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Cold air, chemically bitter. Another trough, more drains.
At the center was a long steel-topped table on stout metal legs that had been bolted to the floor.
Daniel stood at its foot, looking down on soft whiteness, white buds-the soles of two small feet. Two fragile calves, a hairless pubis, spindle ribs, concave belly, flat chest.
His baby's naked body, the dusky skin blanched by the light.
She lay motionless in a nest of white sheeting, a pinpoint of red in the crook of one Jimp arm.
Her neck and shoulders had been propped up on several rolled pillows, thrusting the head back, chin upward, mouth open. Her lily-stem throat forced into the most vulnerable of convexities.
The sacrificial arch.
He yearned to rush to her, cover her, was stopped by the knife that caressed her trachea. Long-bladed, double-edged, pearl handled.
White on white.
So still. Oh, God, no-but no blood other than the needle mark, the body sculpture-perfect, not a wound. Her chest rose and left in a shadow, narcotized cadence.
The gift of time
Behind her, a mass of white. White hands-big hands, thick-fingered. One gripping the handle of the knife. The other submerged in her curls, entangled. Stroking, caressing
Ugly laughter.
Baldwin, standing at the head of the table-looming, naked, Shoshi's head shielding his chest, her life contingent upon the turn of a wrist.
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 fa
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."