Legion (22 page)

CALL ME LEGION, FOR WE ARE MANY

Kinderman hastened out of the room and picked up Atkins at the charge desk. “Come with me, Nemo,” the detective ordered, not slackening his pace as he passed the sergeant. Atkins followed in his wake until at last they were standing in the isolation section in front of the door to Cell Twelve. Kinderman peered through the observation window. The man in the cell was awake. He was sitting on the edge of the cot in his straitjacket, grinning at Kinderman, his eyes mocking. His lips began moving and he seemed to be saying something but Kinderman couldn’t hear him. The detective turned away and questioned the policeman standing by the door. “How long have you been here?” he asked him.

“Since midnight,” answered the policeman.

“Has anyone entered the room since that time?”

“Just the nurse a few times.”

“Not a doctor?”

“No. Just the nurse.”

Kinderman considered this for a moment, then he turned to Atkins. “Tell Ryan I want fingerprints taken of every member of the hospital staff,’’ he said. “Start with Temple, and then everyone working in Neurology and Psychiatric next. After that we’ll see. Get extra help to take the prints and then run the comparisons with the prints from the murder scenes. Get as many men as possible. I want it done quickly. Go ahead, Atkins. Hurry. And tell the nurse to come back here with her keys.”

Kinderman watched him hurrying away. When he’d rounded a corner, the detective kept listening to his footsteps as if they were the dwindling sound of reality. They faded away to silence and again there was darkness in Kinderman’s soul. He glanced up at the light bulbs in the ceiling. Three were still out. The hallway was dim. Footsteps. The nurse was approaching. He waited. She reached him and he pointed to the door of Cell Twelve. The nurse probed his eyes with a shifting glance, then unlocked the door. He walked inside. Sunlight’s nose had been taped and bandaged and his eyes were riveted to Kinderman’s, unblinking and unwaveringly following him as he walked to the chair and sat down. The silence was thick and claustrophobic. Sunlight was perfectly immobile, a frozen image with eyes staring wide. He was like a figure in a wax museum. Kinderman looked up at the dangling light bulb. It was flickering. Now still. He heard a chuckle.

“Yes, let there be light,” said the voice of Sunlight.

Kinderman looked down into Sunlight’s eyes. They were wide and vacant. “Did you get my message, Lieutenant?” he asked. “I left it with Keating. Nice girl. Good heart. Incidentally, I’m delighted that you’re summoning Father. One thing, though. A favor. Might you call United Press and make sure Father’s photographed together with Keating? That’s why I kill, you know–to disgrace him. Help me. I’ll make it worth your while. Death will take a holiday. Just once. For one day. I assure you, you’ll be grateful. In the meantime, I could speak to my friends here about you. Put in a good word. They don’t like you, you know. Don’t ask me why. They keep mentioning your name begins with K, but I ignore them. Isn’t that good of me? And brave. They’re so capricious with their angers.” He seemed to be thinking of something, and he shuddered. “Never mind. Let’s not talk about them now. Let’s go on. I pose an interesting problem for you, don’t I, Lieutenant? I mean, presuming you’re convinced now I really am the Gemini.” His face became a threatening mask. “Are you convinced?’’

“No,” replied Kinderman.

“You’re being very foolish,” rasped Sunlight with menace. “And issuing a clear invitation to the dance.”

“I don’t know what you mean by that,” said Kinderman.

“Neither do I,” said Sunlight blankly. His face was ingenuous. “I’m a madman.”

Kinderman stared and listened to the dripping. Finally he spoke. “If you’re the Gemini, how do you get out of here?”

“Do you like opera?” asked Sunlight. He began to sing from
La Boheme
in a deep, rich voice, then abruptly broke off and looked at Kinderman. “I like plays much better,” he said. “Titus Andronicus is my favorite. It’s sweet.” He gave a low chuckle. “How is your friend Amfortas?” he asked. “I understand he had a little visitation of late.’’ Sunlight started quacking like a duck, then fell silent. He looked away. “Needs work,” he growled. He turned back to Kinderman, staring intently. “You want to know how I get out?” he said.

“Yes, tell me.”

“Friends. Old friends.”

“What friends?”

“No, it’s boring. Let’s discuss something else.”

Kinderman waited, holding his gaze.

“It was wrong of you to hit me,” said Sunlight evenly.”I can’t help myself. I’m insane.”

Kinderman listened to the dripping of the faucet.

“Miss Keating ate tuna fish,” said Sunlight. “I could smell it. Damned hospital food. It’s disgusting.”

“How do you get out of here?” Kinderman repeated.

Sunlight leaned his head back and chuckled. Then he fixed a shining stare on Kinderman. “There are so many possibilities. I think of them a lot. I try to figure it out. Do you think this might be true? I think possibly I am your friend Father Karras. Perhaps they pronounced me dead but I wasn’t. Later I resuscitated at–well–an embarrassing moment and then wandered the streets not knowing who I was. I still don’t, for that matter. And needless to say, of course, I’m quite naturally and hopelessly mad. I have frequent dreams of falling down a long flight of steps. Is that something that really happened? If it did then I surely must have damaged my brain. Did that happen, Lieutenant?”

Kinderman kept silent.

“Other times I dream that I’m someone named Vennamun,” said Sunlight. “These dreams are very nice. I kill people. But I can’t sort out the dreams from the truth. I’m insane. You’re quite wise to be skeptical, I’d say. Still, you’re a homicide detective. So it’s clear there are people being killed. That makes sense. Do you know what I think? It’s Doctor Temple. Mightn’t he have hypnotized his patients into–well–certain actions that are socially unacceptable these days? Ah, the times, they keep changing for the worse, don’t you think? In the meantime, perhaps I’m telepathic or have psychic abilities that give me all my knowledge of the Gemini crimes. It’s a thought, is it not? Yes, I can see that you’re thinking about it. Good for you. Bye the bye, chew on this. You haven’t thought of it yet.” Sunlight’s eyes glittered tauntingly and he leaned his body forward a little. “What if the Gemini had an accomplice?”

“Who killed Father Bermingham?”

“Who is he?” asked Sunlight innocently. His eyebrows were gathered in puzzlement.

“You don’t know?” the detective asked him.

“I can’t be everywhere at once.”

“Who killed Nurse Keating?”

“ ‘Put out the light, and then put out the light.’ “

“Who killed Nurse Keating?”

“The envious moon.” Sunlight put his head back and lowed like a steer. He looked back at Kinderman. “I think I’ve almost got it now,” he said. “It’s fairly close. Tell the press that I’m the Gemini, Lieutenant. Last warning.”

He was staring ominously at Kinderman. The seconds ticked by in silence. “Father Dyer was silly,” said Sunlight at last. “A silly person. How’s your hand, by the way? Still swollen?”

“Who killed Nurse Keating?”

“Troublemakers. Persons unknown and no doubt uncouth.”

“If you did it, what happened to her vital organs?” asked Kinderman. “You would know that. What happened to them? Tell me.”

“I like dinner,” said Sunlight in a monotone.

Kinderman stared at the expressionless eyes. “Old friends.’’ The detective’s heart skipped a beat.

“Daddy’s got to know,” said Sunlight at last. His gaze broke away from Kinderman’s and he vacantly stared into space. “I’m tired,’’ he said softly. “My work is never done, it seems. I’m tired.” He looked curiously helpless for a moment. Then he seemed to grow somnolent. His head drooped. “Tommy doesn’t understand,” he murmured. “I tell him to go on without me but he won’t. He’s afraid. Tommy’s … angry … with me.”

Kinderman stood up and moved closer. He leaned his ear close to Sunlight’s mouth to catch whispered words. “Little … Jack Homer. Child’s … play.” Kinderman waited but nothing else came. Sunlight fell unconscious.

Kinderman hurriedly left the room. He felt an awful foreboding. On the way out he buzzed for the nurse. When she arrived he went back to the neurology wing and looked for Atkins. The sergeant was standing at the charge desk, talking on the telephone. When he saw the detective beside him, he hurried through the rest of his conversation.

A child was being checked into Neurology, a boy aged six. A hospital attendant had just pushed him up to the desk in a wheelchair. “Here’s a nice little fellah for you,” the attendant told the charge nurse.

She smiled at the boy and said, “Hi.”

Kinderman’s attention was fixed on Atkins.

“Last name?” asked the nurse.

The attendant said, “Korner. Vincent P.”

“Vincent Paul,” said the boy.

“Is that with a C or a K?” the nurse asked the attendant.

He handed her some papers. “K.”

“Atkins, hurry,” said Kinderman urgently.

Atkins finished in another few seconds and the boy was wheeled away to a room in Neurology. Atkins hung up the phone.

“Put a man at the entrance to the open ward in Psychiatric,” Kinderman told him. “I want someone there around the clock. No patient gets out, no matter what. No matter what!”

Atkins reached for the telephone and Kinderman grabbed his wrist. “Call later. Give me someone right now,” he insisted.

Atkins signaled to a uniformed policeman stationed at the elevators. He came over. “Come with me,” said Kinderman. “Atkins, I am leaving you. Goodbye.”

Kinderman and the policeman hurried toward the open ward. When they’d reached the entrance Kinderman stopped and
instructed
the policeman. “No patient comes out of there. Only staff. Understand?”

“All right, sir.”

“Do not leave for any reason unless relieved. Do not go to the bathroom, even.”

“Yes, sir.”

Kinderman left him and entered the ward. Soon he was standing in the recreation room a few feet to the right of the charge desk. He looked around slowly, checking each face with a sense of wariness and a quickening feeling of dread. And yet all seemed in order. What was wrong? Then he noticed the quiet. He looked toward the crowd around the television set. He blinked and moved closer but abruptly he stopped a few feet from the group. Rapt and staring, their eyes were riveted to a television screen that was blank. The set was not on.

Kinderman glanced around the room and for the first time noticed there were neither any nurses nor attendants around. He squinted at the office behind the charge desk. No one was there. He looked at the silent group around the television set. His heart began to thump. The detective moved rapidly toward the charge desk, slipped around it and opened the door to the little office. He flinched in shock: a nurse and an attendant were sprawled on the floor, unconscious, blood seeping out of head wounds. The nurse was nude. No part of her uniform was anywhere in sight.

Child’s play! Vincent Korner!

The words struck Kinderman’s mind like a blow. Quickly he turned and rushed out of the office, only to freeze in his tracks at what he saw. Every patient in the room was moving toward him, approaching in a cordon that was closing in, the shuffling of their slippers the only sound in an awful, terrifying silence. They were leering, their glittering eyes fixed upon him, and from separate points of the room came their voices, lilting and staggered and eerily pleasant:

“Hello.”

“Hello.”

“So nice to see you, dear.”

They began to whisper unintelligibly. Kinderman shouted for help.