Their white cargo van pulls in front of a ranch house in Copiague. Mike Tattoo -- that's it, just Mike Tattoo, and chances are you'll recall the skulls inked above his brow far more readily than his surname -- bounds up the steps.

Jumping out of the front passenger seat, Robert, a corporate caterer who also declines to give his last name, joins Mike Tattoo on the brick landing. His regular-guy appearance is a stark contrast to the black panthers, palm trees and bats that cover virtually every available inch of Mike's exposed skin.

Their group, Rescue Ink, has received a complaint from a neighbor that a dog in the garage is never permitted out.

They knock on the front door, and it opens. The two men explain why they are there, and ask to see the dog.

The rest of the van watches with interest. There's Angel, a retired city cop with a penchant for meringue and salsa. Batso, a 74-year-old with a Buddha tattooed on his bald pate and a skinny pigtail. Big Ant, who, at 6-foot-1 and 320 pounds, lives up to his name. Desi, the feral cat specialist with the skull-and-crossbones belt buckle.

The door begins to close, and Mike issues the stage voice he honed playing Max Sands, Prisoner No. 99S812 on the HBO prison series "Oz": "If you want to call the police, we'd love it to happen ... "

Back in the van, there's G, a burly landscaper who says that as a child he used Popsicle sticks to set birds' broken wings. Johnny O, a personal-security expert who makes it his mission to save dogs used as pit bull bait. Sal, who lost his job as a maintenance manager when he left on one too many Rescue Ink calls, and Biagi, whose specialty is "hard to handle" dogs.

The house door closes with finality, and through it the two men on the steps hear the phone call to police.

"It's on," someone in the van announces, and the full force of Rescue Ink steps out onto the blacktop to cheerfully await the coming Suffolk County police cruiser.

It soon does, along with a SWAT-style emergency service vehicle as a backup. This is, after all, a scary-looking crew. But the introductions are cordial as the Rescue Ink men explain their concerns. The officer goes into the house, and the men mill around, noting the piles of dog feces outside the garage door.

For all the histrionics of the showdown, Rescue Ink has a quieter, subtler side. Earlier in the week, some of them delivered a doghouse to a pit bull without shelter, and stayed out until 3 a.m. trapping feral cats. In the back of the van is a bag of cat food for a woman "who won't eat anything herself until her cats are fed," Robert says.

Tattoos and biceps

Barely six months old, Rescue Ink is sort of a Hell's Angels' Toys for Tots drive by way of the Guardian Angels. Its members met through their passion for classic cars, then learned they also shared an interest in rescuing animals. Their name -- written in Gothic script across the backs of white sweat shirts -- is derived from their penchant for tattoos, which you might argue go along nicely with the shaved heads and industrial-strength biceps.

A dozen or so guys make up this rescue group, and a couple are missing today. Four are Long Islanders, two are from Connecticut, the rest from New York City. All but three are married, and most are either retired or in jobs that give them the flexibility to take off a day -- or two or three.

With equal doses of irreverence and intensity, they tackle the problems that no one else wants -- business owners who poison feral cats, petty thieves who steal beloved pooches, fake rescuers who resell the animals relinquished to them.

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