Shelter (Book One): A Mickey Bolitar Novel

WITH MY FAKE DRIVER’S LICENSE in my wallet, I picked up Ema on the outskirts of Kasselton Avenue. She slid into the Ford Taurus with a sheepish look on her face.

“I don’t understand any of this,” I said.

“It was Agent’s idea,” Ema explained, talking fast.

That was where we were headed—to Tattoos While U Wait to confront Agent.

“Over the summer, I went to Agent for a back tattoo. I wanted something big and dramatic. So he drew up this elaborate artwork, with swirls and lettering and then . . .” She stopped. “You’re looking at me funny.”

“You’re kidding, right?”

She said nothing.

“Of course I’m looking at you funny,” I said, with more snap in my voice than I intended. “That tattoo was in an old photograph in Bat Lady’s house. It was on that tombstone in her backyard. And someone even drew it on a placard marking my father’s grave. Now all of a sudden it’s a tattoo on your back?”

“I know. I don’t understand it either. See, the tattoo is pretty big and the butterfly is just a small part. It wasn’t even in the original plan, but Agent said he was inspired.”

I shook my head. “So why didn’t you tell me about it as soon as you saw it on that tombstone?”

“You ran off, remember? You got arrested.”

“And what about yesterday? At Baumgart’s? Or today at school?”

Ema said nothing.

“Hello?”

“Stop yelling at me,” she said.

“I’m not yelling. It’s just . . . how could you keep that from me?”

“Well, why didn’t you tell me you were secretly meeting with Miss Hot-Bod today? Huh?” She folded her arms. “You don’t tell me everything. I don’t tell you everything.”

“Ema?”

“What?”

“That’s a load of crap and you know it. Why didn’t you tell me about the tattoo?”

Ema looked out the front windshield. We were getting closer to Agent’s place. I let it sit. There was no reason to push, not yet, but I wanted to know what was going on. I switched on the radio, but Ema reached for the knob and turned it off.

She sat back and said, “I was afraid, okay?”

“Afraid of what?”

Ema shook her head and frowned. She wore a silver ring on every finger, giving her a kind of gypsy vibe. “For a bright guy, you can be so dense.”

“Yep. So why don’t you explain it to me?”

“At first, I wasn’t even sure. Like maybe that thing on the tombstone just looked like my tattoo, but it wasn’t the same.”

“At first,” I repeated.

“Right.”

“And then?”

I took a quick glance at her. A tear ran down her cheek. “Do I look like I have a lot of friends to you?”

I said nothing.

Ema’s voice was barely a whisper. “I thought maybe you’d get angry. Or blame me. Or not believe or trust me. I thought”—she turned away now so I couldn’t see her face—“that you wouldn’t want to be my friend anymore.”

The hurt in her voice broke my heart. When we came to the next stoplight, I said, “Ema?”

“What?”

“Look at me.”

She did. Her eyes were moist.

“I trust you with my life,” I said. “And like it or not, you’re the best friend I’ve ever had.”

There was nothing more to say after that. We drove the rest of the way to the tattoo parlor in silence.

Tattoos While U Wait was in full swing when we arrived. We hurried to Agent’s chair in the back, but no one was there. I stood at the empty chair as if I could make Agent materialize with just a stare. Nothing happened.

Ema said, “Mickey?”

I looked over at her. She was pointing at a mirror on Agent’s desk. We both moved toward it. We stood there, afraid to move. There, taped to the lower left-hand corner of the mirror, was that same butterfly emblem.

“Hey, Ema. You two like?”

I spun toward the voice. No, it wasn’t Agent. This guy was, I assumed, either another tattoo artist or a frequent client. Every sliver of visible skin had ink on it. I thought about tattoos, about the connection, about the tattoo on Ema’s back, the tattoo on Antoine’s face—and most horrifically, the Auschwitz concentration camp tattoo forced upon a young girl named Elizabeth Sobek.

“Hey, Ian,” Ema said, trying to sound nonchalant. “Do you know where Agent is?”

“He’s not here.” Ian looked at Ema. Then he looked at me.

I gave him flat eyes and said, “Uh, yeah, we can see that.”

“Do you know where he is?” Ema asked. “Or when he’ll be back?”

“He took off,” Ian said. “He won’t be back for a while.”

“What’s a while?” I asked. “Like tonight or . . .”

“Not tonight. Not this week.” Now Ian faced me full on, studying me as though I were a horse he was considering purchasing. “You must be Mickey.”

That surprised me. “Do I know you?” I said.

“Nah. Agent told me you’d come by.”

I glanced at Ema. She shrugged to show that she didn’t get it either. “He did?”

Ian nodded. “He asked me to do the work on you, but he didn’t say where. Arm, thigh, back . . . where do you want it?”

I took a step closer to him. “We didn’t make an appointment.”

“Oh, I know.”

“So when you say you expected us to come by—”

“Agent didn’t say when. He just said you would. Stop by, that is. And he said that when you do, I should take care of you. Look, he left the artwork right there for you.”

He pointed with his chin at the lower left-hand corner of the mirror—at the same image I had seen in Bat Lady’s house, by my father’s grave, and on Ema.

“Do you like it?” Ian asked.

It took me a moment or two to find my voice. “What is it?” I asked, my voice sounding oddly hushed in my own ear.

Now it was Ian who looked surprised. “You don’t know?”

I shook my head.

“Agent didn’t tell you?”

“No.”

Ian shook his head. “Man, that’s odd. Why would he think you’d want that tattoo if you don’t know what it is?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “But could you tell me what it is?”

Ian mulled that over for a moment. We waited. Finally he said, “That’s a butterfly.”

I stifled my sign of impatience. “Yeah, we can see that.”

“More specifically,” he went on, “that’s the Swordgrass Brown Tisiphone Abeona.”

I felt my stomach drop at that last word. I swallowed hard, repeating his words in my own head. “What did you say?”

Something in my voice must have come out as a threat. Ian put his hands up as though warding me off. “Whoa, calm down, dude.”

I took a deep breath. “What did you call that butterfly?”

“Hey, Agent told me that. He talked about it all the time.”

“Please just”—I tried to keep my voice in check—“tell me the name of the butterfly again.”

“Swordgrass Brown Tisiphone Abeona.”

I swallowed. “Abeona.”

“Yep,” Ian said, smiling now. “Hey, you know about Abeona?”

I said nothing.

“Me and Agent, we were into ancient gods and goddesses, you know, because people want them as tats. Abeona was a Roman goddess. Did you know that?”

I stood there, stunned. I thought back to my father’s resignation letter: “I know that no one really ever leaves the Abeona Shelter. . . .”

“I’m not a big fan of this one myself,” Ian continued, “but see, Abeona was a sort of shielding goddess. She protected children when they first left the safety of their parents, guarding them during their first voyage away from home. Like that. And what’s weird about this butterfly, well, the name, right? Tisiphone was one of the Furies, you know, the Ancient Greek gods? She punished the big crimes—murder and stuff—especially when it came to children in danger. Do you know her story?”

I shook my head, afraid to speak.

“Okay, see Tisiphone’s father, Alcmaeon, accidentally left her and her brother, Amphilochus, with Creon, who was king of Thebes. Now Tisiphone, even as a young girl, was a total hottie, so Creon’s evil wife sold her into slavery. What the wife didn’t realize was that the guy who bought Tisiphone was actually working for Alcmaeon, her father. See? It was all a big plan to save his children.”

“How do you know all this?” I asked.

“Oh man, Agent talked about it all the time. That’s why he loved this butterfly. I think it’s native to Australia or New Zealand, someplace like that, but it’s named after both Tisiphone and Abeona. That’s why he loved to put it in his work. See those eyes on the wings? Like they’re watching you. For him, the symbol is all about rescuing children. It’s all about giving them protection and shelter.”

Shelter. The Abeona Shelter. Where my father worked all those years . . .

“Ian,” Ema said, “do you know how we can reach Agent?”

Ian smiled. “He said you’d ask that. So he wanted me to be clear.”

“Well?”

“No. There is no way to reach Agent. None.” He gestured toward me. “So what do you say, Mickey? You ready to get the tattoo?”

My cell phone buzzed. I looked down and saw it was a text from Rachel: Got a clue on Ashley.

“Not now,” I said, rushing to the door.

Maybe not ever.