A thousand examples of tattoos.
Mostly silly and commercial and pointless. Like TV shows and Madison Avenue advertising. He mentally sneered at the tackiness on display.
How skin art had changed over time, Billy reflected. Inking was, in ancient days, a serious affair. For the first thousand or more years of its existence, tattooing was not primarily about decoration. Until the 1800s body art was ritualistic and bound up with religion and societal structure. Primitive people tattooed themselves for a number of practical reasons: defining class or tribe, for instance, or sucking up to this god or that. The art served another reason too, vital: identification of your soul for entry into the underworld; if you were unmarked in life, you'd be rejected by the gatekeeper and wander the earth after death, weeping for eternity. Inking acted too as a barrier to keep your soul from migrating out of the body (the origin of the chain and barbed-wire body art so common nowadays on biceps and necks). And high on the list of reasons people inked themselves was to open a portal so evil spirits would flee the body, like wasps out an open car window - spirits that would, say, prod them to do something they didn't want to do.
Taking pleasure from blood, for instance.
The Oleander Room ...
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.
He walked from terrarium to terrarium. Foxglove, hemlock, tobacco, angel's trumpets. He'd developed a fondness for the plants and the toxins they produced. He flipped through some of the sketches he'd done.
He slipped them away in his backpack, along with the Modification Commandment notebook. Although he'd written at the end of the Commandments an instruction that amounted to: Thou shalt destroy this holy book itself, he couldn't bring himself to do so. He wasn't sure where this reluctance to shred the pages came from. Perhaps it was that the Commandments were the means to fix the pain he'd endured because of the loss of Lovely Girl.
Or maybe because it was simply a marvelous work of art, the sentences so carefully written in Billy's elegant script - as intricate as a ten-color mod on virgin white skin using a dozen different lining needles and six or seven shaders. Too beautiful to hide from the world.
He zipped up his backpack and then walked to the workbench and packed a half-dozen tools and a heavy-duty extension cord into a canvas gear bag. He added a large, sealed thermos. Then pulled on a tan leather jacket and a dark-green Mets cap.
His watch hummed. Then, the second reminder.
Time to make right all the wrongs of this troubled world.
CHAPTER 52
Lincoln Rhyme was back in his parlor.
He'd awakened several times, wrestling with the puzzle of the tattoos. No insights had blossomed. Then he'd fallen back to a sleep filled with dreams as pointless as most were. He was fully awake at six a.m. and summoned Thom for an expedited morning routine.
Pulaski, Cooper and Sachs were back too and they huddled in the parlor, wrestling with the same mysteries that had refused to unravel when the hour hit midnight.
Rhyme heard the buzz of a mobile and looked across the room to see Pulaski pulling his phone from his pocket. It was the prepaid, not his own iPhone, that was humming.
Which meant the undercover operation.
The young man looked down at the screen. And that deer-in-the-headlights look formed. The officer had changed from his funereal outfit but had dressed undercover nonetheless: jeans, a T-shirt and a V-neck sweater, dark blue. Running shoes. Not exactly a Mafia thug attire but better than a Polo shirt and Dockers.
The criminalist said, 'It's the lawyer? From the funeral home?'
Pulaski said, 'Right. Should I let him leave a message?'
'He won't. Answer it. Ever
ybody else, quiet!'
For a moment Rhyme thought Pulaski was going to freeze. But the young man's eyes grew focused and he lifted the phone. For some reason he turned away from the others so he could carry on a more or less private conversation.
Rhyme wanted to hear but he'd delegated the job of finding the deceased Watchmaker's associates - whether innocent or lethal - to Pulaski and it was no longer Rhyme's job to micromanage. It wasn't even his position to tell the officer what to do or how to do it. Rhyme was merely a civilian consultant; Pulaski was the official law enforcer.
After a few minutes Pulaski disconnected and turned back. 'Weller wants to see me. One of his clients, too.'
Rhyme lifted his eyebrow. That was even better.
'He's staying at the Huntington Arms. West Fifty-Sixth.'
Rhyme shook his head. He didn't know the hotel. But Mel Cooper looked up the place. 'One of those boutiques on the West Side.'
It was just north of Hell's Kitchen, that neighborhood of the city - named after a dangerous 'hood in Victorian London - that had at one point been a thug-infested den of crime. Now it was gentrification personified, though occasional blocks of decrepit color remained. The hotel the man described, Cooper explained, was in a block in which were tucked overpriced restaurants and hotels.
Pulaski said, 'We're going to meet in a half hour. How should I handle it?'
'Mel, what's the layout of the neighborhood and the hotel?'
The tech went to Google Earth on one computer and the New York Department of Buildings on another. In less than sixty seconds he slapped onto the main monitor an overhead view of the street and a blueprint of the hotel itself.
There was an outdoor patio, on 56th, which would have been a great place for surveillance if the weather had been less Arctic, but the meeting would take place inside today.
'Sachs, can we get a surveillance team in the lobby?'
'I'll call. See what I can do.' After a few minutes on the phone, she said, 'No time to go through channels. But I pulled some strings at Major Cases. There'll be two undercovers inside in twenty minutes.'
'We'll need a bigger operation in place, Pulaski. You've got to buy time. A couple of days. What did he sound like? Did he make it seem urgent?'
Running a hand through his blond hair, the officer said, 'Not really. He's got an idea he wants to pitch, I got the impression. He told me not to park in front of the hotel if I was driving. He was pretty, you know, mysterious. Wasn't going to say anything on the phone.'
Rhyme looked him over. 'You have an ankle holster?'
'Ankle - oh, for a backup piece? I don't even own one.'
'Not for backup. Your only piece. You may be frisked. And most friskers stop at the thigh. Sachs?'
Sachs said, 'I'll hook him up. A Smith and Wesson Bodyguard. A three eighty. It's got a laser built in but don't bother with that. Use the iron sights.' She dug into a drawer and handed him a small, black automatic. 'I put nail polish on the sights. Easier to seat a target in bad light. You okay with fiery pink?'
'I can cope.'
She handed him a small cloth holster with a buckling leather strap. Rhyme recalled she never liked Velcro to secure her weapons. Amelia Sachs left very little to chance.
Pulaski lifted his foot onto a nearby chair and strapped on the holster. It was invisible. Then the officer examined the small, boxy gun. He chambered a round, took another bullet from Sachs and loaded it into the magazine. Six in the hallway, one in the bedroom. He snapped the mag back in.
'What's the pull?'
'It's heavy. Nine pounds.'
'Nine. Well.'
'And double-action only. Your finger's almost all the way back before it fires. But it's small as a minnow. Leave the safety off. I don't even know why they added one. With a pull like that.'
'Got it.'
Pulaski looked at his watch. 'I've got twenty-five minutes. No time for a wire.'
'No, there isn't,' Rhyme agreed. 'But the surveillance team'll have microphones up. You want body armor?'
Shaking his head. 'They'll spot that faster than a piece. No, I'll go in clean.'
'You sure?' Sachs asked. 'Entirely up to you.'
'I'm sure.'
'You need to draw them out, rookie. Tell them you want to meet again. Act coy and cautious but insist. Even if it's in a different state. We'll get Fred Dellray involved. Federal backup. They do spying right. And don't go anywhere with them now. We won't be able to keep tabs on you.'
Pulaski nodded. He walked into the hallway and looked at himself in the mirror. He mussed his hair a bit. 'Am I inscrutable enough?'
Rhyme said, 'You are the epitome of unscrupulousness.'
'Dangerous too,' Mel Cooper said.
The officer smiled and pulled on his overcoat then disappeared into the front hallway of the town house.
The criminalist called, 'Keep us posted.'
As he heard the door open to the howling wind, Rhyme asked himself, And what kind of pointless request was that?
CHAPTER 53
You can do this.
Ron Pulaski was minding his steps on the sidewalk in the West 50s, which was encrusted with gray snow and grayer ice. His breath popped out as wispy clouds in the relentlessly cold air and he realized he was having trouble feeling his fingers.
A trigger pull of nine pounds? Thinking of the Smittie Bodyguard pistol on his ankle. His standard weapon, a Glock 17, had a pull of one-third that. Of course, the issue wasn't the effort to pull the trigger. Nine pounds of effort were easily handled by anybody over the age of six. The problem was accuracy. The harder to pull the trigger, the less accurate the shot.
But it wasn't going to come to a shootout, Pulaski reminded himself. And even if it did, the backup team would be positioned in the hotel, ready to, well, back him up.
He was-- Jesus! The street spun. He nearly ended up on his ass, thanks to a patch of ice he hadn't seen, inhaling hard in surprise, taking in air so cold it burned.
Hate winter.
Then reminded himself it wasn't even winter yet, only the sinkhole of an autumn.
He looked up, through the sleet. Three blocks away - long blocks, crosstown blocks - he could see the hotel. A red neon disk, part of the logo.
He increased his pace. Just a couple of days ago, he and Jenny and the kids had spent the night in front of the fireplace because there'd been a problem with the gas line for the block. The cold had seeped in and he'd gotten a fire going, real logs, not Duraflames, the kids in PJs and sleeping bags nearby, and he and Jenny on an air mattress. Pulaski had told the worst jokes - children's jokes - until the youngsters had fallen asleep.
And he and Jenny had cuddled fiercely, until the caress of chill went away under their combined bodies. (No, not that, of course; they were in pajamas as chaste and comical as the children's.)
How he wanted to be back with his family now. But he pushed aside those thoughts.
Undercover. That was his job. His only job. Jenny was married to Ron Pulaski, not Stan Walesa. The kids didn't exist.
And neither did Lincoln Rhyme or Amelia Sachs.
All that mattered was finding the associates of the late and not very lamented Watchmaker. Who were they? What were they up to? And most important: Did the killer have a successor?
Ron Pulaski had a thought on this topic, though he'd decided not to say anything to Lincoln or Amelia, for fear that he'd look stupid if proven wrong. (The head injury again. It plagued him every day, every day.)
His theory was this: The lawyer himself was the main associate of the Watchmaker. He'd been lying about never meeting the man. He appeared to be a real lawyer - they'd checked that out. And had a firm in LA. (The assistant who answered the phone said Mr Weller was out of town on business.) But the website looked dicey - bare bones - and it gave only a P.O. box, not a street address. Still, it was typical of an ambulance chaser's site, Pulaski supposed.
And what was Weller's plan here?
The same as Pulaski's maybe. After all,
why come to New York to collect ashes when it would have been far easier and cheaper simply to FedEx them to the family?
No, Pulaski was now even more convinced that Weller was here on a fishing expedition himself - to find other partners of the Watchmaker, who had been the sort of master planner to have several projects going on at the same time, without telling one set of colleagues that the others even existed. He guessed that--
His phone vibrated. He answered. It was an NYPD officer from the team at the hotel. He and his partner were in position in the lobby and bar. Pulaski had relayed the details on Weller's appearance but the undercover reported that there was nobody fitting that description in the lobby yet. It was, however, still early.
'I'll be there in five, six minutes.'
'K,' said the man with a serenity that Pulaski found reassuring and they disconnected.
A gust of wind slashed. Pulaski pulled his coat more tightly around him. Didn't do much good. He and Jenny had been talking about getting to a beach, any beach. The kids were in swimming class and he was really looking forward to taking them to an ocean. They'd been to a few lakes Upstate but a sandy beach, with crashing waves? Man, they would love -
'Hi, there, Mr. Walesa.'
Pulaski stopped abruptly and turned. He tried to mask his surprise.
Ten feet behind him was Dave Weller. What was going on? They were still two blocks from the hotel. Weller had stopped and was standing under the awning of a pet shop, not yet open for business.
Pulaski thought: Act cool. 'Hey. Thought we were going to meet at the hotel.' A nod up the street.
Weller said nothing, just looked Pulaski up and down.
The officer said, 'Hell of a day, hm? This sucks. Been sleeting like this off and on for almost a week.' He nearly said, 'You don't get this in L.A.' But then he wasn't supposed to know that the lawyer had his office - or un-office - in California. Of course, maybe it would've been less suspicious and more inscrutable to let Weller know he'd done some homework on the man. Hard to tell.