I don't remember exactly what happened next. Maybe it was shifting light, or motion in the room that I caught out of the corner of my eye.
I turned away from Szabo's work desk. My eyes went wide with surprise, then total shock. My heart skipped.
A man was coming at me with a hunting knife clasped in his hand. He was wearing a President Clinton mask. He was screaming my name!
Chapter One Hundred and Twelve
"CROSS!"
I reached out both hands to try and stop the arm chopping down toward me. The hunting knife it held was much like the ones on display in the other room. My hands wrapped around the powerful arm. If this was Szabo, he was stronger and a lot more agile than he'd looked at the hospital.
"What are you doing?" he screamed. "How dare you? How dare you touch my personal property?" He sounded completely crazy. "These letters are private!"
I pivoted off my right leg and yanked the hand holding the knife sharply. The blade stuck several inches into the wooden desk. The masked man grunted and cursed.
Now what? I couldn't chance bending down to get my gun from my ankle holster. The masked man easily wriggled the knife free. He swung it in a small lethal arc. He missed the thrust by a few inches. The blade whistled past my temple.
"You're going to die, Cross," he screamed
I spotted a cut-glass baseball on his desk. It was the only thing resembling a weapon that I saw anywhere. I grabbed it. Sidearmed it at him!
I heard a crunching sound as the paperweight struck a glancing blow off the side of his skull. He roared loudly, angrily, like an injured animal. Then he wobbled backwards. He didn't go down.
I bent quickly and pulled at my Clock. It hitched once, then came free in my hand.
He flailed at me again with the large, lethal-looking knife.
"Stop!” I yelled," I will shoot you."
He kept coming. He roared out words that were unintelligible. He took another swipe with the knife. This time, he cut me on the right wrist. It burned, hurt like hell.
I fired the Clock. The bullet hit him in the upper chest. It didn't stop him! He spun sideways, righted himself. "Fuck you, Cross. You're nothing."
I drove my head hard into his chest. I aimed for the general area where he'd been wounded.
He screamed, a horrifying high-pitched moan. Then he dropped the knife.
I wrapped both arms as tight as I could around him. My legs churned hard. I kept driving him across the room until we hit a wall. The whole building shuddered.
Somebody in the next apartment banged on a wall and complained about the noise.
"Call the police!” I yelled. "Call nine-one-one."
I had him pinned to the floor, and he was moaning loudly that I'd hurt him. He continued to struggle and fight. I hit him squarely on the jaw and he finally stopped. Then I pulled off the rubber mask.
It was Szabo.
"You're the Mastermind," I gasped. "It is you."
"I didn't do anything," he snarled back. He started to struggle again. He cursed loudly. "You broke into my house. You fool! You're all goddamn fools. Listen to me, asshole. Listen! You got the wrong man!"
Chapter One Hundred and Thirteen
It was a madhouse and that certainly seemed appropriate for the dramatic capture. A team of FBI technicians arrived at Frederic Szabo's apartment in less than an hour. I recognized two of them, Greg Wojcik and Jack Heeney, from past jobs. They were the FBI's best, and they began to expertly take the place apart.
I stayed on and watched the painstaking search. The techies were looking for false walls, loose floorboards, anywhere Szabo might have concealed evidence, or possibly hidden fifteen million dollars.
Betsey Cavalierre got to the apartment just after the technical crew. I was glad to see her. She and I tried to question Frederic Szabo. He wouldn't talk to us. Not a word. He seemed crazier than ever; manic one moment, then quiet and unresponsive the next. He did what he was known for at Hazelwood he spit at me several times. Szabo spit until his mouth was dry. Then he wrapped his arms around himself, and was silent.
Szabo shut his eyes tight. He wouldn't look at either of us, wouldn't respond in any way. Finally, he was taken away in a straitjacket.
"Where's the money? "Betsey asked as we watched Szabo leaving the building.
"He's the only one who knows and he sure as hell isn't talking. I have never, ever felt more out of it on a case."
The next day was a rainy, miserable, godawful Friday. Betsey and I went to the Metropolitan Detention Center where Frederic Szabo was being held.
The press was gathered in large numbers everywhere outside the building. Neither of us said a word as we passed through them. We hid under and behind a big black umbrella and the streaking rain as we hurried inside.
"Pitiful, goddamn vultures," Betsey whispered to me," Three things are certain in this life: Death, taxes, and that the press will get it wrong. They will, you know."
"Once somebody writes it wrong, it stays wrong," I said.
We met with Szabo in a small, anonymous-looking room attached to the cellblock. He was no longer confined in a straitjacket, but he looked out of it. His court-appointed lawyer was present. Her name was Lynda Cole, and she didn't seem to like Szabo much more than we did.
I was surprised that Szabo hadn't gone after a bigger-name attorney, but just about everything he did surprised me. He didn't think like other people. That was his strength, wasn't it? It was what he loved about himself, and maybe it was what had brought him down.
Once again, Szabo wouldn't look at us for several minutes. Betsey and I tried a steady battery of questions, but he was completely, stubbornly unresponsive. His dosage of haldol had been increased, and I wondered if that had anything to do with his listlessness. Somehow I doubted it. I felt he might be play-acting again.
"This is hopeless, "Betsey finally said after we'd been there for over an hour. She was right. It was futile to spend anymore time with Szabo that day.
She and I got up to leave, and so did Lynda Cole, who was small like Betsey, and very attractive. She hadn't said more than a dozen words during the hour. There wasn't any need for her to talk if her client didn't. Szabo suddenly looked up from a spot on the table. He'd been staring at it for at least twenty minutes.