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.
He removed his left hand from Shoshi's body, lowered it to himself, began stroking himself. Leering.
"Two weapons." Giggle. "Real science."
Daniel lowered the gun until it was level with the organ. Took another step forward.
Baldwin laughed, quickened his stroke. Kept sawing the knife in counterpoint.
"Silly millimeter, bye-bye kikette."
The voice rising in pitch, the erection hardening, tilted upward.
Power was everything with this one. Control, the key.
Daniel played along with it. Said, "Please."
"Please," laughed Baldwin. He masturbated a while longer, stopped, and ran his nail along the upper cutting edge of the knife. The lower edge still resting on Shoshi's windpipe.
"This is a Liston amputator, kikescum. It knows how to fast-dance, cuts through bone like butter." Grin. Giggle. The knife lifted, then descended.
"Please. Don't hurt her."
"Blink the wrong way and we'll be playing football with her fucking head."
"Please. I beg you."
Baldwin's eyebrows arched. He licked his lips.
"You really mean that, you insignificant piece of roach shit, don't you?"
"Yes." Forward.
"Yes, Doctor."
"Yes, Doctor." Begging, putting on a servile face and keeping Baldwin's eyes off his legs. Moving close enough to Shoshi's leg to grab her ankle, pull her away. But the knife was still kissing her flesh. A muscle twitch could sever her jugular.
" Yes, please, Herr Doktor Professor!"
"Yes, please, Herr Doktor Professor."
Baldwin smiled, sighed. Then his face creased abruptly into a livid hate-mask.
"THEN DROP THE BANG-BANG, FUCKHEAD!"
Daniel lowered the Beretta further. Begging for mercy as he did it. Scanning the room and taking in the layout.
No more doors. This was the end point.
"Please, Doctor, don't hurt her. Take me instead."
Idiocy, but it amused the bastard, purchased time.
Shiny things hanging from a nail embedded in a lath. Gold hoop earrings. Three pairs.
In the corner, an ice cooler. Next to it a crowbar. Too far.
Wall racks holding two large flashlights, more sheets, pillows. Stacks of folded clothing: Dresses, undergarments. A white dress striped with blue, torn, a strip missing.
Next to the clothing, jars filled with clear liquid and labeled with gummed stickers. Soft, pinkish things floating within.
Two he recognized as kidneys.
Others, unfamiliar. Roundish, clearly visceral.
"DROP IT, SHITBRAIN, OR I CUT HER!"
Bellowing, but subtle aftertones of panic.
Cowardice.
A passive monster, picking off the weak. Even after he had them in his clutches, putting them to sleep before doing his dirty work-terrified of resistance. Cutting himself superficially, but Daniel knew he'd chance nothing that endangered him.
He lowered the gun all the way. Baldwin was distracted, again, by its descent.
Daniel moved closer to the head of the table, looked at Baldwin, then past him, at a stuffed animal perched on the rack below the jars. Then he saw the black patch over the eye, realized it was Dayan. Stiff as a toy. No-paralyzed, the big brown eyes moving back and forth, following him. Begging for rescue.