Zippered Flesh 2: More Tales of Body Enhancements Gone Bad (22 page)

She put some boxes and other discarded items back in the closet, so that her husband’s corpse would not be readily noticeable. Not that it mattered if it was found. She just didn’t want to make it easy for them.

She called a cab and waited in the living room for exactly twenty-four minutes until the vehicle arrived, and then she left the house, carrying just her purse, the contents of which had been emptied out to accommodate the garbage bag with her soiled clothes and the weapon. Once again, it did not matter if she left these behind, but she wanted to leave things as orderly as possible.

The cab took her to a less than savory part of town. She got out, paid the fare, and had already gone out of sight down an alleyway before the driver could pull away.

Roberta Maxwell threw the purse in a dumpster she moved past, then walked to a nearby safe house, where she entered several rooms until she reached the one she wanted. At which time she reached under her hair to feel for a strange indentation in her scalp that felt almost like a zipper. She pried it up and went about removing her skin. It peeled off slowly, but in big, long pieces. Like peeling a hard-boiled egg. After she had discarded her skin, she put it in an already prepared container with an acidic solution that would disintegrate it.

Looking in the mirror, Roberta Maxwell was a bloody shape, with patches of muscle and tendons and even some bone. But a new layer of skin had already started growing, and already covered some parts of her body. It would be a short time before the new skin had grown back completely.

From that moment forth, Roberta Maxwell no longer existed in the world.

“It’s done,”Graham said as he talked in the prepaid cell phone. “I will expect the other half of the customary payment in my account before midnight.”

He did not wait for an answer.

“Daddy!” June shouted when Tomas Robinson entered the front door. He had been on a business trip for three days, and his daughter instantly made the fatigue he was feeling melt away. He got down on a knee and picked up the girl.

“And how’s my little Juney Moon?” he asked.

“Much better now that you’re home, Daddy!”

His wife Louise came into the room then, and he got to his feet to greet her.

“I hate when you go away like that,” she told him. “We both do.”

“I’m not so crazy about it, either,” Tomas said. “I could really use a shower.”

Louise put her hands on June’s shoulders. “Let’s let Daddy go upstairs and wash up. Then we can eat dinner.”

Tomas hugged them both again, and then picked up his briefcase and headed for the staircase. As he ascended, he couldn’t help thinking about how blessed he was to have such a warm and loving little family. Louise had been hinting about wanting another child, and he had done his best to pretend he didn’t notice. With everything on his mind these days, he didn’t need something else to worry about. But the way he felt right now, the way the two of them made his homecoming so special, made him want to give Louise whatever she wanted.

When he got up to the bedroom, he went into the adjoining bathroom and turned on the shower. As he got undressed, he found himself humming an old tune that he hadn’t thought about in years.

Tomas stood before the full-length mirror on the back of the door. He was in pretty good shape for a man his age. And, for the moment at least, everything was well with the world.

Then he slid inside the shower stall and started to scrub himself. It had been about six hours since his last shower, and he still felt dirty.

He closed his eyes and thought about the men he had killed earlier that morning. With a machete, no less. He would much have preferred to use a gun, but he wanted to send a message to those who would defy him. He was not a man to be trifled with.

He demanded respect, but getting his hands dirty wasn’t something he enjoyed doing. His father had been able to do horrific things without batting an eye, but Tomas found the bad things stayed with him. That they affected him. He truly tried to distance himself from these things, but it just wasn’t in his nature to be a stone-cold killer.

I do these things because I have to
, he told himself. But it made him scrub his flesh all the harder. Trying to wash his sins away.

I am a seed
, Graham thought, sitting in the cold, damp room.
Waiting to grow
.

Since shedding the skin of Roberta Maxwell, he had already regained three inches of height, and he was about twenty pounds heavier. His body would continue to revert to its original dimensions, dimensions that were restrained inside the body of a woman almost half his size.

Already there had been a phone call and a meeting was arranged. But he insisted they give him a day to rest. To recoup his energies. Normally, he would have taken more time off between jobs, but this one sounded urgent, and he didn’t want to create too much tension between himself and his employers.

After this I’ll go away somewhere
, he thought.
Maybe the Riviera. Somewhere where no one can reach me for a few weeks. It’s been so long since I had a real vacation
.

He stretched out on the bed in the hotel room. Even though his skin was done growing, it was sensitive enough that everything felt enhanced, the cool sheets on his bare flesh, the pillows spread out beneath his pressure points. It felt wonderful to be free of restrictions, to simply
be
.

I really need more time to recover
, he thought.
It takes a lot out of me
.

But rest was for the wicked.

“We need you back here.”

“I just got home,” Tomas said. “You can’t expect me to come back so soon.”

“There’s been a problem,” his associate on the other end, Rafael, said. “And nobody solves problems like this quite like you.”

“You trying to tell me there’s no one else on our payroll who can handle this?”

“Not anyone who can send the same kind of message. Who demands the same kind of respect.”

Rafael was trying to use flattery to get him to do what he wanted. Tomas thought he was above such things, but it did play on his ego.

“Look, I want to spend time with my family.”

“One, two days tops,” Rafael said. “And I promise you we won’t bother you again for a while. We just need your presence here to keep a few undesirables in line.”

“I still don’t know why someone else can’t handle it.”

“You know why I’m calling you,” Rafael said. “You know what your strengths are.”

“It will hurt like hell, leaving them again so soon after the last time,” he said. “Will you take care of the details?”

“The plane ticket is already on its way to you. The other details are in the works. All you have to say is that you’re coming.”

“I’m coming.”

“Then don’t worry about the small details. They’ll be handled for you.”

“I wish it could
all
be handled for me,” Tomas said, before he hung up.

He watched the driver put the suitcase in the trunk, and the well-dressed man climb into the backseat of the taxi. It was the same man from the photographs. Either way, Graham had to start the process now, but this unexpected detail would make things even easier. Without the man around, there was even less chance of being detected as he set things up.

Graham waited until nightfall, and then he removed the loose boards he had pried open the day before, and slid underneath the porch. Under the house. In the dark, he could feel the dirt beneath him, and spider webs brushed across his face and hands. He had stopped being squeamish about such things years ago. It wouldn’t do in his line of work to be concerned about such silly things. He used the flashlight briefly, to get a good look at his surroundings, and then he shut it off and crawled to where he needed to be.

And then he waited.

He really hoped that Tomas Robinson would not be gone long. There were seeds to be planted, sprouts to take hold. And while Robinson’s absence was convenient now, the longer he was away, the longer the process would take.

He was positioned where he needed to be.

Now, it was all up to his quarry.