Death Mask

voices, as faint as flies, but it was impossible to make out what they were saying.

“Control,” he repeated. “Can you hear me, control?”

There was no response. Detective Bellman said, “Come on, man. We just can’t get a signal in here, that’s all. These walls — they must be six feet thick.”

“Maybe you’re right,” said Detective Kunzel. He glanced upward again. “Let’s get back outside.”

They were less than halfway down the ramp, however, when they heard another scream, just as agonized as the first, but even higher, like the climactic note in some hideous opera. It echoed and echoed down through the tiers until it abruptly ended with a loud bang, which sounded more like a huge door slamming than a gunshot.

Detective Kunzel dragged out his gun again and started to run back upward, his belly joggling under his brown checkered shirt. Detective Bellman reluctantly ran after him.

When he reached the crest of the ramp, Detective Kunzel roared out, “CPD detectives! CPD detectives! What in the name of God is happening up there, you guys? SWAT commander! Can you hear me? Sergeant Rickwood! Kenneth! Special Agent Morrison!”

There was no answer, only a strange scraping noise, and then nothing.

Detective Kunzel said, “Jesus,” and hurried over to the stairs.

“Mike!” said Detective Bellman. “This is not a good idea!”

Detective Kunzel opened the door to the stairwell. He was panting and sweating. “People are being hurt up there, Freddie. What do you expect me to do?”

“Be serious, Mike. If the Red Masks have killed all of those SWAT guys and those two FBI agents, what do you think they’re going to do to us two mooks?”

“It’s our job to save people in danger, Freddie. To protect and serve.”

“Sure. But it’s not our job to commit suicide, is it? Who was the first person to tell me that you never rush headlong into any situation where you might get killed?”

“So what are we going to do, Freddie? Mosey back down to the street to round up some more backup, while even more of our people are being killed?”

“For Christ’s sake, Mike. You don’t know they’re being killed. You don’t have any idea what’s happening, do you?”

“What did it sound like, Freddie? People don’t scream like that unless they’re sure that they’re going to die. Don’t tell me you don’t remember that young guy on Walnut Street — the one who got crushed by that Metro bus? Now, I’m going up there, okay? And there’s nothing that you can do or say to stop me.”

With that, he seized hold of the handrail and started to heave himself up the staircase.

Detective Bellman hesitated, then he shouted, “I’m going for backup! Okay?”

“Okay! Okay! Do whatever you damn well like!”

CHAPTER THIRTY Carrion

Detective Kunzel reached the next level and kicked open the door. He listened and waited for a moment. Nothing. No sound at all, except for dripping, and the faintest soughing of a draft down the stairwell, as if the parking structure were an elderly cancer victim who was breathing his last.

He stuck his head out, looking quickly to the left and then to the right. He kept his gun held tight in both hands, the slide cocked back ready.

“Red Mask!” he shouted in a phlegmy voice.

Still nothing.

“Special Agent Morrison! Special Agent Greene!”

He waited and waited, but there was no response. He started to climb up to the next level, panting. His shoes made a chuffing sound on the concrete steps, like a train. He wished to God that he had gone easy on the scrapple and goetta breakfasts. His chest felt tight and the blood was thumping in his ears.

He had one more flight of steps to go when he heard another agonized scream. He stopped, gasping for breath, and listened. Although the hollow structure of the building made it very hard to decide exactly where the scream was coming from, he could tell that it was close.

God save whoever that is, and please save me, too. He knew that he had to go on. He could have stayed here in the stairwell and waited for Detective Bellman to bring more backup. But if he did, and he later discovered that he could prevented more officers from being killed, how was he going to live with himself for the rest of his life?

He continued to climb.

“I’m coming, you bastard,” he repeated. “I’m coming, you bastard. I’m coming. You. Bastard.”

He reached the next landing. He dragged out his big red handkerchief and wiped the sweat from his face, and wiped his hands, too, and the butt of his automatic. He crossed himself, even though he wasn’t a Catholic. He thought that he might as well hedge his bets. Then he pushed open the door and stepped past it, moving across the floor as nimbly as a waltz instructor, swinging his gun from left to right, and back again.

At first he thought that this floor was deserted, too. There were no vehicles next to the stairwell, and all the parking spaces on the right-hand side were taken up with broken cardboard boxes and rolls of worn-out green stair carpet.

He waited for a few seconds, and then he edged his way around the stairwell to the main parking area, still treading lightly, still swinging his gun. But as he came around the corner, he stopped dead, and his stomach seemed to drop as if he had stepped off the edge of a building.

Hanging from the sprinkler pipes that ran across the ceiling were the mutilated bodies of the SWAT team, all ten of them, and the two FBI agents, too. Somehow their heads had been forced into the gap between the pipes and the concrete ceiling, and then their bodies had been reduced to rags, as if each of them had been stabbed more than a hundred times.

Detective Kunzel tried his radio again, but it still produced nothing but a crackle. He advanced slowly across the concrete floor, half crouching, keeping his gun held high. He glanced at each of the bodies he passed, but he didn’t want to look too closely. Some of them had been so severely cut up that their insides had dropped out and were hanging between their thighs in glistening loops. Most of them were still dripping blood.

He felt that he was making his way through the larder of some terrible flesh-hungry monster. He crossed himself again, but this time it was less for his own protection than a gesture of respect for the dead.

“Red Mask!” he shouted. He tried to sound stern, but his voice came out as more of a scream. “Red Mask! Where are you hiding yourself, you sadistic bastard?”

He had to sidestep to make his way around the suspended bodies of Special Agents Morrison and Greene. Special Agent Morrison’s face had been so comprehensively sliced open that Detective Kunzel recognized him only from his dark suit and his highly polished black oxfords.

“Red Mask! Come out and show yourself! Or are you too goddamned chickenshit?”

He crossed the parking area toward the elevator.

“Red Mask! You wanted to see me? Well, here I am!”

As he turned the corner, he jerked in shock and almost let off a shot. On the whitewashed brick wall directly in front of him was a life-sized painting of Red Mask, with two bloodstained butcher knives, one in each hand. His face was scarlet and he was grinning triumphantly.

Detective Kunzel spun around, expecting the real Red Mask to come up behind him, but there was nobody there. He approached the painting with a mixture of bewilderment and dread. Who the hell had painted it, and why? It was so detailed that it almost looked alive.

“Red Mask!” he shouted, yet again.

“Looking for me?” said a hoarse voice, close behind him.

He swung around again. Red Mask was standing only a few feet away from him, in a red shirt and a black suit. His face was even redder than Detective Kunzel had imagined it would be, and shinier, and his eyes and his mouth were thin black slits, as if they had been cut into his face with a sharp knife.