Roses Are Red

Chapter One Hundred and Eleven

I used a small, very useful lock-pick and got into Szabo's apartment in less time than it takes to say' illegal entry. "No one was ever going to know I'd been in there.

I was pla

He had a collection of sharpened hunting knives, and he also collected old guns: Civil War rifles, German Lugers, American Colts. There were souvenirs from Vietnam: A ceremonial sword, and a battalion flag of the K10 NVA Battalion, North Vietnamese. Mostly, he had books and magazines in the apartment. The Evil That Men Do. Crime and Punishment. The Shooting Gazette. Scientific American.

So far, no big surprises. Other than that he had the apartment in the first place.

"Szabo, are you him?" I finally asked out loud. Are you the mastermind? What the hell is your game, man?"

I quickly searched the living room, a small bedroom, then a claustrophobic den that obviously served as an office.

Szabo, is this where you plotted everything out?

An unfinished, hand-written letter was lying on the desk in his den. It looked like he'd been working on it recently. I began to read.

Mr. Arthur Lee A Lee Laundry

This is a warning, and if I were you, I'd take it very seriously.

Three weeks ago, I dropped off some dry cleaning to you. Before I send out my cleaning, I always enclose a-list of all articles in the dry-cleaning bag, and a brief description-of each article.

I keep a copy for myself!

The list is orderly and efficient.

The letter went on to say that some clothes of Szabo's were missing. He'd spoken to someone at the laundry and been promised the clothing would be sent right over. It wasn't.

I march right down to your cleaners. I meet with YOU. I am enraged that YOU too can stand there and tell me you don't have my clothes. Then for the final insult. You tell me my doorman probably stole them.

I don't have a fucking doorman! I live in the same building you do!

Consider yourself warned. Frederic Szabo

What the hell was this? I wondered as I finished reading the odd, crazy and seemingly inconsequential letter.

I shook my head back and forth. Was the A Lee Laundry his next target? Was he pla

I opened the drawers in a small credenza and found more letters written to other companies: Citibank, Chase, First Union Bank, Exxon, Kodak, Bell Atlantic, scores of others.

I sat down and skimmed through the letters. All of them were hate mail. Crazy stuff. This was Frederic Szabo as he'd been described in his hospital workups. Paranoid; angry at the world; a curmudgeonous fifty-one-year-old who had been fired from every job he'd had during the past ten years.

I was getting more confused rather than clearer about Szabo. I ran my fingers along the top of a tall filing cabinet. There were papers up there. I pulled them down and took a look.

There were blueprints of the banks that had been robbed!

And a layout of the Renaissance Mayflower Hotel!

"Christ, it is him," I muttered out loud. What were the blueprints doing here, though?

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 pi