Ink by Damien Walters Grintalis Page B

conjured up images of abandoned buildings with dust in the corners, damp basements, spider webs and old boxes. The heat in his arm pulled in, pushed out, then vanished. The carousel took one more spin, and Jason shook his fingers; the tingle drifted away like the voices in the crowd.
    “I think I saw him,” Mitch said after they circled around again.
    “When the ride stops, I’ll introduce you. Wait until you hear his voice.”
    Mitch laughed. “Okay.”
    The carousel started to slow its pace, and all the children groaned in protest. Sailor turned his back to the carousel and stepped farther away from the crowd; his odd gait made the hat bob like a buoy in the ocean.
    “So what’s up with his voice?”
    “He sounds like a heavy smoker. It’s all gravelly and rough, but he talks like a teacher and he’s got a weird walk, too. You’ll see. I nicknamed him Sailor the first time I met him.”
    When the carousel slid to a shuddering halt, their horses faced away from the crowd. Jason tried to look over his shoulder, but the edge of the crowd fell beyond his line of sight. It took a few minutes to dodge the children and leave the carousel. The music with the single odd note played on, and Jason wanted to be away from the noise.
    Mitch grabbed his hand in surprise when a young boy with a smear of dirt on his forehead ran in front of them, almost knocking them over. They walked hand in hand toward the grassy patch. This far away, the music sounded even more unpleasant, and the disembodied notes hung in the night air like stale perfume.
    Sailor’s hat bobbed behind the crowd and Jason frowned. “Damn.” He tried to walk faster, but a group of kids ran circles in front of them, halting their progress. Jason looked over the crowd but didn’t see the hat anywhere. Impossible. Sailor couldn’t have gotten that far away, not the way he walked. Jason looked again, farther out just in case. A tiny flash of pale, maybe a straw hat, maybe someone’s hair, but too far away to be Sailor.
    “What’s wrong?” Mitch asked.
    “I think he left. I know he saw me on the carousel. He stood there the whole time. I don’t know why he didn’t wait,” he said, and pressed a light kiss on her lips.
    When they walked far enough away from the carousel to leave the music behind, she laughed.
    “What?”
    “You’re still looking for him, aren’t you?”
    “Maybe a little.”
    Why wouldn’t he wait? He watched us on the carousel. He could have waited a few more minutes. Didn’t he want to see how the tattoo looked?
    “Maybe he didn’t want to disturb our date or maybe he had someplace else to go. If you really want to see him again, you can just go to his shop, right?” She squeezed his hand. “Is it really that important?”
    “No, not really.”
    And it wasn’t. It wasn’t important at all.
     
    14
     
    John S. Iblis walked along the harbor’s edge, humming under his breath. The crowds had dispersed, but he did not mind the solitude. In the water, a few fish swam in erratic circles, then disappeared like ghosts into the murky gloom.
    He walked away with a smile on his face, tapping the paper tucked inside his pocket. For safekeeping, of course.
     
    15
     
    By Tuesday evening, the skin on Jason’s arm stopped peeling.

Chapter Four
    A Storm’s a-Brewin’
     
    1
     
    Jason hired a lawyer and found out that Shelley’s infidelity made it possible for their divorce to be finalized in months instead of the usual year’s wait. No children, the house in Jason’s name, and Shelley’s income, higher than Jason’s by a significant amount, made it an easy divorce according to Michael K. Dillon, Esquire. Easy translated to not too expensive in Jason’s mind, and he swore he saw a flash of disappointment in the lawyer’s eyes.
    His mother still refused to talk about it, but her angry silence told him communication with Shelley was either nonexistent or discouraging.
    The job had the same ebb and flow as always. Some days he