Frozen Solid: A Novel by James Tabor Read Free Book Online Page B

eyes, as though she were stark naked.
    “Lookee here. A new girl Beaker. Whooeeee.” His voice was rough, his breath heavy with liquor. It was not yet eight A.M . She was very aware of being alone in the hall with him. As far as she could tell, there were no surveillance cameras in the station. She took a step back.
    “Excuse me?”
    “Escuse me.
Escuse
me.” He laughed as if those were the funniest words he had heard in months. “They ain’t no ’scuses here, fungee.” She could see the hunger in his eyes. The tip of his tongue peeked from between his teeth, flattened, a third lip. Her stomach twitched. She started to walk around him. He sidestepped, blocking her path.
    His tongue slid out like a thick, pink-skinned eel and kept coming until its tip hung even with his chin. He gave a slow, leering lick to something Hallie could not see but had no trouble imagining. The man reeled his tongue back in, winked, and lurched off.
    She watched him go, her heart racing and hands shaking from the adrenaline surge.
    Was it him?
    If only there had been sound, or better image quality, or just one good look at the killer’s face. From now on she would wonder the same thing about every man she met here.
    In the women’s shower room, she lifted her face to steaming spray, washed her hair, stepped out of the stream to work up a soapy lather all over her body. Before she could rinse, the water stopped.
    “What the hell?”
    “Two minutes is all you get,” said Rockie Bacon, just entering.
    “How could you stay clean showering two minutes a day?”
    “Two minutes a
week
.”
    “You’re screwing with a fungee, right?”
    “Takes a lot of energy to melt ice. That shower will reactivate after five minutes, but there’s an honor system.” She gave Hallie a long look. “You got soap all over. Take some of my time to rinse.” Hallie wasn’t sure she had heard right. But Bacon said, “C’mon, c’mon,” and Hallie went.
    Afterward, while they were toweling dry, Hallie thought,
Tell her?
but decided,
Not yet
. Instead, she related what had happened outside her room.
    “That was Brank. Total, dead-end, asshole loser. And a mean drunk. He put two Draggers in the hospital a month ago. One was a woman. Stay clear of him.”
    “Why is he still here?”
    “Ever try finding normal people willing to spend a year in Alcatraz on ice?”
    “The money’s supposed to be great.”
    “Yeah. But a year here is …” She shook her head, as if unable to find the right words.
    “What does he do?”
    “As little as possible.”
    “He has the longest tongue I ever saw on a human.”
    Bacon chuckled. “His most prized possession.” She considered that for a moment. “Well, probably the second most.”
    Hallie was thinking:
Put a woman in the hospital
. And:
Why did he just happen to be walking past my room?
    “You want eggs with them waffles?” The galley server was about five-five, with a ferret face and a voice like squeaking hinges.
    “Sure,” Hallie said.
    He deposited a soft yellow pile.
    “Are those fresh?” she asked.
    He grinned around spotted teeth. “Honey, the only fresh thing around here is the tube steak.”
    “The what?”
    He pointed his spoon at a discernible bulge and waited for her reaction, which was to say, “Mouse in your pocket?”
    Hallie sat by herself. The eggs and waffles and coffee all tasted of chlorine. It felt utterly bizarre sitting there eating breakfast, or trying to, overhearing snatches of conversation, taking in the new surroundings, all the mundane trappings, while carrying around the secret of a horrible, violent death. It occurred to her that a spy would have it this way, hoarding secrets and telling lies, fear a constant shadow. It would have to corrode your soul. She’d been carrying her secretaround for only a few hours and it was already starting to feel like some live thing wanting to claw out of her.
    She understood, suddenly, that this must be exactly what the killer himself