When they returned upstairs, Gelsey placed the mask on her coffee table, then stared at it. The rain, Janek saw, had tapered off.
" Dr. Z had a collection of masks," she said. "They were firm and beautiful, not like this. I'd look at them during sessions. They spoke of marvelous places-ancient African kingdoms, South Sea islands… "
"I think you should just throw it away," he said.
She shook her head. "I'll cut it up and use the pieces in my paintings.
Glue them to the canvas, then paint them over."
He liked that: destroy a personal demon by incorporating it into a work of art. It struck him as a healthy version of the use she'd made of the trophies she'd taken off marks, perhaps a civilized variation on the tribal practice of ingesting an enemy one had slain.
"Who wore it?" she asked suddenly.
He'd been dreading the question.
"Who do you think?"
"One of his buddies, I guess." She looked at Janek. "No?"
"I have another idea." He shrugged. "Of course I have no proof.
She looked around the room, at her many versions of Leering Man.
"My mother, wasn't it?" Janek didn't reply. "Yeah, it figures." He was surprised at how easily she seemed to accept the notion. "She let him do those things to me. Maybe even suggested them because she didn't want him to do them to her. Maybe she even got off on it."
Gelsey grinned; Janek recognized the smile of a person trying to disguise the deepest perplexity. "Ever hear of anything like that?"
He nodded. "It's a lot more common than you think."
She shook her head. "I wonder if Dr. Z knew. He told me he thought the secret was hidden in the maze. Well, now I found it. And, funny enough, I feel better for it. I'm almost… pleased." She paused, tried to smile again. "I guess I must have suspected it. Because, you see, I'm not all that surprised."
He studied her. She was a strong person, but not as strong as this.
"You're entitled to cry," he said.
"I've been doing a lot of that lately. Too much."
"Things are changing for you."
"True." "Go ahead," he said. "Let yourself really feel it. It'll be healthy for you if you do."
"The pain? Oh, I feel it!" She spoke bitterly. She glanced at him.
"Dammit, Janek-will you come over here and sit beside me, please?"
He moved to a place beside her on the couch.
"I pity her," she said. The tears were flowing now. "I really do pity her. For being part of something so tacky, so fucking sordid. I wonder if she wore a monster's mask because she felt like a monster."
She turned to him. "Does that make any sense?"
"Yes, it does."
As he held her, it occurred to him that the pity she was feeling now for her mother was similar to the pity he had felt when he had first seen Leering Man and realized that a powerful artist was engaged in something as sleazy as picking up and drugging men.
"I'm not a big quoter," he said. "But there's a line from the Bible:
"For now we see through a glass, darkly… but then shall I know even as also I am known." I think that's what you did today. Looked through the mirrors to a place where you could see yourself." He embraced her.
"I think it's always better to know, don't you?"
"Yes, always." She hugged him. "And you helped me. if it weren't for you, I don't think I'd have ever found the Minotaur." She turned to him.
"Thank you for that. It probably seems strange, but I'm grateful."
"Soon you'll start feeling free."
"I'm already beginning to," she said.
With each passing day the puzzle became clearer.
Ray phoned from Houston. Janek, listening, imagined him slowly stroking his mustache:
"Me and two El Paso cops-Cody and Martinez, both great guys-have gotten a good fix on Tony Collizzi. Seems Tony's been living very well since he got out of Green Haven. Signs of unexplained wealth all over the place.
Fancy high-rise condo. Snazzy bronze-metallic Cadillac.
Numerous sharp-cut Italian suits, kind that cost you a grand and a half.
"Course none of this fits with his so called job as parking-lot manager.
So, on a hunch that Collizzi's arrogant and sloppy, we start checking out his old credit-card slips. We got enough now to place him in El Paso the night of the copycat: gas purchases, restaurant and bar bills, motel, the whole bit. Also, there were some latents on the rope and some hair and skin samples collected at the scene. Soon as we get positive lab reports, Cody and Martinez will haul him in." "Good work, Ray,"
Janek said. "How do your new cop friends feel about Mendoza?"
"They want him bad." Ray chuckled softly. "Way they figure, if they get enough on Collizzi, he'll turn Mendoza over. Then they'll have a classic murder-for-hire case. Texas juries love '. Most of the time the guy does the hiring gets the needle."
Netti invited him to lunch in Chinatown. They were to meet in a second-floor restaurant on Pell Street. It was a cool, windy, sparkling day, the light so dazzling they both wore sunglasses.
Approaching from opposite directions, they nearly collided at the restaurant door. Netti stood back, removed her glasses, squinted.
"Well, look who's here," she said, pretending they'd met by accident.
Janek squinted back. "How're you?"
"Maybe we should stop meeting like this." "Yeah… I guess we should," he said.