Skin Deep

by Jerome Preisler

  “I realize this is irregular. However, the piece is truly fabulous, its artist an unacknowledged master. And I would like to extend an offer.”

  “There’s a proper time for that,” Bockem said. “This isn’t it.”

  “Possibly I wasn’t clear enough. My hope is to make a preemptive bid.”

  “So I assumed,” Bockem said. “But I’d expected you would understand my reasons for establishing certain procedures.”

  “Would sixty thousand dollars relax them?”

  “No.”

  “Seventy-five, then.”

  “Mr. Chenard, you verge on disrespect.”

  A pause. Then Chenard resumed in a less stubborn tone. “Nothing could be further from my intent. In fact—”

  “Your intentions are of no concern to me. I’m not some street-market vendor who haggles over prices,” Bockem said. He was thinking Chenard had to be put in his place despite being a highly valued client. Men of his wealth and position were used to setting the rules, not abiding by them. “I would ask that you don’t participate if you’re unwilling or unable to follow my terms.”

  “I have no difficulty with them,” Chenard said. “Please consider this matter resolved. I’ll be waiting for your usual notification.”

  Bockem was thinking Chenard had been sufficiently admonished; a conciliatory gesture would do no harm. “Thank you, Mister Chenard. I appreciate your understanding my position and believe you’ll find that patience has its definite rewards. If my plans hold, there will be more than a single additional offering.”

  “Of the same quality—if I may ask?”

  Bockem had heard the hitch of barely suppressed excitement in his voice. “I expect them to be among my best to date,” he said.

  Bockem clicked the cell phone’s disconnect button. Waiting. Of that he had no doubt.

  A smile scratched across his lips as he thought of the coyote sniffing the wind. He put down the phone, turned toward his fleshing board, picked up the bucket alongside it on the sink counter, and went out to dispose of his scrapings.

  Ray Langston was driving over to Mick Aztec’s studio in the Ford when he realized why that name had sounded so familiar.

  “The Tattoo Man case reports!” he said, slapping his forehead.

  “What about ‘em?” Greg asked

  “Brass’s men interviewed Aztec after the second abduction.”

  “The sex-toy salesman, right?”

  “Noble, yes.”

  Greg looked at him. “The name doesn’t quite fit the line of work.”

  Langston smiled a little and swung into the parking area. “My point is that Raven told us Aztec is recognized for his scarification and implants.”

  “Which were used on Noble,” Greg said. “You don’t figure… ?”

  “The detectives seemed to feel he’s clean,” Langston said. “We’ll see what we think.”

  Getting out of the car, Langston noticed a tall, thirtyish man with a shaved head having a smoke in front of the studio. He watched the CSIs closely as they approached. “I’ve kind of been expecting you.” He offered his hand, speaking softly, his cigarette poking from his lips. “I’m Mike Aztec. I assume you’re the two from the crime lab. Raven phoned to give me a heads-up that you might be coming here.”

  Langston nodded and got their introductions out of the way. “Is it okay if we talk inside?”

  Wearing black Dockers, black high-top sneakers, and a dark blue ribbed sweater, Aztec studied him through a puff of tobacco smoke. Then he flicked his cigarette stub to the ground and crushed it out with his sneaker bottom. “I’ve got fifteen, twenty minutes until my one-thirty appointment. Sound like enough time for you?”

  “If it has to be,” Langston said, and followed him to his door.

  The shop was about the same size as Raven Lunar’s, with a padded black leather waiting bench to the right of the door, a flight of stairs descending to the left, and a glass display case filled with piercing jewelry toward the back. There was a natural sandstone veneer on the walls, a gallery of tattoo design sheets covering the light brown tiles on one side. Langston studied their complicated interlocking patterns and lines for a moment, then turned toward the stairway.

  “The workshop’s down there,” Aztec said, noting his curiosity. “That’s where I do my thing. Cody’s area is divided off from it.”

  “Cody?”

  “Cody Vaega. He’s a tattooer.”

  “The one who prepares colors for Raven.”

  “Sometimes,” Aztec said. “He does it as a favor for different artists in our community.”

  “Is he in now?”

  Aztec shook his head. “Cody’s a road dog… travels around and hits the convention scene. He’s out of town this weekend giving a seminar at one in Dallas. Also does a lot of ink-and-stays, you know?”

  Langston gave him a look that said he didn’t.

  “They’re hotel packages. Guests book weekend getaways and get tattoo vouchers with their accommodations.”

  Langston grunted. “Creative,” he said.

  “In these tough times, they’d better be if they want to fill their rooms,” Aztec said. “Some places have in-house artists. They mostly use local tattooers. But someone like Cody can pull in more business through his rep.”

  Greg had been looking around as they talked. “Is the flash yours or his?”

  “Cody did the majority of it. He’s Polynesian… you can see the tribal influence. I’m just a dabbler.”

  “Stick to skin mod otherwise?”

  “It’s what I love doing,” Aztec said with a nod.

  Langston decided to get to the point. “I assume you’ve heard about Laurel Whitsen.”

  “Raven broke it to me over the phone.” Aztec’s face expressed regret. “It really hasn’t sunk in. Laurel was my client. But we were also friends. She was one of the gentlest people I’ve ever met.”

  Langston recalled Raven Lunar describing her in approximately the same terms. He made a low, thoughtful sound in his throat. “How long had she been coming here?”

  “I’d say a year. Maybe a little more,” Aztec said. “Laurel was still living in California the first time. She flew in to get specked on her arm.”

  “Specked?”

  “It’s a stippling technique I developed. We did a fancy leaf pattern.”

  “How had she heard about you?”

  “I think it was through an e-magazine.”

  “Flash Ink?”

  “This was a while back, so I can’t swear to it. But I have a running ad that links to my Web page and networking sites.”

  Langston regarded Aztec closely through his spectacles. “Is that how you get all of your out-of-town contacts?”

  “Some. More than eighty percent is still word-of-mouth,” Aztec said. His dark eyes returned Langston’s interest. “Raven told me a stalker killed Laurel.”

  “It’s among the possibilities.”

  “She said it might have been someone who saw her on television and then looked her up on the Internet.”

  “Again, we don’t know,” Langston said. He paused. “Did Raven mention what happened to the tattoo on Laurel’s arm?”

  “ ‘Transfornatural’?”

  “Yes.”

  A moment passed. They looked at each other in the pendant silence. “I’m sick about it,” Aztec said finally. He hesitated. “I suppose I should ask if I’m a suspect.”

  “Should you be?”

  Aztec was quiet another moment. “The detectives already paid me a visit about the Tattoo Man kidnappings. And I was expecting them.”

  Langston was thinking they would have only spoken to him about Mitchell Noble and Stacy Ebstein. The specifics about Dorset hadn’t yet been released for public consumption. “What made you certain they would come?” he asked.

  Aztec meshed his hands at his chest, bowed his head, and studied them as if in deliberation, remaining very still for a while. Then his eyes lifted. “Local cops, feds… I’m on all ki
nds of hot lists. They’d deny I’ve been typed, but there aren’t a lot of people with my skills and rep. They know who I am.”

  Another silence. Langston waited for him to continue.

  “What I do is about love and sharing,” Aztec said. His voice remained very soft. “There’s a bond between an artist and a client. You wouldn’t understand.”

  “Now you’re typing me,” Langston said. “Making assumptions that might not be true.”

  Aztec shook his head a little, looking skeptical. “If you don’t think I did anything wrong, why are you here?”

  “We need help finding a killer,” Langston said. “It’s that simple.”

  Aztec gave him a long, assaying glance. Langston waited patiently again, saw a slight shift in his doubtful expression. But he wasn’t sure how much could be read into it.

  “Come on,” Aztec said at last, motioning toward the stairs. “Let’s talk down in my workshop. I can show you some things.”

  Langston could tell from his tone that he was the only one who’d been invited. He shot a look at Greg, who gave a shrug indicating he wouldn’t object to staying put. Then he returned his eyes to Aztec. “Lead the way,” he said.

  Nick and Sara’s second stop of the day was on the east side of town off Boulder Highway, a fifteen-minute drive from Stacy Ebstein’s home.

  “ ‘Intimate Sexy Adult Fantasies.’ ” Nick read the lettering on the store’s plate-glass window as he slid the Mustang against the curb. “Now, that’s a name.”

  “At least you know what you’re getting,” Sara said, and exited the car.

  They walked into the shop, and as the door shut behind them with a jingle of overhead chimes, it suddenly occurred to Nick that Sara was wrong, dead wrong. Whatever you were getting here was anything but what was touted up front. The walls and counters were full of battery-powered stimulators and massagers and enhancers and pumps and probes, pornographic movies in Blu-ray and DVD and mark-down videocassette formats, assorted sprays and gels and lotions and powders with names like Make Me Groan and Heat Seeker and Coochy Lube and Orgasmix, bondage costumes and masks and chastity belts and stand-up cages, cuffs and whips and cat-o’-nine-tails—everything in sight collectively geared toward fantasies Nick did not find at all intimate or sexy but instead just considered dreary and tiresome.

  “No lingerie department?” Sara asked.

  Nick motioned to a flesh-colored female body form in a leather strap harness. “I think that’s it right there.”

  A smile tweaked her lips. “I prefer everyday comfort.”

  They had spent a minute looking around when they heard movement elsewhere in the shop. The sales counter was at the rear, a doorless entry behind it presumably leading to a stockroom. Someone had emerged from it, a man with a red-and-white-checked Saudi ghoutra wound around his head do-rag style. Its long tails spilled over his shoulder.

  “Can I help you two?” he said from behind the counter. Then he noticed their Windbreakers. “Oh, sorry. This is an official visit… I didn’t see the patches. You’re investigators?”

  “Las Vegas Crime Lab,” Nick said, and gave his name. “My partner’s Sara Sidle.”

  The man nodded. “Mitchell Noble,” he said.

  Nick watched him come around into the aisle. Brass’s case files described Noble as Caucasian. The tattoo needle had left his face black, with a faint enamel gloss to the pigment. His visible implants were metallic. Those covered by the headscarf bulged under its tightly wrapped fabric.

  Later on, Nick would think it lucky he’d reviewed the snapshots at headquarters—still, photos weren’t always adequate preparation. The tug of simultaneously wanting to stare and look away made him acutely self-conscious—perhaps because he knew what Stacy Ebstein would have said.

  Noble seemed to pick up on it. He stopped in the aisle and ran his open hands down over his cheeks. “It’s a camera, an antique box camera,” he said, and then touched the large round knob on his temple with a finger. “You recognize this right here?”

  Nick shook his head. He wished he’d been better at hiding his reaction.

  “That’s supposed to be a dial for winding the film. You can see the finger grips if you look closer. The stud underneath is for a lanyard—wheeee, don’t hang me from it!” Noble swallowed his chuckle. “A little joke there. Don’t mind me. I try to have a sense of humor. It helps settle people down when they get a load of me.”

  Nick took a rasping breath. The spit had drained from his mouth.

  “There’s a shutter switch on the other side.” Noble turned his head slightly away from Nick and Sara to show them. “It’s kind of wide, but that’s how they were on these cameras. The fucker worked to scale.” He faced the CSIs again. “An Ensign Ful-Vue, that’s the model. Big in England in the late thirties. Clever choice. It’s shaped like a helmet, and guess what? A helmet fits on a head! I wrapped the scarf around the photo and viewfinder lenses on mine. They’re titanium rings under the skin—you can probably make out the outlines. Goggle, goggle.”

  Nick breathed dryly again. He felt spiders scrabbling over the back of his neck.

  “He really messed me up at first,” Noble said. “My life, my business, everything. How’m I gonna make the overhead when even the kinkers are creeped out by my looks? But then I tell myself, ‘Mike, give yourself a hug and think about mail order.’”

  Sara interrupted. “Mr. Noble—”

  “I know. You’re busy. It’s a busy world. But I tried telling the detectives what I remember. It’s just that I don’t remember much. I’m outside rolling down the store gates when the fucker comes up behind me, and bam.”

  “Mr. Noble, listen to me,” she said. “There was another abduction. The man was a former chief judge.”

  “Boy, oh, boy. What’d he get turned into? A flying gavel?”

  “He died, Mr. Noble. His body was found last night.”

  “Does he have a name?”

  “Quentin Dorset.”

  “Eighth Judicial District Court,” Noble said. “Clark County Criminal Division. Department Four, wasn’t it?”

  “Tell me how you know.”

  “I was a spot-news photographer back in the day. Freelance. Wasn’t that in the detective reports?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good. I thought I’d talked about it with them. You’re a whole lot hotter than they were, incidentally.”

  Sidle ignored that. “What sort of stories did you cover?”

  “Hit-and-runs, wildfires, strangled hookers, mob killings, you name it.” He touched the button-shaped implant on his temple. “Here and there I’d do weddings and bar mitzvahs to pay the rent. Say cheese, snap-snap.”

  “Let’s stick to your news photography. I think it’s obvious your kidnapper knew you once did it for a living. We have reason to believe he also knew Dorset was a judge. Could you have worked any trials he oversaw?”

  “Lots, I’m sure. Dorset was around for twenty years.” Noble glanced over at Nick. “What’s wrong? Not joining in on the conversation?”

  “I’m the one talking to you now, Mr. Noble, so pay attention,” Sara said, her eyes flatly on his. “Back to Dorset. Do any of his cases stand out in your mind?”

  “What mind? I’ve got a stale roll of film inside my head.” He made another chortling sound. “Just kidding, beautiful. Your question was?”

  “Don’t insult me, Mr. Noble. I’ve been nothing but respectful.”

  He looked at her and kept looking. “I didn’t mean to—”

  “Forget it. But we have to stay on track.”

  Nick regarded Sara in the brief silence that followed. It had only been a short while since her return to the CSI team after a long personal hiatus, which had included marrying Gil Grissom and going off on a research trip to Costa Rica. But watching her take hold of the ball, he was reminded of the purposeful intensity and focus that had always impressed him about her.

  “I need to know if you remember Dorset’s trials,” she said, her eyes
on Noble. “Or were involved with any in particular.”

  “Involved?”

  “Say one of your photos was used as evidence? Swung a verdict or sentencing decision? Something like that… I’m just guessing.”

  He absently raised a hand to the ghoutra and ran a finger around the larger of the two circles pushing out its fabric. “The district had thirty-seven judges. You want me to run off their names in alphabetical order? Be easy. I’d start every day of the week checking their dockets. Did it for five solid years. You realize how many cases that comes to?”

  “I’d gather quite a few.”

  “Dozens times thirty-seven,” Noble said. “I sold my pictures to the local newspapers, national papers, and magazines. They pay late and print credits that wouldn’t show up under a microscope. But I never hit the big piñata. The hero fireman after a bombing. A high school massacre. A Vietnam vet holding a convent full of nuns hostage. Some little girl rescued from a well—ooh, lawdy, that’s Pulitzer material!” He kept tracing the forehead implants with his finger. “Shutterbugs don’t rate. Ain’t no money in it, honey. You better believe I’d know if I got mileage from anything that had to do with Dorset.”

  “And what about Stacy Jacobson?”

  “The tick-tock lady?”

  Sara remained expressionless. “Mr. Noble, it’s important that you cooperate here. I’m wondering if your paths could have crossed at some point.”

  Noble shook his head with a mock grin. “You know, I wondered the same thing when I first got my new look,” he said. “But far as I can tell, all we have in common is a psycho kidnapper.”

  Nick decided to take his crack at him. A thought was fluttering around the edges of his brain, but he’d been unable to grab hold of it—and for him, questions always spun the net that caught the moth. “You said you freelanced for five years. When did you give it up?”

  “Well, look who’s talking to me again.”

  “Come on, Noble,” Nick said. “When?”

  “I did it for Y2K. Photojournalism’s spotty. I ran into a guy who was selling this shithole of earthly delights on the cheap and figured, sex merch, there’s a reliable income.”