White on white.
So still. Oh, God, no-but no blood other than the needle mark, the body sculpture-perfect, not a wound. Her chest rose and left in a shadow, narcotized cadence.
The gift of time
Behind her, a mass of white. White hands-big hands, thick-fingered. One gripping the handle of the knife. The other submerged in her curls, entangled. Stroking, caressing
Ugly laughter.
Baldwin, standing at the head of the table-looming, naked, Shoshi's head shielding his chest, her life contingent upon the turn of a wrist.
Leering, confident.
The tabletop bisected him at the navel. What was visible of his upper torso was massive, armored with muscle, slathered with something oily.
The fluorescence had bleached him an unearthly lavender-gray. Despite the cold, he was sweating, his thin hair plastered in strands, like wet twine, across the bare gray crown.
His body was shaved girl-smooth and prickly with goose bumps, the flesh glowing moist, shiny, slick as some nocturnal burrowing grub.
He stood slightly right of table-center, left leg exposed. Swastika-shaped scars covered his thigh-malignant purple brands. A fresh swastika wound had been incised just above the knee, the surrounding skin rosy with smeared blood.
Staring at Daniel, the eyes cold, flat, twin peepholes into hell.
Laid out before him was a sparkling array of surgical instruments-knives, needles, scissors, clamps-on a precisely folded napkin of white linen. Next to the napkin was a hypodermic syringe half-filled with something milky.
Shoshi dead-still.
Abba's here.
A carotid pulse bounced bravely under the knife blade. Daniel aimed the Beretta.
Baldwin pulled Shoshi's head higher, so that her curls bearded his chin. He laughed again, unalarmed.
'Hi, I'm Dr. Terrific. What seems to be the problem?'
All at once the knife began sawing across Shoshi's neck. Daniel stopped breathing, started to scream, pounce-but no blood.
Laughter. A game. The grin widening. More sawing.
'Like my fleshfiddle, kikefuck?'
The pearl handle of the knife caught the light and tossed it back in Daniel's face.
White on white.
On white.
A white swastika painted crudely on the dark stone floor. Painted words, familiar English block letters:
HEIL SCHWANN!! THE SCHWANN SEED LIVES!!!
Baldwin's face constricted with ecstasy. Drunk on the game, not noticing as Daniel shifted to the right. Took a step. Another.
'Don't move, kikefuck.'
The warning uttered around that sickening grin. A harsh voice. Mechanical. No trace of the cowboy drawl.
Deep, yet topped by a strident tentativeness-echoes.
The echoing screams of abandoned, victimized women. Daniel swore he could hear them, wanted to cover his ears.
Baldwin's mouth spread the grin wider.
The fingers of his left hand fanned down over Shoshi's face, spatulate tips fondling her cheekbones, her lips, as the right one held the knife in place. Baldwin moved it back and forth in a horror-tease.
A giggle: 'Never had one this tender.'
Daniel moved another centimeter to the right.
'Drop the bang-bang or I'll whittle on her.' Grin. Long white teeth. Purple tongue. Lavender lips.
Daniel lowered the Beretta slowly, watched Baldwin's eyes follow the weapon down-poor concentration. He pushed forward with his toes. Another quarter-step, and another. On the right side of the table now. Closer.
'I said drop it, nigger-kike. All the way.' Baldwin pressed the flat side of the knife blade against Shoshi's neck, obscuring the pulse. He stretched luxuriantly, gorging himself on power. But shifting to the right, simultaneously, in unconscious defense.
It exposed his crotch. His penis was semi-erect, a starched-white cylinder hovering tentatively above the branded thigh.
