Free The Madman's Tale by John Katzenbach Page A

off the bed and stand up. “Yes. Of course,” he said. “It’s perfectly okay.”
    The tall man reached out and shook Francis’s hand, pumping it enthusiastically.
    “I’m delighted to make your acquaintance, C-Bird. You are generous. And clearly well mannered. I’m sincerely sorry if I scared you.”
    To Francis the tall man suddenly seemed far less frightening. He simplyseemed old, tattered, a little like an out-of-date magazine that has been left on a table for far too long.
    The tall man shrugged. “They call me Lanky,” he said. “I’m here most of the time.”
    Francis nodded. “I’m …”
    The other man interrupted. “C-Bird. No one seems to use their real name in here.”
    Lanky moved his head up and down rapidly. “The Fireman’s right, C-Bird. Nicknames and abbreviations and the such.”
    Then he pivoted, and quickly marched back across the room, and tossed himself down on his bed, staring back up at the ceiling.
    “He doesn’t seem to be a bad fellow, and I think in reality, which is a poor word to use in this fine place, I believe he’s actually pretty harmless,” the Fireman said. “He did exactly the same to me the other day, shouting and pointing and acting like he was going to take me on single-handedly, thus protecting society from the arrival of the Antichrist, or the Son of Satan or whomever. Any odd demon that might accidentally land here. He does that to everyone who enters whom he doesn’t recognize. And it’s not altogether crazy, too, if you think about it. There seems to be a significant amount of evil around in this world, and it has to be coming from somewhere, I’m guessing. Might as well stay vigilant, like he says, even here.”
    “Thank you, anyway,” Francis said. He was calming down, a little like a child who thought he was lost, but somehow spots a landmark, that gives him a sense of location. “But I don’t know your name …”
    “I don’t have a name any longer,” the man said. This was spoken with just the slightest touch of sadness around the edge, replaced swiftly by a wry half smile that was tinged with some sort of regret.
    “How can you not have a name?” Francis asked.
    “I’ve had to give it up. It’s what landed me here.”
    This made little sense to Francis. The man shook his head, amused. “I’m sorry. People have started calling me the Fireman, because that is what I was before I arrived at the hospital. Put out fires.”
    “But …”
    “Well, once my friends called me Peter. So, Peter the Fireman, that will have to do for you Francis C-Bird.”
    “All right,” Francis replied.
    “I think you’ll discover that the naming system here, makes it a little easier. Now you’ve met Lanky, which is as obvious a nickname for someone who looks like he does as one could possibly have. And you’ve been introduced to the Moses brothers, except everyone calls them Big Black and Little Black, which, again, seems like appropriate casting. And Gulp-a-pill, which is easierto say and far more accurate given his approach to treatment than the doctor’s real name. And who else have you run into?”
    “The nurses outside behind the bars, Miss …”
    “Ah, Miss Wrong and Miss Watchful?”
    “Wright and Winchell.”
    “Correct. And there are other nurses as well, like Nurse Mitchell, who is Nurse Bitch-All and Nurse Smith, who is Nurse Bones because she looks a little like Lanky, there, and Short Blond, who seems quite beautiful. There’s a social worker named Evans—called Mister Evil—whom you’re going to meet soon enough, because he’s more or less in charge of this dormitory. And Gulp-a-pill’s nasty secretary’s name is Miss Lewis, but someone dubbed her Miss Luscious, which she apparently hates, but can’t do anything about, because it has stuck to her as tightly as those sweaters she likes to wear. She seems to be a real piece of work. It might all seem very confusing, but you’ll get it all straight in a couple of