Twinkle, Twinkle, "Killer" Kane by William Peter Blatty Read Free Book Online Page B

him?” asked Kane.
    “Irresponsible!” answered Spoor. “He’s ten minutes late for rehearsal! Now out! ” he commanded the dog. It padded meekly through the door and disappeared, and in the background Kane saw Fairbanks throwing a leg over the second-floor balustrade and sliding down the drape.
    Fell cleared his throat. “Lieutenant, the Colonel would like to hear about your work.”
    Spoor shriveled him with a glance. “Navigating? Child’s play! I leave it to the crows, to the hawks, to the swallows! I am not a mere device! I am not an albino bat! Watch your cup, dear heart, it’s dripping.”
    “Not navigating,” said Fell. “Your work —tell the Colonel.”
    “Ah! You speak of matters tender!”
    “Lieutenant Spoor,” explained Fell, “is currently at work adapting Shakespeare’s plays for dogs.”
    Spoor drew up proudly. “A massive problem! A labor of love! But it must be done! It must! It must!”
    “Of course,” soothed Kane. “You taught Shakespeare in civilian life?”
    “I repossessed cars for a finance company.”
    “Highly commendable,” diplomatized Kane.
    “A joy! ” exclaimed Spoor. “Man versus Machine! Leslie Marvin Spoor against the criminally poor! A battle of wits! A clash by night! Will .007 recover Fu Manchu’s Lotus? Will he? Will he? I loved it, sir, I loved it! What are you driving?”
    “I’m using a staff car,” said Kane.
    “Paid for?”
    “No,” intervened Fell. “Now tell the good Colonel what you’re rehearsing.”
    “Julius Caesar!” crackled Spoor, fixing Kane with a glittering eye. “It’s that terribly gripping scene where this noble-looking Dalmatian whips his toga about him— thus —and pitifully snarls at one of the conspirators: ‘ Et tu, White Fang! ’”
    The ensuing silence ticked like a bomb as neither Fell nor the Colonel moved. The broad grin of triumph slowly faded from Spoor’s face. At last he said, “You hate it.”
    “Not at all,” Kane answered quickly. “I’m just thinking about it.”
    “Good! We’ll discuss more fully later. In fact, I’d very much like your notions on a problem I’m having with Hamlet. What a puzzler! See? If I cast a Great Dane they’ll accuse me of—”
    The dog barked urgently outside the office door. Spoor held up a hand, palm outward, to the Colonel. “The time is out of joint,” he mourned and glided to the door. “Julius awaits! He awaits! Later, Colonel Pussycat! Anon! Anon!” He swooped out the door, then, and disappeared from sight, his voice calling, “Coming! Coming, Rip Torn!”
    Cutshaw appeared in the doorway, tossed a pair of pants at Fell. “Here,” declaimed the astronaut. “Fromme has just decided that he will sell all his goods and give the proceeds to the poor.” Then he glowered at Kane. “Still with us, Colonel Kidd?”
    The crash of a hammer pounding plaster resounded through the wall. Cutshaw looked to the side. “Ah, that darling Captain Bemish!” he said. Then oozed out of sight.
    Again the crash of the hammer. Through the doorway Kane saw Groper racing swiftly down the stairs. He looked to Fell, but the medic had turned his back and was gazing out the window, humming a song from Rose Marie. Kane went to the door, looked to the right and saw Bemish. He wore his crash helmet and face guard and was sedulously pounding a hole into the wall outside Kane’s office with a short-handled sledge hammer.
    Groper ran up to Bemish and ripped the hammer from his hand, yapping, “I hid it, dammit, I hid it! How did you get it, Bemish? How? ”
    “I wouldn’t dare tell you that, ” said Bemish. “Mighty Manfred would kill me!” Then he whipped the hammer deftly out of Captain Groper’s grasp and instructed him, serenely, to “Kindly stand aside.”
    “You little—!”
    Groper had lifted his arm as though to strike at Captain Bemish, and, at this, Kane intervened. “Captain Groper, I am shocked— shocked at your behavior!”
    “But he’s—!”
    “Later we