The season for a reason

Ace wasn't sure he wanted to do this particular tattoo. Someone had come into the shop with a picture from Dore's Dante Inferno pictures. Dante always made his skin itch.  After doing a series of tats on the back of a rather large man with lots of piercings, he had decided that Dante was off the choice list.  He had lost a few clients.  He didn't mind skulls or other items associated with the dead, but Dante seemed to come alive on the walls of his apartment all too often.

But his guy made him an offer he just couldn't refuse. Triple the normal price and he'd come whenever Ace was in the mood.  This was the guy's fifth trip.

Just as Ace paused to change the tip of his needle to a different color, SPLAT!!splat, splat on the pavement on the side of the shop that faced maplewood.

"Jesus!" Luther, the client, almost broke the chair.  "What the hell was that?"

Ace walked over to the plate glass window but still couldn't figure out what it was.  He opened the front door, bell tinkling, and realized it was pumpkin. Pumpkin? He heard something that sounded like a metal slingshot, then a small pumpkin flying and then a burst, and then a "YEAH! FINALLY!"

Ace stepped back under the awing, looked up on the roof of the apartment building only to see Eliot with a gun and some guy laughing.

Ace shouted, "Nice one, bartender! Bad guys beware!" Eliot, surprised, looked over the edge and then smiled, gave Ace a thumbs-up.

"Next beer's on me!" Ace shouted and laughed and returned to the shop.  Dante wasn't so bad now. He finished the last flame and called it a day.

As he was leaving, he had to sidestep around orange chunks and seeds.  "Well, I'll be busy in the next few weeks."  He mused. Halloween was one of the busiest times of the year for him. "Gotta get some pumpkins early. Jack-o-lanturns will rock my shop."