Mr. Pockets had a route he liked to follow. The pubic trash cans on Corn Hill, always good for half a sandwich, down the street from the Pinelands Brewpub, or some crusts out of the Dumpster behind Peace-a-Pizza. It never mattered to him what he ate, as long as he ate, and he was always hungry.
Always.
Deeply.
He was digging for a bite of anything when he found the tattoo.
He’d seen a lot of things over the long years of his life, but Mr. Pockets had never once found a tattoo. With two immensely filthy and very delicate fingers he plucked it out from beneath an empty soda cup and held it up. The thing drooped, so he pinched two corners and raised it to the weak sunlight. It was still soft, a little damp. Takes a while for a slice of skin that thick to harden into something like parchment.
The tattoo was that of a face. A little Asian girl. Pale, beautifully rendered. More like a photograph than something done by an artist. The eyes were open and stared at him with a horror so bottomless that it made his groin stir. The mouth was open, and Mr. Pockets turned his head and leaned close to see if he could hear the scream.
It was there. Faint. Like someone crying out at the bottom of a very deep well. A child’s shriek and the sound matched the age of the face. Very young. Still a little girl when she died.
And that made him cock his head to one side, appraising the excised tattoo. This was the face of a dead girl. He could feel it; knew it for certain. She’d been pretty up until she died, and then had died ugly. Ruined by someone.
Who’d tattooed her on their skin?
He didn’t think it was the girl’s father—and this was definitely male skin. Middle-aged. Caucasian. But it was odd skin, too. Pale as a mushroom and sticky, the way insect feet are sticky. Not from the blood, either. Mr. Pockets sniffed it. This slice was new but the skin smelled old.
Thunder boomed overhead and it began to rain. Mr. Pockets neither noticed nor would have cared if he had.
He debated eating the piece of skin, but instead opened his dirty fingers and let it drop into the can. There was a dead mouse in the litter and he ate that instead. Fur, bones, and all.