The Skin Collector (Lincoln Rhyme 11)

His reflections faded as Billy pulled on his jaundiced latex gloves and opened the door, which set off a buzzer.

'Out in a minute,' the voice from the back called.

'No worries.' Billy looked around the tiny shop. The chairs, the massage-style tables for tramp stamps and shoulders, the machines and tubes and needles. Good stuff. He looked at the pictures of satisfied customers and concluded that, even if most of the works the shop produced were crap, TT Gordon was a talented artist.

Extracting the hypodermic needle filled with propofol from his backpack, Billy flipped the hanging sign on the door to Closed and locked the latch. He made his way toward the shimmery curtain of beads separating the front room from the back.

IV

THE UNDERGROUND WOMAN

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 8

8:00 A.M.

CHAPTER 51

There's a moment that occurs when you finish a complicated mod and you wonder: Is the work a success? Or have you ruined a perfectly good piece of skin and possibly someone's life for the foreseeable future?

This is what Billy Haven was thinking as he lay in bed in his workshop off Canal Street this morning. Recalling some of his more complex mods. You've just inked the last line (you're always tempted to keep going but you have to know when to stop). And you set down your Freewire or your American Eagle or your Baltimore Street or Borg and sit back, edgy and nervous, looking over the finished job for the first time.

Initially a work is just an indiscernible mass of blood and Vaseline and, if it's big, a nonstick bandage or two.

Ah, but underneath, unrecognizable at the moment, is beauty, soon to be revealed.

You hope.

Like Doctor Moreau, unwrapping the bandages of his subjects and finding the successful creation of a beautiful Cat-woman, with almond-shaped eyes and flowing gray Siamese hair. Or a Bird-man, complete with yellow claws and peacock plumage.

The same thing with the Modification. On the surface - to the police, to the citizens of New York paralyzed at the thought of going into basements - the crimes appeared to be a mystery. Some murders, some torture, some curious messages, random locations, random victims, a killer obsessed with skin and poisons.

But underneath: the perfect design. And now it was time to lift off the bloody curtain of bandages and gaze at the Modification in all its glory.

He threw off the sheets and blanket and sat up, glancing again at the front of his thighs.

ELA

LIAM

He had good memories and sad memories, seeing the names. But, after today, he knew the bad ones would fade.

His parents, Lovely Girl.

His watch hummed. He glanced at it. A second vibration soon after.

Billy dressed and spent the next hour scrubbing the workshop: filling trash bags with clothes he'd worn to the sites of the killings, bedclothes, napkins, paper towels, plastic silverware, plates - anything that might be a nest for his DNA or fingerprints.

He carted the bags outside into the chill, sleety morning - his nose stinging with his first breath on the street - and set them on the curb. He waited. Three minutes later the noisy Department of Sanitation truck rolled to a stop and the workers leapt off the back, collecting the garbage along this short, dark street.

He'd noted the exact time the trucks arrived - to make sure that the trash wasn't on the street for more than a few minutes; he'd learned that the police had the right to go through your garbage on public streets.

With a grind of transmission and sigh of gassy exhaust, the truck vanished. The most incriminating evidence was gone. He'd return later - maybe in a week or so - and set fire to the place to destroy the rest. But for now, this was enough. It was very unlikely the police would find the subterranean lair anytime soon.

With this thought - about the police - he wondered about Lincoln Rhyme. He'd heard nothing about the man getting sick from the poison. Which reminded him that the plan to derail the great anticipator wasn't as efficient as it might've been. But he hadn't thought of any other way to get the poison into the man's bloodstream. Whisky seemed the best choice. Maybe something else would have been better.

Still, as he'd considered earlier: There'd been successful battles and unsuccessful ones. But in the war of the Modification, ultimately he'd win.

Billy returned to the apartment and continued packing.