Twinkle, Twinkle, "Killer" Kane (7 page)

“Maybe,” muttered Fell.

“Maybe?”

“Maybe. He’s probably putting us on. They’re probably
all
putting us on. Hell—isn’t that why they’re here? Why they’re not in padded cells? I mean, examining psychiatrists—”

“Did not create the world,” finished Kane. His words were edged in frost. “Have you ever lived with danger, Fell?”

“No.”

“Well, neither have I. But what about riding to ‘fail-safe’ point with your fanny sitting over enough atomic juice to melt New York? What about it? Day after day, week after week. And never ever sure that maybe
this
time you go beyond—
this
time, maybe, you
drop
it. Well, maybe they’re kidding us, Captain; maybe it’s all a con. Rest assured I intend to find out. But I know this much—
this
much: these men were the best the Air Force had. Most are highly intelligent; most are many times decorated; and Cutshaw, Manfred Cutshaw, holds the Congressional Medal of Honor. So I find it rather difficult to believe that they’re all goofing off.”

Fell slid off the desk, started squirming into his pants. “Hydrogen nerves, fine,” he said. “That explains all the ‘fail-safe’ crewmen. But what about Cutshaw? What about
him?
”

Kane stared thoughtfully down at the newspaper still spread over the splotch of stew. “Cutshaw is something else,” he brooded; “something very—mysterious. And ‘madness in great ones must not unwatched go.’”

Fell snapped his belt buckle in with a click. “Life,” he muttered cryptically, “is just chock
full
of mysteries.” Then he looked up full at Kane. And left without further comment.

Kane resumed his unpacking. Only once was he interrupted, and that was when Cutshaw appeared at his door to ask simply, “Why do animals suffer?” and then promptly melted away.

*   *   *

At three that afternoon, Kane began dipping into summaries and histories of the men. Spoor and Fairbanks had been navigators; Bemish a bombardier; Corfu a pilot; and Fromme, radioman-gunner. Still another, a Lieutenant Dorain Zook, had been a pilot with an especially distinguished record. Kane interrupted his reading for a snack: milk and a cheese sandwich. Then he resumed his studies voraciously. At five, Cutshaw returned, bursting into the office and slamming the door behind him.

“Still here?” demanded Cutshaw.

“Yes,” said Kane. “Sit down.” Then added quickly, “On a chair!”

Cutshaw ignored the offer. His glance skimmed the titles of books freshly placed on the office shelves. “So! It is true!” he snapped with vigor. “You are not Colonel Ryan in some clever new disguise!”

“Disguise?”

“Yes, disguise. Once he returned to us in the skin of a caribou. But we recognized him instanter. Know what we did to him, then, that lout? Kane, we gave him the ‘silent treatment.’ Hell, we wouldn’t even
nod
to him. Insolent, antlered bastard! He finally went away. You are not Colonel Ryan.”

“How do you know?” asked Kane.

“Your books. Colonel Ryan read
Reader’s Digest.
You read Thomas a Kempis. Why? Why do you read a Kempis? Are you a Catholic?”

“Yes, I am.”

“Tough shit.” Cutshaw swooped to Kane’s desk, slamming his medal onto mahogany. “Here! Here’s the medal! You’ve got what you came for! Now get lost!”

Kane thoughtfully fingered the medal. “St. Christopher,” he murmured.

“And what were you expecting, Hud—St. Caribou of the Cross?”

“Your records,” commented Kane, “make no mention of religion. Have you any affiliation?”

“Indeed, indeed!” said Manfred Cutshaw. “I am a Flaming Knight Rampant of the Christian Hussars! Now ask me what we believe in.”

“What do you believe in?”

“That colonels consort with elks. Now get out of here, Hud; I’m losing patience with you swiftly.”

“So,” said Kane, “you’d like me to go.”

Cutshaw suddenly seized his wrist. “Are you
mad?
” he cried emotionally. “And lose the only friend I’ve
got?
Oh, God, don’t do it, Hud, don’t do it! Don’t leave me alone in this house of horrors!” His grip was like the talons of a terrified hawk. Kane gently twisted free.

“Sit down,” said Kane. “Let’s talk.”

“Yes!” shrieked Cutshaw like a Fury finding a hair in her dry martini. “I want to talk! I want therapy! I want therapy this instant!” He dove to a couch against the wall, turned on his back and stared up at the ceiling. “I’d like to tell you about my boyhood and all that kind of crap.”

“Free associate,” said Kane.

Cutshaw turned and eyed him severely. Then leaped off the couch, crouched to the desk, recovered his medal and returned to the couch. Then said nothing for over a minute.

“Well?”

“I’m collecting my thoughts, Hud! Shut up and think about grass!”

Kane waited.

“I was born,” began the astronaut, “in Jackson Heights, New York.”

“Your records say Brooklyn.”

Cutshaw sat up angrily. “Listen,” he shouted, “
I’ll
sit over there, okay, and
you
come lie on the couch and we’ll see how well
you
do! What are you, a smartass?!”

“Forgive me. Go ahead.”

Cutshaw resumed the position. “Okay,” he said. “Okay. I wasn’t born at all. I was launched at Cape Kennedy. The Russians recovered me and delivered me to my mother: Maude—Maude Cutshaw. Then some creep from the Immigration Office told her I was an alien. She thought he meant a Martian and clobbered him with a bedpan. She was mean, at times, but cuddly. Not like my father. Groper was just plain mean.”

“Groper?”

“Captain Groper.”

“Captain Groper was your father?”

“I was his illegitimate son. I also had three illegitimate sisters named Ugly, Vulgar and Tawdry. That’s when Pop was a movie critic for
Time
magazine. Things were good in those days, Hud; profoundly, rippingly good. Pop was a real ‘in’ thing. Yeah. Luce used to call him an oracle. Sure. Pop said a picture stunk and people would
run
to see it. I swear, he never missed. Except once, for about four months, when some counter-oracles in Hollywood started making these flicks about teen-agers surfing and giving them foreign film titles like ‘Mondo Surf’ or ‘Katzman, Mon Amour.’ Pop used to look at the cast list—he never
saw
the movies—and see Annette Funicello and maybe Troy Donafoop. Then he’d grit his whole body. Drove him
crazy;
out of his
mind!
Couldn’t make a decision. But he finally went with the titles; gave them all a rave. The public liked them
any
way. And that’s when he started drinking. I always could tell when he was smashed because he’d start to talk in captions. Like, ‘After the melon, a grape.’ Or, ‘Back of the crisis, a grunion.’ He’d also say ‘brouhaha.’ Whenever he said ‘brouhaha’ Moms would swat him in the chops with a rolled-up copy of
Newsweek.
It was the closest he ever came to being in contact with the facts.” Cutshaw turned his head and eyed Kane slyly. “Do you believe any of this horseshit?”

“No.”

“Just testing.” Cutshaw stared again at the ceiling and began to speak rapidly, barely pausing for breath. “When I was a kid I used to play horseshoes … Horseshoes are like life. I don’t know exactly
how,
but I feel certain there’s a connection. Had lots of friends who played horseshoes, but mostly they tortured caterpillars. Cut them up and burned them. Also cut the tails off dogs. Know why they did it? Because they were bastards. Yeah. And, Hud, they grow
up
to be bastards. That sheriff in Alabama who clubbed a lady demonstrator while two of his buddies held her down? Lynch mobs? Eichmanns? The ghouls who gather at accidents? who slow their bloody cars down on a freeway to see the wreck? Same ——— bastards, Hud; they just grew up; that’s all. Show me a kid who kills caterpillars, and I’ll show you a son-of-a-bitch. Let some kid put a hand on my mouse and I promise I’d castrate him instanter and save the world from more of him. Hud, I trust you approve. I dearly crave approval. I dearly
need
approval. I would rather have approval than a jelly roll with yoghurt. Now my father, Captain Groper, hell, he’s
steeped
in the blood of caterpillars. Notice he never takes showers? No, you only just got here. But you’ll notice, Hud, you’ll notice. He never takes a shower; we’d see the green all over his legs. Not a pretty sight, love, not a pretty sight at all. Hud, I’d rather be
dead
than green! But he’s my father; what can I do? Get up a petition with ten thousand signatures and have him deported to Argentina? What can you
do
with the useless bastard! Hud, once he reviewed a stag film and said that it was ‘dull.’ Then after all the commotion started he actually looked at the films. It destroyed him, Hud, destroyed him. That’s what made him join the Air Force. He was a major once, you know. Yeah—Major Groper. Then he happened to say ‘brouhaha’ in front of a brigadier general and they busted him back to captain. Ah, enough of this maudlin chatter, Hud. And stay awake, you monster, I’m not spilling my guts for
laughs!
”

“I’m awake.”

“You were nodding, Catherine Earnshaw!”

“I assure you,” said Kane, “I was not.”

“You are
determined
to start an argument! But as usual I’ll give ground. I’ll accept your sniveling perjury. Hud, what’s happened to Scarlett O’Hara? What has happened to gracious living? Tell me, what do you think of asps?”

“Asps?”

“You are absolutely incapable of giving a straight answer!”

Kane blinked. “I didn’t follow the question.”

“You couldn’t even follow the spoor of the Incredible Colossal Man. How do you get to the
bathroom,
Hud? How do you ever
find
it! Your uniform looks clean but I doubt some foul play.” Cutshaw produced a lollypop and began to lick at it noisily.

“Earlier,” said Kane, “you came to my door and asked a question. You said, ‘Why do animals suffer?’”

“Yes.”

“Cutshaw, what did you mean?”

“What did I
say?
”

“You said, ‘Why do animals suffer?’”

“Then that’s what I
meant,
you blazing ass! What do colonels get a month, Hud? I’m writing a letter to Congress!”

“Cutshaw, why did you ask the question?”

“Impertinent, saucy bastard. I asked you what colonels
got.
Now don’t play Socrates with Cutshaw, friend! Whose therapy
is
this?”

“Certainly not mine.”

“Do you believe in God?”

“Yes.”

“What kind of a Catholic are
you?
”

Kane raised an eyebrow. “I’m confused,” he said.

“Ah! The beginning of wisdom!”

“Are you a Catholic?”

“Never mind
that,
you oaf! Ask me about my obsessions!”

“Will you answer?”

“Yes. I will.”

“Very well,” said Colonel Kane. “What are your obsessions?”

“Well, frankly, I hate feet.”

“The way they smell?”

“The way they
look.
Hud, I cannot stand the
sight
of them!”

“Does that include your own?” asked Kane.

“
Especially
my own! How could a wise and beautiful God give us ugly things like
feet!
Give us
padding
things like feet! They’re a disgrace! An anomaly! A
disaster
area, Hud! If God exists, he is a fink!”

“A fink.”

“Or a foot. Yes, a foot. An omniscient, omnipotent
Foot!
Do you think that is blasphemous?”

“Yes,” said Kane, “I do.”

“I believe I capitalized the ‘F.’”

“I believe you’re referring to the problem of evil.”

“I am referring to the problem of
feet!
Christ, don’t complicate the argument; it’s tawdry enough already!”

“Let’s go back to animal suffering.”

“No, let’s not,” said the astronaut, making a clearly abortive effort to wrap a leg around his neck.

“But isn’t it all the same thing? What you’re saying about feet? Namely, how can there be evil coexistent with a good God?”

“Hud, kindly stick to feet.”

“You think they are ugly.”

“I
know
they are ugly.”

“But without them how could you walk?”

“Good
Foot,
you are dumb! Give me
wings
so I can
fly!
”

“Ahh,” breathed Kane, leaning back in his chair. “So we’ve come to the heart of the matter. At last we’ve come to flying.”

Cutshaw leaped up out of the sofa and Grouchoed to the door. “Want my opinion, Colonel Caribou? You are a quack nonpareil!” He opened the door, swooped outside and disappeared from Kane’s sight.

Kane clasped his hands under his chin and began to ponder. Fell looked in. “How’s it coming?” asked the medic.

“Is Cutshaw Catholic?”

“I’m not sure. I think he was. Yeah, maybe he was.”

“That seems to figure,” murmured Kane.

“Why do you ask?” inquired Fell.

“It seems to be very much on his mind. Perhaps it’s related to his problem.”

“The latest con,” mumbled Fell.

“What?”

“Nothing. See you around the campus.” Fell quietly closed the door.

Kane returned to his study of the men’s dossiers. When that was completed, he went to the bookshelf, plucked out the elementary psychology text that Fell had noticed earlier. Kane opened it to the bookmark and immediately was immersed in very deep study. Now and again he would underline. At times he would flap open a dictionary and look up a word.

*   *   *

The inmates’ dormitory was neatly lined with footlockers, cots and washbasins. In a corner of the massive room a fireplace blazed with flame, logs crackling merrily. The inmates were gathered around Cutshaw.

“What’s the plan?” asked the one named Zook. He was a wiry and dark-complexioned man, and had eyes that probed like death rays, deep-set and close together.

“We’ll start with ‘D,’” responded Cutshaw. “‘Acts of insolence much too insolent to be recognized as insolence.’ Then from there we go to letters and from—”