Page 4 of Spilled Ink

"You want one? There's a sweet little bench in the back." A pack of Camels appeared from one deep pocket, along with a lighter shaped like a dick.

"You bet." He stared at the lighter, wide-eyed. That was... wow.

"Cock-lighter. You know, Rooster? Cock? Come on, honey. I promise not to blow you on the bench."

"Damn. That I could use." It popped out before he could stop it, but he rolled his eyes at himself and went on out back, lighting up the smoke Rooster handed him.

Rooster chuckled, letting him have the bench as the man lit up, leaning against a brick wall. "Oh. Better."

Dragging the smoke in deep, Mark nodded. "Yeah. So what's been your favorite job, since you say you remember them all?"

It took a second to answer, but then Rooster grinned. "There was this old lady - I mean, eighty-five, easy. She came in with her great grand-daughter and they got matching ink -- little pansies on the insides of their wrists. Christ, that old woman was something else. Full of life."

"Yeah? That's too cool." He tried to imagine his mom getting ink, and he just couldn't. That had him laughing again. Fuck if he hadn't laughed more in the last hour than he had in weeks.

"See? She rocked with her tissue-paper skin and her fake teeth. You don't even have to see her and you're laughing."

"I am. Thanks, man." Ink and comedy. That was a bargain. "I needed that."

"Not a problem. It was your question." Rooster lit another one up, blowing smoke from his nose.

"Yeah." Of course now they were quiet, and he was starting to feel twitchy again. Maybe he needed to get out more, like Andy said.

It didn't take Rooster but another minute to finish the second smoke. "Okay, man. Let's get back to work."

"Cool." Fuck, he was completely off balance for some reason. Rooster kinda fascinated him, and he kept finding himself staring at that hair, those weird-assed eyes.

"You fucking know it." Rooster gave him another look as he settled. "Tell me about the coolest case you've ever worked, man."

That had him taking a long moment to think. "There was this one robbery. Completely incomprehensible. Like one of those old locked room mysteries. Or something you'd see on fucking CSI, you know? Serious jewelry gone missing. Turns out the three-year-old had put the necklace and shit on the dog..."

Rooster pulled the gun away from his arm, laughing good and hard. "Oh. Oh, fuck. Fancy fucking poochie, huh? So you do burglaries and shit? That's gotta be hard as hell."

"I've worked B and E, vice, and I did a short, short stint on Homicide. Pete always wanted to try for the prestige, but we both found out we were better at the methodical shit than the big game."

"Yeah? Dead bodies stink and shit, so I can't blame you for that. You go to school to be a cop?"

Fuck, the color fill in was worse, a deeper itch.

"No. I went the hard way, applied at the academy. I went to school to be an accountant." Yeah, and that had worked so well.

"No shit? That's fucked up, man. You could be a suit."

"No, I couldn't." He grinned over. "I'm really bad at the nine to five. Really. I mean, there are a lot of rules to being a cop, but it's never boring."

Rooster nodded. "Well, you can tell, I'm suit-material, through and through."

"Oh, yeah. That hair would look great with a black pinstripe." Well. Rooster might actually look oddly hot in a suit, but only if it was sort of Harley style.

"They don't let speed freaks with sixth-grade educations wear suits, honey. Trust me."

"Looks like you got a good thing going here, huh?" Somehow, he thought Rooster was glad to be different. Not in the rat race. And he’d never met someone with a sixth-grade education that read Burroughs.

"You know it. I just hit my sixteenth year of doing ink, my eighth year of owning this place."

"Well, then here's to not wearing suits." Man, it was weird how all of a sudden the itch backed down, becoming this low level high.

"Yep." Rooster leaned in close and he could feel the man's breath on his arm. "Looking good, man, you keep breathing into it. Your man have any ink?"

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