9

Kane stayed in the office for several more hours, deliberately leaving the office door open. A number of the inmates wandered in, each on some outrageous pretext. Kane would watch and listen and soothe. Fell poked his head in once, but waved and went away when he saw that Reno was there: the inmate had asked for Kane’s opinion on whether two Pekingese “would look ridiculous” as Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.

After dinner, Kane roamed the mansion’s main hall for a time, seemingly encouraging the inmates to approach him. He checked some new paintings on the easels. He waited. But Cutshaw did not appear. At ten, Kane went up to his bedroom and began to prepare himself for sleep. But there were constant visitors barging through his door, inmates with problems and with grievances. The last of them were Fromme and an inmate named Price.

“May I speak to you for a moment?” Fromme asked him, standing at the door.

“Of course.”

“I want schooling, sir. May I have it? I want to fulfill my life’s ambition. When I get out of here, of course. But I just can’t live without my dream, sir. It’s been my dream since I was a boy. I’m thirty-five, but it isn’t too late if I go to school. Could I go right away? Maybe ‘Operation Bootstrap,’ Colonel?”

Kane asked him what level of schooling he had completed and whether his credits would be sufficient to admit him to medical school.

“Medical school?” Fromme blinked. “No. I want to play the violin. I want to play like John Garfield in Humoresque. I want to play that scene. I want people to think I’m just a kid from the slums, and then, zappo! I whip out the violin and I stun Joan Crawford and her snotty rich friends. I want to play that scene all the time.”

Kane was kind.

Price was more difficult. A wiry, blond-haired man with deep-set eyes that probed like death rays out of a gaunt and cadaverous face, he bulled his way into the bedroom.

“I want my flying belt,” he demanded.

“I beg your pardon?”

Price looked away in disgust. “Yeah, yeah, same act, same old routine. Christ!” He turned back to Kane and began to speak in the manner of a man repressing frustration and terrible anger, his voice growing louder and more belligerent as he spoke. “Yeah, I want my flying belt, okay? Yeah, sure, you’ve never heard of it. Right? Bullshit! Now kindly have the goodness to admit that you’re able to read my thoughts! that my spaceship has crashed on the planet Venus! that this is Venus and you’re a Venusian and that you’ve illegally invaded my mind to try to make me believe that I’m still on earth! I’m not on earth and you’re not an earthman! I’m standing here up to my asshole in fungus,” Price shouted, “and you’re a giant brain!” He abruptly assumed a conciliatory tone: “Come on, now, give me back my flying belt; I won’t use it to escape, I swear it!”

Kane asked him why he wanted the belt and Price reverted to acid hostility. “I want to play Tinker Bell in drag in a fungoid production of Peter Pan. All right? Are you happy? Now, where the hell is it?”

“It’s coming,” Kane said softly.

“But why is it gone?” Price asked. Then he leaned his head conspiratorially, whispering, “Listen! The brain named Cutshaw says you’re not a brain at all. He said that your name is Sibylline Books. Is that the truth?”

“No.”

“Dammit, who can I believe!” bawled Price. He lowered his voice. “Listen, he offered me a deal. He said if I gave him the map coordinates of the factory on my planet that manufactures all those CB radios, he’d get me back the belt. He wants to bomb the fucking factory. But I was loyal. Understand? I told him no, that you’d feel hurt. Now let’s reciprocate, you bastard!” Again Price’s voice was loud and shrill. “Help me out or I might find a way to kill you, to give you ultimate migraine headache! Where’s the belt!”

“We’ll have one soon.”

“What the hell do you take me for, a stupe? Why the Christ do you think my government picked me? Because I see real good in space? I’ve had all the crap and hocus-pocus I can take! Understand? Produce the belt in twenty-four hours or you’re in trouble! Now go and wrap yourself in fronds or whatever you do when you have to sleep! I am sealing off my mind!”

Price’s departure left Kane exhausted. He lay down on his bed and covered his eyes with the crook of his arm. And he was suddenly deeply asleep and dreaming: Rain. The jungle. The man with the Z-shaped scar on his brow. Kane was kneeling by a body again, the Franciscan. And someone was hunting him, coming closer and closer each second. The man with the scar was looking down at him. He looked at his hands: they were holding the ends of a bloodstained wire. “Colonel, let’s get out of here, let’s get out of here, let’s get—”

Abruptly the dream was penetrated by someone’s scream of agony, and Kane found himself jerking bolt upright, awake. He felt a confusion. Someone needed him. He realized with a start that it was morning. He closed his eyes again. There was a light rapping at the door. He stood up wearily and went to answer it, expecting to find an inmate. It was Fell.

“Come on in,” said Kane.

Fell entered.

“What’s wrong?” asked Kane.

“Wrong?”

“Yes, what is it? Can I help?”

Fell scrutinized him intently, then shook his head and sat down in an overstuffed chair near the bed. “No, nothing’s wrong. I just thought I’d check in with you, see how you were doing.”

Kane sat on the edge of the bed near Fell. Fell was wearing a khaki shirt and pants. He lit a cigarette. Fanning out the match, he peered across at Kane. “Jesus, you look beat. Didn’t you sleep?”

“Not till late. There was always an inmate at the door with some problem.”

“Then keep the door locked,” said Fell.

“No,” said Kane vehemently. “They’ve got to be able to see me whenever they need to.”

“Hey, look, can I tell you something?” said Fell. “I’ve got a suspicion these constant hangings on your door are just part of a plan to convince you that they’re sick and that it’s all for real. And I want you to notice something: these guys did the same thing to me my first day here; and then it slackened off-until you got here.

Then it started all over again with you.”

“I see the point,” murmured Kane. “Yes, I see.”

“Cutshaw’s their leader, the goddam mastermind; in a word, the biggest pain in the ass. Anyway, that’s how I see it; you can take it for what it’s worth. You want breakfast?”

“What?” Kane looked dazed.

“Do you want any breakfast?”

Kane seemed far away. He was staring out the window. It was raining very heavily again. The sky was dark and distant thunder rumbled and crackled. He shut his eyes and put his head down, pinching the corners of his eyes with thumb and finger.

“Something wrong?” asked Fell.

Kane shook his head.

“Something right?”

“That dream,” Kane murmured.

“What was that?”

“I just flashed on a dream I keep having. A nightmare.”

Fell raised his feet and plopped them onto a hassock. “As Calpurnia said to Sigmund Freud, you tell me your dream and I’ll tell you mine.”

“It isn’t my dream,” said Kane.

“Beg pardon?”

“I said it isn’t my dream.” Kane spoke softly. “A patient of mine-a former patient: a colonel just back from Vietnam-he had a grotesque recurring nightmare. It was something that happened to him in combat; or at least the central idea of it was. And ever since he told me about it …” Kane paused; and then he turned haunted eyes on Fell. “Ever since he told me about it,” he repeated, “I keep dreaming it.”

“Jesus,” breathed Fell.

“Yes. Exactly.” Kane looked away. “It’s very strange.”

“ ‘Strange’ isn’t the word. I mean, isn’t that carrying transference just a little bit far?”

Kane looked at him a moment before he answered. “I suppose it’s all right to tell you this now.” He looked down at the rug on the floor. “Yes. At this point, why not? It was my brother.”

“The patient?”

“Yes.”

“Aha. Twin brother?”

“No.”

“Well, that still would tend to explain it, though,” said Fell. “You’re psychically attuned. You’re brothers. You’re very close.”

“No, we’re not.”

“But you must be.”

“Fell, have you ever heard of ‘Killer’ Kane?” Kane was now looking straight into Fell’s eyes.

“Buck Rogers,” grunted Fell.

“No, not that ‘Killer’ Kane: ‘Killer’ Kane the Marine.”

“Oh, well, sure. Who hasn’t? The guerrilla-warfare guy. Killed forty, fifty men with his hands. Or was it eighty? Hey, hold it! Are you saying …?”

“That’s my brother,” said Kane.

“You’re kidding!”

Kane shook his head.

“You’re kidding!” Fell was sitting up straight, his expression at once amazed and pleased.

Kane looked away. “I wish I were.”

“Uh-oh; do I detect that you don’t get along?”

“You do.”

“When you were kids he put frogs in your bed at night. Is that it? Here, lie down and free-associate,” Fell said wryly. “Talk about your brother.”

“He’s a killer,” said Kane.

“He’s a Marine. He gets dropped behind enemy lines and does his duty. Jesus, you’re serious about this.” Fell frowned. “Come on, man, he’s a hero.” Then, “Aha!” he pounced. “Sibling rivalry!”

Kane said, “Let’s forget it.”

“Are you sure you know what business you’re in? These recruiting-office sergeants can be sneaky.”

Kane closed his eyes and held his hand out to Fell, palm outward, in a gesture suggesting that Fell desist.

“You a friend of Jane Fonda?” pressed Fell.

“We’re close.”

“You’re kidding.”

“I’m kidding.”

Fell nodded and stood up. “I’m for coffee. You coming?”

Kane stayed seated. “In a minute or two. I need to change.”

“Yeah, sure. How’s your brother, by the way? You know, I met him when I was stationed in Korea. That was quite a little while ago, but I remember him. A hell of a guy. We palled around. I really liked him. I liked him very much, in fact.”

“He’s dead,” said Kane.

“Oh, Jesus. Hey, I’m sorry. I really am sorry.”

“That’s all right. That’s why I told you about the dream.”

Fell looked despondent. “Listen, how did it—” He stopped. “Never mind.”

He opened the door and pointed down. “See you downstairs,” he said.

Kane nodded.

Fell closed the door behind him and fumbled for a cigarette with trembling fingers. Tears coursed down his face.