to hook, and Shane slapped it away, laughing.

They were in Venice now, and Shane pulled up at a parking meter in front of a tattoo parlor she knew of.

"This where we're going?" Alice asked.

"Yeah."

"Cool. You getting a tat?"

"Yeah. I called and made an appointment. But one thing, first. They know me here as Tommi Hellfinger, not Shane McCutcheon. The tattoo artist is a woman named Mike."

"Tommi Hellfinger? No fucking way. This gets stranger and stranger."

"I know. But I'll explain later."

Shane fed the meter, and they went in. The woman behind the counter seemed to know Shane slightly, and seemed to be expecting her. Mike was a thin, dark-haired young woman not much older than Shane, and wore a long, flowered hippy sort of dress. She wore her hair long and pulled back . She was attractive, in a sharp, boyish kind of way. She had bright, colorful tats on her arms, and Alice saw the top of something colorful at the top of the woman's bodice. Alice wasn't getting clear vibes one way or the other on Mike's orientation.

"Hey, Tommi," Mike said.

"Hi, Mike. Mike, this is my friend Alice. Alice, meet Michael Angelo."

"Hi," Alice said, stepping forward and shaking hands. "That's a cool name you have for a tattoo artist."

Mike grinned. "Thanks. That's actually my real name, too. Well, the first two-thirds of it. My parents were artists and my mom liked Michelangelo. And since they were kind of hippies, they wanted an unusual name. So I was born Michael Angelo Cartwright."

"Oh, that's neat," Alice said.

"I guess. But the Cartwright part seemed so lame and dull and white bread, you know? So I just go by Michael Angelo professionally."

"Mike does some really tremendous work," Shane said. "She did a couple of my other tats, a while back."

"We ready to do it?" Mike asked.

"Yes, let's go."

All three went into the back room. Shane took off her sweatshirt, and laid down on a table. She gave Mike a piece of folded paper she had in her pocket. "Here, this is what it's supposed to look like, this same size. And then, in the middle of it, I want the letter 'M.'"

Mike studied the drawing. "Piece of cake," she said. "Here we go."

Alice sat and chatted with Shane as the tattoo artist worked on the small of Shane's back. Not the weirdest tramp stamp she'd ever done, Mike thought to herself; this chick was probably balling some fiddle freak. It took over an hour, and Shane asked Alice to go feed the parking meter.

When Alice came back Mike was just finishing the outline of the violin, about three inches tall, though it had no neck, just the shape of the body. Then she started on the initial.

"This 'M' stand for your last name, Tommi?" she asked.

"Yeah," she said. "Sort of. It's for my father."

"Cool. I thought your last name was Hellfinger. What's your father's last name?"

"Mensch," Shane said. "The 'M' stands for Mensch."

"Who's that?" Alice asked.

"That's the person who has your back," Shane said. "That's why it goes there."

Alice saw there were tears in Shane's eyes.