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corner crouched a pinball machine that Fell had repainted so that its highbacked electric scoreboard now read: “Light up the Interns and Win a Free Game!” Fell thought it grand.
    Humming inanely, Fell tucked a folder under his arm and moved to the clinic door. He was still in his shorts, above them an open-necked, blue wool shirt. He stepped outside into the Slovik main hall.
    Like the exterior of the mansion, it was Gothic, massive and dense, with a high cathedral ceiling crisscrossed by beams from some enchanted, moaning wood. This was the Therapy Room for the inmates, cluttered with lounge chairs, chess sets, ping-pong tables, stereo, motion picture screen and projector; writing tables, magazines and canvases, set on easels, vivid with paintings by the inmates. No painting was quite completed. Each was a tale of horror abruptly halted in mid-narration. One was of an index finger that pointed straight up and was pierced by a needle, dripping blood. Another depicted a tree, its terminal branches metamorphosed into the coils of a boa constrictor crushing the head of a male infant; its creator had captioned it “Mother Love.” Still others were infinitely busy and chaotically detailed, yet with fine-drawn precision so that in a single painting one could identify a jackhammer, part of an arm and an onrushing train; the wheels of a lathe, a baleful eye, a Negro Christ, a bloody ax, a bullet in flight and a creature half-lizard, half-man. From the center of one billowed a hydrogen mushroom cloud, while high, high above it, almost microscopic in size, hung a silvery bomber pierced by a spear; on the fuselage, in red, were the tiny letters, “Me.”
    Fell glanced around the hall. It was quiet and deserted. He looked to the winding staircase that ascended to the second floor, where all the staff were billeted. No one on the landing. He looked around the hall again, at the fixed and myriad lifelike effigies of the old master vampire, of Bela Slovik as he’d appeared in his various movie roles. Then shivered slightly, walked down the hall, pushed open the door to Kane’s office and stepped inside.
    The new commanding officer was unpacking some books. His back was to Fell, but as the door slid open silently, he turned with the cunning grace of a middle-aged panther. Eyes like a panther as well, thought Fell, and closed the door behind him. He strode over to Kane, who had a hand in a valise that was open on his desk. Above the desk, in matching frames, were portraits of Slovik and General Lastrade, posed in attitudes suggesting that they were no longer speaking.
    “Hi,” chirped Fell thickly. “Brought you a little present.” He tossed the folder onto the desk. “File on Manfred Cutshaw. Better read it, old shoe.”
    Kane eyed him inscrutably. “Do you intend to get dressed?”
    “Well, now, how can I get dressed when Sergeant Fromme won’t surrender my pants! ” growled Fell, projecting wounded innocence. “Colonel, you surely don’t expect me to rip them off!”
    “No, no—of course. We mustn’t use force.”
    “We mustn’t wrinkle the pants! ” Fell slurped noisily from his cup and abruptly subsided. “He’ll take them off neatly soon as Cutshaw gives the order.”
    “As soon as Cutshaw gives the order!”
    Fell’s eye fell inadvertently on a book in Kane’s valise. It was a Roman Catholic missal. For only the briefest instant he pondered its implications; then looked up again at Kane.
    “May I give you some advice?” said Fell as he made an abortive effort to sit gracefully on the edge of the desk. He slipped, barely recovered, then pretended that nothing had happened as Kane looked to his coffee mug, then up again at the medic.
    “Get Cutshaw to like you,” imparted Fell with heavy wisdom. “Humor him. Pamper him. The inmates won’t listen to anyone else. Get Cutshaw on your side and you’ve really got it made. But get him on your back and you can kiss the game good—”
    Fell never finished.