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“Really,” I said, “you don’t have to worry about it. It’s on me. A wedding gift or whatever. I’m not going to use you like that. You’ve got enough bloodsuckers around you as it is.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Declan shot back, his rather infamous temper flaring up.
I held up my hands.
“If that meant something to you, it’s got nothing to do with what I said,” I told him.
He covered his outburst with more loud laughter.
“What does it matter?” he said. “I’m on top of the fucking world right now. Hot wife. Number one title. Big fucking mansion. What more could I want?”
I didn’t respond. I felt Declan’s eyes on me. But I was too preoccupied again with the window.
“You know,” he said at last, wagging a finger at me. “For a man who wants to save his business, you sure do a lot not to save your business.”
But I barely heard him.
“Hey, give me a second, would you?” I asked, though I was already off the stool on my feet.
“Well, sure, Conor ol’ boy,” Declan replied, craning his neck to watch me as I stalked past his chair. “What more do I have to do with my day than lie here in agony waiting for you to go and satisfy a whim for God knows how long?”
I waved my hand back at him distractedly and mumbled “thanks” before slipping out the door.
I heard Declan call out, “Have I told you you’re a jackass yet?”before the door closed behind me.
On the sidewalk, a girl nearly collided with me because she was so preoccupied checking her lipstick in a little compact mirror she held directly in front of her face.
“Watch it,” I growled.
“Are you going to let him talk to me that way, Bobby?” the girl whined to the guy trailing behind her, who I could only assume was her boyfriend.
Bobby took one look at me, his chin rising, rising, rising, and quickly grabbed ahold of his lady friend’s arm to drag her away. I walked with my hands stuffed irritably into my pockets, collar turned up against the wind and whatever further bullshite was coming for me farther down the street.
I heard the crowd around the side of the building before I saw them. Normally the only thing you heard from the alley on the side of Dublin Ink was the occasional breaking of glass, a drunken shout or two from the times of noon to 6 a.m., and every so often the thud of a rookie police officer’s chasing footsteps, always wearing out his bright-eyed optimism for how he was going to “clean up the neighbourhood”.
I was certainly not accustomed to hearing anything resembling giggles, the click of heels (even the hookers around these parts didn’t bother given their clientele), and such ridiculous things as “okay, and now a portrait”, “did you get the good side of my face?”, and “can you see my highlighter?”
I practically recoiled in disgust when I finally rounded the corner behind Bobby the Bitch and his lovely lady and found a crowd of phone-raising, scarf-wearing, mascara-applying, hip-popping, bright-white-teeth-smiling, fake-laughing, Instagram-posing hipsters. They were everywhere, truly this decade’s most indestructible cockroach.
And now Dublin Ink had an infestation.
I barrelled through the lot of them, not giving a damn about their “hey, there’s a line”, their “um, I was next” and their “dude, not cool” complaints. My elbows flew and if it knocked someone’s lip filler loose, then they could get in the long line of people that wanted to collect money from me.
Pushing to the front, I found myself standing before something that didn’t exist for miles in any given direction: street art. This neighbourhood had plenty of gang tags, plenty of hasty scribbles from bored teenagers, plenty of bodily fluids splashed indiscreetly against brick walls.
It did not have anything that could even generously be awarded the title of “art”. And yet, like a yellow dandelion between the cracks in the concrete, there was art. There was something truly beautiful.
It was a big, ominous-looking safe of deep blacks and harsh greys and inside was a red heart. It was the red heart that was most incredible. Somehow it seemed to pulse. Somehow it seemed alive.You could see the outline of the bricks through the paint and yet you were somehow convinced that it needed freeing, the bright, little red heart. Written atop the piece in a looping cursive were two words: Little Thief.
The style was raw, distinctive, but untrained, unrestrained even. It was clearly the work of an amateur, but an amateur with obvious talent. I really had no doubt who the artist was, but those two words, bold and daring and seemingly calling out to me specifically in the crowd, sealed the answer in my mind.
A girl had just finished having her picture taken and another one immediately took her place, posing as if she were trying to pry open the safe, as if she were trying to reach in for the special heart behind those bars. I watched her twist her head this way and that at the command of whoever was behind her phone. Behind me two girls were chatting in low, excited voices.
“You know, there’s the tattoo place right next door,” one said. “I bet they could do this as a tattoo.”
“A tattoo! Your mom would kill you.”
“Yeah, but she doesn’t have to know.”
