Linwood Barclay - Parting Shot

After that minute, Duckworth decided not to spend any more time waiting.

He definitely wanted to talk to Trevor about being at Knight’s. Was it possible he’d seen anything? He’d left the bar only a few seconds after Brian Gaffney. But in the meantime, there were other things he could do.

Phone still in hand, he looked up tattoo parlors in Promise Falls. There were three listed: Mike’s Tattoos, Kinky Inky, and Dreamy Tatts.

Kinky Inky was just up the street from Knight’s, so he walked it. But when he got there, he found a sign in the window that read: Out of Bizness. Thanx for your Patronage .

He made his hand into a visor and peered through the smudged window. The place had been cleared out. No chairs, no tables, nothing.

Hitting the other two parlors meant getting back into his car. Dreamy Tatts was seven blocks away, sharing a small plaza with a 7-Eleven and a wig shop. As he approached the door, he encountered another sign: CLOSED . He had missed Dreamy Tatts’ business hours by ten minutes. He made a mental note that the place would reopen at noon the next day.

That only left Mike’s, and Duckworth figured it might be closed too. But eight minutes later, when he rolled to a stop behind a black van out front of a shop sandwiched between a comic book shop and a lawnmower repair place, he got lucky. A neon OPEN sign lit up a window that was decorated with dozens of sample tattoos.

He went inside and immediately heard the high-pitched buzzing sounds of a tattoo gun. A blonde-haired woman in her mid-twenties, dressed in jeans and a red short-sleeved T-shirt, surprisingly free of any visible tattoos but with several studs in her ears, sat behind a simple desk with a computer on top of it. She was engaged in conversation with a man who was perched on the edge of the desk, pointing out something to her on the computer screen.

She eyed Duckworth with sleepy eyes and said, “Cop?”

Duckworth grinned. “Is it that obvious?”

The man turned and looked at him with sudden awareness. “Whoa, I’ve seen you on the news.”

“Yeah, that’s where I’ve seen you, too,” the woman said.

“Ah, well, that’s cheating,” Duckworth said. “It’s not like you’ve got some sort of sixth sense.” He flashed his ID. “Detective Duckworth, Promise Falls Police.”

The man slid his butt off the desk and grinned. “I think even if we hadn’t seen you on TV, we’d know what you do for a living.”

Duckworth gave him a quick look. Early thirties, two hundred pounds, short reddish hair and round cheeks. He peered at Duckworth through a pair of wire-rimmed glasses, and was dressed in tan khakis and a dark blue shirt with a button-down collar. No visible tattoos on him, either. He seemed out of place here, the detective thought. A little too clean-cut. He reminded Duckworth of Howdy Doody, that rosy-cheeked, red-haired cowboy puppet from the fifties TV show. Which was even before Duckworth’s time, but some American icons had staying power.

“What gives it away that I’m a cop?” Duckworth asked.

“You just have the look,” the man said.

“Come on, Cory, it’s not that obvious,” the woman said.

Cory shook his head. “First of all, you don’t look like someone who’s here for a tattoo.”

Duckworth nodded. “You’re right about that.” He smiled. “And you don’t look to me like a guy who’d make his living as a tattoo artist.”

Cory grinned. “You got me.” He stood back and crossed his arms, as though issuing a challenge. “What do you think I do?”

Duckworth thought a moment. “Computer programmer.”

Cory’s mouth dropped. “Whoa, that’s not bad. I mean, that’s not what I do, but I spend a lot of time on the computer.”

“What do you do?” Duckworth asked.

“I guess I’m what you’d call a social activist,” Cory said. “Causes and stuff.”

“Good for you,” Duckworth said.

The girl behind the desk said, “Cory, for the love of God, stop talking. Can I help you, Mr. Policeman?”

Duckworth said, “What’s your name?”

“Dolores. Like from Seinfeld .”

“Excuse me?”

“You know. The girl whose name rhymes with a female body part.”

Duckworth said, “I never watched that show.”

“Seriously?” said Cory.

“Seriously.”

“Wow. I didn’t think there was anyone who hadn’t seen it,” Dolores said. “I mean, I was barely born when it came on, but even I’ve seen all the episodes. Anyway, my friends call me Dolly.”

“Hi, Dolly.”

“So what can I do for you?”

Duckworth pointed up at the Mike’s Tattoos sign. “I’d like to see Mike.”

“Hang on.”

She disappeared through a door into a back room where the buzzing noise was coming from. The tattoo gun ceased making a noise, and Dolly said, “Hey, Mike, there’s a cop here who’s never seen Seinfeld who wants to talk to you.”

“Sure,” a man said. “Send him round.”

Dolly reappeared and waved Duckworth in her direction. “The doctor will see you now,” she said, smirking.

Cory gave Dolly a wave and said, “See ya.” Then, to Duckworth, “Good luck catching the bad guys.”

Duckworth gave him an upturned thumb as Cory left the shop, then followed Dolly into the back of the store. Mike, a thin, bearded man in his thirties wearing a pair of magnifying goggles, was hunched over a heavyset guy about twice that age sitting in what looked like a barber’s chair. It was leaned back to about forty-five degrees to allow Mike to work comfortably on the man’s upper arm. The tattoo was a nice rendering of a waterfall — about three inches long — and below it, the numbers 5-23-16.

Below that, the words: I SURVIVED .

“Hey,” Mike said, not taking his eyes off his work.

Duckworth said, “Hi.” Then, “That’s some tattoo.” There was no approval in his voice.

The man in the chair smiled. “You get it, right?”

“I get it,” Duckworth said.

“May twenty-third of last year,” he said. “I didn’t drink the water.”

“Lucky you.”

Dolly pointed to the tattoo. “Jeez, Mike, shouldn’t the 23 be first, and then the 5?”

“I don’t think so,” Mike said, suddenly looking worried. He glanced at his customer. “That’s the way you wanted it, right?”

“You got it.”

“Whew. You scared me for a sec, Dolly.”

Mike finally looked at Duckworth. “What can I do ya for?” He moved the magnifying goggles up to his hairline.

“I want to show you something,” Duckworth said, getting out his phone. He tapped the screen and brought up the picture he’d taken of Gaffney. “Do you know this man?”

Mike studied it for three seconds. “Nope.”

“You’re sure?”

“Pretty sure. Dolly, you recognize that dude?”

Dolores gave the picture a long look, pursed her lips, and said, “Can’t say that I do.”

“I have another picture,” Duckworth said. He brought up the picture of Gaffney’s back, then held the phone in Mike’s direction.

“Jesus, what am I looking at?” He slid the magnifying glasses back down, studied the shot, then raised them again.

“What the fuck is that?” he asked.

“That’s someone’s idea of a tattoo,” the detective said. “Recognize the handiwork?”

“Are you kidding me? That’s a goddamn abortion you got there. May I?” He was asking to hold the phone to get a better look. He set the tattoo gun down and, using thumb and forefinger, blew up the image to examine the details. “Is this for real? Someone actually got this tattoo?”

“Lemme see?” said Dolly. Mike handed her the phone. “Whoa. This guy should definitely get his money back.”