Twinkle, Twinkle, "Killer" Kane (10 page)

“Medical school?”

“Don’t be absurd. I wish to play the violin. I wish to play ‘Humoresque.’ On a stage,” added Fromme.

“Come to my office tomorrow morning,” said Kane. “We’ll talk about it then.” He walked to the staircase and Fromme called after him, “Get some sun and eat fresh fruit!”

Kane went to his quarters. But as his hand took hold of the doorknob, he quickly turned his head to the side. He thought he had seen, peripherally, the long trailing folds of a black velvet gown disappearing around a corner near the far end of the landing. For once he doubted his senses, but investigated anyway. As he was about to turn the corner, he heard the closing, soft, of a door. He rounded the corner. Now he stood in the East Wing. No one was quartered there but Fell. He went to his door—knocked—no answer. He waited a moment, then returned to his room; never heard Fell growl behind his locked door: “Where the hell have you been!”

During this time, Lieutenant Spoor had entered Kane’s office in search of his dog. He found him, as he’d suspected he would, crouching under the desk and plainly reluctant to emerge. Spoor tugged at his collar, pulled him whimpering across the carpet, chiding, “Rip Torn, you are incorrigible. It’s a
play,
just a
play!
Clown, the knives are made of
rubber!
See? You really don’t get killed! It’s only—!”

Inadvertently, Spoor saw a book propped on a shelf beside the door. “Look! Hey, look! Colonel Kane! He reads the Bard!” Spoor rushed to the shelf and pulled out the book while a grateful Rip Torn raced back to the desk.
“Madness In Hamlet!”
glowed Spoor. Then, “What is this fad for long titles,” he grumbled. “The old one was good enough. Contemporary, contemporary; everything’s got to be ‘in.’” He avidly thumbed through the first few pages.

*   *   *

Kane had no sooner entered his room when a shriek of searing, white-hot pain ripped into his brain. Involuntarily he gasped, clutched at his head and fell on his bed. For moments he writhed. Then the pain slowly subsided; but it left behind its footprints: a pounding steady ache. Locked in his office were the pills that brought Kane ease. He had only five left. He lurched to his feet and started downstairs.

From the staircase Kane saw chaos. Lieutenant Bemish clung to a drape approximately eight feet off the ground while Captain Groper hurled threats from below. Bemish still had the hammer and announced unequivocally his yearning to drop it on Groper’s head “in the interest of nucleonics.” Below, Corfu was drawing on walls with an airily free and gracious hand. And Zook sat despondently at the foot of the staircase, muttering, “Fungus, fungus, burn all their fungus!” hypnotically, over and over again. Kane eased past him, strode to his office but quickly stopped short as he looked at the door. Painted in glowing, intimidating purple were the letters
“W.C.”
Beneath the legend were cupid’s hearts pierced by arrows, within them inscriptions. One frankly attested that
“Laurence Harvey loves Elliot Ness.”
Still another encased the legend,
“Gamal Nasser loves Golda Meir.”
And a third read,
“Lyndon Johnson loves Ayn Rand.”
Scrawled in pencil, all over the door, were names of girls and telephone numbers as well as anatomical sketches and fragments of obscenity.

Kane breathed deeply, put a hand on the doorknob. Then suddenly whipped around as he heard a sound of ripping fabric, felt a dancing across his trousers. Confronting him was Fairbanks, poised like Scaramouche. He had slashed an “F” into Kane’s buttocks.

Fairbanks sneered at Kane contemptuously. “There, no sniveling! You’re not hurt! I just shot the gun from your hand, vile dog!”

Fromme irrupted before them, bawling, “Get this man into surgery, dammit! He’s bleeding to death! Don’t you care? Judas priest, doesn’t anyone
care!
”

Kane stood frozen, his eyes fixed on Fairbanks, who was dancing around him and feinting with his sword, snarling, “Defend yourself, you churl!” Bemish dropped the hammer on Groper.

Kane suddenly turned and went into his office, slamming the door shut behind him as he moved toward his desk. He clutched at his temples, for a moment stood rigid. Then, swift as a spasm, he reached to his desk, picked up a Los Angeles telephone directory and ripped it savagely, smoothly and effortlessly into two very neatly edged halves; he flung them both against a wall.

“Great God!”

Kane whirled. Leslie Spoor stood gaping in shock. Kane said nothing, felt at his head. Spoor took a step, picked up a phone book half, eyed it numbly and then looked at Kane. “Was that
you,
‘Little Flower’?” he breathed. Then he bolted from the room, bawling, “Manfred! Mighty Manfred!”

Kane was a man who had looked on Medusa; eyes wide and staring and yet unseeing. The jagged pulse in his cheek where once the scar had been glowed white.

Chapter 8

“The man has a
devil,
” brooded Cutshaw, sprawled on a cot in the inmates’ dorm.

“Ta! He is harmless,” responded Corfu, breathing heavily, adenoidally, over a chessboard opposite Nammack on the cot adjoining Cutshaw’s. Lieutenant Nammack, a former navigator, was wearing his coonskin cap. The tip of the tail was touching the board as his head bent low in ponder.

“Don’t be a child,” Cutshaw retorted. “Kane is fox, an absolute fox. Look at his eyes. Don’t you get any message?”

“Check!” said Corfu.

Cutshaw eyed him severely. “How very like you, Master Corfu. You have eyes but will not see; ears, but will not listen.”

“Shit!” breathed Nammack.

“What?”
demanded Cutshaw.

“He has me in check.”

Cutshaw reached out a foot and irritably swept away the chess pieces. “Splendid,” said the astronaut. “Your leader speaks of doom and you speak of check. Dummies, Kane has
us
in check.”

“I think him harmless,” repeated Corfu eying the shambles of his conquest.

“What was he doing,” insisted Cutshaw, “in his room for ten whole days?”

“Didn’t he say he was reading?” answered Nammack.

“Bah, humbug!” grumped Cutshaw. “He harrows me,” he fretted, “with mighty fear and wonder.” Then his eyes stared blankly at nothing as he contemplated the deeps.

Spoor burst upon them, breathless.

“Mighty Manfred, I have news!”

“From the ‘Twilight Zone’?” asked Cutshaw.

Corfu and Nammack started a game.

“I speak of Kane!” declared Spoor.

“What about him?” prodded Cutshaw.

“Listen, none of him is him?”

Too weary to walk away, Cutshaw turned his back on Spoor, sighing, “Sure, baby, sure.”

Spoor seized Cutshaw’s foot, twisting the astronaut around to him. “Gregory Peck in
Spellbound!
Remember? Remember? Supposed to be a psychiatrist, takes charge of a nut house but all the time he’s crazy and not a doctor at all?!”

“Hmm.”

“Same thing with Kane! Wait’ll you
hear!
Wait’ll you
hear!
I mean,
just
like the movie! Just
exactly
Gregory Peck!”

Spoor’s dog licked Cutshaw’s hand with a bubbly, liquid razor.

“I take a fork in my hand, see, a fork in my hand! On a tablecloth make ski tracks and then Kane looks down and
faints!
” Spoor leaped over to Nammack. “Understand me?
Faints!
”

Nammack lifted his head to him, his nose but an inch from Spoor’s, and as he spoke his voice grew in volume as the theme overmastered him. “You’re a very sick man, Spoor, you
know
that, baby, don’t you? Now get out of my
life,
kid! Who
needs
your kind of illness! Get some
help,
professional
help!
”

“Do not mock,” Spoor uttered softly, whereupon Nammack tweaked his nose. Spoor emitted a yelp and leaped up from the cot. “So! I come to you with goodies and you answer me with farts! That is what comes of casting Fritos among the apes! But no more! Why should I tell you about the phone book Colonel Kane ripped in half! Come, Rip Torn!” With a haughty, careless grace, Spoor tossed the neatly ripped half of the phone book onto the chessboard, and flounced imperiously away.

Cutshaw turned over, eying the telephone book, then called out, “Spoor! Spoor! Hey, wait!”

“From here to eternity!” answered Spoor, turning around by the door.

“Did you
see
Kane rip it in half?”

“I have seen what I have seen! I have spake! Pox on your kidney!” fumed Spoor. Then he turned again and left them.

Corfu’s eyes met Cutshaw’s. “Didn’t you say he knew nothing about Rorschachs?”

“I said he
pretended
he didn’t know.”

“What are you thinking?” Nammack asked Cutshaw.

“That we are all in ‘rats’ alley where the dead men lost their bones.’”

“What?”

“T. S. Eliot. I shall board the monster presently.”

“T. S. Eliot?” puzzled Nammack.

“Gregory Peck,” murmured Cutshaw.

Kane was dozing at his desk when the door slam awakened him. He jerked up his head, saw Manfred Cutshaw turning the lock, and grinning evilly. “Spoor has told me everything, you mad, wicked boy!”

“What are you talking about?” said Kane.

Cutshaw whipped out a pen and extended it to Kane as he pressed a document flat on the desk top. “Enough of this pretense!” he crackled. “Here! Sign this confession, Hud! Or Greg! Or Tab! Or whoever you happen to be!”

“What in the devil do you mean?”

“I mean none of you is you!”

The crash of a hammer was heard from afar, chased by the ghosts of falling plaster. Kane’s glance flicked down to the document. Then up again at Cutshaw. “This is blank.”

“Of
course
it’s blank. We aren’t certain who you
are
yet. Merely sign and we’ll fill it in later.”

“Cutshaw, just for the sake of humoring you—”

“
Sign
‘Great Impostor’! Plead the mercy of the court. Kangaroos can be
kind.
Kangaroos are not all
bad.
”

“Tell me—who do you
think
I am?”

“I must be frank,” said the astronaut, his eyelids narrowed to slits. “There are some who believe that Hitler is still alive. The lunatic fringe, of course.”

Again the blow of a hammer. And now the running of feet.

“And what do
you
think?” asked the Colonel.

“I’m not thinking. Not at all. I am merely taking a poll. The decision of the judges, Hud, is absolutely final.” Cutshaw again extended the pen. “Make your ‘X’… neatness counts.”

Kane smiled at him coldly, whereupon Cutshaw retracted the pen and took a haughty step backward. “Proud ox! Is that your answer? Very well!” He swooped to the door. “We’ll send you cigarettes and cookies every month, Colonel Bogey! Addressed,
incidentally, to ‘Occupant, Cell 108’!
” He turned the lock, swung wide the door, revealing Groper beaming with triumph, Bemish’s hammer held high in his hand.

“Got it!” Groper exulted.

“Marvey!” commented Cutshaw. Then he pointed to the Captain. “Look, look, Hud! See the idiot captain! See the pretty hammer! See the idiot captain as he
swings
the pretty hammer?”

“Cutshaw!” hissed Groper.

“Kane, we are watching!” warned the astronaut grimly. Then he oozed out of sight.

“Watching what?” asked Groper.

Kane looked blank, did not answer. He merely stared at Groper fixedly. The Captain looked at the hammer, feeling sheepish and oddly uncomfortable. “Got the hammer,” he mumbled inanely, and thought: Groper, you’re okay. He tossed a salute and left the office, despising the fear that he felt in Kane’s presence.

Kane looked down at the blank “confession” form that Cutshaw had placed on his desk. He picked it up and turned it over. And blinked at the fragment of verse that he found scrawled on the back of the page:

For what to Werner von Braun is

This quintessence of dust?

“The sun, mother; give me the sun.”

Alas, poor Hamlet, he is mad.

But we’ll give him Manhattan,

The Bronx and Staten Island, too,

For here the men are as mad as he.

       Star light,

       Star bright,

       First star nobody sees:

       Not anymore.

       Not tonight.

Merry Christmas, Auntie Sanger,

Merry Christmas.

Your troubles are nought.

       Twinkle

          Twinkle

              Little

BLAST!

See the mushroom, Auntie Sanger?

See the funny white mushroom?

Old Geiger counters

A few dismembered arms and

A torn and faded print of the Mona Lisa

Hurtle breathtakingly out beyond the reaches

Of Isaac Newton, becoming stars in a

Miniature universe:

The revolving, orbital ghost of all

Christmases past

And not to be.

“Mona Lisa, Mona Lisa, men have named you”:

A tight-lipped

Thin-lipped

Unsmiling smile

Alone in the void:

Not one now to mock your own spinning?

Mountains and hills, come, come and fall on me!

Midnight never come.

And there it ended. Kane read it again, placing the literary allusions; they convinced him the poem was Cutshaw’s. Had he intended that Kane read it? “The sun, mother; give me the sun.” Wasn’t that the line by which the boy in Ibsen’s
Ghosts
disclosed to his mother that he was mad? He couldn’t remember. He read the poem again. And thought it more likely that one of the fail-safe crewmen had written it. Then realized with a start that he could have written it himself.

Cutshaw returned, slamming the door. “Now I know who you are,” he grimly announced.

“Who?”

“An unfrocked priest!” Cutshaw then took a flying leap at the sofa, sprawled on his back and clutched at his medal. “I want you to hear my confession.”

“I’m not a priest,” said Kane.