Fudging the Books Read Online Free Page B

her feet. She wasn’t much taller than I was, but when she hugged pint-sized Bailey, she seemed to consume her. “Darling, how are you?” Five years ago, when Bailey broke up with fiancé number two—or was it number three?—she crashed on Alison’s floor. Bailey could have stayed with me, of course, but she hadn’t wanted to intrude upon my new, albeit short-lived, marriage. A brief thought about my deceased husband was all I could manage.
No more dwelling
hadrecently become my mantra. I pushed the memory aside and strode ahead.
    “Alison,” I said, extending a hand. “Welcome.”
    “What a gig you have,” she said. “Well done, Jenna. Let me make the introductions.” She gestured toward the two people sitting at her table. “Bailey and Jenna, please meet our photographer, Dash Hamada.”
    I bit back a laugh. I heard Bailey swallow a snort, too. Dash—an unusual name for a Japanese man—looked every bit the pirate. He wore a bandana over a head of long black-gray hair. He was wearing a rumpled white shirt, opened at the collar, its sleeves cut off. Multiple tattoos, as Coco had warned us, decorated his arms and the V of skin beneath his neckline. He was paying us no mind. He was aiming a high-end Nikon camera at Coco and then Alison, taking snapshot after snapshot. A photographer’s vest, the kind with a horde of pockets, hung over the back of his chair. He pulled a swatch of silk out of a pocket and polished his lens, shoved it back in the pocket, and resumed shooting.
    Bailey bumped me with an elbow and rasped under her breath, “You’re gawking.”
    “I am not.”
    “Yes, you are.”
    “Dash. Avast, me hearty! Stop what you’re doing,” Alison chided. “Be polite and focus!”
    Dash released the camera—it hung from a strap around his neck—and his mouth curled into a rakish, albeit bordering on menacing, smile. “I’m not Yakuza, ladies, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
    I understood his reference. I happen to know that Yakuza are members of an international organized crime syndicate, most predominantly located in Japan. A couple of years ago, I read
Tokyo Vice: An American Reporter on the Police Beat in Japan
, a riveting story by an American investigative journalist. My husband had loved true crime.
    Dash added, “I do it for the appreciation of the art.”
    His tattoos were gorgeous and singular. The dragonfishdown his right arm was surprisingly intricate. The aging ninja warrior that wrapped around his left bicep was fierce. The word
love
blazed across his chest.
    Alison said, “Dash—short for Dashiell, his father adored pulp fiction—takes photographs of tattoos, as a hobby.”
    “Not a hobby.”
    “Fine.” She flicked a finger at him. “He’s written a book about the art of tattooing, starting with woodblocks from the eighth century. He focuses on works by Horitaka, Shige, and more. You should see his website. It’s very deep.”
    “Deep, as in lots of pages,” Dash said.
    “He’s very Internet savvy.” Alison smiled at him in a patronizing way. “By the way, he doesn’t mind if you stare.”
    Dash grinned. “I wouldn’t have gotten the tattoos if I didn’t want you to check them out. They all mean something special. This one”—he used his ring-clad pinky to point out the dragon—“represents the fiery danger I had to go through early on in my life. I was an abused child. This one”—he rotated his forearm to reveal a tattoo of an ear floating on top of tight abs—“represents my former line of business. I used to do tattoos and piercing.”
    Alison said, “Some people think when others tat and impale themselves, beyond the norm—you know, a tiny rose tattoo on the ankle or pierced ears—that the person is weird. He or she must have issues. However, Dash sees piercing or tattooing as a personal expression.”
    Dash cocked his head. “It’s a way of showing to the world what you’ve accomplished and experienced. A life story, if you will.