The Skin Collector(Lincoln Rhyme)

Chapter 25





Head down, Billy strode quickly toward the subway in the Bronx that would take him south to Manhattan, to his workshop, to his terrariums, to safety and comfort.

He reflected back to the hospital corridor, picturing Amelia Sachs … He couldn’t help but think of her with some familiarity, having learned everything he could about the woman – and Lincoln Rhyme.

How had she found him? Well, that wasn’t quite the question. How had Rhyme found him? She was good, sure. But Rhyme was better.

Okay, how? How exactly?

Well, he’d been to the hospital earlier. Maybe he’d picked up some trace there and, despite his diligence, had unwittingly deposited a bit near Chloe Moore’s body.

Were the police thinking they’d avert another attack by sending Amelia Sachs to stop him?

But, no, Billy decided, they couldn’t predict that he’d return when he had. The policewoman had come to the hospital just to ask if any staffers had seen a man fitting his description.


His thoughts strayed to Amelia Sachs … She reminded him in some ways of Lovely Girl, her beautiful face, her hair, her keen and determined eyes. Some women, he knew, you had to control by reasoning with them, some by dominating. Others you couldn’t control, and that was a problem.

Picturing her pale skin.

The Oleander Room …

He imagined Amelia there, lying on the couch, the settee, the love seat, the lounger.

Breath growing faster, he pictured blood on her skin, he tasted blood on her skin. He smelled blood.

But forget that now.

Another word came to mind: anticipate.

If Rhyme had figured out about the hospital, he might have figured out Billy would come this way to escape. So he picked up his pace. It was a busy street. Discount shops, diners, and mobile phone and calling card stores. The clientele, working class. Payroll Advances. Best Rates in Town.

And people everywhere: parents with little kids, bundled up like sock puppets against the cutting chill and endless sleet. Teenagers ignoring the cold or genuinely not feeling it. Thin jackets, jeans, short skirts and fake fur collars on loud jackets. High heels, no stockings. Constant motion. Billy dodged a skateboarder a moment before collision.

He wanted to grab the kid, fling him off the board. But he was past in a flash. Besides, Billy wouldn’t have made a scene. Bad idea, under the circumstances.

Back to his eastward escape. He noted here too a lot of skin art – Billy’s preferred term for tats. Here, lower class, mixed race, he noticed a lot of writing on skin. In script primarily. Bible passages maybe or poems or manifestos. Martin Luther King, Jr., was represented, Billy speculated. But the lines might have been from Shaq or the Koran. Some writings were prominent – seventy-two-point type. Most, though, were so tiny you needed a magnifier to read them.

Crosses in all designs – inked on men who looked like gangbangers and drug dealers and on girls who looked like whores.

A young man, around twenty, approached from the opposite direction, very dark-skinned, broad, a bit shorter than Billy, who stared at the keloids on his cheeks and temples – an intricate pattern of crosshatched lines.

He noticed Billy’s attention and slowed, then stopped, nodded. ‘Hey.’ Just stood there, smiling. Maybe he sensed that Billy was appreciating the scarification. Which he was.

Billy stopped too. ‘You’ve got some righteous marking.’

‘Yo. Thanks.’

In sub-Saharan African tradition this form of modification was done by cutting flaps in the skin and packing in irritating plant juices to raise welts, which hardened into permanent designs. Keloids serve several purposes: They identify the bearers as members of a particular family or tribe, they indicate fixed social or political positions, they mark milestones in life’s transit, like puberty and readiness for marriage. In some African cultures, scarification indicates sexual prowess and appetite – and the scars themselves can become erogenous zones. The more extensive a woman’s scarring, the more appealing she is as a partner because it implies she’s better able to withstand the pain of childbirth and produce many offspring.

Billy had always appreciated keloids; he’d never done any. The ones on the young man’s face were impressive, linked chains and vines. African skin art is largely geometric; rarely are animals, plants or people depicted. Never words. Billy was nearly overcome by an urge to touch the pattern. With effort, he resisted.

The local, in turn, regarded Billy with an odd gaze that embraced both curiosity and camaraderie. Finally he looked around and seemed to come to a decision. A whisper: ‘Yo, you want brown? Moonrock? Sugar? Whatchu want?’

‘I …’

‘How much you got to spend? I hook you up.’

Drugs.

Disgusting.

In an instant the admiration of the scarification turned to hatred. It felt like the young man had betrayed him. The skin art was ruined. Billy wanted to stick his neck with a needle, get him into an alley and ink a message on his gut with snakeroot or hemlock.

But then Billy realized this was just another incident that proved the Rule of Skin true. No surprise here. He could be no more upset at this than a law of physics.

He gave a disappointed smile, walked around the man and kept moving.

‘Yo, I hook you up!’

A block east, Billy glanced behind him – he saw no one that was a threat – and stepped into a clothing store. He paid cash for a Yankees baseball cap and a pair of cheap sneakers. He tugged the hat on and swapped shoes. His old ones he didn’t throw out – concerned that the police might search the trash cans and find a pair of Bass with his prints on them – but when the clerk wasn’t looking he left one in a bin of discount shoes and the other on a rack, behind a row of similar footwear. He then stepped outside, striding fast toward his goal: the subway that would take him back to Canal Street, back to safety. Head down, once more, examining the congested sidewalks, filthy, marred with ovals of dog pee and dark dots of chewing gum, bordered with tired slush.

Yet no one looked at the coveralls, at the gear bag, no one glanced his way as if wondering: Is he the man who killed that girl in SoHo? The man who was nearly cornered and gunned down at the hospital in Marble Hill?

Walking fast once more, inhaling cold air rich with noxious exhaust. Of course he wouldn’t take the Number One train, which had a Marble Hill stop, because it was so close to the hospital. He’d spent days studying the New York City transit system. He was making for a station farther east, even if it meant a fast walk through unpleasant weather and amid more unpleasant people.

Yo, I hook you up …

And there were lots of them. The crowds were thicker now, more shoppers – taking advantage of the pre-Christmas season to stock up on presents, he guessed. Dressed in dark clothing, worn and shabby.

Doctor Moreau’s Swine-men, Dog-men …

Some police cars sped past, heading toward Marble Hill. None of them paused.

Breathing hard, chest hurting again, he finally approached the metro entrance. Here the trains were not underground but elevated. He swiped his Metrocard and walked nonchalantly up the steep stairs and onto the platform, where he huddled as the damp wind sliced around him.

He pulled his cap lower, swapped the reading glasses for some with different frames, then pulled his gray scarf up around his mouth; the air was frigid enough so that this didn’t look odd.

Scanning for police. No flashing lights on the streets below, no uniformed officers in the crowds or on the platform. Maybe—

But wait.

He noted two men in overcoats about thirty feet away on the platform. One looked his way then turned back to his companion. They stood out here, being white and dressed in conservative clothing, white shirts and ties, under the bulky coats; most of the other passengers on the platform were black or Latino or mixed, and dressed much more casually.

Undercover cops? He had a feeling they were. They might not have been part of the actual manhunt – were here investigating a drug deal, maybe – but they’d heard the alert, and now believed they had the Underground Man.

One made a brief call and Billy had a feeling that it had been placed to Lincoln Rhyme. No basis for this, but instinct told him the cop was a friend and colleague of Rhyme’s.

A train was approaching but was still two hundred yards away. The men whispered something to each other and then walked his way, steadying themselves in the wind.

He’d been so careful, so smart in escaping from the doctors’ office building. Was he about to get caught because of a coincidence? Two cops who happened nearby.


Billy was nowhere near the exit. If he ran, he’d never make it in time. Could he jump?

No, twenty feet to the traffic-filled street below. He’d break bones.

Billy decided he’d just have to bluff. He had a city employee ID, which would pass fast examination, but one call to downtown and they’d find out it was fake. He also had legitimate ID, which was, technically, a breach of the Commandments.

Thou shalt remain unidentifiable.

But, of course, that wouldn’t work. One radio or phone call and they’d find out who he really was.

He’d have to go on the offense. He’d pretend to ignore the men until they were right next to him and turn, smiling. Then he would shove one, or both, onto the tracks. He could escape in the chaos afterwards.

A messy plan. Clumsy and dangerous. But, he decided, there was little choice.

The men were getting closer now. Smiling but Billy didn’t trust that expression for a second.

The train was near now. A hundred feet away, eighty, thirty …

He looked for guns on the men’s hips, but they hadn’t unbuttoned their coats. He glanced toward the exit, judged timing and distance.

Get ready. The big one. Push him first. Lincoln Rhyme’s buddy.

The train was almost to the platform.

The taller of the two men, the one who was about to die first, nodded as he caught Billy’s eye.

Wait, wait. Give it ten seconds more. Eight, seven, six …

Billy tensed.

Four, three …

The man then smiled. ‘Eric?’

‘I’m, uhm, I’m sorry?’

‘Are you Eric Wilson?’

The train rushed into the station and squealed to a stop.

‘Me? No.’

‘Oh, hey, you look just like the son of a guy I work with. Sorry to bother you.’

‘No problem.’ Billy’s hands were trembling, his jaw too, and only partly from the cold.

The men turned and walked away, toward the train, which was now discharging passengers.

Billy walked onto the subway car, choosing a spot to stand that was close enough to the men to hear their conversation. Yes, he realized, they were just as they seemed to be – businessmen who’d finished some meeting uptown and were heading back to their office on Madison Avenue to write up some reports about how the meeting had gone.

Brakes released, and with a grind the train started south, rocking, squealing through the switches.

Soon they were in Manhattan, and diving beneath the surface. The Underground Man was in his world once again.

It had been a risk, taking the subway, but at least he’d minimized the danger. And apparently won. Rather than take the Number One train or the Number Four – the next one east – or even the B and D, he’d sped the several miles to the Allerton Avenue station, to catch the Number Two train. He’d assumed that someone – well, Lincoln Rhyme of course – might have ordered officers to the closer stations. But even the NYPD didn’t have the resources to search everywhere. He’d hoped his brisk pace would put him beyond the reach of a manhunt.

Apparently this was so.

As they sped south, Billy reflected: You’re not the only one who can anticipate, Captain Rhyme.