Twinkle, Twinkle, "Killer" Kane (6 page)

“Right. Right again,” said Kane.

Cutshaw looked into his eyes. “You’re purely out of your
mind,
Hud! You’re purely full of
shit!
”

“If you say so.”

“Ingratiating bastard. You’re insane, but I adore you.”

“Good.”

“Watch your tongue!”

Captain Fell had moved in closer. “Listen,” he began, “aren’t Rorschachs supposed to be—”

“Later we’ll do the rest,” Kane interrupted very firmly. He closed the folder with finality, shoving it back into the drawer.

“Marvey!” glipped Cutshaw, leaping bolt upright.

“And now you’ll be good for a week?”

“No!”

“Cutshaw, didn’t you tell me that—?”

“Yes! Yes, I did! But I’m an incorrigible liar!” Cutshaw swept to the door, crouched over like Groucho Marx, and flung it open with a bang. “May I go?” he asked urbanely.

A corporal in uniform, capped in the hat of a chef, stood revealed in the doorway, his hand gripping a ladle that brimmed with a murky substance. “Colonel, you’ve got to taste this!” he burbled, stepping inside.

With a swift, birdlike motion, Cutshaw lowered his nose to the ladle, then jerked his head up at Kane, announcing: “Truffles from the Moon, Hud! Dusty, but good for your sex life!” He swept out of view.

The corporal advanced on Kane, the ladle prowed forward. “Taste it!” he said. “Taste it! I just made it up!”

Kane eyed him levelly over the ladle. “What is it?”

“I’m not sure,” retorted the corporal. “Take a taste, take a taste!”

Kane slurped a taste. The corporal, rather corpulent, jiggled his stomach up and down. “Tell me!” he demanded. “Tell me, tell me, tell me!”

“And to whom am I speaking?” asked Kane.

“Corporal Gower.”

“You’re the chef?”

“How did you guess?”

Kane smiled thinly. “Just a shot in the dark. I think your stew is tasty.”

“Great!” exulted Gower. “We’ll have it for dinner!” He jiggled out of the office, gracefully tossing onto the floor, in an absent-minded reflex, the steaming contents of the ladle.

Fell watched the sinews in the psychologist’s neck as Kane stared down at the splotch the stew had made on the floor. Cutshaw appeared at the door, examined the splotch with concentration. “A lobster eating Johnson grass!” he decided, and crouched away.

Fell closed the door, dropping some newspaper over the splotch. “The cook, by the way, is not an inmate,” he explained. Then he wandered to a bookshelf, examining its new contents.

Kane poked aimlessly at a corner of the newspaper with the point of his shoe. He spoke as though to himself. “We all defeat madness in various ways.”

Fell quietly waited. But Kane said no more.

The medic pulled a book from the shelf. “This yours? Elementary psych?”

The psychogist looked up at him. “Yes. Yes it is.”

Fell flipped through the book, noted some marginal glosses as well as some very heavy underlinings. “You’re a lucky boy, Kane,” he said: “assigned to a job you do best.”

“Aren’t you? You’re a doctor.”

“Brain surgeon.”

“Oh.” Kane moved to his desk, calmly resuming unpacking.

“I am
stunned,
” declared Fell, “by your shock and amazement.”

Kane’s hand was on the missal. He stared at it solemnly. “We’re all miscast—one way or another. Being born into this world: that’s the ultimate miscasting.” He paused and seemed to be brooding over what he had just said, feeling for his thoughts with gentle, surgical fingers. “I—think that’s what drives us mad. I mean—if fish could survive—actually
survive
out of water—they would go mad.” Kane looked up at Fell. “Do you know what I mean?”

“No. But maybe I’m drunk.”

Kane picked up the missal, sat down behind the desk. He put the missal into a drawer and slid it shut; then uttered softly: “Haven’t you ever had the feeling that we—weren’t meant for this place?”

“Well, I go where the Air Force sends me.”

Kane shifted his leg, heard a loud and anguished “Yip!” as a disreputable-looking spotted mongrel dog scrambled out from under the desk. The office door was flung open.

“So
there
you are!” pounced a large-nosed, elfish inmate, pointing imperiously at the dog.

“Lieutenant Leslie Spoor,” explained Fell.

Kane stood up. “Is that your dog?” he asked mildly.

“Does he look like my
zebra?
What’s the
matter
with you,
any
way!” The dog licked Kane’s shoe. “Look,” said Spoor, “he likes you!”

“What do you call him?” asked Kane.

“Irresponsible!” answered Spoor. “He’s ten minutes late for rehearsal! Now
out!
” he commanded the dog. It padded meekly through the door and disappeared, and in the background Kane saw Fairbanks throwing a leg over the second-floor balustrade and sliding down the drape.

Fell cleared his throat. “Lieutenant, the Colonel would like to hear about your work.”

Spoor shriveled him with a glance. “Navigating? Child’s play! I leave it to the crows, to the hawks, to the swallows! I am not a mere
device!
I am not an albino
bat!
Watch your cup, dear heart, it’s dripping.”

“Not navigating,” said Fell. “Your
work
—tell the Colonel.”

“Ah! You speak of matters tender!”

“Lieutenant Spoor,” explained Fell, “is currently at work adapting Shakespeare’s plays for dogs.”

Spoor drew up proudly. “A massive problem! A labor of love! But it must be done! It must! It must!”

“Of course,” soothed Kane. “You taught Shakespeare in civilian life?”

“I repossessed cars for a finance company.”

“Highly commendable,” diplomatized Kane.

“A
joy!
” exclaimed Spoor. “Man versus Machine! Leslie Marvin Spoor against the criminally poor! A battle of wits! A clash by night! Will .007 recover Fu Manchu’s Lotus? Will he? Will he? I
loved
it, sir, I
loved
it! What are you driving?”

“I’m using a staff car,” said Kane.

“Paid for?”

“No,” intervened Fell. “Now tell the good Colonel what you’re rehearsing.”

“Julius Caesar!”
crackled Spoor, fixing Kane with a glittering eye. “It’s that terribly gripping scene where this noble-looking Dalmatian whips his toga about him—
thus
—and pitifully snarls at one of the conspirators: ‘
Et tu, White Fang!
’”

The ensuing silence ticked like a bomb as neither Fell nor the Colonel moved. The broad grin of triumph slowly faded from Spoor’s face. At last he said, “You hate it.”

“Not at all,” Kane answered quickly. “I’m just thinking about it.”

“Good! We’ll discuss more fully later. In fact, I’d very much like your notions on a problem I’m having with
Hamlet.
What a puzzler! See? If I cast a Great Dane they’ll accuse me of—”

The dog barked urgently outside the office door. Spoor held up a hand, palm outward, to the Colonel. “The time is out of joint,” he mourned and glided to the door. “Julius awaits! He awaits! Later, Colonel Pussycat! Anon! Anon!” He swooped out the door, then, and disappeared from sight, his voice calling, “Coming!
Coming,
Rip Torn!”

Cutshaw appeared in the doorway, tossed a pair of pants at Fell. “Here,” declaimed the astronaut. “Fromme has just decided that he will sell all his goods and give the proceeds to the poor.” Then he glowered at Kane. “Still with us, Colonel Kidd?”

The crash of a hammer pounding plaster resounded through the wall. Cutshaw looked to the side. “Ah, that darling Captain Bemish!” he said. Then oozed out of sight.

Again the crash of the hammer. Through the doorway Kane saw Groper racing swiftly down the stairs. He looked to Fell, but the medic had turned his back and was gazing out the window, humming a song from
Rose Marie.
Kane went to the door, looked to the right and saw Bemish. He wore his crash helmet and face guard and was sedulously pounding a hole into the wall outside Kane’s office with a short-handled sledge hammer.

Groper ran up to Bemish and ripped the hammer from his hand, yapping, “I
hid
it, dammit, I
hid
it! How did you get it, Bemish?
How?
”

“I wouldn’t
dare
tell you
that,
” said Bemish. “Mighty Manfred would
kill
me!” Then he whipped the hammer deftly out of Captain Groper’s grasp and instructed him, serenely, to “Kindly stand aside.”

“You little—!”

Groper had lifted his arm as though to strike at Captain Bemish, and, at this, Kane intervened. “Captain Groper, I am shocked—
shocked
at your behavior!”

“But he’s—!”

“Later we can discuss it, Captain. But presently, you’re dismised.”

“Listen—!”

Groper was about to say more, but he abruptly severed the flow as his eyes looked into Kane’s. Something stirring in them chilled him. He felt an inexplicable terror that no logic could dismiss. He took a step backward, stiffly saluted, and quickly retreated to his quarters.

Kane watched him go, then put an arm around Bemish’s shoulder. “Now, then, tell me, Captain Bemish: why do you do that to the wall?”

Over the Captain’s shoulder, far down the hall, Kane caught a glimpse of Cutshaw staring intently through a crack in the dormitory door. When Kane caught his eye, the door closed quickly. Kane looked back at Bemish. “You were saying?”

“I was saying?”

“The wall, Captain—tell me.”

“What’s to tell? What’s to tell? I mean, to a man of your intelligence; a psychologist, a colonel, and goodness knows what
else.
”

“Goodness knows. Now just tell me.”

“Well, the spaces,” said Bemish intensely.

“Spaces?”

“Yes, the spaces—the empty spaces between the atoms in my body—or
your
body, if I may get personal—may I?”

“The wall.”

“Yes, the
wall,
Colonel, the
wall!
What in the hell do you think I’m
talking
about?”

“The wall.”

“That is correct. Now, then, kindly pay attention. See, the spaces between the atoms—I mean, relative to their size—are
immense,
simply
immense!
It’s like the distance, frankly speaking, between Earth and the planet Mars! And do you know what the distance
is?
”

“Immense.”

“You are wise beyond belief.”

Colonel Kane glanced at his watch. “About the wall…”

“Look, the atoms won’t
leave!
They are not going
any
where! Relax!”

“But—”

“Atoms can be
smashed;
they cannot
fly!
Not a
chance!
They’re only—!” A notion occurred to Bemish. “Oh! Listen, wait! You have to go ‘toy-toy?’”

“No, I don’t.”

“Then what’s the hurry? Now those same empty spaces—
immense
empty spaces—between the atoms in your body—
your
body, mind you—well, those spaces also exist between the atoms in that
wall.
So walking
through
the wall is simply a matter of gearing the
holes
—of gearing the holes between the atoms in your
body
to the holes between the atoms in that
wall
—that naughty, stubborn
wall!
” Bemish punctuated his statement with another swing of his hammer. Plaster crickled in cloudlets to the floor and Bemish looked sullen. “Nothing,” he muttered. “Nothing.”

Kane said, “Why do you strike the wall?”

Bemish mustered fresh attack. “I keep experimenting, see? I concentrate hard. I try to exert the force of my mind on the atoms in my body so they’ll mix and rearrange; so they’ll fit just
exactly
those spaces in the
wall.
And then I try the experiment—I try to walk through the wall. I just took a running
bash
—and I failed—horribly!”

He swung once more at the wall and another hole gaped forth. Both he and Kane stared silently at what he had just done. Then at last Kane spoke. “Why did you do that?”

Bemish whipped his head around and scruted Kane piercingly. “My Colonel, do you mock?”

“Not at all.”

“Very good of you.”

“Why did you strike the wall?”

“I am punishing the atoms! I am making of them an example! An object lesson! A
thing!
So when the others see what’s
coming
—when they see I’m not kidding
around
—why, they’ll fall into
line!
They’ll let me pass
through!
”

“May I?” asked Kane, lifting the hammer ever so gently from Bemish’s grasp.

“Sure!” agreed Bemish. “Swing! Enjoy! Maybe they’ll
listen
to a stranger!”

“I had something else in mind.”

Bemish looked outraged, grabbed for the hammer; gave first a tug; then a mighty pull. The hammer failed to move a fraction from Kane’s apparently effortless grip. Bemish looked at the hammer, then at Kane, slightly fuddled. “Your grip is strong, ‘Little Flower.’”

“I think,” said Kane, “that your problem may lie in the properties of the hammer. Some nuclear imbalance. May I keep it awhile for study?”

“Are you possibly putting me on, sir?”

“Not at all,” said Kane, “not at all. Why don’t we discuss it again tomorrow?”

Bemish left him, muttering, and Kane returned to his office, where he found Fell atop his desk, bare legs folded like a Hindu fakir. He was staring into his coffee mug, mumbling incoherently, then looked up, startled and annoyed, as Kane dropped the hammer on the desk. “Would you care to put on your trousers?” asked Kane.

“I was just sitting here sort of thinking about it.”

“Your trousers?”

“Anything, Colonel; anything to keep my mind off…” His words trailed off into inner space. Then he roused himself abruptly. “What do you think of Bemish?” he asked.

Kane eyed him levelly. “He’s a very sick man. What
else
am I to think?”