The Man Behind the Mask

Plop. It landed on the bed, a few feet from my Pipe-Dream pink toes. I gaped at it, gulped—then shifted my gaze to the fight again.

The guy in leather was still kicking. Some major kung fu moves, I kid you not. His boot connected with the other guy’s head. That guy went down.

But now the second ski mask had his gun out. The one in leather ducked as the gun went off. It made an odd pinging, airy sound. Silencer? I guess.

The shot hit an armoire over in the corner, splitting the gorgeous dark wood. The guy in leather dived for the guy with the gun. The shooter toppled, his second shot going into the ceiling, sending plaster trickling down. The fall broke his grip and the second gun went spinning under a bureau.

Ski mask number one was rallying, crouched now on hands and knees in a corner, shaking his head, moaning a little. I looked at the gun by my feet.

Better get that, I thought.

In the meantime, the one in leather and the second guy were up again and trading blows. The guy in leather delivered a right hook that sent ski mask number two lurching back. He hit the wall and steadied himself, then leapt on the guy in leather, who reeled back and bumped a chair, which hit a side table. A china lamp tottered and hit the rug, not shattering, but cracking neatly in half with a sound like a big eggshell splitting.

I whimpered some more and reached out my foot toward the gun.

The guy in leather slithered free of the one who’d just jumped him. He landed a punch—a good one, hard in the belly.

“Whoof,” said the guy in the ski mask, a sound halfway between a hard grunt and a big dog’s low bark. The one in the leather mask hit him again, a lightning fast karate-type chop to the back of the neck.

The guy crumpled to the fabulous antique rug and lay still beside the split-open lamp. Ski mask number two was down for good, it looked like to me.

I had my pink toes curled over the gun. Wincing, sure any second I would shoot myself in the foot, I inched the gun toward me over the crimson velvet. When it was close enough to grab by just reaching down, I got it in my shaking hands and aimed it, my quivering index finger on the trigger.

“Stop,” I said in a terrified croak. “Freeze.”

As if anybody cared. Ski mask number one was through shaking his head. He lurched upright and launched himself at the one in leather, taking them both to the floor. They rolled, punching at each other, grunting as each blow connected.

“No,” I said, in a tiny squeak. “Uh, ooh, ah, ga.…” I held the gun out at them with both trembling hands and jerked and twitched in terror and sympathetic pain as each blow landed.

No, I was not particularly helpful.

But think about it.

Whose side should I have been on, anyway? Who should I be shooting? Like I had a clue. Like I had any idea why this was even happening—and then, all of a sudden, before I could even begin to make up my mind what to do next…

It was over.

The guy in leather was still standing, the other two sprawled at his feet, neither one moving. The expressionless black mask turned my way. “Are you injured?”

I held the quivering gun on him and slowly shook my head.

He extended a hand. “Bring the gun to me.” He said each word with great care—as if addressing a total hysteric. And you know what? At that moment, that’s pretty much what I was.

“No,” I managed to get out in a wimpy little whisper. “I don’t think so.”

That gave him pause. For about a half a second.

And then he simply ignored me. I braced against the headboard, the gun still pointed—and still quivering—in his general direction. He went about tying up the guys in the ski masks.

He did it with lamp cords. Just ripped them from the wall and the bases of the lamps and crouched over the men he’d beaten, yanking their lax hands together at their backs and whipping the cords around their pressed-together wrists.

It was all very smooth, accomplished in maybe sixty seconds, tops. Once he’d tied them both, he tore off their masks, one and then the other, grabbing each by the hair to get a good look at his face, then letting go with a shove, so their heads thudded hard against the rug.

Did he recognize them? I didn’t ask.

As he stood from unmasking the second guy, it came to me very clearly that now he would be dealing with me. I didn’t think I wanted that.

“Stop,” I croaked. “Stop, or I’ll shoot.”

He took a step toward me.

“I mean it. I am going to shoot.”

Another step.

About then, I realized…

I couldn’t do it. I could not pull that trigger. Not for the life of me—and it seemed at the time that the life of me was precisely the issue. He took another step.

The guards!

The words exploded in my brain. Why the hell hadn’t I thought of the guards before? Maybe they were too far off—beyond at least two sets of doors, who knew how many hallways between—to have heard the fight. But by golly they were close enough to hear me scream.

I did scream. “Guards! Help!” And then I just shut my eyes, threw back my head and let the pure sound rip.

It was amazing, the earsplitting perfection of that scream. Jamie Lee in Halloween could not hold a candle, you hear what I’m saying? I screamed again, piercing as the first time.

I heard doors flung back somewhere in the suite, booted feet pounding my way.

I stopped screaming and opened my eyes.

The man in the leather mask had vanished—escaped, no doubt, through the empty mirror frame into the secret passageway. There were only the split-open lamp and a couple of overturned chairs, the bound, unconscious men on the floor, and me—in my SpongeBob pajamas with a big black gun in my hand.

Chapter 5

The two guards kicked open the bedroom door at almost the precise second that Brit and Eric burst through the mirror frame.

All four had weapons drawn, though Brit wore her Wile E. Coyotes and Eric had on soft drawstring flannel pants, his chest bare. They all froze at the sight of the two men on the floor. They took in the overturned furniture, the broken lamps and shattered knickknacks—and me. On the bed. With the gun.

All four gaped. Seriously. They went slack-jawed at the sight.

Which struck me as hilarious, just hysterically funny. A wild trill of laughter escaped me.

“Dulce?” Brit said my name as if she wasn’t really sure it was me sitting there.

And I was instantly appalled at myself. What was I laughing at? This was not funny. Not funny at all. I shut my mouth on a dry sob.

There was an extended moment of bleak silence.