Evening traffic was light to moderate on Tenth Avenue, flowing past ladies in hot pants and mini-skirts strolling up and down the Hell's Kitchen sidewalk, each putting a little hitch in her step for the passing cars. One of them, a young Asian hooker named Szu, looked across to where her boyfriend Rako, who grew up in this sketchy neighborhood a couple blocks from Times Square, waited for a break in the traffic, then came jogging over.

"Hi, I got your text. What's up?"

Szu's eyes darted around. "I'm not sure."

"Whatta you mean? You made it sound..."

"Marla's missing."

Rako frowned. "Missing from what?"

"She went with this guy yesterday and hasn't been back."

"So?"

"So he was weird."

"Hey doll, I hate to tell you, but weird comes with the territory."

"This was different."

Rako had to raise his voice over a loud truck going by. "Different like how?"

"Just... I don't know." Szu waited for the truck to pass. "I mean, the two of us had a double scheduled for today and she never showed."

"Maybe they went away some place, her and the guy." He studied her, could see that wasn't going to do it. "What about we get some coffee?"

Szu started to say no, saw he was trying to be helpful, reluctantly nodded.

A mile and a half uptown, in a crypt-like space off an abandoned subway tunnel under Riverside Park, Marla Henks was thinking she'd probably lose her right hand. She'd been twisting it around and around in these handcuffs for what seemed like hours now. Both hands were cuffed behind her, wrists raw, arms wrapped backwards around some stanchion pressed against her spine. Her naked spine. Her trapped body was stripped bare. Her legs kept cramping no matter how much she tried to move them, or squat up and down. And the way she was gagged, she couldn't do too many squats without running out of breath, could only suck air in through her nose.

But even with the pain, stabs of it that were making her cry and almost vomit, she had to keep working that hand – work it loose and get herself out of this hellhole. The sicko who'd gotten her stoned and brought her here – slipping it to her with grunts and groans, and then afterward punching her, not because she didn't perform, but because she bit him when he twisted her nipples.

Why hadn't she listened to Szu? Smartass little Szu who always knew best. Well, this time she did know. Like, who lets themselves get led by some asshole she'd never met before down into some fucking cave? Some subway tunnel nobody ever heard of that seemed cool when the guy described it, after those drinks and the ludes he kept feeding her after they'd ditched Szu. Made it sound like some Never-Never Land he discovered and was beating the high rents with.

There had to have been more in those caps than just ludes.

The place had actually looked cool at first (her being zoned), this bunker with its mysto red lighting he'd made into some kind of porn pit. Big flat screen and computer he must have tapped some power line to run. She looked over at the video camera on the tripod there, didn't want to think about what kind of hideous shit he must have shot with it.

Shit she'd be performing herself if she didn't get out of these cuffs.

The coffee shop Szu and Rako went to had been serving girls on the stroll for years, including Rako's older sister, who had disappeared on a work night two years ago.

"Christ," Szu said after they'd sat down at a booth in back, "if anyone should tune into this, you should."

"I know," Rako said. Where his sister had wound up was anybody's guess.

Szu was stressed but she kept her voice down. "I'm freaked about this guy out there who cuts out tongues and shit. All the girls are."

"Fuckin' Sickblade."

"Fuckin' nightmare. This guy yesterday made a big deal about these great ludes he had. Like we didn't know what the fuck it was to get high."

"You saw him? The guy?

"Yeah, but not good."

They leaned back when a waitress came and set down two cups of coffee. "You gonna eat?" she asked.

"Yeah, but we need a minute," Rako said.

"Just lemme know."

She left and Rako leaned toward Szu. "Look, chances are she's fine and just forgot. Or she had another gig."

"Yeah, right."

After more twisting – agonizing mind-freaking twisting – Marla Henks worked her right hand free of the cuffs. The lightning stabs of pain had her on the edge of passing out. She pulled her arms around from behind her, pulled the gag out of her mouth. Her hands and wrists had tendons and bone exposed. Blood all over the place. Slimy blood covering her beautiful naked ass, running down her legs onto her bare feet.

She'd once heard her brothers in West Virginia talk about coyotes caught in jaw-traps chewing their paws off to get free. Well, now she knew.

Concentrate, she told herself. Get yourself out of here before he comes back. Because if you don't, you die.

She stumbled and slipped across the cold concrete floor, over to the big rusty iron door that was probably put in when this shithole subway was built back whenever. And then forgotten. And of course when she tried to pull it open the door was locked. One of those you can lock from both sides. Christ.

But there had to be a key someplace. He'd have taken one with him, to get back in, but he had to have a spare. Where would he keep it?

There was a workbench over there he probably used as a torture table. Had knives and scalpels and other evil-looking shit hanging above it. She went over to it, glancing at the headline of a tabloid page tacked to the wall:

TONGUE-LESS BODY,  SICKBLADE SCORES

Probably had a fucking scrapbook, she thought.

She pulled the drawer in the workbench open, rummaged around inside, tossed away some papers and pencils and other crap. Poked her fingers back in the corner. Felt around and... what's this? Something heavy, something metal. She pulled it out.

A pistol, a six-shot revolver.

Hallelujah. Of course he'd have one. She looked over at the iron door. Looked at the gun. Could see it was loaded. She'd grown up around guns.

"Keep moving, Marla," she muttered.

She took the piece over to the door, cocked it and steadied herself and aimed at the lock. Was about to pull the trigger when she realized she'd better rethink this. That shot could ricochet, come back and nail her between the eyes.

She got down on her knees on the cold floor and took aim again, angling the barrel upward so the shots would ricochet up and away. She fired off three quick ones, loud in the stone-walled space.

The bullets zinged off and then all was quiet. Let's see how she did.

She got up and tried the door. Still locked.

"Shit."

But maybe not so much. She could feel a little give in the mechanism.

She got down on her knees again, took two more shots. Save one just in case.

She put the gun down, reached over and pulled herself up by the old brass door handle. Turned it and yanked. Still didn't open.

Pulled harder. And harder still.

Finally, with a grudging squeak, she got the thing to budge. Braced her bare foot against the stone wall and pulled with all she had.

The lock sprung loose and it opened.

She reached down and picked up the gun, stepped through the doorway into a dark passageway. Never mind she was naked and covered with blood, she just had to get the fuck out of here.

She looked around, saw nothing but dark wall. No sense of direction. She wondered how far underground he'd taken her. Could hear water dripping from somewhere nearby, remembered one of the girls telling her there were rivers running under the city. She sniffed and could smell the age in the air. Oldness. Could smell something else, too, coming from the walls. She knew what it was, had grown up on a farm where livestock was always getting slaughtered.

Death smell. Body parts,

She whispered to the dark, "God, please get me out."

And like He'd heard her, her eyes getting acclimated now, she picked up a trace of dim light off to the left. Started moving toward it.

As she got closer and the light revealed a little more detail, she saw something dart out from the shadows. Two somethings. Rats. Coming right at her.

Bam!

She shot by instinct. Didn't hit them. But it was enough to scare them off. And to make the gun useless now. Her last shot. She should have looked around in that drawer for more shells.

She walked further on, picking her way as best she could in her bare feet, stopped when she came to a tunnel where she could see there was a set of train tracks. Old ones, coated with who knew how many years of rust. Didn't gleam like the ones for the C train she took most days. She stepped over and rubbed her bare foot on the rust covering the near rail. Was about to follow it to see where it would take her, maybe get her lame young ass back to civilization, when she sensed something behind her.

Turned around.

Screamed.

"Where you off to, Marla?" he said, giving her that creepy smile. Before she could do anything he stepped in and gave her a vicious punch.

The last thing Marla Henks heard before she stumbled backward and hit her head on that rusty rail was, "The party's just gettin' started."

She came to in the eerie room she'd been tied up in before, still naked, lying face-down on the workbench. There was an inflatable rubber pillow under her stomach, so that her middle was raised, her beautiful ass up in the air, almost out over the end of the bench.

Sickblade was standing at that end, naked as well, studying her private place. He grinned when he saw she was conscious again. "I was saving the best for last."

Marla couldn't see him, tried to turn around. "What?"

Sickblade reached up to her head and shoved it back down. "I'm a come-from-behind kind of guy."

The side of Marla's face smacked against the bench. She choked off a little cry and stayed still. "Just do it."

"Patience."

Sickblade reached across the workbench and picked up a cutoff broomstick he'd customized for occasions like this. One end of it was taped like a baseball bat, the other end was rounded and smooth. He'd taken the lid off a can of grease, scooped out a handful and smeared it generously on the stick's rounded end.

He stepped behind Marla, who couldn't see what was happening back there, and aimed the greased stick at her raised rear. "You ready?"

"Just get it over," she said, waiting grimly to feel him inside her.

"Careful what you ask for."

He moved the greased end of the broomstick up close to the point of entry, her tenderest part. Tightened his grip and rammed the stick as hard as he could.

Marla screamed.

In the back booth at the coffee shop, Rako was working on a piece of cheesecake. Szu, who hadn't ordered anything, sipped her coffee, watching him.

He looked up. "You sure you don't want something?"

"I'm fine."

"It could be a long night."

"I said I'm fine."

He shrugged and lifted a forkful to his mouth. Chewed and swallowed. "Look, I'll ask around about her, see if anybody heard anything."

"That'd be good."

"You never know."

"Uh-huh. Question."

"What?"

"How come he takes their tongues, this Sickblade? And only girls who trick."

Rako paused with another forkful halfway to his mouth. "I donno. Maybe he collects them. You know, like butterflies."

"That's gross."

The forkful went in and down. "Or maybe it's his signature, like some artist making sure he's remembered."

"Fuckin' ego asshole."

"Picasso meets Jack the Ripper."

"Finish your cheesecake. I gotta get back to work."

Rako speared the last piece and signaled for the check.

Sickblade, still naked, with smears of blood glistening on him, was hunched over a small two-ring stove set on top of an old kitchen cabinet, poking a fork at a sizzling frying pan.

"I think we're done," he said to himself.

He lifted a small piece of meat with the fork and let it drip sizzling into the pan, then laid the dripping meat on a plate and took it over to the workbench.

He glanced at Marla Henks' naked body lying on its side, took the plate to the far end of the workbench and set it down between a silver fork and a steak knife arranged on a wicker place mat. He sat down in a folding chair, picked up the knife and fork and gazed at the piece of meat.

A human tongue, marinating in its juices.

He held the tongue in place with the fork and delicately cut off the tip. Put the morsel in his mouth, chewed and nodded appreciatively toward Marla's body on the table two feet in front of him.

"Nice."

Her eyes were closed, head and one shoulder resting in the pool of blood that had flowed from her gaping mouth.

Sickblade stopped chewing. "Shit, I almost forgot."

He got up from the chair and went to the other end of the workbench. Bent down to a knapsack on the floor, unzipped it and took out a bottle of wine. Looked around.

"Corkscrew..."

He stepped over to the workbench drawer, opened it and rooted around.

While he was doing that, Marla's eyes opened.

Sickblade found his corkscrew, turned his back to the workbench and, holding the bottle of wine by the neck, went to work opening it.

Marla, with her torturer otherwise engaged, ever so quietly reached over to the place setting and picked up the steak knife.

Sickblade concentrated on placing the corkscrew just so in the cork, then carefully started twisting and pulling.

Marla, moving slow and silent, pushed herself up onto her knees, steak knife in one bloody hand.

Sickblade pulled the cork out with a little pop, gave it a satisfied sniff, gave the bottle an appraising look.

Suddenly, from behind him, the steak knife plunged down into his skull. He stood there frozen, knife sticking out of his head. The wine bottle dropped from his hand and shattered on the concrete floor. He collapsed naked onto the Cabernet puddle and shards of glass.

Marla Henks, her neck and naked breasts covered with blood that was still drooling from her tongueless mouth, got down off the workbench and stood over Sickblade. She tried to curse him but the words came out garbled.

She stared at him, feelings beyond hate welling inside her, and started to sob.

She grabbed the handle of the steak knife and yanked it out of Sickblade's skull. Using both hands to pry his mouth open, fighting off a wave of diziness, she went in with the sharp serrated blade and cut out his poisonous tongue.

Summer was winding down in Hell's Kitchen and the nights were getting cooler. It had been raining off and on throughout the day and the evening temperature had dropped more than normal, so there were fewer girls than usual working that stretch of Tenth. Szu was back from Tai Pei, had gone there for six weeks to visit her family, give her mother a hand with her father who had taken a fall and broken his leg. Rako had been afraid she might stay there, get out of the life and get a regular job, her speaking two languages, maybe turn tricks on the side. But she'd come back and was putting in more street time now to pay down her MasterCard for what she'd spent on the trip.

He was bringing her coffee, carrying two take-out cups across Tenth, quickstepping out of the way of a bus. He made sure he wouldn't be interfering with any business before he came over and handed her a cup.

"Thanks," she said, sipping from the little hole in the lid.

Rako took the lid off his. "Anything happening?"

"No, it's been slow."

He took a sip and nodded down the sidewalk. "How's she doing?"

He was watching a hooker who was dressed in hot pants that were almost like a bikini, stiletto boots and a skimpy bolero jacket completing the outfit.

Szu said, "She's hanging in there."

"She's gotta be freezing."

"Aren't we all."

The hooker walked to the corner, turned around and started back this way.

Marla Henks.

"I'm wondering," Rako said, giving her a little wave.

"What's that?"

"Do tongues ever grow back?"

Szu watched Marla return the wave, and then fold her arms against the chill. "I guess we'll see."