Twinkle, Twinkle, "Killer" Kane (14 page)

Kane awakened with an inchoate shout. Then observed that his phone was ringing. It was Syntax, calling to advise that he was on his way to see him. Kane hung up with a sense of doom. For now he remembered why he had come. Wasn’t it simply to balance the scales? No, not balance; that was impossible. But some leavening act of grace; saving Cutshaw and the inmates—that much had certainly been within reach. Gone with discovery, now; gone. Syntax undoubtedly had been told.

Kane waited for the General. And groped for details of his dream. Once again he was nagged by doubts, by the question of why he had really come. Saving the men—was that all of the answer? He’d thought he could do it. But how was it possible? How could he dare where experts had failed? Feverish study? Instinct? Intelligence? Or was it that vague and puzzling feeling that he was somehow inside their world; that where others peered in, he looked out and around?

Syntax arrived an hour later, asked that the men be formed for inspection. He made no other significant comment.

Kane stood beside him watching formation minutes later in the courtyard. Syntax scruted him, after a time, his face a portrait in colors of shock. “I can’t …
believe
it! Colonel Kane, this is—well—well, I’m shaken to my
roots!
To my very—you know—foun-
dation!
This is absolutely (a very long pause)
splendid!
” finished the General.

Colonel Kane shared his bewilderment. First the keeping of his secret, then the behavior of the inmates set him to feverish, dizzying ponder. The inmates’ uniforms were immaculate, starched and without wrinkle. Their line was neat and trim as an honor guard’s, their posture stiff and proud. And as Groper called the roll, each man answered crisply, “
Here,
sir!”

“Marvelous!” burbled Syntax. “It’s simply—well—I mean—incredible change of—uh—the way they all—” Birdlike, he turned to Kane, and said, “You follow me?”

“Yes, sir, I do.”

Syntax, unmoving, looked deep into his eyes. Then at last he said, crisply, “Good!”

“Sir—?”

“Whatever it is you’re doing, it’s getting—
results!
So keep—well, yes, keep (pause) keep
doing
it!”

Syntax sped back to report to Lastrade while Kane went to his office and pondered confusion. A questioning claw ripped at his vitals, probing deep for arteries of truth, tracing their course to the heart of decision. He found it at last in Cutshaw’s arrival.

The grinning astronaut slammed his door shut, quietly locked it and moved to the desk, leaning across it and savagely rhyming: “Twinkle, twinkle, ‘Killer’ Kane! How I wonder whom you’ve slain! Bet you thought I’d never get here!”

Kane replied like a snarling leopard. “Can it, bright eyes! Can the sermon! What the hell were you up to out in formation?”

“Didn’t you love it? A stirring sight! It was intended to convince you that we can be
trusted,
Colonel Caribou! That we’re
dependable!
Understand? We intend to keep your secret, ‘Little Flower of the Nut House’!”

“Why?”

“Come, now, don’t be obtuse. A favor here, a favor there. You’ll be notified, dear heart.”

“So that’s the deal.”

“Good! That’s settled! Now then, tell me, wizard ape, how does it feel to kill with your hands?”

Kane was learning what he had feared, and anger grew with the realization. He spat, “What’s eating you, Mighty Manfred? Bugged because you’d never have the guts to do the same?”

Cutshaw grabbed at a paperweight. “Why you crummy son-of-a—!”

Kane bolted up from his chair. “Go on, throw it, Moon Boy, throw it! That would give me a nice excuse to tear you limb from useless limb! Come on, throw it, you little phony, and then maybe on your deathbed you can tell me how it feels to throw a moonshot down the tubes!”

“Watch your tongue, sir!”

“Watch my
foot,
sir! Who are you kidding with your nut act!”

“Well, now, Spoor, I think, is crazy.”

Kane was stunned by the tacit admission. There it was. The door was closed. “I’m not making any deals,” he said, sick; sick at heart.

“Kane, you’re
mad!
Don’t you know where they’d send you? Idiot, Communist guerrillas have been infiltrating Fapistan!
Outer
most Fapistan!”

“Fine,” said Kane, “fine. ‘Hud, confess!’ That’s what you wanted? That’s what you’ll get. Because tomorrow I’m phoning the General and telling him who I am.”

“What?!”

“You really had me conned; had me conned all the way. I thought I could cut it; shape you up. But, Cutshaw, suddenly it’s clear to me I’ll
never
shape you up! You’ll play Bingo here ’til
discharge
day and I’ll wind up in a
basket!
You’re not crazy or psychotic, you’re just plain
goofing off!
”

“Look at who’s calling the kettle black!” said Cutshaw.

“Yes. Yes, you’re right. But I’m taking care of that tomorrow. And while I’m at it I’m telling the General that all of you are sane!”

Cutshaw leaped suddenly onto the sofa, springing from there onto the desk, bawling in frantic, desperate accents, “Hud, you’re
crazy,
we’re
crazy!
Out of our
minds!
Mad! Mad!” He ripped his shirt clear down to the navel.

Kane eyed him with contempt. “So was I ever to come here.” He strode to the door, yanked it open and went out.

Cutshaw leaped after him, raced to the door, cupped his hands to his mouth and shouted wildly: “Shane, come back! Please, come back! Mother wants you, Shane, she needs you!” And then pitifully he wailed, “Shaaaaannnnnnnne! Come baaaaaaaack!”

Corfu appeared before him, dabbing his nose with royal blue, mourning, “Blue—the color of failure! You have lost for us our
pigeon!
” Then Corfu felt sudden shock as he saw the expression in Cutshaw’s eyes: chilling fear and desperation.

*   *   *

By the fall of night, Colonel Kane was drunk. At nine o’clock he emerged from his quarters, a bottle of bourbon in his hand. He walked down the stairs in rigid lurch, heading for Fell, who was in his clinic. They had been drinking together for hours. At the foot of the stairs stood Captain Groper, gently smirking as Kane approached. “Therapy, Colonel Kane?” Without breaking stride or turning his head, Kane flicked out a hand with effortless grace. It hit Groper’s arm and sent him toppling to the floor like a giant sequoia, branches crackling with incredulity. “Shock treatment, Captain,” murmured Kane, and entered the clinic.

Fell was seated on the accountant’s stool, deep in abortive effort to play the pinball machine with his feet. Kane lurched heavily up beside him. “Fell, I’m giving you one more chance.”

“Gimme the bottle,” slurred Fell. As he reached out a hand, Kane pulled back the bottle.

“After you tell me,” said the Colonel.

Fell eyed him severely with red-grained orbs. “Colonel Kane, have you been drinking?”

“Come on, tell me, wily medic: what do you think when you’re examining a pretty girl?”

“That’s a
Hippocratic secret!
”

“Final answer?”

“Final answer.”

“Then I will pray—pray on bended knees—for the advent of socialized medicine!”

“How I hate an ugly drunk,” said Fell.

“Choice. Take your choice.”

Fell’s expression was that of a hippo deep in the throes of painful decision. Then, “Okay,” he said at last, falling heavily from the stool. He walked to the examination table, sat on it, deeply resigned, then sighed and stretched out on his back. “Okay, you win, ‘Killer’ Kane.”

Kane had gone to him and told him after the final discussion with Cutshaw. He’d said to Fell, “I’m ‘Killer’ Kane.”

“I could have
told
you that, you idiot,” Fell had replied with drunken serenity. He had “suspected all along” that Kane was certainly no psychologist. And then the subject had been dropped. Fell showed no interest, and when Kane would come back to it, Fell would deliberately try to sidetrack, as though he found the topic painful. Kane gave up. He merely drank.

“What am I thinking,” said Fell, “when I examine a pretty girl.” Kane dragged over the stool, slowly hoisted himself upon it, so that he sat behind Fell’s head in classic patient-analyst relationship. “I try to think of elephant jokes and my vast investments in medical buildings;
never
what I’m doing.”

“Same with me,” maundered Kane. “Same with me, same with me. Always thought of something else. Burnt-out case by Graham Greene.”

“Dammit, what in the hell are you mumbling about?”

“Why should animals suffer?”

Fell reached out after a grimace. “Gimme the bottle; you’ve had enough.”

Kane ignored him—or did not hear him—as Fell took the bottle. “Your attitude toward women, Fell—hasn’t it gotten—clinical? Tough? Unfeeling?”

“Nothing,” said Fell emphatically, “that a change of scene hasn’t cured.”

“I’d hoped the same,” murmured Kane, “would work for me … for me … God or Caesar?” he murmured thickly. Abruptly he stared at the back of Fell’s head. “Fell, are the men all goofing off?”

“That,”
said Fell, exasperated, “is the twentieth time you’ve asked me! And the answer is the same: I don’t know and I don’t care!”

“You don’t?”

“No, I don’t. Not enough to make waves. That’s the lesson I’ve learned in the Air Force, Kane—
don’t make waves!
In a word, when you’re snug, and safe and secure in a sack of horseshit, buddy, don’t move!”

“I care,” murmured Kane. “I care … I care.”

“For them? Or yourself?”

The clinic door burst open. Spoor bounced in with his dog. “I’m in trouble! Big trouble!”

Fell eyed him blankly. “Take two aspirin,” he advised, “and call my service in the morning.”

Kane slipped off the stool, moved to the pinball machine and played. The sight of an inmate was unbearable.

Spoor advanced on Fell. “Captain, the problem isn’t medical! It’s purely motivational!”

“In that case, I can help you,” said Fell nipping at the bottle.

But Spoor swooped over to Kane. “Colonel Kane, I speak of Hamlet and the problem of his madness! I am having quite an argument, and maybe you can
help!
”

“Oh?” said Kane.

“Yes,
oh!
Look, some say Hamlet’s really nuts. Am I right? Am I right? Sure! But other Shakespearean scholars insist that Hamlet’s just
pretending;
that he’s putting on an
act.
Now I come to you as a colonel, as a lover of the Bard and a sympathetic pussycat. What is
your
opinion?”

Kane recalled that Spoor was the inmate named by Cutshaw as truly demented. “I don’t know,” said Kane. “What’s yours?”

“Lovely man!” exclaimed Spoor, leaping nimbly onto the machine so that the glass beneath him shattered. Spoor blithely ignored it, rattled onward with his theory. “I think it’s a combination! See? First, look at what Hamlet does. Just for
openers
he walks around the palace in his
underwear!
Then he calls the king his
‘mother’;
tells his mother she’s a
slut;
tells a nice old man he’s
senile;
throws a tantrum at a
theater
party; almost jumps the
girl!
And what filthy things he
says
to her! Now then—is he crazy?”

Fell said, “
Sure,
he’s crazy, idiot.”

Spoor said,
“Wrong!”

“What?”

“
Wrong!
Look, I’ll agree he’s got a reason. Sure, ’cause first his father dies, and then his girl leaves him flat and then his father’s ghost
appears
to him and tells him he was
murdered!
And by
whom?
By Hamlet’s
uncle,
whom his mother recently
married!
Now those are pretty tough potatoes for a high-strung
kid!
For a sensitive
youth!
They’re enough to drive him crazy! I mean, especially if you consider that all this happened in very cold
weather!
”

“That’s what I
said,
” said Fell. “He’s crazy.”

“No, he’s
not!
He’s
pretending!
But if Hamlet hadn’t pretended, then he
would
have gone crazy! Acting nutty is a
safety
valve!”

Kane, for the first time, looked at Spoor, a flicker of interest in his eyes. “Let’s have that again?”

“Pay attention! Look—Hamlet isn’t psycho. But he’s hanging on the
brink!
A little
push,
a little
shove
and the kid is
gone,
hear me,
gone!
So his
sub
conscious mind makes him do what keeps him
sane
—namely, acting like he’s
not!
Acting nutty is a
safety
valve! A way to let off
steam!
A way to get rid of your
aggressions,
and all your
fears,
and all your
guilts
and all your heaven knows what
else!
”

Kane echoed “guilts,” in an odd tone of voice.

“Guilts! Yes,
guilts!
” repeated Spoor. “And he knows that it’s
safe,
understand me,
safe!
If
I
did what Hamlet does in the
play,
they’d lock me
up!
Put me
away!
But Hamlet gets away with it! And
why,
I ask you,
why?
’Cause he knows that nuts are not responsible! He can get away with murder! Listen, let’s not get into that; that’s
another
hangup
al
together!”

“Does Hamlet think that he’s crazy?” asked Kane.

Spoor eyed him with pity. “Does a crazy man
ever?
”

“No,” said Kane; “no.”

“Well, neither does Hamlet,” insisted Spoor. “And notice—the crazier he acts in the play, why, man, the healthier he gets!”