The Skin Collector (Lincoln Rhyme 11)

'I'd say so.'

'He threw a dick and balls at me? Motherfucker. After you collar his ass, Amelia, I wanna piece of him.'

CHAPTER 22

In the doctors' office building, Billy Haven emerged from the connecting tunnel, where his pursuers - cop and security guard - were, he hoped, writhing in pain and clutching their inflamed eyes.

He hadn't seen exactly how much formaldehyde spattered them - hadn't, of course, been able to watch, however appealing that sight might have been.

Now he spotted a men's room down a deserted corridor, entered and stepped into a stall. He dug through his backpack for a change of clothing. Not many options. He slipped on worker's coveralls and replaced the stocking cap with a Mets hat. Pulled on dark-rimmed reading glasses too. Finally, he extracted a canvas gear bag, like a contractor would use, and shoved the backpack and his coat into it. He carried the bag around for this very purpose - to change his identity in case of escape.

Thou shalt be prepared to become someone else ...

He eased out of the restroom and made his way to the front door. He was about to step out onto the street through the double-door entry when a police car showed up, followed by two others, the tires squealing in brief skids. Officers leapt out and began speaking to every white male between fifteen and fifty near the building, asking for IDs, looking through bags.

Hell.

Soon other officers arrived, along with a large, blue-and-white NYPD Emergency Service truck. They formed a perimeter in the front - and presumably they were ganging at the back door and loading dock too.

Billy turned back. He shivered in anger. The policewoman's presence, so unexpected, had ruined everything. He'd been shocked to see that it was Amelia Sachs herself, ironically looking just as steely eyed as in the photo in chapter seven of Serial Cities. Wearing pretty much the same unsexy outfit too. Oh, he wanted so badly to get her on her back and give her one of his special mods. Angel's trumpet. Brugmansia. Lethal quickly, but not so fast that Officer Sachs wouldn't die in excruciating pain.

But before that he had to get out of here. The police, it seemed, were getting ready to search the building.

And he knew they'd search carefully.

The first wave of officers was moving toward the door.

Billy casually pivoted and headed to the elevator bank, where he paused and, as nonchalantly as he could, carefully regarded the building directory as if he didn't have a care in the world - other than finding his doctor for a mole removal or colonoscopy appointment.

He was thinking furiously. The building was ten or eleven stories tall. Did it have external fire escapes? Probably not. You didn't see those much anymore. There were probably fireproof stairwells, leading to unmarked doors opening onto alleyways. The cops would be stationed there, of course. Guns out, waiting for the perp.

Then he noticed a sign for a doctor's office on the sixth floor.

Billy Haven thought for a moment.

Good, he concluded, and turned away from the directory as the first cops stepped into the lobby.

Thou shalt always be ready to improvise ...

CHAPTER 23

Lon Sellitto jogged into the main hallway of Upper Manhattan Medical Center. The elevator seemed sluggish - four people waited. Impatient patients, he joked to himself - and so he descended the stairs to the basement level, where Amelia Sachs had stopped the unsub from another attack. Stopped him with seconds to spare, it seemed. If Rhyme and Pulaski hadn't figured out the target location the perp had been checking out earlier, they'd be running a homicide now, not conducting a manhunt.

His gold shield, on a lanyard, bounced on his substantial belly. His Burberry over his arm, Sellitto was moving fast and he was out of breath.

Fucking diets. Was there any one that worked?

Also, gotta work out more.

Think about it later.

Downstairs he entered the cardiac care unit and walked a good fifty yards before he found the room he sought. Outside were two uniforms, male, one Latino, one black. In the room, he observed a white-haired man in bed, lean, with a wrinkled - and unhappy - face. Sitting in the chair beside him was a handsome woman in her early fifties, he guessed. She was in a conservative navy suit and nearly opaque stockings, a bright scarf. Her long face was hollow and her green eyes zipped around the room uneasily. Then she glanced at Sellitto in the corridor and went back to perusing the patient. Her ruddy hands were kneading a tissue to shreds. A young blond man - resembling her slightly, son probably - sat on the other side of the bed.

Sellitto nodded to the uniforms and they stepped away from the door.

The detective asked in a low voice, 'So. Detective Sachs?'

'She stayed with the guard, the hospital guard, till the emergency room guys got there. Now? She's sweeping the hallway and room where the perp attacked them, her and the guard, I mean. She already ran the scene where he was going after the vic, the woman.' A nod toward the hospital room. Name badge: Juarez.