LITMIR.BIZ

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I’ll go on mentioning ’em until you start finding ’em. If you pollies aren’t out looking for whoever murdered that poor kid—what’s his name, Jackson?—who’s been all over the news today, what the hell are we paying you for?”

      “Okay, fair enough.” Lestrade gave Clayton a nod to ask his prepared question.

      “These stamps, M. Hammer. All the tattoos each one makes are identical as gingerbread bears, but what about the stamps themselves? Are any of them mass-produced?”

      “They’d darn well better not be. Not if there’s any ethics left in the profession. Even the mail-order houses have got to live up to their promise of ‘every stamp unique’ if they want to keep their legal standing with IABA.”

      Lestrade tapped her chin. “Two artists ever come up with the same design by serendipity?”

      “Yeah, that’d be possible. Like it’d be possible to find two snowflakes identical. The Association keeps all the legit stamp designs registered to keep accidental duplication from happening, but there could always be a slip-up. Or an illegal copycat rip-off. And the more popular these things get, the more of them get on the market, the more likely you’re going to find two exactly alike.” Hammer paused. “Of course, sometimes you find two stamps similar enough, you’ve got to look real close to spot the difference. See here—let’s see that one you brought in, again.”

      Clayton handed the tracing back over. Hammer squinted at it with a deep frown. “Yeah. Yeah, look here. These little lines petaling out. Each one of ’em’s got a couple of jags. Like little lightning bolts. Take a swirl with smooth curving lines, or just a single jag per line, and at first glance your average eyeball probably wouldn’t pick up on the difference. So round up all the smasters and perverts you can find, but check their symbols real close once you get ’em down to the station house. Not that the whole lot of ’em shouldn’t be put away, anyway. Anything else you’d like to ask me?”

      Fielding her partner’s glance, Lestrade pretended to think for a few seconds. “Yes. Oh, yes. Missing person. We’re checking with everybody. Routine. Detective Clayton, show him the photos.”

      Hammer took them, looked at them. Looked at them very closely. Very closely. Gave Lestrade a sharpish glance. Took another long look at the photos. “Still missing, you say?”

      “That’s right. Ever see him around?”

      “Maybe…like you always see people around…but never close enough to say hello. Sorry, Officers, can’t help you with this one. But I’ll tell you this—he looks like the type perverts and smasters go for. Even in a ‘safe’ little city like Forest Green. Anything else?”

      Lestrade shook her head. “Not at this time. Well, good-bye, M. Hammer. Thank you for your time. We’ll remember everything you told us.”

      * * * *

      “Sheboygan!” Dave remarked once they were on the way to their last stop. “I think I preferred Naismith. At least he didn’t put most of his energy into badmouthing his list of potential clients.”

      “Naismith may not have enough clients and potential clients that he can afford to insult any of them.” But Lestrade’s mind was only half on Sydney Naismith even as she answered Dave’s comment.

      * * * *

      The area nowadays called Vadnais Estates had been built in the Gilded Age as the neighborhood of the rich elite. After going through various hard times and slummy generations, it had been reborn, remodeled, redeveloped, repainted in the flower garden of colors they now called the true Victorian fashion, and once again occupied by the richest local elite. “Sheboy!” Dave remarked as they drove through. “Anybody hurting here, they sure don’t show it!”

      “They might not, Dave. Could be people living in quiet despair here, like anywhere else. Every spare tridol going into keeping up appearances, none into the pantry.”

      “And if they lose weight, they pass if off as fancy spa treatment they’re not really getting?” Dave shrugged. “What price economy? Not all of them, though. Plenty of these have got to be rich in fact. Let’s see…” He read the names above the addresses, usually displayed in custom-brass signs. “Lang…Van Geldman…Imani…Fletcher-Symthe… Ah, here they are! Dupont and O’Toole.”

      One more fenced estate of half a dozen treeful acres. The husband and wife team’s tasteful plaque, mounted on their glazed blue brick gatepost, read: “Dupont & O’Toole: Fine Body Art. By appointment only.”

      “Guess these floaters aren’t hurting for tridols, anyway,” Dave remarked.

      Lestrade replied. “One of them could have inherited wealth, maybe both.”

      “And they just tattoo for the same reason Narjinski paints and Lulabelle dances?”

      “Art is where you find it, Detective.” On the gatepost opposite the one with the plaque, Lestrade located an unobtrusive black doorbell button. She tabbed it. If the power line to the front door was still in operation, fine. Otherwise, they’d give it five minutes before walking up unannounced. There was a dog the size of a seeing-eye pony just lying there beneath the birdbath, looking at them lazily. A mixed breed, like ninety-five plus percent of the population, canine and human alike. Lestrade guessed this one was predominantly Labrador and Saint Bernard, spiced with almost everything else in the Big Dog genetic line-up. It looked friendly and, if it wasn’t, Dupont and O’Toole were due a crippling fine for leaving their front gate latched instead of key-locked.

      “Speaking of body art,” she went on to her junior, “when and where did you get yours, Dave?”

      “Yosemite Pete to mark my high-school graduation back in Rensselaer, Gargoyle Gertie to celebrate getting out of the Navy. Did you know I’ve also got a third one, Sarge?”

      Hearing a ‘bet you can’t guess where’ implied in his tone of voice, she said, “Ivy vines circling round and round your navel?”

      It was pure irony on her part, but he stared openmouthed. “Wow! Sergeant Lestrade, you scare me sometimes.”

      The dog got up, shook itself, and came over to the gate to lick Lestrade’s hand through the wrought-iron grille.

      “It isn’t ivy,” Dave went on. “But it does circle round and round my navel. Actually, it’s a dragon spread over my chest with his tail circling around my belly button. Nobody could mistake it for ivy, so I know you didn’t sneak my shirt up and spy on me when I was napping. But…sheboy, you guess good!”

      “Maybe I just know you better than either one of us was aware, Dave.”

      Three minutes after Lestrade rang the bell, a mid-age blond woman in brown culottes and a green jacket-blouse with big pockets came strolling down the path and called out to them, “Eet ees by zee appointment onlee.”

      “We don’t need an appointment, M.,” Lestrade told her. “We’re police detectives on official business.”

      The dog looked back and forth between them, and whined a little. The blond sped up so fast her phony French accent dropped off. “Good boy, Pango. Officers?” She swung the gate open. “Whatever have we done?”

      “Police business includes soliciting expert opinions, M.—Dupont, you’d be?”

      She nodded. “Actually, it’s Hilga Strudelmeyer. ‘Fleur Dupont’ is my professional name.”

      “What about your husband?” Clayton asked. “How many names does he have?”

      “Just the one. He really is Lyman O’Toole, all the way through. I’m afraid he’s in Indianapolis today, getting supplies.”

      “We may come back,” Lestrade told her, “if we find we need to. Meanwhile…” She tossed a pointed look at the mansion among the trees. Like pretty well every residence in Vadnais Estates, that place had lots of room inside.

      “Oh!”

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