Death Mask

“Hmm, okay. But I’m not so sure he should have taken her downtown.”

“I didn’t think it was such a good idea, either. But he said that he and Victoria weren’t going to be using any elevators, and besides, he doesn’t believe that Red Mask will try to attack any more people, not with so many cops around.”

“Maybe not the real Red Mask. but how about the other two?”

“That’s what I said. But he doesn’t believe in them. I mean, he believes in them, but he thinks they’re just two guys with their faces painted red. He doesn’t think that they’re my drawings, come to life.”

She paused, and then she said, “He loves you, Sissy. You know that. But he thinks you’re losing it, and there’s not much I can do to persuade him otherwise.”

“He thinks I’m going senile?”

“He didn’t exactly put it like that.”

“Oh — so how did he put it, exactly?”

“I think he used the word bananas.”

“I’ll give him bananas. I’ll give him bananas where you don’t need Ray-Bans.”

“Come on, Sissy. You know what he’s like. Pragmatic.”

“I guess so. I just hope that he’s careful. Pragmatic or not, he’s still precious to me. And so is Victoria.”

“So you’re okay for lunch, then?”

“Sure, I guess so. What do you have in mind?”

“A huge chicken stir-fry at Through The Garden, with Jamaican glaze.”

Sissy couldn’t help smiling. “Have you ever heard of the phrase, seriously tempted?”

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE Blood on the Skywalk

“Okay,” said Trevor. “How do you spell embarrass?”

“Oh, Dad! You’re not going to make me spell all day, are you? I did enough spelling at school!”

“Just one more word. Impress me.”

Trevor and Victoria were walking along the second-story skywalk that overlooked Fountain Square. On the opposite side of the square stood the Tyler David-son fountain, on top of which stood the nine-foot-high figure of a woman, with water cascading from her outstretched hands. Even though it had been raining, the square would normally have been crowded on a Saturday morning. Today, however, it was almost deserted, with shoppers hurrying across the glistening wet bricks as if they would rather be anyplace else but here.

White squad cars were parked on all four corners, and uniformed officers were gathered in almost every store doorway. Trevor had seen on the news this morning that a twenty-one-strong team from the FBI had been called in to help the CPD, including profilers and experts in serial killings and terrorist activities.

“Two r’s and two s’s,” said Victoria.

“That’s right!” said Trevor. Then he frowned. “At least I think that’s right.”

“It’s easy. You just have to remember ‘she was rosy red with severe shame.’ Two r’s and two s’s.”

“Hey, that’s excellent! And just for that, we can go to Hathaway’s after we’ve bought your jeans, and I’ll buy you a hand-dipped chocolate shake. They’re really good for the waistline, so they tell me.”

They crossed over Fifth Street and followed the skywalk past Tower Place Mall. The bridge that crossed over Race Street into Saks Fifth Avenue was all glassed in, and the windows were still beaded with raindrops. They had to go to Saks because Saks was the only store in Cincinnati that carried preworn, prewashed 7 For All Mankind jeans for preteens, and that was what Victoria insisted on having.

“Look at the state of these jeans,” Trevor complained, as they rummaged through the denim department. “They’re all worn out. They’re rags. This is more like a thrift store.”

“Daddy, that’s the whole point. What do you think of these? Aren’t they the neatest of the neat?”

“My angel, they have a huge triangular hole in the seat. They’re also sixty-five bucks.”

“I can sew up the hole. Please, Daddy. I love them.”

Trevor turned toward the assistant, a white-faced girl in a Marc Jacobs blouse and a pair of jeans with rips in the knees. He smiled conspiratorially, as if to say, Kids, what can you do? But the assistant gave him a wintry look, as if to say, You’re an almost-middle-aged man wearing a brown sport coat, what do you know?

“Cash or charge?” she asked him.

“How about a discount for the hole?”

“You want a discount for the hole?”

“I can ask, can’t I?” Trevor poked his finger through it, and waggled it. “I can’t have my nine-year-old daughter displaying her tush to all and sundry.”

“Daddy!” Victoria protested.

“I’ll ask my supervisor,” said the assistant. She left the word asshole unspoken.

Ten minutes later they left the designer denim department. Victoria said, “Daddy — sometimes you can be so-o-o embarrassing.”

“Two r’s and two s’s — right? But I got us a seven-fifty discount, didn’t I?”

They had almost reached the Race Street bridge leading back to Tower Place Mall when Trevor heard someone hurrying up behind them. Without warning, a heavily built man pushed between them, almost knocking Victoria sideways.

Trevor shouted, “Hey! Watch where you’re going!” But the man kept on storming toward the bridge — at least until he reached it, when he suddenly stopped.

There were at least twenty people crossing the bridge, including six or seven children of various ages. Trevor witnessed what happened next, but he could hardly believe it was real.

Another heavily built man had appeared at the opposite end of the bridge. Trevor saw that he was wearing a black suit and a red shirt, and he had close-cropped, brushlike hair. But it was his face that alarmed Trevor the most. It was practically scarlet, with narrow black eyes and a thin black gash for a mouth.

The second man crossed his arms, and then uncrossed them, pulling two enormous triangular knives out of his coat. The first man did the same. The knives made a sliding, metallic sound, and they flashed brightly as the men held them up over their heads. A woman shopper screamed, twice, and a man shouted, “What the hell? What?”

The two men started to walk toward each other, making stabbing gestures in the air. The bridge was only a hundred feet long, if that, and the shoppers and their children were caught in between them. Some of them rushed to the windows and started to bang on the glass, trying to attract the attention of the car drivers who were passing beneath them. Others started crying out and huddling together.

They stood no chance at all. The two men bore down on them from either end of the bridge, chopping at them with such ferocity that Trevor saw fingers flying through the air. There was blood everywhere, a blizzard of blood. It spattered the windows and splashed across the skywalk in long arterial loops. The shoppers dropped to their knees, their hands covering their heads to protect themselves, but the two men continued to stab them, piercing their hands and their arms and their shoulders and their backs.

Nobody shouted or screamed. Instead, they whimpered, like animals. And all the time the knives flashed up and the knives flashed down, and there was the chih! chih! chih! sound of constant stabbing.

Trevor seized Victoria’s sleeve and yanked her close to him. He dragged her backward into a rail of summer coats, so that they toppled over, and were buried. Victoria was gasping, “They’re killing them, Daddy! All those poor