It hit me.
Padded cell/straitjacket/voices or ventriloquistic voodoo:
“Torture him. “/ “Kill him. “/ “Dump Contino someplace.”
I remembered Mars and the mermaid. I remembered my trident-tailed twins. I remembered the hypo hits that hopped me up on Big H. I diagnosed my dilemma.
I was hooked on Horse.
I shook. I shuddered. I shivered. I decided to probe my prognosis.
I rubbed my cheek against white rubber. I felt a sticky two-day stubble. I couldn’t be a junkie yet.
I still hurt. I still throbbed. My white world still wiggled and wobbled. I was still mummified and dope-doctored.
I scanned my white world. I saw a small black square cut into one wall about a foot above floor level.
I rolled up to it. Heat hit me. I saw metal grates set six inches in. I tried to jam my ass and my rear restraint straps up against them. I couldn’t get close.
I rolled over and faced the wall. I bit at white plastic. I snapped three times and got a good tooth hold. I burrowed, bit and spat, burrowed, bit and spat, burrowed, bit and spat. I chewed a big hole around the grates and slammed my ass against them.
Heat.
It warmed me and singed me and scorched my ass. I bit the floor to staunch my pain and stifle incipient screams. I smelled toasted white cotton and burning flesh.
I slammed my ass in tighter. The pain accelerated. I felt little ass hairs sizzle. I bit down harder and almost choked on a chunk of white plastic.
My armiock went limp. My bear hug broke. I rolled away from the grates and rolled out of my straitjacket.
I stood up. I stumbled and fell. My circulation started to circulate. I crawled to a waffle-webbed white door.
I crouched. I rubbed my ass. I counted the waffle webs on the walls to stay calm. The door opened at 4,806.
A man stepped in. I grabbed his ankles and pulled. He hit the floor facedown. I kicked the door shut and jumped on his back.
I pressed his face into white plastic. Tucks and tufts muffled his screams. I knee-dropped him nine times. I came down on his kidneys full force.
Blood blew out of his mouth. It spritzed and sprayed and trickled through little white troughs.
He was dead.
I pulled a key ring off his belt and stumbled to the door. I looked out. I saw an empty hall. I saw a door marked “Pharmacy/ Restricted.”
I shook. I shivered. I braced myself into the door. My hands hopped to heavy rpms.
I needed a fix.
I looked down the hallway. I recognized the pink walls. I thought I heard a screech two doors down.
Mount Sinai. The locked ward.
I stumbled to the pharmacy door. I fumbled and bumbled my keys. My hands hopped. I stabbed keys at the keyhole. The fourth key let me in.
I shut the door. I turned on a light. I dumped three drawers of dope into a sink. I dug through Digitalis, Desoxyn, and Dilantin. I tossed Tuinal and Terpin Hydrate and shoved Seconal aside. I grabbed four vials of Methedrine Hydrochloride and dumped every drawer in the room.
I sifted through morphine Syrettes and pawed through pills. I found a portable spike and jabbed up a big jolt of Meth. I tied off my arm with my black lizard belt and mainlined my way back to Mars.
I strafed the stratosphere in six seconds. I returned to Earth and ran toward that screech two doors down.
I kicked the door in. I entered another white world.
Oscar Levant was strapped to a king-size dartboard. A dozen darts dotted his chest. The nut-ward guy held jumper cables and a squirt gun. The cable cord was socked into a wall switch.
He saw me. He squirt-gunned me. He charged at me with his cables. I slipped on wet white plastic and hit the floor.
He stabbed at me. He caught me. Voltage bounced off my chest. I rolled into the dartboard. It capsized. Oscar hit the floor and slipped free.
I stood up. The nut-ward guy charged me. Oscar pulled a dart off his chest and let fly. He nailed the nut-ward guy in the neck.