The Skin Collector(Lincoln Rhyme)

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.