Thumbprint by Joe Hill Read Free Book Online

meat cleaver. At the other end of the handle was a hook, what they used to dig under the edge of the skull and pull it off, like a cap from a bottle. The bone mallet was hard-core.
    Hicks took a minute to fit it into Manx’s hand. He pulled a face at the sight of Manx’s nasty-long fingernails, split at the ends and as yellow as the guy’s fuckin’ teeth. He looked like that actor from the Aliens movie, Lance Henriksen, if someone had shaved Henriksen’s head, then smashed him a couple times with the ugly stick. Manx also had thin, pinkish white, saggy tits that reminded Hicks, horribly, of what his own mother had under her bra.
    Hicks picked out the bone saw for himself and stuck an arm around Manx’s shoulders. Manx sagged, his big bald head resting against Hicks’s chest. That was all right. Now they looked like drinking buddies who’d had a few. Hicks dug his cell phone out of its holster and held it out from his body. He narrowed his eyes, struck a menacing grimace, and took the shot.
    He lowered the corpse and glanced at the phone. It wasn’t a great picture. Hicks had wanted to look dangerous, but the pained expression on his face suggested that Sasha had finally wiggled her pinkie up his ass after all. He was thinking about reshooting when he heard loud voices, right outside the autopsy room’s door. For one terrible moment, he thought the first voice belonged to his uncle Jim:
    â€œOh, that little bastard is in for it. He has no idea—”
    Hicks flung a sheet over the body, his heart going off like a Glock being speed-fired. Those voices had hitched up right beyond the door, and he was sure they were about to start pushing to come in. He walked halfway to the door to pull out the chock when he realized he was still holding the bone saw. He set it on the tool cart with a shaking hand.
    He was already recovering by the time he paced back to the door. A second man was laughing, and the first was speaking again:
    â€œâ€”have all four molars yanked. They’ll gas him out with the sevoflurane, and when they smash the teeth, he won’t feel a thing. But when he wakes up, he’s gonna feel like he got fucked in the mouth with a shovel—”
    Hicks didn’t know who was having his teeth removed, but once he heard a little more of the voice, he could tell it wasn’t his uncle Jim, just some old bastard with a creaky old-bastard voice. He waited until he heard the two men walk away before he bent to pull the chock free. He counted to five, then slipped out. Hicks needed a drink of water and to wash his hands. He still felt a little trembly.
    He took a long, soothing stroll, breathing deeply. When he finally reached the men’s room, he didn’t just need a drink, he needed to unload his bowels. Hicks took the handicapped stall for the extra leg room. While he was parked there dropping bombs, he e-mailed Sasha the photo of him and Manx together and wrote, BEND OVER & DROP YOURE PANS DADDEE IS CUMMING W/TEH SAW IF U DONT DO WHAT I SAY U CRAZEE BITCH. WAIT 4 ME IN THE ROOM OF PUNISHMINT.
    But by the time he was leaning over the sink, slurping noisily at the water, Hicks had begun to have worrisome thoughts. He had been so rattled by the sound of voices in the hallway he could not remember if he had left the body the way he’d found it. Worse: He had a terrible idea he had left the bone mallet in Charlie Manx’s hand. If it was found there in the morning, some smart-ass doc would probably want to know why, and it was a safe bet that Uncle Jim would grill the entire staff. Hicks didn’t know if he could handle that kind of pressure.
    He decided to wander back to the autopsy theater and make sure he had cleaned up properly.
    He paused outside the door to peek through the window, only to discover he had left the curtains drawn. That was one thing to fix right there. Hicks eased the door in and frowned. In his haste to get out of the autopsy