Death Mask

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN The Falling Girl

As they drove back into the city over the Roebling Suspension Bridge, Sissy borrowed Molly’s cell phone and called Detective Bellman. The bridge had a rumbling metal-grid floor, so she had to shout to make herself heard.

“Freddie? It’s Sissy Sawyer! We have a crisis.”

“Has Red Mask called you again?”

“Not since last night. But it looks like he’s abducted Molly’s little girl, Victoria.”

“What? Jesus! Have you called it in?”

“Molly’s neighbor did, as soon as it happened. That was about twenty minutes ago, from her home in Blue Ash. Molly’s called, too, and talked to a Sergeant Haskins.”

“Bella Haskins, yes, she’s terrific. And the FBI will come in on this, too. They always do, when it’s a child under twelve. Where do you think he might have taken her? Any ideas?”

“We believe he might be hiding her in the Giley Building. That’s the only place where he really feels real.”

“Okay, I’ll get some units round there right now.”

“Freddie — I’m asking you a huge, huge favor. I know you were pretty skeptical about what happened in the Giley Building yesterday.”

There was a crackling silence. Then Detective Bellman said, “In all honesty, Ms. Sawyer, I have to tell you that it did stretch my credibility to the universe and beyond. You know that I’m still trying to be open-minded here, and I saw for myself that something got burned on that office carpet — maybe even somebody.”

“It was Red Mask, Freddie. I swear to you.”

“Well, maybe. But I didn’t see no human remains, and I didn’t see no canine remains, neither. In fact, no material evidence to substantiate your story whatsoever.”

Sissy said, “Listen, Freddie — that Red Mask was nothing but an image. So was Frank. So was the scenting dog, too. They vanished. When a living image dies, it fades away. It simply disappears, like it never was. Even the original sheet of paper that it was drawn on is blank.”

“So, okay — what’s this huge, huge favor?” asked Detective Bellman. It was obvious that he wasn’t keen to get involved in any kind of existential argument.

“I want you to let us into the Giley Building, to look for Victoria. You can come with us if you want to, but I’d prefer it if it was just us. I think it’s our only chance of finding Red Mask and getting Victoria back unharmed.”

“Who’s ‘just us’?”

“Myself, and Molly, and Frank — ”

“Frank? You mean your husband Frank? Am I missing something here? I thought you just told me that Frank had vanished?”

“He did, Freddie, but like I was telling you yesterday — ”

“Go on, then. Who else?”

“Jane Becker. You remember her — she was one of Red Mask’s first two victims, her and George Woods. We need her to confirm Red Mask’s identity. And our scenting dog.”

“Don’t tell me it’s the same scenting dog come back to life?”

Sissy turned around in her seat. Deputy was right behind her, in the back of Molly’s SUV, panting as if he had been running after rabbits.

“Let’s put it this way. It’s a similar scenting dog.”

Detective Bellman said nothing for a long time. Sissy could hear other officers talking in the background, and a siren whoop. At last he said, “Ms. Sawyer, I don’t have anything like the authority to do this. Apart from that, it’s totally against CPD procedure. Civilians under no circumstances are to be put in harm’s way during the course of any criminal investigation or arrest operation.”

“I see,” said Sissy.

There was another long pause, but then Detective Bellman said, “On the other hand, you know and I know that we’re talking about some decidedly weird shit here. We’re talking about perps who can appear and disappear like they can walk through walls. We’re talking about perps with nothing but kitchen knives who can wipe out two SWAT squads armed to the teeth with semiautomatic weapons. We’re talking about people who can come to life even though they’re supposed to be cremated.”

“I know, Freddie. I know. But let me just say that — ”

“I have to admit that I’m bewildered, Ms. Sawyer, and I’m very skeptical. But there wasn’t nobody more skeptical than Mike Kunzel, including me, and even Mike could see that these stabbings weren’t your garden-variety massacres, not by a long way. He could see how goddamned weird they were. So just for Mike, I’m going to let you in to the Giley Building for thirty minutes, if that’s what you want — provided you never tell nobody what I allowed you to do, ever, and provided you don’t get yourselves injured or, God forbid, killed. Where are you now?”

“We’re just coming off the Roebling Suspension Bridge, by the ballpark.”

“Okay, I’ll meet you outside the Giley Building in five minutes.”

Sissy said, “Thanks, Freddie. You won’t regret this. They’ll probably promote you to detective first class.”

She switched off the cell phone and patted Frank on the shoulder. “He’s given us thirty minutes’ grace. So let’s step on it, shall we?”

Detective Bellman was waiting for them when they parked outside the Giley Building. The street was still crowded with vans and Hummers from the CPD forensic teams who were painstakingly going over the parking structure next door, inch by inch and floor by floor. The media vans were still there, too, from Channel 5 and Channel 12 and WLW radio. After all, it had been the worst mass murder in Cincinnati since 1987, when male nurse Donald Harvey had killed forty of his patients at the Drake Hospital.

“I feel like I’m dreaming this,” said Detective Bellman, as they gathered on the steps.

“Maybe that’s the best way,” Sissy told him. “After all, it is a dream, of sorts.”

“I’m coming in with you,” said Detective Bellman. “I know what you said, that my weapon can’t harm him. But this is my responsibility, this case, and I owe it to Mike Kunzel to see it through to the finish.”

One of the uniformed officers guarding the Giley Building unlocked the revolving door for them and they went inside. The lobby was gloomy, and their footsteps echoed on the marble flooring.

Jane Becker said, “I really don’t want to do this.”

“I don’t think any of us do, honey,” said Frank. “But remember the roses, okay?”

Sissy went to the center of the lobby, under the chandelier, and closed her eyes. She breathed slowly and deeply to relax herself, and then she allowed herself slowly to rise up through the building floor by floor. She passed by deserted offices, chairs tipped over, dead computer screens. She heard phones ringing, unanswered. But as she reached the twenty-third floor, she began to feel the faintest of tingling sensations, and her closed eyes were gradually suffused with opalescent light.

She rose higher, to the twenty-fourth floor. There was no question about it: Victoria was here, on the twenty-fifth floor, almost directly above her. She could sense her, almost as if she could actually reach out and stroke her hair. She could see her — a pale, flickering outline, with two dark smudges for eyes.

Victoria, it’s Grandma. We’re here. We’re coming to find you.

Grandma? Where are you? I’m so scared, Grandma.

Don’t say a word, sweetheart. Stay where you are. Don’t let on that you can hear me.

He says he wants to kill us, Grandma. He says he wants to stab us and stab us and chop us into bits.

Don’t you worry, Victoria. We won’t let him hurt you, I promise. Just hold on.

She let herself sink back down again, down to the lobby. She opened her eyes. Molly was standing right beside her, biting her thumbnail with anxiety.

“Did you find her?” asked Molly. “Is she here? Oh, please tell me you’ve found her!”

“Twenty-fifth floor,” said Sissy. “It feels to me like he’s shut her up someplace dark.”

“He hasn’t hurt her, has he?”

“He’s threatened her — but, no, he hasn’t hurt her.”

All this time, Deputy had been snuffling around the lobby. When he arrived at the center elevator, he let out a single sharp bark.

“Are the elevators working now?” asked Sissy.

“I hope so,” said Detective Bellman. “I don’t want a repeat experience of yesterday. I get claustrophobia in the Tower Place Mall, let alone an elevator car with seven overweight cops in it.”

“Well. either we risk the elevator or we have to climb the stairs,” said Sissy. “And I, for one, am not going to climb those stairs again. I don’t have many breaths left in this life, and I don’t want to use them all up in one day.”

The indicator light showed that the elevator was up on the seventeenth floor. Frank pressed the button, and the lights gradually began to descend: thirteen — eleven — nine — seven.

Detective Bellman unholstered his gun and said, “Let’s stay well back, shall we? Seeing as how this Red Mask character has a penchant for rushing out with his knives going like Edward Scissorhands.”

With an arthritic groan, the elevator arrived at lobby level and the doors shuddered open. Detective Bellman cocked his gun and jabbed it into the elevator car, but there was nobody in there.

“Okay, folks. Let’s do it.”

They stepped onto the elevator. Frank had his thumb on the button for the twenty-fifth floor when they heard an echoing shout of “Wait!” It was Trevor, pushing his way through the revolving door. He jogged across the lobby and joined them, panting almost as hard as Deputy.

“Sorry — traffic. Is Victoria here?”

Sissy pointed straight upward. “Top floor. Red Mask has her locked up someplace. That’s what it feels like, anyhow. He hasn’t hurt her.”

“I’m going to kill him,” said Trevor. “I mean that. Painting or no painting, I’m going to rip his goddamned head off.”

Frank glanced across the elevator car at Sissy and raised his eyebrows. Neither of them had ever heard Trevor talk so ferociously before. But then, Trevor’s family had never been threatened before, not like this.

The elevator rose painfully slowly, with its mechanism grinding and squeaking, and it hesitated at every floor, and lurched, even though its doors stayed shut. None of them spoke as they rose higher and higher, although Deputy was growing increasingly agitated and kept jumping up on his hind legs and clawing at the doors.

At last they reached the twenty-fifth floor. The doors opened, and they cautiously stepped out. The offices were in darkness, and when Sissy saw the sign on the reception area she realized why: HAMILTON PHOTO PROCESSING, INC. All of the photographic equipment had been removed, but the windows were still blacked out, with only a few scratches to show that it was sunny outside.

There was a sour smell of developing fluids, and something else, too. Something rotten, like a dead animal.

Deputy wasn’t put off by the gloom. He circled around the reception area, sniffing and wuffling, and then suddenly he began to pull Frank along the corridor off to their right.

Sissy followed close behind. She couldn’t sense Red Mask at all, but she could feel Victoria. It was almost as if she could hear her singing, in another room.

“Left,” she said, although she didn’t need to, because Deputy was already tugging Frank around to the left. He was straining even harder on his leash, so that he sounded as if he were strangling.

The corridor was lined with black-and-white framed photographs of thunderstorms and city skylines and women half concealed in shadow. At the very end of it, there was a black door marked “Darkroom.” Deputy rushed straight up to it and barked, and wouldn’t stop barking.

“Sissy?” said Frank.

“Victoria’s in there,” said Sissy. “She’s right on the other side of that door.”

Frank wound Deputy’s leash more tightly around his fist. “Trouble is, so is Red Mask.”

“What do we do now?” asked Molly. “We have to get her out of there! Victoria! Victoria! It’s Mommy!”

Frank touched his finger to his lips to quiet her. “All we can do is play it his way for now.”

Trevor said, “I think we should kick the goddamned door down and rush him. Come on, there are three of us, right? — and only one of him.”

“There were ten SWAT officers, Trevor, and two FBI agents, and only two of him.”

“Dad — that’s our daughter in there! And that’s your granddaughter, too! We can’t just leave her in there with that psycho!”

Abruptly, Deputy stopped barking and backed away from the darkroom door. Detective Bellman unholstered his gun and cocked it again.

“What is it, boy?” Frank asked him. “What’s wrong?”

They heard a key turning in the lock, and the darkroom door swung open. Deputy’s fur bristled and he lowered his head and growled. Inside the darkroom, only a red lamp was shining, so that at first they could see nothing more than a silhouette. A bulky silhouette, with a squarish head. But in front of this silhouette, there was a smaller, paler figure.

“Well, well, well,” said Red Mask, thickly. “So you came in force, Molly? You brought your own little army?”

“Give me back my daughter!” Molly screamed at him. She tried to lunge forward, but Trevor took hold of her arm and held her back. “Give me back my daughter, you monster!”

Detective Bellman said, “Hands on your head, mister! Drop whatever weapons you’re carrying, and down on your knees!”

“I don’t think so,” said Red Mask. With that, he stepped out of the darkroom into the corridor, pushing Victoria out in front of him. He was gripping her left shoulder and holding one of his butcher knives across her throat.

“Always such a waste, don’t you think, to spill a child’s blood? Think of all the years they might have had. But revenge is revenge, Molly. And justice is blind. No rest for the wicked, don’t you know. No mercy for the innocent, neither.”

“Let her go,” Molly whispered. “Please let her go.”

Victoria looked very pale, and her eyelashes were stuck together with dried tears. But Red Mask was holding his knife so close to her throat that she couldn’t lower her chin and she didn’t dare to speak.

“You created me, Molly. You drew me in the image of a real man. So I am that man, and a man is an independent being, sacred unto God, no matter how he was created. So you have no right — you have no right — to come hunting for me with this dog of yours, and these raggle-taggle friends of yours — seeking to destroy me.”

Red Mask was breathing deeply now and working himself up into a righteous rage. “What you are trying to do is kill your own creation! What you are trying to do is no less than abortion!”

Sissy said, gently, “Let the little girl go. She hasn’t done anything to you.”

“Oh, no? Why should she live, while I die? I’m one of God’s children, too.”

“Ah, but you’re not. You never were, and you never will be.”

“Get out of my way,” said Red Mask. He began to push Victoria toward them, so that they had to back off. “Today, I get justice. Today, I get revenge. Today, I get the respect that I deserve.”

“You don’t deserve any respect, you bastard,” Trevor told him. “You’re nothing but a butcher.”

Sissy said, “That’s truer than my son knows. You are a butcher. In fact, you’re — ”

“Shut up!” Red Mask roared at her. “Shut the fuck up! One more word from any of you and I’ll cut this kid’s throat right in front of you!”

He kept advancing along the corridor with Victoria in front of him, and they kept backing away, although Deputy kept snarling and pulling at his leash. Out of the side of his mouth, Detective Bellman murmured to Frank, “I could get a head shot, Frank. Right between the eyes.”

But Frank said, “No. No way. I don’t think even that would kill him. And he would only have to fall wrong, and — ” He made a slicing gesture across his Adam’s apple.

They retreated all the way along the corridor until they reached the elevators.

Molly said, “Please — if I promise not to come after you — ”

“Oh, you won’t be coming after me. I can guarantee that.”

“I’ll do anything you want. Just let her go, I’m begging you.”

Red Mask pushed the button for the left-hand elevator. The doors opened, and they saw that there was no elevator car there, only an empty shaft with greasy steel cables. A warm draft was blowing softly down it, whistling a sad, reflective tune.

“You want me to let your daughter go?” said Red Mask, hoarsely. “Sure, I’ll let your daughter go.”

Oh my God, thought Sissy. The card. The girl falling down the well, like Alice in Wonderland. The card predicted it. He’s going to drop her down the elevator shaft.

“No!” screamed Molly, but Red Mask forced Victoria right to the very edge of the elevator shaft, still holding the knife against her throat.

“Let her go, you bastard!” Trevor yelled at him, but Red Mask slid the knife across Victoria’s throat and drew a thin line of blood.

“I told you! Didn’t I tell you? Shut the fuck up! One more word from any of you, and it’s down she goes!”

Victoria made a pathetic squealing noise, but Red Mask snarled at her, “That goes for you, too, my darling. Not a word.”

Then he said, “Molly created me. Molly can destroy me. Now, I can’t have somebody walking the world who has the power to destroy me, can I? But no creation has the power to destroy his creator, does he? — even me? I can’t destroy you, Molly, any more than you can destroy God. There’s only one person who can destroy you, Molly, and that’s you.

“So this is the choice. If you jump down this shaft here, Molly, your lovely young daughter will be spared. If you don’t, then it’s down she goes, and I won’t spare the rest of you, either.”

“You’re crazy!” Trevor screamed at him. “You’re completely and utterly crazy!”

Red Mask pushed Victoria until she was leaning even further over the elevator shaft. “I warned you! One more word and it’s down she goes!”

Molly stepped forward, with her head held high and both fists tightly clenched.

Trevor said, “No, Molly — No, you can’t!”

But Molly walked right up to Red Mask and stood in front of him and said, “If that’s what it’s going to take to save my daughter — all right, I’ll do it.”

Red Mask stared at her with his slitted eyes. His expression was unreadable, like a painted wooden figure by a desolate highway, far from anyplace at all.

He took a step back from the open elevator shaft. “There it is,” he told her. “That’s the way down. I have to tell you, this is almost like a religious experience. The fear. The elation.”

Molly went right up to the edge of the elevator shaft. Her hair was ruffled by the updraft. Victoria was staring at her, appalled, but Red Mask was holding the knife so close to her throat that she couldn’t cry out.

But it was then that Frank sprinted forward, dropping Deputy’s leash as he did so. He collided with Molly, pushing her past the open elevator shaft, and straight into Victoria and Red Mask. At the same time, Deputy bounded up at Red Mask and sank his teeth into his arm.

Red Mask fell backward, dropping his knife. Frank shouted, “Grab her!” and Molly wrapped her arms around Victoria. Frank twisted himself sideways so that both of them could roll clear.

Red Mask picked up his knife and furiously stabbed at Deputy until the dog released his grip on his arm and limped off to the far side of the reception area, bloody and whining. Red Mask clambered to his feet.

“Do you think that’s going to spare you?” he spat. “Do you think that any of you are going to leave this building alive? You’re going to be chopped liver, all of you.”

Frank ducked and feinted, but Red Mask kept advancing on him, lunging at him with his knife. He cut the back of Frank’s right hand, and blood sprayed across the floor, and then he stabbed him in the left forearm, and the shoulder.

Red Mask raised his knife high above his head and was just about to plunge it into Frank’s chest, when Frank seized the lapels of Red Mask’s coat and deliberately fell backward into the open elevator shaft. They both disappeared like a conjuring trick.

“Oh my God!” Sissy cried out. She hurried to the elevator shaft, with Detective Bellman and Trevor close behind her.

Both Red Mask and Frank were dangling from one of the steel cables in the center of the shaft. Red Mask must have snatched at the cable with his left hand, and then dropped his knife so that he could grip it with his right hand, too. Frank was hanging beside him, still holding tightly onto the front of his coat.

“Hold on!” shouted Detective Bellman. “Hold on, I’ll see if I can find a stepladder or something!”

Sissy called out, “Frank! Frank! See if you can climb down the wire!”

“Can’t let go, Sissy. Sorry.”

“Frank, you have to try! I don’t want to lose you again!”

“You never lost me. You never will. Go get Jane.”

“Let go of my coat!” Red Mask roared at him. “Let go of my coat!”

“Get Jane!” Frank insisted. Red Mask’s lapel started to tear off, and he lurched another six inches downward.

Sissy turned around and said, “Jane — come here, quick!”

Jane Becker came up and stood beside her. “What do you want me to do?”

“Call him!”

“I can’t!”

“Then I will,” said Sissy. “Red Mask! Can you hear me?”

Red Mask managed to turn his head so that he could see her.

“There’s somebody here who has something to say to you, Red Mask!”

Red Mask grunted with effort, but said nothing.

Jane Becker reached into the back pocket of her jeans and pulled out the postcard of Butcher Buck. “You see this?” she called out, in a shrill, unsteady voice. “This is you.”

“Tell him!” said Frank. “For God’s sake, just tell him!”

“You were never a real person! You never existed! I invented you!”

As preternaturally strong as he was, Red Mask’s hands were beginning to slide down the elevator cable, leaving a dark smear of blood.

“What the hell are you saying to me?” he grated.

“You never existed! When Molly asked me who had stabbed me, I described this statue! It’s a wooden statue, in Iowa!”

Red Mask stared at her over his shoulder. She held the postcard at arm’s length, so that he could see it more clearly.

“You were never a man, ever. You never lived. You were only made out of wood.”

Red Mask said nothing. But right in front of their eyes, he began to fade. First of all, Sissy could see the elevator cable right through his hands, as his flesh became transparent. Then his scarlet face began to turn pale pink, as pale as paint water.

Frank looked up at her, still clinging to the last shadowy vestiges of Red Mask’s coat. Only a painting like Frank could have clung on so long. He had no more substance, in reality, than Red Mask.

“Sissy!” he called.

Sissy said, “Frank! We’ll bring you back! I promise you, Frank! We’ll bring you back tonight!”

But it was then that Red Mask vanished altogether, and Frank fell. He disappeared down the darkened elevator shaft without a sound.

Sissy waited, and listened, but she didn’t hear him hit the basement. It was just as though he had vanished, too.

Molly came up and put her arm around Sissy’s shoulders, and hugged her. “Oh, Sissy.”

Sissy smeared the tears from her eyes with her fingertips. “I told him we’d bring him back again. I told him we’d bring him back tonight.”

“We could, Sissy. We could. Do you want me to?”

Sissy turned away from the elevator shaft. Trevor was holding Victoria tight. Detective Bellman was hunkered down next to Deputy, dabbing at his wounds with his handkerchief. Jane Becker was stroking Deputy’s head.

Sissy said, “No. He looked at me, Frank, just before he fell, and he shook his head.”

“You’re sure?”

Sissy nodded. “It’s time for me to go home, I think. I can lay some flowers on his grave.”

“Momma?” said Trevor.

“I’m all right,” said Sissy. “Let’s get out of here, shall we? I could really use a cigarette.”