“We’ll clean it up,” Slim says, following my gaze. “I doubt he’ll be coming back.”

Still on the phone, Rose draws a line across her throat mafia-style and then mouths the word dead, as if I might not understand her throat-slitting gesture. Rose is all crass and no class. She calls things the way she sees them, and apparently she sees Jay as having already checked out of Hotel Life.

Goose bumps prickle on my skin, and I regret my decision to wear my usual low-cut tank top to show off my tats. Pebbled ink is not a good look. But Slim seems unaffected by the fact that his employee has been marked or possibly killed by a street gang. Maybe because Jay was only here for a few months and we never got a chance to get to know him that well. Or maybe because he genuinely doesn’t care. With Slim, it’s always hard to tell.

“You don’t seem happy,” he says.

“I’m still in shock and stuck on the part about the gang and Jay going into hiding or, as Rose suggested, possibly being dead. These things happen in movies and not real life. How do you know all this?”

Slim shrugs. “He left a message.”

“A message?” My eyes widen in incredulity. ‘Hello. This is Jay. I’m being chased by a street gang. If I’m killed, please give my chair to Sia.’ That kind of message?”

“Actually, he asked if I’d hold his chair until it all blew over. As if.”

“As if the street gang would be forgiving?” My voice rises in pitch at the thought of poor Jay being pursued by a vicious, cutthroat gang. Although I didn’t know him well, he was always friendly, if a little distant.

Slim taps his fingers against his leg. “As if I’d hold the chair. I’m running a business here. He wants to get in bed with unsavory characters, he pays the price.”

My eyes widen and I shoot an incredulous look at Rose. Sometimes I wonder how I wound up at Rabid Ink with people whose sense of ethics is so diametrically opposed to mine. She hangs up the phone and laughs.

“I think your callous disregard for Jay’s life has shocked our innocent Sia.” Rose peers around Slim from her seat at the reception desk. “I, on the other hand, was expecting this from day one. He had trouble written all over him. Not something you artist types would notice. But I always pick up on things, like the scar across his throat that looked like a knife slash, cut marks on his arms, or the fact that he only had gang members as clients.”

Rose wanted to be a tattoo artist, but after three months as Slim’s apprentice, she realized her strength lay in her people skills, and she took on the reception job instead. Over beer one night after work, Slim told me he’d been incredibly relieved. He liked Rose and didn’t know how to tell her that she couldn’t draw for crap.

Slim scowls at Rose, and then turns to me. “You’re not dealing are you? Owe anyone money? Pissed off the wrong people? In a gang? Hooked up with the wrong kind of guy? I didn’t screen him well enough, and it’s made me rethink my hiring process.”

“Uh…no.”

Rose snorts a laugh. “Her brother wouldn’t even let her walk in the wrong end of town, much less associate with evildoers like litterbugs or jaywalkers or street gangs. He’s got her so wrapped up in cotton, I’m still amazed he let her work here. He came in once when you were away to check out the safety of the building. He didn’t like all those exposed beams and pipes in the ceiling. Thought they were dangerous. I told him decorating with natural elements is the in thing, but he wasn’t buying the modern vibe.”

So true. If only she knew what I had to go through after Tag found out I’d taken a job at Rabid Ink in San Francisco’s Lower Haight district. At one point he threatened to lock me in my apartment. But after I brought him to meet Rose and Slim and the crew, he mellowed. Especially when Slim assured him I would never be alone in the studio.

A shiver runs down my spine when I glance over at Jay’s workstation. He’s been gone for what…two days? The memory of him inking a drunken frat boy on Thursday night is still crystal clear in my head. I give Slim a weak smile. “Maybe I’ll just stick with my chair.”

“You’ll be fine.” Slim pats my shoulder. “Nothing to worry about. If he comes back, he can take your old chair. You’re a better artist anyway.”

“Sure.” I shoot Rose a quizzical glance. She puts two hands to her throat and makes a choking gesture, then closes her eyes and drops her head to her shoulder, limp. I guess she doesn’t think Jay is coming back.

I follow Slim past the small, carpeted lounge area with its two worn, brown suede couches, flash racks displaying our portfolios, and permanently unfilled watercooler, and drop my bag on Jay’s chair.

“Moving up a chair is considered a promotion,” Slim says as he clears away Jay’s works, tossing the needles and equipment into a cardboard box. “But we still operate on an eat-what-you-kill basis. I still take twenty percent off the top to cover expenses, insurance, and maintaining the autoclave. You’re responsible for your own equipment and medical supplies. New clients are still fair game. Freehand work is mine.”

My brow wrinkles in a frown. “Did I miss the part where there’s a financial benefit to being middle chair instead of back chair?”

Slim laughs. “There isn’t any. It’s all about prestige.”

“Prestige. Right.” Rabid Ink doesn’t scream prestige. Cheap artwork and faded band posters line the crumbling, exposed-brick walls. The windows are cracked and the hardwood floor, grayed over time, is decidedly uneven. Although he keeps the studio impeccably clean and brightly lit, Slim hasn’t been big on maintenance or upkeep, and everything is tired and worn, from the chipped counters to the scratched workstations and ancient chairs. When I daydream about running my own shop, I always imagine clean, bright, and modern, with the newest hi-tech equipment, polished hardwood floors, art on the walls, and spacious private rooms for intimate ink.