John Lutz - Serial

She seemed slightly surprised. “I’m not thinking about Weaver now. It’s you I’m worried about, Feds. The killer might have to get past you to get to Weaver.” She reached across the table and gripped his wrist.

Fedderman didn’t know quite what to say. This woman often made him tongue-tied. He used his free hand to reach into a suit coat pocket and withdrew the small velvet-lined box from the jewelers. He held it out to her. It obviously contained a ring, and Penny realized it immediately and her eyes widened. She released his wrist and accepted the tiny box. As she slowly opened it, she peeked inside. She grinned at him.

“Is that a yes?” Fedderman asked. It sounded like someone else’s voice. Am I really doing this?

“It’s a yes, Feds! And this is beautiful!” She slipped the engagement ring on her finger. It looked slightly too large to Fedderman. Penny extended her hand and stiffened all its fingers, the way women do when displaying a ring. “Beautiful!” she repeated.

“So are you,” Fedderman said, sounding as if he had a frog in his throat.

Penny got up from her chair, moved smartly around the table, and kissed his cheek. She sat back down. She had done all that in a crouch, and none of the other diners seemed to have noticed her maneuver. Do women practice that? Penny was still smiling. The Frank Sinatra imitator reappeared in their part of the restaurant. He seemed to sense something and drifted in the direction of their table. He was singing “My Way.” Fedderman’s marriage proposal and ring presentation were now drawing the attention he’d feared.

Penny was still grinning hugely, now in part at Fedderman’s embarrassment.

“It might have been ‘The Lady Is a Tramp,’ ” she whispered.

Fedderman knew that his life had changed forever.

Jock Sanderson stood waiting for the traffic signal to change. He’d wanted a drink badly all day but had made it through without touching a drop. He was proud of himself and dismayed at the same time. It was a weakness, this craving for alcohol, and Jock didn’t like to think of himself as a weak man. Not in any respect. He was the one who was usually in charge of situations. He sensed weaknesses in others and moved in. That was what that prick the Skinner was going to realize one of these days soon-that Jock had moved in on him. He’d provided an alibi for the Skinner and made sure the killer knew that if anything happened to him, to Jock, the cat would be out of the bag. Letters could be left with lawyers, and in safety deposit boxes. The Skinner got the headlines, but Jock was in charge. The Skinner just didn’t know it yet.

The light signaled walk, and he crossed the street with the knot of people who’d been waiting with him at the curb. He was wearing Levi’s and a short-sleeved shirt he’d bought at the Wear it Again, Sam secondhand shop off Canal. There shouldn’t be too many secondhand shops in Jock’s future. Not with what he had in mind. He could go live someplace in South America, where there was no extradition treaty with the United States. Or maybe to someplace in the Caribbean. He’d heard that was where some people dropped out of sight and lived like royalty, on those islands. If he kept a low profile, he’d never be found.

He was so lost in his thoughts that he didn’t notice the approaching figure that veered slightly so it was headed directly at Jock. When he did notice, he didn’t pay much attention. Only a step or two away, Jock lowered his head, expecting the man to move out of his way, but he didn’t.

Jock pulled up short to avoid a collision, and was about to say something. He found himself looking directly into the eyes of the Skinner. There was something in those eyes, something beyond cruelty and intensity, that froze Jock. The Skinner was smiling faintly, as if something far removed was amusing him.

“Jesus! You gave me a start,” Jock said. They were standing so close to each other that he automatically dropped his gaze to see if the Skinner was brandishing a weapon of some sort. A guy this loony, he might not hesitate to kill someone even on a crowded sidewalk.

The Skinner’s hands weren’t empty. His right one was carrying a small white box.

Jock backed away. Oh, God, not again!

“Take it,” the Skinner said. “Add it to your collection.”

Jock’s hands remained at his sides, pressed tightly against his thighs. “I don’t have a collection. I don’t want one.”

The Skinner shrugged as if that were no concern of his.

“You’re not going to do this… every time, are you?” Jock asked.

The Skinner seemed to consider. “Only if I deem it necessary,” he said.

“Necessary for what?”

“Consider it a reminder.” The Skinner moved the box closer to Jock, and something changed in his eyes in a way that scared the holy hell out of Jock. “People who wag their tongues out of turn risk the damndest things happening to them.” He smiled broadly. “Not by coincidence, you understand.”

“I understand,” Jock said, and accepted the box.

“Maybe you’ll become a collector, after all.”

“I told you-no! There’s no reason to keep doing this.”

The Skinner ignored Jock’s protests. “Keep that in a cool place so it stays fresh. The poor woman it belonged to was trying so hard to use it right up to the end that it might still have plenty to say.” The Skinner put on an amused expression, toying with Jock. Sadistic prick! “Do you believe in life after death, Jock?”

“I’m not sure I even believe in life before death.”

“Whatever you choose to do with those unfortunate appendages, maybe they’ll talk to you in your dreams, or even sometimes during the day, when you least expect it. Especially Judith Blaney’s tongue. I wouldn’t be surprised.”

“I would,” Jock said.

“Ah, think where that tongue might have been when she was alive. Its many talents. She wasn’t a chaste woman, our Judith.”

Some of his initial fear had left Jock. He felt himself getting angry, or maybe frustrated. He couldn’t tell which. He was the one who was supposed to have the whip hand here, and yet this asshole had the nerve to stop him on the sidewalk and give him somebody’s severed tongue. Sick bastard!

Jock decided to try taking control of the situation. “Listen, you!” he said. “If you think…”

He let his voice trail off as the Skinner simply turned and walked away, glancing back for a final, smiling look at Jock, as if fixing him firmly in his mind.

Jock considered following him, laying a hand on his shoulder, and spinning him around, then handing him back his goddamned box. But he was paralyzed by what he’d seen in the Skinner’s eyes.

He began walking, faster and faster, gripping the small white box in his right hand, digging his heels into the pavement with each step. He might be late for work now. He couldn’t afford to screw up and get fired, all because of some psycho bastard who cut out people’s tongues.

People’s tongues!

The papers and TV news speculated about the tongues being removed because the Skinner was a cannibal and might consider them a delicacy. Jock might be the only one who knew better.

Of course, some other parts of the victims could have been removed and the police weren’t telling the public. They did that sometimes, to weed out the screwballs that made false confessions. Maybe there was something to the cannibal angle. After dealing with the Skinner, Jock could easily believe it. Lord, right now he could believe almost anything!

Noticing a wire trash basket at the next corner, he veered toward it and dropped the small box in it as he strode past. There! Maybe it would wind up in the same landfill as the first tongue.

He regained some of his confidence by reminding himself that he knew more about the Skinner than the pathetic psychopath imagined. The next time they met, that might be worth mentioning. It might keep the nutcase from giving him somebody else’s tongue. Or maybe something more personal.