Tattoo Thief (BOOK 1) Read online

  “Are you done yet?”

  Rude, much? “Sorry, Knyfe. I’ll be out in a second.”

  “It’s Blayde.”

  “Right. Sorry. I’m Beryl.”

  “You said. You’re that girl from Oregon?” He pronounces my state like a geometric shape, an octagon or a polygon. I don’t bother to correct him. Yet.

  “That girl.”

  “Right. Well, Stella and I broke up and I live here now, not her. So you can’t stay here.”

  OMG! WTF? WTFFFFFFF!!!!

  I splash more water on my face and dry off on what I hope is a clean towel. I pull open the bathroom door and see a stack of boxes in the living room. What’s happening here?

  “Look, Blayde,” I say in my best calm-the-customer voice—practiced from years of handling freak-outs when people didn’t get their lattes just the way Starbucks makes them—“I’m sorry you guys broke up, but I live here now. This is half my apartment. I already paid.”

  I go to the hallway to retrieve my stuff and Blayde makes no move to help me.

  “No, you don’t,” he says. “My name’s on the lease. You can’t live here. Go talk to Stella.”

  “Where is she?” I demand.

  “Out,” he says, and slams the door in my face.

  I hear the locks click and sink down to my favorite spot in Stella’s apartment hallway, put my head in my hands, and cry.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  I kill most of the charge in my phone calling Stella incessantly (and—let’s be real—Facebooking my ordeal). I call Dan but when it goes to voicemail, I don’t want to leave a message.

  I’m a big girl. I should be able to figure this out. So I find a hotel with a price-auction app.

  It takes me ten tries to hail a taxi but some guy finally takes pity on me and takes me and all of my junk across Manhattan to a sketchy-looking place with stained awnings just north of Hell’s Kitchen.

  I get my key from the hotel clerk after five minutes of back-and-forth over whether I can go to my room right now since it’s not check-in time yet. But I’ve got to. I think I might die if I spend one more minute in these clothes while hauling this suitcase around a city that smells like urine and hot garbage.

  Currently, I do not heart NY.

  My negotiating skills prevail and I squeeze into a claustrophobia-inducing elevator that I’m sure was last serviced before I was born. I find my way to a room that just chewed through another significant slice of my savings.

  I will not think about the stains on the carpet.

  Or the stains on the bedspread.

  I will not. I will not.

  I plug in my phone, take a lukewarm shower while wearing flip-flops, and change into a new pair of clothes. Finally, I perch on a rusty folding chair and call my mother.

  “Beryl?” Strain and sleeplessness cloud her voice.

  “Hi, Mom. I made it to New York.”

  “I saw your flight landed safely. Was it OK?”

  Of course she’s thinking of the perils of air travel on a big flying bus, not the real perils I’m facing with flagrant health code violations right here in my hotel room. But I don’t want to freak her out.

  “Yeah, Mom, the flight was fine. Not even bumpy. And I’m here in my room. I’m fine.”

  I don’t want to tell her yet that “my room” does not equal Stella’s place. That would generate an “I told you so” so loud I’d hear it all the way from Oregon.

  She sighs. “I’m glad you’re safe. So what do you think of New York?”

  Right now, my primary impression is that it is scary and dirty and every-man-for-himself, but I want to put her at ease. Instead, I tell her about the one awesome thing that’s happened to me so far.

  “When I was walking here, you’ll never guess what happened. Some guy with a headset came up to me and said—” I hear a sharp intake of breath, but I plow on. “He said, ‘Can you please move to the other side of the street? We’re filming a movie here.’”

  I hear her exhale with relief. She probably thought I’d already been mugged.

  The first human who spoke to me in New York was actually polite. And when I walked past him, I saw a huge camera boom, studio trucks and dozens of people milling around. I tell my mom I saw a guy in tight black pants and a weird vinyl bird mask, and with a little snooping on Twitter I found out that Edward Norton and Bruce Willis are starring in Birdman, the movie.

  “I’ve heard that film crews are all over the place in New York,” I tell her. “Next time, I’ll take a picture of the action and send it to you.”

  “Have you seen Dan yet?”

  “I’m supposed to show up at his office tomorrow for work. I think he’s out of town this weekend,” I say.

  My mom is quiet.

  “I’d better go unpack and get settled, and figure out lunch and stuff,” I say.

  “Be safe, Beryl.”

  “But have an adventure. Right, Mom?” I ask, recalling the inscription in the book my dad gave me, Beryl Markham’s memoir West With the Night.

  “Right,” but her tone is unconvincing. “I love you bunches.”

  “Ditto.”

  I leave my stuff at the hotel, pray it won’t be stolen while I’m gone, and go in search of real New York pizza. I can’t be bothered to look up wherever the so-called “best” pizza is, so I just follow my nose for a few blocks and find a tiny restaurant with three tables.

  My slice is greasy and bigger than the paper plate it’s served on. At first I pick at it, but then the owner admonishes me. I’m not eating it right.

  “You’ve got to fold it!” he cries, gesturing that I should put a crease down its middle to fit it into my mouth. I like his curly, dark hair shot with gray and his waxed mustache. I obey.

  As I imagine the pizza transferring itself directly from my stomach to my hips, I’m wondering what I should do next. I grab a copy of The Indie Voice, Stella’s free, alternative newspaper, and page through it, searching for her byline.

  I don’t see it. The only thing that jumps out at me is an ad for plastic mattress cases to deal with bedbugs.

  Sick. I’m not sure I’ll sleep tonight. The photos of itchy red bedbug bites are enough to make me wish I lived in a bubble.

  I spend the afternoon wandering, feeling reasonably safe with so many people out on the street. I try not to look too much like a tourist but I can’t help staring—the buildings are enormous.

  Outside Rockefeller Center I see huge monoliths, stacked rocks that look like a Stonehenge version of people. I gaze up at them in wonder, feeling even smaller next to a “person” five times my size.

  I walk toward a more residential area and see a sign on the gate to a playground: No adults allowed unless accompanied by a child. It makes me smile.

  Finally, I head to my room, thoroughly exhausted. I check my phone for the hundredth time and while I have plenty of Facebook messages from sympathetic friends in Oregon, I still don’t have a single message from Stella.

  Tomorrow I’m going to hunt her down and kill her, but tonight I just don’t have the energy.

  It’s early, but the time change and the red-eye drag down my eyelids, begging me to sleep. I switch off my phone’s ringer, discard the sketchy bedspread and pray that the sheets are clean enough. Within minutes, I’m out.

  CHAPTER SIX

  While I slept, Stella blew up my phone with a dozen messages, ranging from “OMG I am so sorry!” to “Call me and tell me you’re OK! I don’t even know where you are!!!!”

  I’m so mad at her that I decide to let her stew, refusing to reply to her messages. Instead, I set my Facebook status to a lyric from Forty-Second Street. “Come on along and listen to the lullaby of Broadway … the rumble of the subway train, the rattle of the taxis.”

  Whoever wrote that song took a lot of artistic license. The sounds I heard last night through my hotel’s paper-thin walls were more heavy metal than lullaby.

  I’ve barely settled into my new desk at Keystone Property Management w
hen Dan taps me on the shoulder.

  “Come with me. We’ve got a prospect and we’re going to check it out.”

  I admire his snappy cab-hailing skills once we hit the street. On our ride, he tells me how he and three college friends built Keystone from a summer gig into a business with more than thirty staff.

  “All you really need is connections, Beryl,” Dan says, explaining that his parents and his partners’ parents had them. “That phrase ‘it’s not what you know, it’s who you know’ matters more here than anywhere.”

  I nod and try to take it all in, feeling thoroughly out of my league.

  The taxi whisks us to a hundred-year-old building on the Upper West Side where a doorman meets us under a green awning.

  I check out the ornate brass and glass doors, the lobby’s checkerboard marble floor, and a massive flower arrangement on a central table. It’s all white: ranunculus, peonies, and orchids, and practically as tall as I am.

  Dan passes a business card to the doorman, who checks our IDs while signing us in. He gives Dan a set of keys.

  “We haven’t seen Mr. Slater in quite a while,” the doorman murmurs. “I hope he’s well?”

  Dan gives him an odd look. “I didn’t get much from his message.”

  I follow Dan to elevators fully lined with mirrors that reflect my wrinkled navy linen skirt, white blouse, navy patent flats, and frizzing ponytail. New York’s humidity does not look good on me. A zit is budding in the center of my forehead. Perfect.

  The elevator stops at the penthouse level and its lobby is a smaller version of the main entry. A mahogany side table holds a miniature replica of the floral display downstairs.

  Dan unlocks a white-lacquered door with a brass doorknocker and a mail slot. He has to give the door an extra push to open it all the way because mail is piled deep on the floor behind it.

  Before my eyes adjust to the darkened apartment, the smell hits me: garbage, stale beer, cigarettes, and mildew. Even the U of O dorms my friends lived in didn’t reek like this.

  “Brilliant.” Dan groans and finds a control panel to raise the blackout shades. The light illuminates a disaster scene.

  I wish Dan had issued me a hazmat suit. I’m going to need it.

  “Well, this is not the worst I’ve ever seen, but it’s definitely in the top ten,” Dan says ruefully as he pushes open three sliding-glass doors to the terrace. I feel less nauseated as we get fresh air.

  I do my part, picking my way over clothes and take-out containers strewn throughout the living room to find light switches and a switch operating two massive fans that hang down from the high ceiling.

  I find an overflowing trashcan under the sink, tie the liner shut without gagging and haul it to a spot near the front door. Then I put a new bag in the garbage can and walk around the apartment, stuffing in handfuls of debris. On top of a grand piano, I find two ashtrays full of cigarette butts. Half-burnt paper is scattered around the fireplace.

  This is glamorous.

  I wonder how a person so privileged, so wealthy, can stand to live like this? Like a disgusting slob, or someone on a bender? I suspect whoever normally cleans up after this Slater guy has abandoned ship.

  Smart.

  I overhear Dan leaving a voicemail for the client and I eavesdrop, wondering if Dan might tell him off for leaving such a wreck.

  Not in this lifetime.

  “Mr. Slater, thank you again for your business. I want to assure you that Keystone Property Management will take care of everything to restore your home perfectly by the time you return. My assistant Berry will handle your billing and all the details needed to make things right. I’m not sure if you were aware of the state of the apartment when you or your guests departed, so I’ll be emailing some photographs to document the additional charges. Again, please don’t hesitate to ask us if there’s anything we can do to make your home more accommodating. We’ll go the extra mile.”

  Dan moves through the apartment efficiently, taking pictures of the mess, adjusting the thermostat and inspecting the rooms. When he’s done taking inventory, he finds some semi-clean grocery bags and stuffs them full of mail from the entryway. He fills two bags as I build a pile of laundry in one corner.

  “Beryl, I promise, this is not normal,” Dan looks sheepish. “All I got was an email from this client asking me to fix up the place and take care of his bills. He didn’t say how bad it was. I thought he might be preparing his place to sublease or sell, but this is just … weird.”

  “So by fix it up, he means clean it up?”

  “We’ll do whatever it takes. That’s the hallmark of my company. Normally, property management clients just want us to keep everything running when they are gone for extended periods. A lot of them have second homes in California, Florida or Europe. But Mr. Slater didn’t say how long he’ll be gone or what the situation is here. I just have a credit card to cover his expenses.”

  I shake my head. “This will take a while.”

  “That’s OK. He’s going to pay a premium for it. I appreciate you getting the worst of the trash out of here. You can schedule our housekeeping service to give this place a top-to-bottom scrubbing tomorrow. You’ll be in charge of anything they don’t do, like organizing and restocking whatever the client needs.”

  “Looks like I’m restocking the bar, then,” I mumble, picking up another empty fifth of vodka.

  Dan takes more pictures and tells me we’ll call it a day. He wants me to attack the sacks of mail in case any bills are urgent. We get green juices from a street vendor and take another cab back to the office. I’m already feeling better.

  “So, how’s your new apartment?” Dan asks as the taxi noses its way through Midtown gridlock.

  Buzzkill.

  “Not brilliant.” I’m not even sure where to begin—the freaky yelling outside my door last night? The cold trickle of a shower this morning?

  “I know New York living is a pretty big change compared to life in Oregon,” he starts. “Apartments here are all about efficiency. You spend all day somewhere else—your office, restaurants, bars, or the park. Don’t worry if it’s small. How’s your roommate?”

  “That’s the thing. She isn’t.” I tell Dan my tale of woe, from giving Stella a fat chunk of my savings for rent, to Blayde slamming the door in my face, to checking into the gross hotel. At this rate, my savings won’t last until my first paycheck.

  “You should have left me a message! I hate the thought of you staying in that place, or what your mother will do to me if she finds out.” Dan makes a comical face as he slices his finger across his neck.

  I laugh and promise him I won’t tell.

  “Buck up, Berry. I’ll help you move to a better hotel tonight,” Dan promises. “If you need it, I’ll give you an advance. That’ll help you with first and last and a security deposit for a permanent place. If you want to live in Manhattan, you’ll definitely need a roommate, but you should also go explore the outer boroughs. Brooklyn’s really hot right now, and Bushwick’s in your price range.”

  I nod, hoping I can find something good—no, something decent. Anything that doesn’t give me the heebie-jeebies. If I don’t, this is going to be one very short visit to New York.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  I can’t help but wonder who owns the apartment I have to clean up, so before I dive into the stack of bills on my desk, I do what all snoops do: I Google him. I want to see what this slob looks like.

  I click on Google Images and my jaw drops.

  There he is, in all his glory—angular jaw and sun-streaked dark blond hair that looks wilder in each picture I see. Shocking ice-blue eyes. And those abs. It seems like half of the pictures of him are sans shirt, and I can feel my face heat as I see how his torso cuts in with a vee right at his hip bones.

  I don’t know what that vee is called, but it makes women lose their minds.

  Gavin Slater is a piece of work in more ways than one. He’s stunning, but not male-model pretty. He’s got the bro
oding eyes Zac Efron works in most of his movies, and a crop of stubble that I can imagine grazing my…

  I need a cold shower.

  I shake my head. Ridiculous getting worked up over a bunch of pictures, but nevertheless that slob’s got me glugging down the rest of my water bottle. I choose to believe it’s just the New York heat that sank into my clothes during my trip to his apartment.

  I should refocus on work but I keep scrolling and I see pictures of him with his band. His band? He’s a rock star! Now I know where he gets his money.

  I’m not that into music, but I know the band’s name—Tattoo Thief. I couldn’t tell you the names of the band members to save my life, yet I immediately recognize their latest hit, “Peace of Madness,” because it’s played on the radio so often.

  The captions tell me Gavin Slater is the front man: singer and songwriter, and sometimes on the guitar or keyboard. His three band-mates—drummer, guitarist and bassist—are also hot, mid-twenty-somethings. One of them sports an arm full of tattoos and another has bright blue hair.

  I zoom in on a shirtless Gavin Slater and my mouth goes dry. The I-dare-you expression. The charmingly crooked nose. The shoulders I could sink my teeth into.

  The part of me that’s been crying over Jeff for the last five days is relieved to find I still have a lusty bone in my body. Not that I’d waste it on someone who lives as disgustingly as Gavin Slater.

  I squint to see the one and only tattoo on his freckled chest, which is nearly hairless except for a treasure trail from his navel south. I can tell it’s a word, but the letters just below his collarbone defy me.

  Then it hits me—I hit PRINT and race to the office printer to pick up a picture of one of People’s Sexiest Men Alive before someone catches me. In the bathroom, I hold up the page next to my face in the mirror.