Dreamcatcher(105)

Kurtz, moving with a finicky, almost surgical precision, placed the barrel of his pistol against the center of Melrose's cheese-white forehead.

'Squelch that womanish bawling, buck, or I'll squelch it for you. These are hollow-points, as I think even a dimly lit American like yourself must now surely know.'

Melrose somehow choked the screams off, turned them into low, in-the-throat sobs. This seemed to satisfy Kurtz.

'Just so you can hear me, buck, You have to hear me, because you have to spread the word. I believe, praise God, that your foot, what's left of it, will articulate the basic concept, but it's your own sacred mouth that must share the details. So are you listening, bucko? Are you listening for the details?'

Still sobbing, his eyes starting from his face like blue glass balls, Melrose managed a nod.

Quick as a striking snake, Kurtz's head turned and Perlmutter clearly saw the man's face. The madness there was stamped into the features as clearly as a warrior's tattoos. At that moment everything Perlmutter had ever believed about his OIC fell down.

'What about you, bucko? Listening? Because you're a messen?ger, too. All of us are messengers.'

Pearly nodded. The door opened and he saw, with unutter?able relief, that the newcomer was Owen Underhill. Kurtz's eyes flew to him.

'Owen! Me foine bucko! Another witness! Another, praise God, another messenger! Are you listening? Will you carry the word hence from this happy place?'

Expressionless as a poker-player in a high-stakes game, Underhill nodded.

'Good! Good!'

Kurtz returned his attention to Melrose.  

'I quote from the Manual of Affairs, Cook's Third Melrose, Part 16, Section 4, Paragraph 3  -  "Use of inappropriate epithets, whether racial, ethnic, or gender-based, are counterproductive to morale and run counter to armed service protocol. When use is proven, the user will be punished immediately by court-martial or in the field by appropriate command personnel," end quote. Appropriate command personnel, that's me, user of inappropriate epithets, that's you. Do you understand, Melrose? Do you get the drift-ola?'

Melrose, blubbering, tried to speak, but Kurtz cut him off. In the doorway Owen Underhill continued to stand completely still as the snow melted on his shoulders and ran down the transparent bulb of his mask like sweat. His eyes remained fixed on Kurtz.

'Now, Cook's Third Melrose, what I have quoted to you in the presence of these, these praise God witnesses, is called "an order of conduct", and it means no spicktalk, no mockietalk, no krauttalk or redskin talk. It also means as is most applicable in the current situation no space-niggertalk, do you understand that?'

Melrose tried to nod, then reeled, on the verge of passing out. Perlmutter grabbed him by the shoulder and got him straight again, praying that Melrose wouldn't conk before this was over. God only knew what Kurtz might do to Melrose if Melrose had the temerity to turn out the lights before Kurtz was done reading him the riot act.

'We are going to wipe these invading ass**les out, my friend, and if they ever come back to Terra Firma, we are going to rip off their collective gray head and shit down their collective gray neck; if they persist we will use their own technology, which we are already well on our way to grasping, against them, returning to their place of origin in their own ships or ships like them built by General Electric and DuPont and praise God Microsoft and once there we will burn their cities or hives or goddam anthills, whatever they live in, we 'II napalm their amber waves of grain and nuke their purple mountains' majesty, praise God, Allah akhbar, we will pour the fiery piss of America into their lakes and oceans . . . but we will do it in a way that is proper and appropriate and without regard to race or gender or ethnicity or religious preference. We're going to do it because they came to the wrong neighborhood and knocked on the wrong f**king door. This is not Germany in 1938 or Oxford Mississippi in 1963. Now, Mr Melrose, do you think you can spread that message?'

Melrose's eyes rolled up to the wet whites and his knees unhinged. Perlmutter once more grabbed his shoulder in an effort to hold him up, but it was a lost cause this time; down Melrose went.

'Pearly,' Kurtz whispered, and when those burning blue eyes fell on him, Perlmutter thought he had never been so fright?ened in his life. His bladder was a hot and heavy bag inside him, wanting only to squirt its contents into his coverall. He felt that if Kurtz saw a dark patch spreading on his adjutant's crotch, Kurtz might shoot him out of hand, in his present mood . . . but that didn't seem to help the situation. In fact, it made it worse.

'Yes, s . . . boss?'

'Will he spread the word? Will he be a good messenger? Do you reckon he took enough in to do that, or was he too concerned with his damned old foot?'

'I . . . I . . .' In the doorway, he saw Underhill nod at him almost imperceptibly, and Pearly took heart. 'Yes, boss  -  I think he heard you five-by.'

Kurtz seemed first surprised by Perlmutter's vehemence, then gratified. He turned to Underhill. 'What about you, Owen? Do you think he'll spread the word?'

'Uh-huh,' Underhill said. 'If you get him to the infirmary before he bleeds to death on your rug.'

Kurtz's mouth turned up at the comers and he barked, 'See to that, Pearly, will you?'

'Right now,' Perlmutter said, starting toward the door. Once past Kurtz, he gave Underhill a look of fervent gratitude which Underhill either missed or chose not to acknowledge.