“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 grunted 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?”