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The man said, “About the tattoos...”
Jeff Toski wasa burly tattoo artist with a full russet neck beard, peering blue eyes, and a nose that might have sniffed too much ale. He lived just east of the Anacostia River in Northwest DC, with a tattoo parlor in the front porch of his house. He put Letty in his chair and said, “I don’t fool around, I’m good at this. You’re one of the Specials, so you’ve got some choices.”
“Like what?”
He had three ranges of inks, he said: standard tattoo, which was permanent (“Don’t believe that Dr. Tattoff bullshit”), an ink for fake tattoos, which essentially sat on the surface of the skin, and Derma-Oil, a new ink made of a natural plant-based pigment that literally got eaten by the wearer’s body.
“The fake will look good for up to two weeks, with a daily shower. After that, it doesn’t look so good, and with a daily shower, it’ll be gone in three weeks. Derma-Oil will look good for six to eight months, depending on your body chemistry, and not so good for another two, and then it’s gone. Not a trace. When it’s there, it’s a real tattoo: you can get in a shower with... whoever... and they can scrub your tattoo as much as they want, and it willnotcome off. ’Cause it’s real.”
“I don’t want to go permanent,” Letty said.
“Then I’d go with the Derma-Oil. I’ve done a few of these Specials and have an idea of what you guys are up to,” Toski said. “Undercover, the fakes would be kinda... scary. ’Cause they’re not real.”
“Then let’s do that, the Derma-Oil,” Letty said. “Is it going to hurt?”
“A little. Not too bad.”
With further consultation, Letty got a pair of raven wings in black ink that covered the entire top of her back; a miniature yellow-and-black tiger swallowtail butterfly inside the point of her hipbone, which might peek out of a pair of low-rise jeans; and a Buddhist saying on the inside of her right forearm:All Wrongdoing Arises Because of Mind.That tattoo was in what Toski said was Sanskrit, and as far as Letty—or Toski—knew, it could actually say,Death to All White-Eyed Devils.But then, maybe it really did evoke the Buddha.
The tattooing did hurt; it didn’t feel like millions of needle pricks, but more as though somebody was scraping her skin with a piece of glass. When each of the tattoos was done, Toski washed them first with a disinfectant and then with an antibiotic. When she told him she’d be doing some flying and driving, he also gaveher a package of peel-off plastic sheets that combined a light adhesive with a topical anesthetic.
“The tats will be raw for two or three days, they’ll weep some, but the sheets will keep that from soaking into your clothes and keep you from itching too bad,” Toski said. “They should be fine after that. They’re shallower than standard tattoos, so they’re not raw as long.”
When she was dressed, Toski said, “A little advice. Come back when you’re done with the job, and I’ll make the butterfly permanent. That isawesomelyhot.”
On most of her workfor Homeland Security, Letty had been briefed by Billy Greet, a DHS executive, now a friend of hers. Greet and Letty’s frequent investigative partner, John Kaiser, had developed an on-again, off-again relationship that would have been deeply frowned upon in the halls of Homeland Security, had anyone other than the three of them known about it.
When Letty left Toski’s shop, she found Greet on the street, waiting, hands stuffed in her jeans pockets. She was wearing a fashionable High Plains Drifter pre-dirtied jacket against the February chill, and her aviator sunglasses. Her hair was pulled back in her usual tight bun, with a few strands floating loose; she looked like a harried third grade teacher after a bad day. “I don’t like any of this, what I know about it,” Greet said. “But if you’re doing it, I need to take you shopping for your cover.”
“Then you need to take me shopping,” Letty said. “ ’Cause I’m doing it.”
Greet drove themto an Arlington Goodwill store, where they spent an hour picking through, discussing, and choosing her newold clothes. They didn’t need a lot, but it had to be right. An old jean jacket, tee-shirts, much-washed bras, skinny jeans worn and holed, boots and socks, a fleece-lined trucker jacket for cool weather. A faded blue trucker hat with “USA” on the front panel.
She bought six pairs of faded different-colored Ralph Lauren men’s briefs. The briefs rode a half-inch higher than the jeans in the back; and the jeans rode low enough in the front to allow the butterfly some freedom. They added a pair of silver loop earrings, a ring with a cracked glass emerald and a fake-gold brass setting, which fit nicely on Letty’s right index finger, and a battered REI Co-Op duffel in dog-shit yellow to carry the clothes.
“Okay, you’re sleazy,” Greet said, taking her in. “Let’s buy it and get over to your place and sort it out.”
At her apartment, Letty changed into the Goodwill clothes and jewelry—Greet insisted on soaking the earrings in a dish of alcohol before Letty snapped them into her ears. “That raven on your back is terrific, but a little goop is bleeding through the dressings,” Greet said. Letty was walking around in a pair of red Ralph Lauren shorts and a pinkish bra that may have become pinkish when it was washed with something like the red Ralph Lauren shorts.
Greet helped peel off the plastic anesthetic sheets and apply new ones. “When your back heals, get yourself one of those off-the-shoulder peasant tops. It’ll be warm out in California and it’ll look cheap. That’s you. Let the raven fly.”
That night, Lettytold John Kaiser as much as he needed to know to provide cogent advice.
“My advice is this. Undercover guys look like everything from movie executives to street people. And housewives,” Kaiser said. He was an ex–Delta operator who’d gone undercover in severaldifferent Middle Eastern countries, as well as Sweden and Canada. “It’s not like on TV where everybody has permanent three-day beards and dark glasses and foreign noses.”
“Foreign noses?”
“Always. On TV. Foreign noses,” Kaiser said. “Anyway, what undercover people never are—in my experience—is gimps.”
“There’s a choice, socially sensitive word,” Letty said. “Gimps.”
“Okay. They’re never differently abled. If you really want to sell yourself, you could be differently abled.”
“How would I do that in a non-fake way?” Letty asked.
“I was hoping you’d ask. I’ll be right back.” Kaiser disappeared into his bedroom and came back with an elastic knee brace and a roll of surgical tape. “Pull your pant leg up.”
Letty had learned not to question him on such things, so she pulled her pant leg up. With her leg straight, Kaiser put a marble-sized knot of tape behind her knee, took three wraps of the soft tape around her knee to hold it in place, then had her pull the brace over her foot, and up to, and over, her knee.
