The Ninth Configuration Read Online Free PDF Page A

and then flies straight? Twenty-four of them crashed for no damn reason; and right after number twenty-four is when Fairbanks started going to junior proms for trees.
    Hell, maybe we ought to give all of them electroshock treatment. That would shake out the fakers in a hurry, don’t you think?” He saw Kane staring at the bottom of his boxer shorts, where the words “Vendome Liquors” were embroidered in red. “Or don’t you?” Fell added.
    Kane looked at him intently. “You remind me of someone.”
    “Who?”
    “I don’t know. You just seem so familiar to me. I suppose it will come to me.”
    “So will Ann Rutherford: just change your name to Andy Hardy.” For a moment Kane continued to study him; then he stooped to pick up books and dossiers from the floor.
    “Did you like my idea about electroshock treatment?” Fell asked.
    “I thought you were joking.”
    “Me joke? You’re not serious.”
    “I’ll have to think about it.”
    “Yeah, think,” said Fell. “Think hard. That’s what you’re paid for. Meantime, let me know when you come up with an answer.” Kane nodded absently. Fell watched him for a moment, then opened the door and left. He went to his bedroom. Using a private line, he dialed a number that rang on a general’s desk in the Pentagon. When it answered, Fell said, “He’s here, sir.”
     

 

     
     

    4
     
     
    Most of the fog had thinned away, but the evening was quickening. Rain clouds threatened. Kane sat at his desk, his eyes deep wells in a haggard face, a man with an urgent task, pursued. He had read the case histories of all the inmates and now was absorbed in a psychiatric textbook. He underlined frequently with a yellow soft-lead pencil. It was the evening of his arrival.
    He adjusted the desk lamp, craning the light down closer to the book; then he lowered his head and rested his eyes, breathing deeply and noisily, almost asleep. He roused himself abruptly, rubbed his eyes and continued to read. He underlined a portion of the text. It dealt with the curative aspects of shock treatment. He studied it for a time. Then he glanced at Cutshaw’s medal. It was still on his desk.
    The office door flew open. It was Cutshaw, attired in swimming trunks, a beach towel over his shoulder. He wore a black armband and gripped the handle of a child’s pail and shovel. His feet were shod in frogman’s flippers and the swimming trunks and towel were patterned in a matching Polynesian motif. He slammed the office door behind him. “Let’s go to the beach,” he demanded.
    Kane pushed the lamp head even lower, so that his face was hidden in darkness. “It’s night and it’s starting to rain,” he said gently.
    Cutshaw walked forward, the rubber flippers thwacking squeakily against the polished oaken floor. His brows were beetled together in a scowl. “I see you’re determined to start an argument! Okay, then, let’s play doctor.”
    “No.”
    “Then jacks; do you want to play jacks?”
    “No, I don’t.”
    “Good Christ, you don’t want to do anything!” Cutshaw shrieked. “There’s nothing to do around this place! I’m going crazy!”
    “Cutshaw—”
    “What do I have to do just to get in a word with you? Offer sacrifice? Well, here then!” He upended the beach pail onto Kane’s desk and then lifted it off and tossed it away, disclosing a mound of shaped damp earth atop an open dossier. “I’ve brought you a mud pie; now can I talk to you?”
    “Will you talk about the moon?”
    “Listen, everyone knows the moon is Roquefort; I’ve come here to talk about Colonel Fell.”
    “What about him?”
    “What about him? Are you a stone? Christ. Captain Nam-mack approached him this morning complaining of a strange and wondrous malady, and do you know what that quack prescribed? He said, ‘Here, take this. It’s a suicide pill with a mild laxative side effect.’ What kind of bedside manner is that?”
    “What’s wrong with Nammack?” Kane asked