Roses Are Red - James Patterson [86]
He flailed at me again with the large 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 Glock. The bullet hit him in the upper chest. It didn’t stop him! He spun sideways, righted himself, and he was on me, screaming, “Fuck you, Cross. You’re nothing!”
He was too close for me to swing, and I didn’t want to shoot again and kill him if I didn’t have to. 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 in to my house. You fool! You’re all goddamn fools. Listen to me, asshole. Listen! You got the wrong man!”
Chapter 115
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. Once Szabo’s bullet wound was treated and bandaged, Betsey and I tried to question him. 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 wrapped his arms around himself and was silent.
He 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 leave 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 cell block. 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