"It's pretty plausible," the Pillar says. "Who'd do something like that if he wasn't mad?"
"How old is the Muffin Man?"
"Mid forties," the Pillar says. "He's been in the asylum for some time, and no one ever complained about him."
"He must have wanted so badly to hide in an asylum. Why?"
"My humble guess is that he was running away from something," the Pillar says. "The real question is why he would prefer to stay locked in here over the real world outside."
"You're the one holding his file."
"There is nothing here more that what I just said." He hurls the file away. The Mushroomers collect the scattered pages behind him. "The file doesn't mention his real name." He stares sharply at me. "It's doesn't even mention an address, a next of kin, or what kind of conversation took place between him and the Queen, although she'd been his hostage for more than half an hour."
A few moments of silence drape on me. I need to re-evaluate the situation. "Why did the Cheshire help him escape, and why is he killing kids?"
"That sure escapes my caterpillar brain cells," he says. "But here's a good one. You know what the Muffin Man's answer was when he was asked where he was from?" He lowers his head a little and whispers, "Wonderland."
"This is truly puzzling now." I let go of the bars. "We need to know who he is so we can stop him from killing again."
"He isn't waiting for us, Alice. Another fat boy's head with a muffin stuffed inside was found in a dumpster yesterday." The Pillar purses his lips, playing his games with me.
"And what are we supposed to do now? We don't even know where the Muffin Man lives."
"That's not true." The Pillar winks.
"You just said he has no address in the file."
"Alice, Alice, Alice." He step backwards slowly and rolls his cane in the air. "Didn't we agree that Wonderland's puzzles aren't ever solved in earthly grounds?"
The Mushroomers begin hissing the rhyme again:
"Do you know the Muffin Man,
The Muffin Man, the Muffin Man,
Do you know the Muffin Man,
Who lives on Drury Lane?"
I listen to the chanting and want to kick myself in the head. How didn't I figure it out sooner? I near the cell again and say, "The Muffin Man lives on Drury Lane." I spell the name slowly, not knowing if it's a neighborhood, town, or city. I am not sure it even exists in our modern world. Most nursery rhymes are products of the Victorian era, about two centuries ago. "Where is Drury Lane?"
"London." The Pillar purses his lips. "The Cheshire's puzzles are really intricate."
"Don't tell me it's close to the morgue."
"Very close, and we need to get going now. Drury Lane is a culturally important place in the world," the Pillar says. "Shall we take the ambulance from yesterday or my limousine?" he ask the Mushroomers.
They prefer the ambulance because it makes a "woo-wee" noise.
"You're still keeping the ambulance? That's property of the health institution."
"I'm only borrowing it for the greater good. I'm sure the institution, and Parliament, won't mind." He carefully rubs his suit clean.
"Well, it won't be the first time we've broken the law since I've known you," I mumble, morally compromised.
"Knowing me is breaking the law, Alice." He smiles. "Funny how you never worried if I buried the corpse of the dead man you stole, instead of caring about the health institution."
Chapter 28
On the way to Drury Lane
The drive to London should take an hour and half. We're taking way longer than that.
The Pillar orders his chauffeur to stop at every junk food store we come across. Whether it's Dr. Nugget's Wingless Chickens, Banned Burgers, Pizza Pinge, Wacko's Tacos, DoNuts Bogus, or Muffit N Puffit, the recent American franchise that bought he rights to the Meow Muffins. Insanely, and for all the wrong reasons, smoking inside Muffit N Puffit is mandatory!
Each store we stop by, the Pillar enters it with his chauffeur, dressed as doctor and nurse. The chauffeur halts the ambulance sideways with a screech like a mad driver in a Need for Speed game. Then he intentionally parks the ambulance in spots reserved for handicapped drivers. Finally, they dash into the store.
At first, they look weird, but then, skipping rows of waiting citizens at the counter, they pretend they have a dying woman in the ambulance.
I watch from the passenger's seat with bulging eyes, unable to gaze back at the corpse in the back of the ambulance. How did the Pillar turn into such an irresponsible whack? Moments like these, I have no doubts he killed those people for reasons of utter and undeniable insanity.
"Please," the Pillar says to the girl over the counter, his hands stretched out. "In the name of the Three Stooges." He flashes the sign of trinity in the air, so fast no one even registers he said "the Three Stooges." His dramatic acting distracts disbelievers from what's going on, and entertains those bored with their lives, looking for entertainment. "I'm Dr. Marshmallow Nuttinghead, and this is my male nurse assistant, Fourgetta Boutit. We are from the Queen's Renowned Hospital for the Deliberately Poor and Forsakenly Unhealthy Disease Center." I don't even know how no one laughs or comments on his nonsense. I guess he has crept in with such a sense of urgency and panic that he entranced the whole smoking crowd of Muffit N Puffit. In particular, the girl over the counter. Come to think of it, they are as mad as the Pillar, eating in here in the first place. "We have a dying woman in the ambulance." I slide deeper into my seat as the crowd turns their heads my way. "She is divorced, pregnant, and dying of loon cancer." The crowd sympathizes deeply. "All she asks"—the Pillar holds the girl's hands and looks pleadingly into her eyes—"is to have one last Meow Muffin and Spit Burger before she dies."
Instead of the crowd laughing, or thinking this must be some Candid Camera joke, they start urging the girl to grant the loon cancer victim her last wish.
"What is loon cancer?" an old woman with glasses and a cane asks.
"It's the cancer you get in the loons," a middle-aged man in blue overalls informs her. "How can you be so insensitive? Does it matter which cancer you have?"
"I'm sorry." The woman lowers her head but stubbornly feels the need to ask again. I can't blame her. She might be the only sane person in there. "But I didn't know I have a loon organ. What does it do?"
"It's in a sensitive place, old lady." A middle-aged woman punches her to save her the embarrassment from not fitting in the crowd. "It's right down near the..." She whispers in the old woman's ears. Her eyes widen.
As the counter girl prepares the meal for the Pillar, the store's supervisor offers it for free. The Pillar kisses the girl's hand. She blushes as he prays the Three Blind Mice to reward her a place full of "Danish cheese with no holes" in heaven.
And so, the Pillar and his chauffeur did the same at every food chain we stopped by for two hours, until the back of the ambulance was stuffed with every snack or junk food available in Britain.
Speechlessly, I watch the Pillar gorge on every high-calorie, unhealthy, and greasy sandwich he obtained. He and his chauffeur eat, chew, and spit like the Cookie Monster from Sesame Street.