Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 100, Nos. 4 & 5. Whole Nos. 603 & 604, October 1992

Masquerade by John M. O’Toole

The desk clerk sat in his little yellow alcove and grinned across the curving yellow counter at his guest, his elbow propped on a Chicago phone book that looked old enough to have Mrs. O’Leary listed. The grin kept growing on his face, and a laugh worked its way in gruff chuckles from his belly.

“It’s what?” he finally whooped.

“It’s glued to my face,” Louis said.

Pausing in the alley, the man in the brand-new custom-tailored suit set his attaché case down. Then he rummaged through a trash can, found a curled slice of pizza and hungrily devoured it.

He had lost all his money in a string of bad investments. After that his wife had left him. His credit cards had been canceled. The bank had foreclosed on his mortgage, and thirty-six hours ago a pair of sheriff s deputies had forcibly removed him from his luxury condo. He’d been lucky to escape with a few personal items — handkerchiefs, underwear, a toothbrush, and soap — hastily packed inside his attaché case.

He sat himself down on the alley’s crumbling pavement, leaned his back against the white stucco wall of a motel. He closed his eyes and longed for oblivion. The shadows in the alley soon merged with darkness, and Louis Walsh, exhausted, drifted quickly into sleep.

He awoke the next morning with his head on a pillow. He was lying on a double bed in a room with a suspended ceiling and flocked yellow wallpaper. A sharp but painless pressure framed his face. He turned his head and saw an air conditioner in a wall beneath a picture window. The air conditioner was going full blast, whooshing and humming, but for some odd reason his face couldn’t feel it.

Louis sat up slowly, swung his legs off the bed. He was still fully dressed, but not in his new suit. He was wearing bluejeans now, and a T-shirt with a big red target on the front. The clothes fit him snugly. He felt a bit dizzy and his head hurt like hell. He waited for the dizziness to pass, then rose gradually from the bed, using the headboard for support.

He staggered to the window and parted the yellow drapes. Outside was a small balcony with a wrought-iron rail. He was on the third floor of an L-shaped building, in the wing that extended at a right angle to the building’s main entrance. Between his window and the entrance was a small parking lot. The entrance had a tattered canopy and a couple of newspaper vending machines out in front. Above the entrance, three stories of white stucco and small balconies and drawn yellow drapes. On the roof, neon letters spelled, “E — Z REST MOTEL.”

On the floor beneath the window was his attaché case. He picked the case up. It felt heavier than usual. It rattled. He set it back down and it let out a ring, like a jostled telephone. He bent and tried to open it. The latches were locked. The key was in his suit, wherever that was.

He turned from the window, saw an armchair and a writing desk and a coin-operated TV. A partly open door led into a small bathroom. On the door was a full-length mirror, in the mirror his reflection.

The face in the mirror wasn’t his face at all. It was a Halloween mask of flesh-colored plastic with a big, dopey grin and slits for the eyes, nose, and mouth.

Louis took a startled step backward, stumbled over the attaché case. Grabbing the drapes to check his fall, he nearly yanked them off their runners. It had to be some sort of bizarre practical joke. Someone must have dragged him sound asleep from the alley, stolen his suit and put the mask on his face. But who? His friends weren’t the type. His wife was too lazy. Louis reached around to grab the mask’s elastic band. He couldn’t find one. Instead he found a large, tender lump.

He tried to pull the mask off. The mask wouldn’t budge.

The damn thing was glued to his face.

The desk clerk sat in his little yellow alcove and grinned across the curving yellow counter at his guest, his elbow propped on a Chicago phone book that looked old enough to have Mrs. O’Leary listed. The grin kept growing on his face, and a laugh worked its way in gruff chuckles from his belly.

“It’s what?” he finally whooped.

“It’s glued to my face,” Louis said.

The desk clerk’s elbow didn’t like the phone book. It searched around in lazy circles, found a comfy stack of See Chicago brochures and settled down. “Musta been some costume party,” he said. He was a barrel-chested man in a black-and-white checked shirt, the sleeves rolled up on massive forearms. The hair on his arms was curly, and almost as thick as the hair on his head. It was a large, fleshy head with little toy ears. The stubble on his face was dark as coffee grounds. “Yes siree, musta been a real roof-raiser.”

On the curving yellow counter was a postcard carousel leaning like the Tower of Pisa, shedding postcards onto the blond carpet. Against a blondwood wall stood a soda-pop machine. Brass reading lamps sat on blondwood end tables. Between the end tables sat a sofa. On the sofa sat a blonde. She was lounging in pink culottes and a lavender blouse, using her tapestry shoulder bag as a pillow.

The blonde winked at Louis. Then she giggled through her nose as though she smelled something funny. Louis set his attaché case down, turned back to face the clerk. “Look, all I know is, I was sleeping in an alley last night and this morning I woke up in one of your rooms, and my suit was gone and I was wearing this T-shirt and blue jeans, and this mask was on my face...” He paused for breath. “...and I can’t get it off.”

“Maybe I can,” said the clerk. He reached across the counter and made a grab for the mask. Louis dodged the clerk’s thick fingers.

“Easy, pal. I won’t hurt you,” said the clerk. “Not on purpose.”

“It’s not coming off without taking the skin,” Louis said. “Believe me, I tried. It must be some kind of super glue, like the one they advertise on TV.”

The blonde rose a bit awkwardly from the sofa, slouched her way over to Louis and took his arm. Her eyes looked like pebbles in mucky ponds of eyeshadow. Her plump lower lip drooped lazily over a chin that would have looked too small on a bird. “Hi,” she said. “My name’s Mimi. Listen, Lou, that stuff’ll wear off. Just give it a couple of weeks.”

“How did you know my name?” Louis said. Before she could answer, he eased his arm from her grip and picked up his attaché case. “Oh, never mind.” Pondering, he fingered the mask’s plastic contours. “Maybe I could soak it off. No, wait. I’d probably drown.”

“How about some nail polish remover?” suggested Mimi. She reached into her shoulder bag.

That was when Louis’s attaché case started ticking.

The clerk, whose nametag identified him as Rodney, eyed the case. “Whatcha got in there, hot watches?”

Louis shrugged. “I don’t know.”

“Go on,” said Mimi. “Tell him, Lou.”

“Tell him what?” Louis said.

Mimi faced Rodney, her droopy lip forming a well-cushioned grin. “There’s a time bomb in that case.”

“There is?” Louis gulped.

“Cut the act, Lou.” Mimi gave Rodney a glare, curled her lip. “Get on that phone and call the guests down here. Tell ’em to bring all their valuables. Tell ’em there’s a bomb and if they get outa line, Lou and I are gonna blow the stucco off this dump.”

Rodney started to chuckle, and ended up coughing into his fist. His eyes edged over to the attaché case, then blinked their way slowly back to Mimi. Finally they settled on the telephone.

He picked it up and phoned the guests. All three of them.

“Good boy, Rodney.” Mimi checked her watch. “I hope they move fast. We’ve only got nine minutes.”

Louis had bent and was easing the attaché case to the floor.

“Don’t put it down!” Mimi cried. “It’s triggered to blow when the handle’s released. You’re acting like an ass, Lou. Get with the program.”

Louis straightened cautiously. His hand had cramped gripping the case’s padded handle. Behind the mask, sweat streamed down his face in the hollows where there wasn’t any glue.

Mimi cracked her gum loud enough to jar her teeth loose. The noise made Rodney flinch. “If it blows you go with it,” he pointed out nervously.

“Lou and I don’t care anymore. We’re tired of being poor. Aren’t we, Lou?”

“Listen, lady—” said Louis.

Mimi cut him off. “If I were you, Rodney, I’d open that cash register.”

“Yeah. Right. Sure, Mimi. Okay...” Rodney punched a button and the computerized register’s drawer shot open. With trembling hands he gathered the bills, passed them over the counter into Mimi’s open shoulder bag.

The guests began arriving in the lobby. There was a fat middle-aged man whose suit looked as though he had slept in it. He handed over his fat brown wallet as though he were Santa Claus and Mimi an orphan. Next came a young woman with raven pigtails, glasses shaped like TV screens, and about half a ton of photographic equipment slung over her denim-clad shoulder. The young woman nearly strangled herself handing over her cameras. She was followed by a stocky young man in pajamas and bowling shoes. His prized bowling ball wouldn’t fit in Mimi’s shoulder bag, so she settled for a hundred bucks from his cheap money clip.

When the guests had hastily departed through the lobby exit, Rodney said, “Okay, dammit, turn that thing off.”

Mimi checked her watch again. “Relax. We still got three whole minutes. I’ll turn it off when Lou and I are safely upstairs in my room.”

“In your room?” sputtered Rodney. “What the hell kinda hideout is that?”

“The perfect kind,” grinned Mimi. “If the cops come, we set the bomb off. Be sure and tell ’em that when you call ’em. Okay?”

Louis could barely breathe behind the mask. In another few minutes it wouldn’t matter, though. In another few minutes he’d be blown to kingdom come. “Would somebody listen? I—”

“Come along, Lou. And remember, don’t set the case down.” Mimi spun on her heels, marched from the lobby. Louis, on shaky legs, followed her down the corridor to the rear stairway.

She took him to the room he’d woken up in. She led him inside and locked the door. A skeletal young man was seated stiffly in the armchair. He was totally bald, his lean face pitted and shockingly pale. On his long, pointed nose sat a pair of wire-rim sunglasses. He was wearing a suit several sizes too large. It was Louis’s suit.

The skeletal man’s smile was as charming as a surgical incision. Without rising from the chair, he offered Louis his hand. It was a bony hand covered with little red bumps that looked like chicken pox. Louis declined to accept it.

“Lou,” Mimi said. “This is Axel, my boyfriend.”

The skeletal man, still smiling, said, “I trust you have recovered from that bump on the head. I apologize for that, but I feared you might wake up and foil our plan.”

“So you’re the one who dragged me in here,” snarled Louis. “How the hell’d you get me past the night clerk?”

Axel breathed a laugh. “I’m the night clerk, you fool.”

“Isn’t he clever?” Mimi said.

The attaché case was still ticking. “Look,” said Louis. “Whatever’s going on here, there’s a bomb in this case, and I really—”

“No there isn’t.” Axel smiled. He licked his thin lips. “Really. It was just a ruse to frighten Rodney and the guests.” He fished the case’s key from a pocket, tossed the key onto the bed. “Go ahead, open it.”

“I’ll open it,” said Mimi. She grabbed the case from Louis, plopped it onto the bed. “He’s too chicken. That reminds me, honey, how’s your chicken pox?”

“Unbearable,” said Axel.

“Don’t scratch it.” Mimi sprang the latches on the attaché case, opened the lid. “See, Lou? No bomb.”

Louis peered cautiously over Mimi’s left shoulder. There was nothing in the case except a cheap alarm clock. From her loot-laden shoulder bag, Mimi dug out a device and the alarm clock stopped ticking.

Axel crossed his legs, folded his rash-covered hands on one knee. “A device of my own design,” he said, a slight trace of boastfulness in his tone.

“Axel’s an electronic genius,” said Mimi. She closed the attaché case and sat on the bed.

Louis sighed. “What the hell is going on here?” The hollows of the mask had filled with sweat. He longed to blow his nose, but the nostril slits were too small. “I mean, first I get knocked on the head while I’m asleep, then I get dragged into this dump and someone glues this stupid mask to my face—”

“All our doing,” Axel admitted. “Mimi and I, that is. Yes, you see—” The skeletal man broke off, clenched his fists. “Good God, I am itching to death. Mimi, I must scratch. I must.”

“It’ll just make it worse,” Mimi scolded.

“Yes... Well...” Axel loosened his fists and gripped the leatherette armrests. “Where was I? Ah yes. You see, our good friend Rodney, having fled our phony bomb, will no doubt call the police. He will tell them to look for a man in a T-shirt with a red target on the front. A man in a mask, a mask that cannot be removed. In short, they’ll be looking for you, my dear Louis. Meanwhile, Mimi and I will take the goodies and run. We will leave you just enough loot to make this little masquerade look convincing...” Axel glanced at Mimi. “Darling, leave him a couple of hundred...” He flicked a bumpy red hand at her. “...and one of those cameras, the cheap one.”

Mimi counted ten twenties from her shoulder bag, folded them and set them on the bed with the camera. Then she bounced off the bed, parted the drapes and peeked out. “Axel, we better get going,” she said.

“This is nuts,” said Louis.

Axel rose, frowning. “It is reality, sir.” He patted Mimi’s shoulder bag. “The money isn’t much, but it will get me out of town.”

“After he blows up the police station,” said Mimi.

Axel shrugged. “A political statement.”

“Axel’s an anarchist,” Mimi explained. She yanked the drapes apart, slid the window open. “We gotta get going, Lou. Nice to have met you.”

“Yes, thank you so much for your help,” said Axel. “And now I must escape with my beloved through the window.”

“You’re three floors up,” said Louis, edging toward the attaché case on the bed.

“That is true,” nodded Axel. “Thank goodness for the balcony rails. Damn these chicken pox, though. I hope I do not scratch myself and lose my grip.”

Axel waved goodbye and turned crisply toward the window. Mimi had already climbed partway out. Louis reached the bed, grabbed the attaché case and swung it with both hands at Axel.

“Scratch this!” Louis cried. The case hit Axel on the back of the head. The skinny man collapsed like a wired skeleton that had slipped off its rack in an anatomy class.

Louis grabbed Mimi’s left leg and pulled her, whining, back in through the window. She tried backing away and stumbled over Axel. Louis caught her before she could fall, sat her down heavily in the leatherette armchair.

“I knew it,” whined Mimi. “I knew it wouldn’t work. It was Axel’s idea. He’s not all there, Lou.”

Louis shook his head sadly. He was feeling a bit sorry for the girl. “Did it ever occur to you that Rodney would give the cops your description too?”

“Well, Axel and me had it figured— Well... No.”

“Some boyfriend.”

“He tries.”

From not too far off, they could hear sirens now. Louis grabbed the shoulder bag off Mimi’s arm. “Come on, let’s get out of here.”

He led her from the room. “Got a car?” he said.

“In the alley.”

As they raced down the stairs, Louis wheezed and panted. His heart was thudding harder than his footfalls. The sirens wailed like demons now, piercing the building’s stucco walls.

“I hope this joint has a back door,” he said.

Mimi led him to it.

In Mimi’s Datsun, as she drove them away from the direction of the sirens, Louis self-consciously fingered the mask.

“Don’t worry. I told you, it’ll wear off,” said Mimi. “We got more important things to think about now. Like for instance, where the hell are we going?”

“As far as the money in this shoulder bag will take us.”

“It was going to take Axel to Milwaukee.”

“Suits me.”

“Um... Lou, I just remembered something.”

“What?”

“Well, I don’t really know how to say this...”

“Say what?”

“Well... promise you won’t get mad?”

“Just say it.”

“Okay.” Mimi sighed. “There’s a bomb in this car.”

“Oh come on. Not again.”

“No, really. It’s Axel’s. I told you he was planning to blow up the police station. He’d be there by now if you hadn’t zonked him.”

Louis swallowed his panic. It burned going down. “When’s it set to go off?”

Mimi glanced at her watch. “Um... now.”

“Stop the car.”

“Okay.”

She pulled to the curb and Louis scrambled out.

The shoulder bag... It was still in the car.

Instantly he spun around back toward the door. Mimi moved faster though, darting sideways across the front seat and slamming the door in his face.

“So long, sucker!” Laughing and cracking her gum, she peeled out from the curb.

For a moment, Louis just stood on the sidewalk, watched the little Datsun speed off down the street. Then he sighed, searched his pockets, found a tarnished old quarter.

He shuffled toward the corner, past a crooked row of brick and limestone buildings with gables and bay windows and dying little shops on their ground floors. The cars along the curb wore blisters of sunlight. The sun burned his scalp through his thick hair. The mask felt as though it had melted to his face. Passersby on the littered street made exaggerated detours around him.

He bought a paper from the corner vendor, sat himself on a curbside bench and, squinting in the sunlight, started paging through the want ads.

A few moments later he was joined on the bench by a scrawny young man in a baggy suit. At first, Louis ignored the young man. But the suit, from the corner of his eye, looked familiar...

The scrawny man rubbed his bald head and winced. “A bump for a bump,” Axel said. “Yes?”

“Where the hell did you come from?” Louis cried. “That motel must be full of cops by now.”

Axel smiled. “I’m a master escape artist.”

“Yeah? Escape from this bench. I’m busy.”

“I’d rather sit and chat.”

“About what?”

“Well, why don’t we start with that mask on your face.”

“What about it?” barked Louis.

“It’s a bomb. It’s made of plastic explosive.”

“Yeah, sure,” Louis sneered.

“No, really. Mimi told you I was planning on blowing up the police station. I was simply going to wait till they caught you, then... well... kaboom, as they say.”

“You’re crazy. So’s your girlfriend. I’m sick of you. Get lost.”

“Very well,” Axel said. He rose stiffly from the bench, as though his bones were coat hangers. “I hope for your sake you elude the police. At least till the glue on that mask wears off.” Axel pulled the remote-control device from a pocket of his baggy pants. He made a minor adjustment with one of the knobs. “You were kind enough to leave this in the room.”

“Go ahead,” said Louis. “Push the button. Nothing’s going to happen. Besides, if I’m caught, you’re the last one I’ll phone.”

“I have eyes everywhere,” Axel said.

“You’re bluffing.”

“We shall see.” Axel pocketed the device. “We shall see. Yes?” He strolled off down the street.