The Skin Collector

by Jeffery Deaver

  'Pam, hey, it's me ... Hope you're checking messages. Really like to talk. Give me a call. Okay, love you. 'Night.'

  That was, Rhyme believed, the third such call today.

  He heard her footfalls on the stairs and immediately veered into the bedroom and struck up a conversation with Thom - which must have bordered on the surreal to the aide, given that Rhyme was concentrating on his words not one bit; he simply wanted to keep Sachs from knowing he'd overheard her plea to Pam Willoughby.

  Sachs crested the top stair and walked into the bedroom. Rhyme was thinking how unsettling it is when the people who are the hubs of our lives are suddenly vulnerable. And worse yet when they mask it with stoic smiles, as Sachs did now.

  She saw his glance and asked, 'What?'

  Rhyme vamped. 'Just thinking. I have a feeling we're going to get him tomorrow.'

  He expected her to look incredulous and say something like, 'You? Have a feeling.'

  But instead she glanced subtly at her phone's screen, pocketed the unit and said, eyes out the window, 'Could be, Rhyme. Could be.'

  III

  THE RED CENTIPEDE

  THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 7

  9:00 A.M.

  CHAPTER 32

  Sweating, groaning loudly, Billy Haven awoke from a difficult dream.

  Involving the Oleander Room.

  Though all dreams set there - and there were lots of them - were, by definition, difficult.

  This one was particularly horrifying because his parents were present, even though they'd died some years before he'd ever stepped into the Oleander Room for the first time. Maybe they were ghosts but they looked real. The odd reality of the unreality of dreams.

  His mother was gazing at what he was doing and she was screaming, 'No, no, no! Stop, stop!'

  But Billy was smiling reassuringly and saying, 'It's okay,' even though he knew it wasn't. It was anything but okay. Then he realized the reassurance didn't mean anything because his mother couldn't hear him. Which wiped the smile away and he felt miserable.

  His father merely shook his head, disappointed at what he was seeing. Vastly disappointed. This upset Billy too.

  But their part in the dream made sense, now that he thought about it: His parents had died and died bloody.

  Perfectly, horrifically logical.

  Billy was smelling blood, seeing blood, tasting blood. Inking his skin temporarily with blood. Which happened both in the dream and in real life in the Oleander Room. Painting his skin the way people in some cultures do when piercing is forbidden.

  Billy flung off the sheet and sat up, swinging his feet to the cold floor. Using a pillow, he wiped his forehead of sweat, picturing all of them: Lovely Girl and his parents.

  He glanced down at the works on his thighs. On the left:

  ELA

  On the other:

  LIAM

  Two names that he was proud to carry with him. That he'd carry forever. They represented a huge gap in his life. But a gap soon to be closed. A wrong soon to be righted.

  The Modification ...

  He looked at the rest of his body.

  Billy Haven was largely tat-free, which was odd for someone who made much of his income as a tattoo artist. Most inkers were drawn to the profession because they enjoyed body mods, were even obsessed with the needles, the lure of the machine. More. Give me more. And they'd often grow depressed at the dwindling inches of uninked skin on their bodies to fill with more works.

  But not Billy. Maybe it was like Michelangelo. The master had liked painting but did not particularly like being painted.

  Finger skin to finger skin ...

  The truth was that Billy hadn't wanted to be a tat artist at all. It had been a temporary job to put himself through college. But he'd found that he enjoyed the practice and in an area where a pen-and-paintbrush artist would have trouble making a living, a skin artist could do okay for himself. So he'd tucked aside his somewhat worthless college degree, set up shop in a strip mall and proceeded to make pretty good ducats with his Billy Mods.

  He looked again at his thighs.

  ELA LIAM

  Then he glanced at his left arm. The red centipede.

  The creature was about eighteen inches long. Its posterior was at the middle of his biceps and the design moved in a lazy S pattern to the back of his hand, where the insect's head rested - the head with a human face, full lips, knowing eyes, a nose, a mouth encircling the fangs.

  Traditionally, people tattooed themselves with animals for two reasons: to assume attributes of the creature, like courage from a lion or stealth from a panther. Or to serve as an emblem to immunize them from the dangers of a particular predator.

  Billy didn't know much about psychology but knew that, between the two, it was the first reason that had made him pick this creature with which to decorate his arm.

  All he really knew, though, was that it gave him comfort.

  He dressed and assembled his gear, then ran a pet roller over his clothing, hair and body several times.

  His wristwatch hummed. Then the other, in his pocket, made a similar noise a few seconds later.

  It was time to go hunting once more.

  Okay. This is a pain.

  Billy was in a quiet, dim tunnel beneath the East Side of Midtown, making his way toward where he was going to ink a new victim to hell.

  But his route had been blocked off.

  In the nineteenth century, he'd learned, this tunnel housed a connector for a narrow-gauge spur line linking a factory with a rail depot around 44th Street. It was a glorious construction of smooth brick and elegant arches, surprisingly free of vermin and mold. The ties and rails were gone but the passageway's transportation heritage was still evident: Several blocks away, Billy could hear, trains moved north and south out of Grand Central Station. You could hear subways too. Overhead and under. Some so close that dust fell.

  The tunnel would have led him very close to his next victim - if not for some inconsiderate laborers who'd bricked off the doorway in the past twenty-four hours, some construction work Billy hadn't planned on.

  A pain ...

  He surveyed the murky passageway, illuminated by light filtering in from runoff gratings and ill-matched manhole covers. From cracks in some of the nearby buildings too. How to get around the wall, without having to climb to the surface? The Underground Man should stay, well, underground.

  Walking another fifty yards, Billy noted a ladder of U-shaped iron bars set into the brick wall. The rungs led, ten feet up, to a smaller passage that looked like it would bypass the obstruction. He shucked the backpack and walked to the ladder. He climbed up and peered inside. Yes, it seemed to lead to another, larger tunnel that would take him where he wanted to go.

  He returned to the floor to collect his backpack and continue his journey.

  Which was when the man came out of nowhere.

  The shadowy form charged him, enwrapped Billy in a bear's grip and pressed him against the tunnel wall.

  Lord, Billy prayed. Save me, Lord ...

  His hands shook, heart pounded at the shock.

  The man looked him up and down. He was about Billy's size and age but very strong. Surprisingly strong. He stank, that complex aroma of unwashed human skin and hair and street oils. Jeans, two Housing Works shirts, white and pale blue. A tattered plaid sport coat, originally nice quality, stolen or plucked out of a Dumpster in this fancy neighborhood. The man sported wild hair but was clean shaven, curiously. His dark eyes were beady and narrow and feral. Billy thought immediately of Doctor Moreau.

  Bear-man ...

  'My block. Here, it's my block. You're in my block. Why are you in my block?' His predator's eyes dancing around.

  Billy tried to pull away but stopped fast when Bear-man flicked open a straight razor expertly and touched the gleaming edge to Billy's throat.

  CHAPTER 33

  'Careful there. Please.' Billy was whispering these words. Maybe others too. He wasn't sure.

  'My b
lock,' Bear-man was repeating, apparently not the least inclined to be careful. The razor scraped, scraped on the one-day growth of beard on his throat. It sounded like a car transmission to Billy.

  'You,' the man growled.

  Thinking of his parents again, his aunt and uncle, other relatives.

  Lovely Girl, of course.

  He was going to die, and like this? Wasteful, tragic.

  The massive vice grip tightened. 'Are you the one? I'll bet you are. Who else would you be, of course? Of course.'

  What was the response supposed to be to that?

  Not to move, for one thing. Billy sensed that if he did, he'd feel a tickling pain beneath his jaw and, after the stroke, giddiness, as blood sprayed and sprayed. And then he'd feel nothing at all.

  Billy said, 'Look, I'm with the city. I work for the city.' He nodded at his coveralls. 'I'm not here to hassle you. I'm just doing my job.'

  'You're not a reporter?'

  'With the city,' he repeated, tapping the coveralls - very carefully and with a cautious finger. Then he gambled. 'I hate reporters.'

  This seemed to be reassuring to Bear-man, though he didn't relax much. The razor was still held firmly in one massive, filthy paw. The other continued to press Billy painfully into the wall of the tunnel.

  'Julian?' Bear-man asked.

  'What?'

  'Julian?'

  As if the name was a code and Billy was supposed to respond with the counter password. If he got it wrong he'd be decapitated. His palms sweated. He rolled the dice. 'No, I'm not Julian.'

  'No, no, no. Do you know Julian Savitch?' Irritated that Billy wasn't catching on.

  'No.'

  Bear-man said skeptically, 'No, no? He wrote that book.'

  'Well, I don't know him. Really.'

  A close examination of Billy's face. 'It was about me. Not just me. All of us. I have a copy. I got a copy that was signed. Somebody from the city--' He poked the logo on the coveralls. 'Somebody from the city brought him down here. Brought him into our block. Here. My block. Did you do that?'

  'I didn't ... No, I don't even know--'

  'The law says I can cut you if I feel I'm in danger and the jury believes I really felt I was in danger. Not that I was actually in danger. But if I felt I was in danger. See the difference? That's all I need. And you're dead, buddy.'

  The sentences ran into each other, clattering, like cars on a fast-braking freight train.

  Billy asked calmly, 'What's your name?'

  'Nathan.'

  'Please, Nathan.' Then he shut up as the razor scraped his throat once more.

  Rasp, rasp ...

  'You live down here?' he asked Bear-man.

  'Julian said bad things about us. He called us that name.'

  'Name?'

  'That we don't like! Are you the one who sent him down here? Somebody from the city did. When I find him I'm going to kill him. He called us that name.'

  'What name?' Billy was thinking this was a logical question to ask and he wouldn't incur the wrath of Bear-man by at least raising the issue, an apparently sensitive one.

  The answer, spat out, was '"Mole People". In his book. About us who live down here. Thousands of us. We're homeless most of us. We live in the tunnels and subways. He called us Mole People. We don't like that.'

  'Who would?' Billy asked. 'No, I didn't lead anybody down here. And I don't know a Julian.'

  The razor gleamed, even in the dim light, lovingly kept. It was Bear-man's treasure, and Billy understood the clean shave, not very common among the homeless, he guessed.

  'We don't like that, being called that, moles,' Bear-man repeated, as if he'd forgotten he'd just said it. 'I'm a person like you and me.'

  Well, that sentence hardly worked. But Billy nodded in agreement, thinking he was close to vomiting. 'Sure you are. Well, I don't know Julian, Nathan. I'm just here checking on the tunnels. For safety, you know.'

  Bear-man stared. 'Sure you say that but why should I believe you why why why?' Words running together in a growl.

  'You don't have to believe me. But it's true.'

  Billy thought he was actually about to die. He thought of the people he'd loved.

  ELA

  LIAM

  He said a prayer.

  Bear-not Mole-man gripped Billy harder. The razor stayed in place. 'You know, some of us don't choose to live here. We don't want to live here. Don't you think that? We'd rather have a home in Westchester. Some of us would rather fuck a wife every Thursday night and take her to see the in-laws on nice spring days. But things don't always work out as planned now, do they?'

  'No, they don't, Nathan. They sure don't.' And Billy, desperate to forge some connection between them, came seconds away from telling Bear-man about the tragedies of his parents and Lovely Girl. But, no. You didn't need a Modification Commandment to remind you not to do stupid things. 'I'm not helping authors write about you. I'm here to make sure the tunnels don't collapse and there are no water or gas leaks.' He pointed up to an array of pipes running along the tunnel's ceiling.

  'What's that?' Nathan was tugging up Billy's sleeve. He was staring at the centipede with a child-like fascination.

  'A tattoo.'

  'Well, now. That's pretty nice. Pretty good.' The razor drooped. But didn't fold away. God, Nathan's hand was huge.

  'It's my hobby.'

  'You did that? You did that on yourself?'

  'I did, yeah. It's not that hard. You like it?'

  Nathan admitted, 'I guess I do.'

  'I could give you a tattoo, Nathan. If I do that would you move that razor away from my throat?'

  'What kind of tattoo?'

  'Anything you like.'

  'I'm not going up top.' He said this as if Billy had suggested strolling through a nuclear reactor core that was melting down.

  'No, I can do it here. I can give you a tattoo here. Would you like one?'

  'I guess I might.'

  A nod at the backpack. 'I've got my machine with me.' He repeated, 'It's a hobby. I'll give you a tattoo. And how 'bout some money? I've got some clothes too. I'll give you all that if you move that razor and let me go.'

  My Lord, he's strong. How could he be that strong, living down here? Nathan could kill him with his hands; he hardly needed the shining blade.

  Eyebrows flexing closer.

  Nathan was kneading the razor, then gripping it harder, Billy thought. The blade moved as twitchy and train-clattery as Bear-man's sentences.

  'Nathan?' Billy asked.

  The man didn't answer.

  'Nathan. I didn't know this was your block. I just was doing my work, checking the pipes and valves and things. I want people to be safe down here.'

  The razor hovered.

  And Bear-man's breathing seemed harder now as he stared at the centipede. The red ink. The face, the fangs, the segments of the body.

  The indecipherable eyes.

  'Nathan?' Billy whispered. 'A tattoo. You want that tattoo?'

  Because what utility worker doesn't cart around an American Eagle tattoo machine to ink people on a whim?

  'I'll give you my best tattoo. Would you like that? It'll be a present. And the clothes and money I told you about? A hundred dollars.'

  'It won't hurt?'

  'It'll sting a little. But not bad. I'm going to get my backpack now. That's where the money and clothes are, and my tattoo machine. Is it all right if I reach into my backpack?'

  'I guess you can,' Nathan whispered.

  Billy slid the backpack closer and extracted the parts to his machine. 'You can sit down there. Is that all right?' The razor was still not far away and was still open. God or Satan or the ghost of Abraham Lincoln might tell Nathan to kill this interloper at any moment. Billy moved very slowly.

  Hmm. It seemed that Nathan was receiving transmission from on high.

  He laughed and whispered an indecipherable string of syllables.

  Finally he dropped into a cross-legged position and grinned. 'Okay. I'll
sit here. Give me a tattoo.'

  It wasn't until Billy too squatted on the packed-dirt ground that his breathing steadied and his thudding heart began to tap more slowly.

  As Nathan watched carefully, Billy finished assembling his American Eagle. He extracted several vials and set them on the ground. He tested the unit. It hummed.

  'One thing,' the man said ominously, the razor rising slightly.

  'What's that?'

  'Not a mole. Don't tattoo me with a mole.'

  'I won't do a mole, Nathan. I promise.'

  Nathan folded the razor and put it away.

  CHAPTER 34

  'We don't call them guns.'

  'Yeah, yeah, I know. I forgot. I meant "machine". Tattoo machine,' Lon Sellitto was saying.

  'And we prefer "skin art" or "work". "Tattoo" has a cultural connotation I'm not happy with.' The petite woman, highly tattooed (skin arted?), gazed at Sellitto from over an immaculate glass counter, inside which were neatly arranged packets of needles, machine-not-gun parts, books, stacks of tattoo stencils, washable pens in all colors. Draw first, ink later, a sign warned.

  The parlor was as clean as TT Gordon's. Apparently legit skin artists took the disease stuff pretty seriously. You even got the impression that this woman would step out of the room to sneeze.

  Her name was Anne Thomson and she was the owner of Femme Fatale Modification and Supplies. Mid-thirties, with short dark hair and only one tasteful nose piercing, she was really pretty. And part of that was the four-color tats, okay, artwork, on her chest and neck and arms. One - on the chest - was a combination of a snake and a bird. It vaguely reminded Sellitto of a picture he'd seen a few times on vacation in Mexico, some religious symbol. On her neck were some of the constellations, not only the stars but the animals they were inspired by. Crab, scorpion, bull. And when she turned once, he saw two sparkling red shoes on her shoulder. They looked real. Dorothy, my pretty ...

  Fuck art, Linc. That's how I feel about art.

  But not this. Sellitto liked the images. He really liked them. The pictures seemed to move, to expand and contract. Almost three-dimensional. How the hell did that work? It was as if he were looking at living paintings. Or at some entirely different creature, something not human but more than human. It took him back to some of the computer games his son had played a few years ago as a teenager. Sellitto remembered looking over the boy's shoulder. 'What's that?' Pointing at one of the creatures in the game. It looked like a snake with legs and sported a fish's tail and human head.