LITMIR.BIZ

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It isn’t that important.

      “Then let me put it to you very respectfully,” she went on to Naismith, more sternly than respectfully, “you wouldn’t make one of these stamps even if somebody requested one? Offered you a lot of money for it? You wouldn’t see it as a challenge?”

      “I’d see it as an insult. Like I hear you insulting me, Sergeant Hatchet Face.” Naismith glanced around at his third-hand furnishings and the pitiful stock of generic canned goods in his open shelves. “But if I ever did make an effing stamp for the money, even if I ever thought getting the equipment to make it would be halfway worth the expense, you can bet it’d have a lot more style than this piece of crap.” He took another glance at the tracing and thrust it back at Clayton. “It’d be something you could almost mistake for art. It wouldn’t be crap.”

      Lestrade signaled her partner with a nod.

      He held out the two photos they had gotten from the victim’s family. “Ever see this floater before?”

      Naismith grunted and examined the first photo. Shuffled the second one out on top and examined it as well. Finally shook his head. “Guess I could’ve seen him around town. Yeah, I get out and around town sometimes. Never been in here to buy any tattoos from me, if that’s what you’re getting at. Why, what kind of rap you trying to pin on him?”

      “Missing person. Just asking everyone we see. Routine. Well, thank you, M. Naismith.” Queen Hatchet Face deliberately bestowing mercy on a peasant. “I think that’s all. For today. We’ll see ourselves out.” Standing in the middle of the room, they were all of two steps from the door. Where did Naismith put his clients, whenever he had any?

      Once outside, Dave smoothed the tracing out and studied it. “Doesn’t look all that bad to me.”

      “Lady save us from the artistic temperament,” said Sergeant Lestrade. “Let’s hope the others are practical business people.”

      CHAPTER 3

      Still Monday, September 18

      Closest to Naismith on the town grid was Elias Hammer, who was both legit in every sense and reasonably prosperous, with a two-story building to himself just off the main business district. Parlor downstairs front, looking out on the street like a police interrogation room. Office and supply rooms downstairs back. Living quarters upstairs. Everything clean, neat, and antiseptic as a hospital.

      When Clayton gave him the sample book, he hesitated, took a second look at it, and said, “How come you’re handling this without gloves, Officers?”

      “Offering to let us take your fingerprints, M. Hammer?” Lestrade replied experimentally.

      They had in fact dusted the volume, cover and pages, for fingerprints first thing, and had the prints safe on file. But fingerprints helped with identification only when the parties’ prints were on record or could be readily supplied for comparison. And there were laws about whose fingerprints the police could take under what circumstances. The mere fact that a victim had borrowed a sample book of tattoo designs shortly before being murdered wouldn’t have constituted evidence for demanding to take the prints of any tattoo artist who might be the owner, unless the book had been found on the murder scene, preferably splattered with the victim’s blood.

      “Sure, Officers,” Hammer said with a grin. “I’ll let you take my fingerprints if you’ll get a tattoo from me.”

      Clayton said, “Gratis?”

      But Lestrade said, “Why would we wear gloves to handle a lost-and-found item?”

      “Yeah,” her partner hurried to add. “The things people find and turn in at the police station! As long as we were coming out to see body artists anyway, we just thought maybe we could bake two cakes in one oven.”

      “Yeah, good thought,” Hammer agreed. “But what’ve we done to deserve your attention today, anyway?”

      “Just looking for information, M.,” Lestrade told him. “What can you tell us about tattoo stamps?”

      “Tattoo stamps? As much as any other tattoo artist, probably more than some.”

      “Not above making the things, then?” she pursued.

      “Sure, I make stamps. There’s a lot of tridols to be made out of ’em and I’m not above making tridols. Someday I plan on making enough of ’em to move out somewhere as posh as the Dupont-O’Toole establishment.”

      “Ever seen this one?” Lestrade nodded at Clayton to show him the tracing.

      He studied it a long time, glancing back up at the detectives every so often. Finally he handed the paper back and shook his head.

      “Not mine, no. Maybe one of O’Toole’s. Not Fleur Dupont’s, I don’t think. Doesn’t quite look like her style. Maybe Naismith —”

      “Who just told us he never debases his art with stamps,” Clayton remarked before Lestrade could cut him off. He was overdue for another dose of Why We Play Our Cards Close to the Chest. Did he have his whole mind on the job this morning? Or was part of it still on that nurse who gave the smoothest flu shots any floater ever enjoyed?

      “Naismith told you that?” Hammer was saying. “Don’t believe him. He likes to eat. Or that —” He waved at the paper in Clayton’s hand—“could be one of those mail-order things. I can’t tell you who designed it…if you can call it a design, looks more like a frou-frou for cocktail napkins—but I can give you a guess who’d be likely to use it.”

      “For cocktail napkins?” Clayton asked, with another look at the tracing.

      “Cocktail waitresses?” Lestrade pushed Hammer. “Who?”

      “Even a town this size has its population of perverts and smasters, Sergeant. They’re the ones you want to be looking hard at when you’re looking for murderers. These so-called ‘inferno clubbers,’ these violent rolegamers—they’re the ones you want to be looking at. Hard. Really hard.”

      Lestrade didn’t even cock an eyebrow. “And they’d be likely to buy tattoo stamps, would they?”

      “Without even blinking. They like to identify themselves. A different design for every subgroup—subhuman group, I’d call ’em. I’ve seen a few marked with three or four different stamped tattoos—that’s the expression, Detectives: a tattoo stamp makes stamped tattoos—showing themselves off as members of three or four smaster dens, sometimes all at once.”

      “Hmm,” said Lestrade. “Thank you for the tip, M. Hammer. And you’ve seen these people how?”

      “Some of the…some of them come in here to get an old stamp removed or covered up with real tattoo work. And I’ve also seen them around, Sergeant Lestrade. You wouldn’t believe the respectable places—the respectable covers—some of them use to pass themselves off as normal. But once you get an idea where to look, what to look for…” He let his voice trail away.

      Lestrade repeated, “Hmm.”

      Clayton pointed out, “Respectable people get tattoos, too.” Lestrade happened to know he himself had Yosemite Pete tattooed on one of his upper arms and Gargoyle Gertie on the other.

      “Oh, yeah,” Hammer agreed. “Very respectable people. Doctors, bank presidents, school teachers, sweet little debutantes wanting flowerchain necklaces and bracelets in time for the Big Prom. Not many murderers there. The respectable people tend to want real, stencil tattoos.”

      Lestrade decided to remark, “I hear you saying, Scratch a stamped tattoo and you’ll uncover a murderer. So why do you make any of these stamps at all?”

      “Hey, Sergeant, I’m sorry if I gave you that impression. I’ve made ’em for high-school honor societies and graduating classes, service groups, bowling teams, once even a Presbyterian confirmation class, for Pete sakes! No, the stamped tattoos you want to check for murderers are the ones on these young floaters with sick,

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