LOU'S TATTOOS

Chapter 36: HELL WEEK

AUTHOR'S NOTE: The photo above is the Hard Rock Cafe in downtown Miami's Bayside Marketplace as it would have looked in Randall's heyday. The huge, iconic guitar has since been removed and the building slightly redesigned. I think the skyline is poorer for that, but then I'm a sucker for 30-foot-tall guitars.  You'll find out what this picture has to do with the story when you read this chapter.  Happy reading!

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Two major events occurred during the week following Lou's discovery of Galen Randall's true identity.

First, the Miami Herald reported that at long last the dismembered murder victim pulled from an oil drum weeks ago had been identified. The dead man was known to enjoy gambling and had recently traveled to Las Vegas, where he had won a significant wad of cash. Wire services carried the story, and the Las Vegas papers picked it up. Buddy Petruccio's boss read it and called Buddy into his office for a very short meeting. Five days after that, Buddy the Blade, incognito, of course, stepped out of an airplane and into Miami, Lou O'Malley's hometown.

Second, on the same day of the Miami Herald's murder story, Debbie strutted into the glitzy PhotoWorld top-floor office in downtown Miami, carrying a large, fat manila envelope. She stepped off the elevator, spotted the receptionist beyond glass doors, and marched smartly up to the desk.

A short time later, Randall was flipping through the photographs drawn from Debbie's manila envelope. Debbie and Meriweather looked on as Randall studied all the pictures intently. Then he selected five or six photos and handed them to Meriweather, who examined them and smiled.

"Fine work," said Meriweather.

"Yes," Randall said. "She's...she's good." He lifted a smaller envelope that had been stashed inside Debbie's large one. "Are these the negatives?"

"Yep," answered Debbie.

"I thought there was to be an exhibit. I looked for it—"

"Canceled."

"I see." He thought for a moment before he said, "Are you free for lunch, by any chance?"

Debbie smiled and went into Flirt Mode. "I'm free, but I'm not easy."

Meriweather harrumphed.

Randall shot her a look.

Meriweather backed off.

Not many minutes later, Debbie strolled through Bayfront Park, along the shore of Biscayne Bay, eating a hotdog from a street vendor's cart. Randall walked beside her; he was not hungry. At least, not for foodstuffs.

"How did you get the film?" he asked after they had walked a while in silence, except for the cries of the seagulls and the whish of the park's fountain.

"I found it in Pop's store room."

"What if she notices it's gone?"

"She won't. She ain—hasn't touched that box of camera stuff since she got back from Utah. I doubt she ever will." She sneaked a sideways glance at him as she said this last.

He turned away from her as if he wanted to look out at the bay. Perhaps he would claim the salty wind was making his eyes water, but Debbie knew that would be a white lie.

Debbie spoke to Randall's back. "It's been nearly a month, and she still cries all the time. She quit her job downtown, you know? She moved back in with her dad, and she never leaves the shop. 'I know my place,' she says. Geez, you don't seem like a bad guy! How could you do this to her?"

He swung around to face her, and the pain in his face surprised her.

She said, not unkindly, "How could you do it to both of you?"

Randall took time to look at the water of the bay, the blue, cloudless sky, the nearby tall buildings, and finally back at Debbie. "Nobody you meet, nobody you meet, is ever unimportant. God sends them to you at a certain time, for a reason—and it can be either a blessing or a curse. It's a curse when, in your all-consuming arrogance, you handle a miracle carelessly. Like I did."

Debbie waited for him to continue.

After a few deep breaths, he said, "So. She 'knows her place,' does she? I know her place now. I think I probably even knew it then. I should've told her, but I kept putting it off. At first I thought it was cute and funny that she really had no idea who I was. But then I missed all my chances to tell her the truth: Who I was; what she meant to me. I was irresponsible. Just...careless. With the truth. With her." He nodded at Debbie. "With both of us."

Debbie tossed her unfinished hotdog into the nearest trash bin, then she slipped her arm through his and they walked—she nearly dragging him—beside the water, toward the Hard Rock Café.

"Lou's mother ran away when Lou was ten," Debbie told him. "Let me buy you a root beer, randy Randall, and I'll tell you the old Orthodontist Story."

In just a few minutes they had left the blazing glare of the bayside sun for the cool, dim interior of the Hard Rock Café. As they hunched close over two root beers, Randall listened intently to Debbie's story.

"Her note just said he was an orthodontist she'd met at the grocery store," Debbie was saying, having told a good part of the story already. "They never heard from her again. Lou's father went crazy. He burned her name off his arm with a soldering iron. Ended up in the hospital with a horrible infection. Almost died because he wouldn't let them amputate his arm."

Randall murmured, "That's a lot for a ten-year-old to handle."

Debbie continued, "Then, when Pop got out of the hospital, and he got Lou out of the foster home where HRS had stuck her, he still couldn't use his arm at first. For almost a year, Lou kept that shop going, working after school and into the night. She was a known artist, with a following, by the time she turned eleven." Debbie stopped for a sip of root beer.

"Lou never tattoos a name on a person," she went on. "That's a firm policy. She's been tattooing—and not trusting people—ever since that orthodontist stole her mom's heart in the fresh cauliflower and broccoli aisle. So, you see, you made that worse when you weren't honest with her. She wanted so much to trust someone at last. She wanted to trust you."

Randall doodled on a cocktail napkin, while Debbie sipped her drink and watched his taut face.

"So," he said at last, "Pop's the one with the scars you can see."

Debbie touched his forearm where it lay on the tabletop. "Believe me, she meets a lot of men in that tattoo parlor. All kinds. And I never saw Lourdes O'Malley bat an eyelash at one. She was never interested. Until now."

She sat back in her chair and sipped her drink, watching him. He seemed stoic, doodling on his napkin, but he absently massaged his right arm.

"All she ever wanted was to take pictures and be respectable," Debbie said. "I came to you with those pictures because I thought, after the damage you did, well, the least you could do is help Lou get work as a photographer. What are you going to do?"

He reached to take up his drink. "I'm going to see a man about a tattoo."

She saw that, on his napkin, he had drawn a heart with the word "Lourdes" across its center.

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AUTHOR'S NOTE:  We're nearing the end of our story, dear ones.  Only chapters 37, 38, and 39 are left before the Epilogue!  This means next week's update will be very important. Don't miss next Wednesday's installment of LOU'S TATTOOS.