Blatty - Twinkle, twinkle, Killer Kane!

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Contents

DEDICATION:
For E.T.G.T. and A.M.D.G.

Hamlet is mad and sent into England. Twill not be seen in him there. There the men are as mad as he.

Hamlet

Act V, Scene 1

Fog misted upward from rotted leaves, hugging the mansion like a fetid shroud, squeezing with the grip of demented love until the jaws of its gargoyles gaped with terror in silent, hysterical, never-ending shriek. Soft rain splattered. Ceased. Splattered. Dawn sifted in. Thin fall sunlight groped through trees, fracturing in dapples against the gabled, turreted, grotesque Gothic mansion and a breeze-blown shutter creaked once, twice, moaning for Duncan. A crow coughed hoarsely in a meadow far away. Then stillnessdense; oppressive; waiting waiting for the wraith-like hooded figure in black that stalked silently through the dense forestation ringing the mansion. The long trailing folds of its heavy velvet robes slid whispering and scraping over decayed shards of darnel, hemlock and oak; rosemary, iris and flowering Judas. Trees ended. The figure halted. And eyes the color of broken dreams brooded across the barren quadrant of earth fronting the mansion; lifted to the moat; to the splintered, lowered drawbridge and the grinning bust of Belial rampant above the door; then fell, like a dying hope, to the gravestone at its feet:

BELA SLOVIK

1898-1959

A withered sigh, hopeless and aching, filtered like remembrance through the figures black veil, trickling onto the grave in melancholy rivulets. The apparition knelt. Alabaster fingers, the fingers of a woman, reached out to the headstone holding a pure white rose; then dropped it abruptly as the stillness was shattered by a military bugling. The crackling notes of Assembly raged across the courtyard, ripping into the fog with hooks of brass, and an American flag, fluttering defiance, leaped up in spangled majesty atop a mansion turret.

A man garbed in crash helmet, football face guard and Air Force fatigues exploded through the mansion door, fell sprawling to the ground and bellowed: Everyone out of the whirlpool bath!

The apparition started, rose up and fled.

Twenty-three men in Air Force fatigues burst like shrapnel through the door, shouting:

Hurry, children, hurry, hurry!

Move it!

Scramble!

May Day! May Day!

A green swarm of meteors, they hurtled to the center of the courtyard, muttering and mumbling, crooking their elbows in dress-right-dress. One wore a sword and golden earrings. One wore a peppermint-striped beret. From the head of a third bloomed a coonskin cap.

Wheres my bra? I forgot my bra!

Captain Marvel, meet my urologist.

Move!

Whats a U.F.O.?

Well, Liberace, for example.

Sink the Bismarck!

Up your clyde!

Oons!

Who took my Green Hornet douche bag!

Who the hell cares about your douche bag!

Morris Fairbanks, have you no heart?

No! It is welded to my sword!

Yes! Which is presently slicing my foot!

Beastly fog! Theres no color in the air!

As imprecations floated up from them like steam thick with sparks, they were fronted with authority by a dark-haired ramrod. He wore dirty white sneakers and an N.Y.U. blazer over his faded green fatigue tops. Attention! he commanded. It is IManfred Cutshaw!

The men raised their arms in the salute of ancient Rome. Mighty Manfred, let us serve you! they howled into the fog. Then they dropped their arms and froze, hushed and unmoving like the damned awaiting judgment.

Cutshaws eyes swept over them like the blue of arctic lights, flashing and mysterious, luminous and deep. And no bird sang. At last Cutshaw spoke: Sergeant Dorian Zook! You may take three giant steps and kiss the hem of my garment! The hem, mind you, the hem!

Sah! bawled Zook, a pudgy little man with a glistening bald head and a proud, jutting belly. He paced three steps forward and cracked his heels together resoundingly.

Cutshaw measured him with warm reserve, then said, Smashing form, Dorian!

Thank you, sir! Thank you!

Do not allow it to go to your head, Zook. Theres nothing more vile than hubris.

Yes, sah! responded Zook.

Cutshaw looked smartly to the group. Now, thenbaby steps only! He whirled, turning his back to them. Ready? Green Light!

Behind him the men shuffled forward like electrified lead soldiers, taking rapid, tiny steps. Then, Cool it! The fuzz! bawled the one with the sword, and the men scuttled rapidly back to formation as out from the mansion, in angry stride, marched the starched and militant figure of an Air Force captain.

Look where it comes, burbled Cutshaw, in the very form and figure of my fathers pet jackass!

Zook nudged him. Plan A?

No, BMadden But Do Not Craze!

The Air Force captain irrupted before them, angry hands balled into fists. Cutshaw, wheres Fromme? he demanded severely.

Heaven knows, Captain Groper.

Mighty Manfred has spoken! chorused the men en masse.

Groper blanched and Cutshaw leaned forward. Sir, Ive asked them not to do that.

Sure, you asked us, chided Zook, but you didnt ask us right.

What is right? demanded Cutshaw. Dont talk interlocking puzzles.

You didnt say Simon Says!

Is that the rule?

Well, sure its the rule!

Nobody told me.

Nobody told you! Listen, what the hell are you, a baby? You couldnt check? You couldnt research? You couldnt just ask a cop on the?

Simon Says TENNNNNNN- HUT! Gropers interruption was a furious roar.

The men snapped to attention. Silence, total silence. And into it Groper spat words that were distinct blobs of acid quietly sizzling on porous rock. You stinking, crawling, garbage-headed scum! Think youre kidding me with your phony little squirrel act? Sure, youve broken Ryan! But well have you ready to fly again or break every one of your legs!

His speech was not a total success. The men roundly hissed.

Quiet! raged the captain.

The hissing grew louder.

Knock it off!

And louder.

Simon Says shut up!

An unqualified success.

Groper regarded the men with a savage contempt. Hissing that youre good for, you slimy little snakes!

Bra- vo! Bra- vo! breathed Cutshaw quietly but with feeling.

Groper acknowledged the insolence with a darting, hateful glance. But, he continued doggedly, until headquarters ships you a fresh human sacrifice, I am in command! Now pull your heads out of your barracks bags and give poor Colonel Ryan just a little better send-off than you gave him a greeting! Just once try to act like airmen!

Banzai! Banzai! crowed a man in the second rank.

Groper chose to ignore it. He looked to the mansion door. Two airmen were emerging, bearing a man on a stretcher. His hair was iron-gray. He whispered incessantly, incoherently and to no one: to the wind; to the fog; to his limp and crumpled spirit; to a vital mission aborted.