The Bone Collector

Rhyme muttered darkly. “Fucking machinery.”
    Uneasy with Rhyme’s sudden anger, Sellitto glanced at his glass and joked, “Hell, Linc, Scotch this good’s supposed to make you mellow.”
    “Got news,” Thom replied sourly. “He is mellow.”
      * * *
    He parked close to the huge drainpipe.
    Climbing from the cab he could smell the fetid water, slimy and ripe. They were in a cul-de-sac leading to the wide runoff pipe that ran from the West Side Highway down to the Hudson River. No one could see them here.
    The bone collector walked to the back of the cab, enjoying the sight of his elderly captive. Just like he’d enjoyed staring at the girl he’d tied in front of the steam pipe. And the wiggling hand by the railroad tracks early this morning.
    Gazing at the frightened eyes. The man was thinner than he’d thought. Grayer. Hair disheveled.
    Old in the flesh but young in the bone . . .
    The man cowered away from him, arms folded defensively across his narrow chest.
    Opening the door, the bone collector pressed his pistol against the man’s breastbone.
    “Please,” his captive whispered, his voice quavering. “I don’t have much money but you can have it all. We can go to an ATM. I’ll—”
    “Get out.”
    “Please don’t hurt me.”
    The bone collector gestured with his head. The frail man looked around miserably then scooted forward. He stood beside the car, cowering, his arms still crossed, shivering despite the relentless heat.
    “Why are you doing this?”
    The bone collector stepped back and fished the cuffs from his pocket. Because he wore the thick gloves it took a few seconds to find the chrome links. As he dug them out he thought he saw a four-rigger tacking up the Hudson. The opposing current here wasn’t as strong as in the East River, where sailing ships had a hell of a time making their way from the East, Montgomery and Out Ward wharves north. He squinted. No, wait—it wasn’t a sailboat, it was just a cabin cruiser, Yuppies lounging on the long front deck.
    As he reached forward with the cuffs, the man grabbed his captor’s shirt, gripped it hard. “Please. I was going to the hospital. That’s why I flagged you down. I’ve been having chest pains.”
    “Shut up.”
    And the man suddenly reached for the bone collector’s face, the liver-spotted hands gripping his neck and shoulder and squeezing hard. A jolt of pain radiated from the spot where the yellow nails dug into him. With a burst of temper, he pulled his victim’s hands off and cuffed him roughly.
    Slapping a piece of tape on the man’s mouth, the bone collector dragged him down the gravel embankment toward the mouth of the pipe, four feet in diameter. He stopped, examined the old man.
    It’d be so easy to take you down to the bone.
    The bone . . . Touching it. Hearing it.
    He lifted the man’s hand. The terrified eyes gazed back, his lips trembling. The bone collector caressed theman’s fingers, squeezed the phalanges between his own (wished he could take his glove off but didn’t dare). Then he lifted the man’s palm and pressed it hard against his own ear.
    “What?—”
    His left hand curled around his mystified captive’s little finger and slowly pulled until he heard the deep thonk of brittle bone snapping. A satisfying sound. The man screamed, a muted cry stuttering through the tape. And slumped to the ground.
    The bone collector pulled him upright and led the stumbling man into the mouth of the pipe. He prodded the man forward.
    They emerged underneath the old, rotting pier. It was a disgusting place, strewn with the decomposed bodies of animals and fish, trash on the wet rocks, a gray-green sludge of kelp. A mound of seaweed rose and fell in the water, humping like a fat lover. Despite the evening heat in the rest of the city, down here it was cold as a March day.
    Señor Ortega . . .
    He lowered the man into the river, cuffed him to a pier post, ratcheting the bracelet tight around his wrist again. The captive’s grayish face was about three feet above the surface of the water. The bone collector walked carefully over the slick rocks to the drainpipe. He turned and paused for a moment, watching, watching. He hadn’t cared much whether the constables found the others or not. Hanna, the woman in the taxi. But this one . . . The bone collector hoped they didn’t find him in time. Indeed, that they didn’t find him at all. So he could come back in a month or two and see if the clever