Death Mask

by Graham Masterton

  “Okay if we take Deputy with us?” asked Sissy. “He’s a first-class scenting dog.”

  Detective Bellman said, “Whatever. Sure. Good idea.”

  They climbed the steps to the entrance of the Giley Building, where two uniformed officers with shotguns were standing guard. One of them untied the yellow police tape for them and unlocked the revolving doors.

  “Officer Gillow here, he’ll come with you, just in case you run into any trouble. If you see or hear anything suspicious, no matter what it is, don’t try to be heroes, okay? Get the hell out of there, quick.”

  Molly said, gently, “Did you speak to Betty yet?”

  Detective Bellman nodded. “I went around to see her a couple of hours ago to tell her that Mike was gone. She didn’t say a whole lot. I think she’s like the rest of us. We can’t believe that Mike won’t be coming trundling back through the door, whistling that goddamned ‘Goin’ Courtin’.’ ”

  “It’s so sad. He was such a great guy. Do you know what he used to call me? ‘Crayola,’ like it was my name.”

  “I told him,” said Detective Bellman. “I told him he shouldn’t go up there on his own. We needed serious backup. Mike was always the first person to say don’t rush into things until you’ve checked them out first. But he wouldn’t listen. He went charging up those stairs like a bull, and that was the last time I saw him alive.”

  As if he were offering his sympathy, Deputy came up to Molly and Detective Bellman and gave them a single sharp bark. He was a handsome dog, with intelligent brown eyes and a long-haired black and tan coat. He should have been good-looking: as reference for her painting of him, Molly had used three color photographs of the Cincinnati scenting-dog champion, Fritz.

  It had taken her an hour to paint him and a further two hours before his image had eventually faded from her cartridge paper. As a precaution, they had shut Mr. Boots in the utility room while they waited for Deputy to make his appearance, in case the new arrival made him jealous. The last thing they had wanted was a dog-fight.

  Even so, when Deputy had materialized in the yard and started sniffing at the cicadas, Mr. Boots had started to make that mewling sound in the back of his throat. Something strange was happening, and he knew it.

  Detective Bellman patted Deputy’s head. “Good dog. You go sniff out those scumbags who killed my partner, okay? Then I’ll give you all the bones you can eat, I promise you. Forever.”

  Officer Gillow pushed his way through the revolving doors first. He was a short, chunky young man with cropped ginger hair and bulging blue eyes. His expression was permanently pugnacious, as if he were bursting for somebody to challenge him or talk back to him or step out of line. Sissy tore open a roll of Life Savers Cryst-O-Mints because she didn’t want to confuse Deputy’s scenting with cigarette smoke. She gave one to Frank and then and she held the roll out to Officer Gillow. He stared at her as if she were offering him a hit off her bong.

  They walked across to the center of the lobby. It was gloomy and silent, and the only sound was their footsteps on the polished marble floor and the clicking Deputy’s claws.

  “Where do you want to start, sir?” asked Officer Gillow.

  Sissy opened her purse and drew out a length of red cotton. It was Red Mask’s shirtsleeve, or—more accurately—a replica of Red Mask’s shirtsleeve. Molly had painted it at the same time as Frank’s Connecticut State Police badge, based on the description that Mr. Kraussman had given her. “Red shirt, like he was soaked in blood already.”

  She bent down and held the sleeve under Deputy’s nose. Deputy sniffed, and growled, and shook his head.

  “He sure doesn’t like that,” said Frank.

  But quietly, Sissy said, “The most important thing is, he can actually smell it. If he was a real dog, he couldn’t.”

  Deputy barked, and barked again, and then he started to pull at his leash, trying to head toward the elevator.

  “Seems like he wants to go up,” said Frank. “All right with you, Officer?”

  Officer Gillow unhooked his radio and said, “Char-lie, we’re taking the elevator. I’ll check back with you as soon as I know which floor we’re on.”

  He pushed the button for the center elevator. The doors shuddered open and they stepped inside. Sissy looked at herself in the mirror. She thought she looked surprisingly unperturbed, considering what they were doing. But as Officer Gillow pushed the button to close the doors and the elevator began to rise, she thought she could see shadows in the mirror, standing around her. The shadows of Mary Clay, the cleaner who had died in the dark in this elevator, and her two companions.

  We’re here. Please help us. We’re here. Don’t let us die in the dark.

  They went past floor after floor, and at each floor Office Gillow opened the doors so that Deputy could sniff at the air.

  “I’m beginning to feel that this mutt just likes riding on elevators,” said Trevor, as they stopped at the sixteenth floor. The doors opened and Deputy sniffed at the reception area, but stayed where he was.

  “Onward and upward,” said Sissy.

  But as they rose toward the seventeenth floor, Deputy began to grow increasingly agitated and to circle around the interior of the elevator, lashing his tail against the walls.

  “What is it, boy?” Frank asked him. “Do you smell something? Red Masks, maybe?”

  They reached the seventeenth floor. Deputy was jumping up and down now, scrabbling his claws against the elevator doors. Officer Gillow unholstered his gun before he pressed the button to open them.

  “I want you all to stay way back,” he instructed them. “Any sign of trouble, and we’re out of here.”

  With a series of squeaks, the elevator doors juddered apart. If Frank hadn’t had him on a leash, Deputy would have gone tearing off into the reception area and along the corridor before he could have stopped him. As it was, he reared up, panting and whining, half choked by his collar, and it took all of Frank’s strength to hold him back.

  “Come on, boy, what can you smell?”

  Deputy dragged Frank along the corridor into the main office, with all of its half-abandoned cubicles and worn-out carpets.

  “Come on, boy, take it easy, boy.”

  “What do you think he’s picked up?” asked Trevor.

  “A trail, most like,” said Sissy. “This must have been where Red Mask was hiding out before—except real police bloodhounds couldn’t scent him, and I couldn’t sense him, either.”

  She lifted her head and closed her eyes for a moment. She had no sense of Red Mask’s having been here, even now. Nothing at all, except the barely audible echoes of all the people who used to work in this office before it had closed down. Faint baby voices, from the family photographs. Fainter sounds of laughter from the vacation pictures. The plink-plink-plink of a glossy red beach ball bouncing along a concrete pathway, someplace long ago and very far away.

  “Here—I think there’s something in here!” Frank called out. Deputy had reached a supply closet and was growling and scratching at the paintwork.

  Officer Gillow came forward with his revolver held up high in his right hand. “Okay, sir, let’s take it real easy, shall we?”

  Sissy said, “He’s right, Frank. Please be careful. It’s probably nothing—just a scent that’s gotten him all excited. But you don’t know for sure.”

  Frank reached cautiously across the door and rattled the handle. It was locked. But still Deputy kept clawing at it and keening, and it was obvious that he wasn’t going to stop until they opened it up.

  Officer Gillow took a letter opener from one of the office desks. He holstered his gun and hunkered down in front of the doorway, poking the letter opener into the lock. “There’s no key on the other side. Unless the perp has taken it out, there’s nobody in here.”

  With that, he stood up again, and gave the door a devastating kick. Even Deputy jumped back, on all fours.

  The side of the doorframe was splintered, but the door was still hanging
on. Officer Gillow gave it another kick and it collapsed inward, bouncing sideways on top of a stack of stationery boxes.

  Deputy hurtled forward, so violently that Frank lost his grip on his leash. He threw himself into the darkness of the supply closet, furiously barking.

  “Deputy!” Frank shouted at him, but none of them was prepared for what happened next. They heard more boxes falling and a heavy crash like a fax machine falling over. Then a hoarse, unintelligible roar, more like a beast than a human being.

  Officer Gillow immediately yanked out his handgun again and yelled into his radio for backup.

  “Seventeenth floor! Seventeenth floor! Newman! Bitzer! Get your asses up here right now, you guys! We got the bastards cornered!”

  There was another shout, and then Red Mask almost exploded out of the supply-closet door in a snowstorm of copy paper. He was clutching Deputy by the neck, holding him in the air up so that his hind legs were barely touching the floor. His fingers were digging so deeply into Deputy’s neck that the dog’s eyes were protruding and his breath came in high-pitched shrieks.

  Red Mask was scarlet faced, huge, and bursting with rage. He was stabbing at Deputy with a large triangular kitchen knife, so that the fur on Deputy’s chest and belly was matted with blood, and blood was splattering onto the floor.

  “Drop the dog, or I shoot!” shouted Officer Gillow. “I said drop—!”

  Frank tried to step forward, but Red Mask brandished his knife at him, and he couldn’t get close.

  “This is your last warning!” warned Officer Gillow, and fired.

  Red Mask shuddered, the way that a reflection shudders when you throw a stone into a darkened pool, but apart from that the shot didn’t appear to affect him at all. He let out another roar and swung Deputy wildly from side to side. Deputy screamed in pain, until Red Mask swung him sideways and hurled him clear across the office, so that he collided with a thump with the side of one of the cubicles and left streaks of blood down the side of it.

  “Hold it right there!” Officer Gillow demanded. “Put your hands on top of your head and kneel down on the floor!”

  Red Mask held up the knife in his right hand and then slowly and defiantly drew a second knife out of his coat. His eyes were black slits. His mouth was a gash, like a lizard’s.

  “Thought you’d be clever, did you?” he said. He turned his head around and looked at each of them in turn.

  “I said kneel on the fucking floor, scumbag!” Officer Gillow yelled at him. “Are you deaf, or what?”

  “Oh, I can hear you sure enough,” said Red Mask. “I can hear you clear as those cicadas. You’re loud and irritating and twice as ugly.”

  “You got three,” said Office Gillow, cocking his revolver again, and pointing it directly at Red Mask’s chest.

  Red Mask slowly approached them. Frank said, “I’d stay back, friend, if I were you.”

  “Friend? I’m not your friend. But I do know one person here.” He turned to Molly, and said, “I know you, don’t I, my darling? You and your brushes.”

  “What the hell is he raving about?” said Officer Gillow.

  “Your brushes, my dear … your soft, sable brushes … licking my skin like the tip of your tongue, coaxing out my colors. And your pencils … the way they shade my face and my body so intensely, giving me shape, giving me strength. You have a wonderful gift. You can make life rise up from nothing but whiteness.”

  They could hear the elevators whining. Any minute, backup would arrive.

  Red Mask slowly sank to his knees, although he was still holding the two knives over his head. Officer Gillow stepped up closer to him, pointing his revolver directly at his face.

  Red Mask was still staring at Molly. “You gave me personality. You gave me everything. I should be grateful to you, shouldn’t I? Except, you know, that I’m not. The only reason you painted me was so that I could be caught, and tried, and sentenced to death. No wonder I have no faith in human kindness.”

  “Drop the knives!” Officer Gillow demanded. He was almost as red in the face as Red Mask now, and he was sweating.

  Red Mask didn’t take his eyes off Molly. “But the way you brought me to life … that was so sensual. As soon as you painted my eyes I could see you. But I knew that I wanted revenge. That was all I was born for.”

  Without warning, he snapped his head around so that he was facing Officer Gillow. Officer Gillow shouted, “Hold it right there!” But Red Mask reared to his feet as if he were a red and black volcano erupting, both of his knives held up high.

  Officer Gillow fired two shots. Sissy ducked and covered her ears with her hands. She was sure that Officer Gillow must have hit Red Mask, but the shots didn’t seem to have any effect on him at all, except that black tatters flew from the back of his suit.

  Trevor came bounding across and tried to jump on Red Mask’s back. Molly cried out, “Trevor! Don’t!” But Red Mask swung his left elbow behind him, and then his right, and sent Trevor sprawling back onto the floor.

  Then, without any hesitation, he brought both knives down into Officer Gillow’s shoulders, and into his chest, and into his neck. Officer Gillow staggered backward, with both arms held up in front of him to protect his face, but Red Mask’s attack was so furious that he couldn’t fend him off. He fell backward over a chair, and then Red Mask was on top of him, his knives flashing like some terrible harvesting machine, chopping him apart.

  But Frank was on him now. He grabbed Red Mask around the neck in an armlock and forced his knee into the small of his back.

  Red Mask roared, “Get off me! Get off me! I’ll cut you to pieces!”

  “Oh, yeah? You son of a bitch! Just try it!”

  Frank pulled his head up even more, and gripped his right wrist and began to slam it against the side of one of the desks, again and again.

  “Get off me! I’m going to cut your guts out for this! Do you want to see your own intestines? I can show you, you maggot, in glorious Technicolor! Get off me!”

  Frank slammed Red Mask’s wrist right against the edge of the desk, and the knife went flying. Then he twisted him around and made a grab for his left wrist, too, pinning him down.

  For almost ten seconds, Red Mask strained against him, glaring directly into his face. But then he let out a bark of triumph. “You’re the same as me, goddammit! I can see it in your eyes! I can see it in your face! You’re painted, too!”

  Sissy cried out, “Frank!”—frightened for him, terrified that Red Mask was going to hurt him, but at the same time pleading for his forgiveness for bringing him back to life.

  As Frank and Red Mask continued to struggle, Trevor and Molly had pulled Officer Gillow well away from them. Officer Gillow was decorated in stab wounds, and his uniform was soaked in blood. He was quivering from head to foot, but he was still conscious. He held up his blood-slippery radio and said to Trevor, “Call them. Find out what the fuck is holding them up.”

  Trevor took the radio and clicked the switch.

  “Hello? Hello? This is Trevor Sawyer with Officer Gillow, on the seventeenth floor. We have serious trouble here. Officer Gillow’s badly hurt. Hurry!”

  “—goddamned elevators are stuck—have to use the stairs—”

  “For Christ’s sake, hurry! And send paramedics, too!”

  Frank and Red Mask struggled and grunted and punched at each other. They rolled over and over across the office floor, colliding with desks and chairs. Red Mask still had one knife left, and he repeatedly jabbed it at Frank’s face, trying to put out his eyes.

  He succeeded in nicking Frank three or four times on the forehead and once on the bridge of his nose, but Frank had his wrist in too tight a grip for him to succeed in blinding him.

  Sissy said to Trevor, “Here—hit him with a chair.” But even though Trevor picked up a stacking chair and circled around the two wrestling men, there were rolling over too rapidly for him to be sure that he would hit Red Mask, and not stun Frank instead.

  Red Mask grunt
ed and tried to jab at Frank’s face again. But Frank managed to pin his wrist to the carpet and punch him on the side of the head. He pulled himself upward so that he could press his right knee on Red Mask’s wrist with all of his weight, and at the same time he punched him again and again until Red Mask roared at him in frustration.

  “Sissy!” he shouted. “Sissy, your lighter!”

  “What?”

  “Your lighter! Throw me your lighter!”

  Sissy fumbled her lighter out of her purse. Trevor took it from her and tossed it to him. Frank caught it one-handed.

  “Frank!” said Sissy.

  Frank was sitting astride Red Mask now, but Red Mask was much heavier than Frank, and very strong, and he was gradually forcing Frank to tilt to the right, where his knife blade was still in his hand and sticking upward. One powerful push, and he could force Frank sideways onto the floor, and the point of the knife would be driven straight into his ear.

  “No rest for the wicked!” gasped Red Mask. “No mercy for the innocent!”

  “Why don’t you save your—”

  “No mercy for you, either! Nothing for you but blood! And more blood!”

  There was a moment of supreme struggle, in which both men were pushing against each other to the very limits of their strength. Frank’s teeth were clenched, but Red Mask’s mouth remained a black soulless slit. All the same, he was uttering this high, continuous hiss, like steam pressure building up to danger level.

  Red Mask was gripping his left wrist, but Frank gradually managed to lift the cigarette lighter up toward Red Mask’s face.

  His voice dropped an octave. “You wouldn’t dare,” he said, hoarsely.

  “Oh? You don’t think so?”

  “What are you, some kind of a martyr? I burn, you burn. You think any of these people are worth it?”

  “You value your life.”

  “I was created. I came out of the whiteness. The same way you did. We were like Arctic explorers, lost in the snow, and then one day we just appeared.”

  Red Mask coughed. It was the first sign of how much physical strain he was under. “You wouldn’t throw your life away, would you? Just to punish me?”