Gene Wolfe - Free Live Free

“I know. Look.”

Candy did, and handed Reeder a pair of surgical scissors. “That’s Madame Serpentina. You probably already heard me call her that.”

“Right.” He rolled Dr. Roberts over and lovingly spread a piece of wide tape across his mouth.

“She’s a witch. She’s magic—she really is. It’s scary and pretty hard to swallow, but it’s true.”

“And this,” Madame Serpentina said, rising with the nurse’s white pantyhose in her hand, “is my good friend Candy Garth, who has saved me. What I wish to know is why the two of you, who are attempting to fly this place, came here when you heard that foolish woman scream.”

“I didn’t save you,” Candy said. “You saved yourself. You had an arm out, and you could have gotten the rest of yourself out of that thing.”

The witch waved the objection away. “But why did you come?”

Reeder told her, “I think we scared each other into it. She was goin’ down the hall out there and I was comin’ up it, and we heard this yell and sort of looked at each other. I thought she was tellin’ me to go on and see about it, and she must have thought the same thing about me. I know I was scared that if I ran away from the trouble instead of to it, they’d know I didn’t really work here.”

Candy nodded confirmation.

“I have more questions. But first you, Mr. Reeder, must turn your back so that I may put on these things. Good. Candy, will you tape that woman, please. I have already from her all that I require.”

The witch hesitated, and they heard the rustle of fabric.

“Now if I have understood you, one walked in one direction and one in the other. In which direction is the exit from this mad place?”

Reeder pointed. “The way I was goin’. That’s the elevators, anyway.”

Candy said. “There’s stairs there too—I already checked them out.”

“But it was not in that direction that you walked. You were coming toward this room, and your back was to them. You were not trying to leave this hospital then.”

“Okay,” Candy said. “I guess I got to tell.” She propped her plump hips against the side of the examination table. “There’s this kid. Ozzie’s kid, and—”

Reeder leaned forward. “Who?”

“Ozzie Barnes. You don’t know him. I found his kid in the bus station. He was looking for Ozzie, but I don’t think Ozzie ever got the word he was supposed to pick up the kid there. So I figured I’d sit with him—you know, take him around till I ran into Ozzie or we met back at the hotel.” She looked at the witch. “You remember when Stubb was talking at breakfast, he told me to come here and see Proudy, if I could, and find out what he had against us? Come to think of it, what are you doing here anyway? You were supposed to get some friends of yours on our side.”

The witch said. “Possibly it is unwise to speak too much of these things now. Let me say only that I did what I agreed to do, and some of the friends you spoke of came seeking a certain one we both know of. They were detained. I came to free them, and as you have seen, I was detained myself. It is unimportant. Tell me quickly about the child.”

Candy nodded. “I brought him here, and then I got mad at the two-bit piece down at the desk and tried to take a hunk out of her, and they got me. I guess about like they got you. They doped me up and strapped me down, and after a while this doc here—Hey, he’s awake! Hi ya, Doc! He came and talked to me. After that, he talked to Little Ozzie, only Little Ozzie split when they had some kind of ruckus and went looking for me, and when he found me, he undid my straps. This was only about three rooms down from here. Then I went wandering around in those pajamas they put on me. Really, I was looking for my own stuff, my dress and handbag. But one time when the nurse at the desk was gone, I looked under it and found this big package wrapped up in brown paper. I figured it might be something useful, so I took it back to the room where Little Ozzie was, and it turned out to be her laundry, you know? The really lucky part was that she was a pretty big gal, so I was able to get into her stuff. Then I thought, hey, if I could just find a basket or a big box or something like that, I could put Little Ozzie in it and carry him out. I figured he couldn’t just walk out with me, because I knew they were looking for him. So I looked and the big nurse at the desk was gone again, or maybe still gone, and I decided to risk it. Only there wasn’t anything, and I was on my way back when I heard the girl you bit yell.”

“You shall never know,” the witch said, “how truly thankful I am that I asked you to speak quickly. Otherwise we should still have been here on the Last Day. This child, then, is still in the room where you were strapped?”

Candy nodded.

“Then you, Mr. Reeder, must bring him to us now. If anyone should see my friend Candy with him, that person might easily remember that it was she who brought him here. But if you are seen with him, it will only be thought that he has been recaptured. I have a plan for our escape. It involves coercion and perhaps torture, but those are often characteristic of the best plans.”

“Doctor,” said the nurse who opened the door, “I hate to interrupt you, but we have a man here, and we don’t seem to have any record of him.”

She opened the door farther, and Barnes walked in. “I’m not really a patient,” he said ruefully. For a moment his hands wandered over the coarse cotton of his pajamas. “It’s just that these are the only clothes I have. Hello, Stubb. What are you doing here?”

“The hell with me, what are you doing here? I sent Candy, not you.”

Dr. Bensen rose to look at him. “Someone hit you on the jaw,” he said.

“Yes, sir.” Barnes nodded. “One of your patients, Doctor. He knocked me out and stole my clothes, my wallet, and everything. Even my glass eye.”

“The routine of this hospital is incessantly interrupted.”

Sandy said, “You know, you look very interesting without the eye. I didn’t know it was glass.”

“I bet I look terrible. Have you got a mirror?”

She took a compact from her purse, opened it, and handed it to Barnes. He studied his face intently. “Blow me down. I look awful.”

“I think you’re cute.”

“You can get another eye,” Stubb told him.

“What with? That eye cost me two hundred.”

Dr. Bensen asked, “What’s your name? Full name.”

“Osgood Myles Barnes. Listen, Stubb, do you know the one about the guy with the wooden eye?”

“I’ve got a hunch I’m about to hear it.”

“He was a farmboy, see? Up in New England, and somebody hit him in the face with a hay rake and put his eye out.”

“Age?”

“Thirty-four. So he went to Boston to buy a glass one. They had the real good ones from Germany, but they cost a bundle, and he only had twenty bucks.”

“Place of birth?”

“Pottstown, Pea Ay. So just when he was about to go back to the farm—he already had his ticket—this peddler comes up to him and he has wooden glass eyes.”

“Occupation?”

“Sales. What they really were was pine knots with a blue dot or a brown dot painted in the middle. So the guy bought one for twenty bucks and put it in and went home.”

“College graduate?”

“No. Two years at Pitt in business administration. But everybody on the train laughed at him and his wooden eye, and he got so embarrassed about it he wouldn’t go out any more after he got back to the farm.”

“When was the last time you were hospitalized?”

Sandy said, “Why are you asking him all these questions?”

“My nurse will have to fill out a card.”