“Fine. I love it too. But who’s the electrician here—the man who can open the doors? I want to get this inspection over with.”
“We don’t have an electrician—in the strict sense. Palmino—the warrant officer—he does that sort of thing for us—in an amateur sort of way. Nothing very refined about him, you understand, but he keeps it running.”
“Let me see the switchbox that controls the cells—and send Palmino to meet me there. You, meanwhile, can put the time to use ordering your books.”
Frangle grasped my hand with speechless gratitude. He didn’t need speech, for he had just slipped me five hundred-dollar bills in the Dingo currency. I put the bribe in my pocket, and tears sprang to the eyes of Captain Frangle.
The man who came into the radio shack had a head of black hair so thick with dirt and oil that it looked like an engine component. His swarthy skin was corrugated by decades of acne, and his narrow eyes, magnified by thick glasses, glistened with rheum. He was short; he was overweight; he was ill-proportioned. He was, in short, exactly my idea of a Dingo.
The Dingo saluted smartly. “Major Jones? Warrant-Officer Palmino reporting for duty, as ordered, sir.”
I returned what I hoped was a convincing salute, but I boggled in replying to him. By what title should an officer address a warrant officer? There were whole worlds of protocol I was still innocent of. I had got through the bit with Frangle by piecing together faded memories of novels and Von Stroheim movies. Slipping, slipping…
“Very well, Palmino,” I replied, turning away from him, simulating absentmindedness. “I wish all the cellblocks to be opened. And then all the cells themselves. For my inspection. Immediately.” I turned to leave.
“I’m afraid that can’t be done, Major Jones. They can only be opened in sequence. That’s S.O.P.” Then, as though in mockery. “Standard operating procedure, you know.”
“My orders override standard procedure, Palmino. You will obey my orders.”
The Dingo laughed aloud. “I don’t think so, sir. If I may make a suggestion, sir, I think you will obey mine.” Palmino took a pistol from the drawer of his desk and pointed the end with a hole in it at me.
The show was over, obviously. The mask was off. “How…”
“There were a dozen signs, sir—easily a dozen. Though I have been admiring the way you ride right over them. With me helping out, it will be a lot easier now.”
“Helping out?”
“Don’t interrupt me, sir,” he commanded meekly. “I was just telling you how I figured it all out. First, there was an announcement over the radio here that a pet had escaped from an airplane flying from Duluth to St Paul—” (So, I thought, that’s where Julie will be!) “—which pet was said to be last seen wearing a major’s overcoat. That was a very suggestive clue to me, sir. The report came over the air a few moments after you’d landed. I put two and two together.”
“Helping me, you say?”
“And then observed that you had about two inches of skin showing between the hem of your coat and the top of your boots, whereas when you came out of the barracks you was wearing what appeared to me to be Lieutenant Mosely’s parade uniform. Ah-ha! I said to myself, there’s something fishy going on!”
“I have money, if that’s what you want…”
“Finally, when I came in here I addressed you as Major Jones, if you recall. Whereas the name of the Major we’ve been expecting is Worthington. When you didn’t object to being called Jones, everything seemed to fit together. Like the pieces of a jigsaw. It all came to me in a flash.”
“Five hundred dollars?”
“You didn’t listen! You pets are all alike—snobs! You think you’re so much better than we are, and you’re not worth the bullets it would take to kill you. If I didn’t need you to help me, I’d like to… I’d make you live in my body for a while. That would show you!” Palmino’s eyes grew rheumier; his pistol trembled with emotion.
“What is it you want of me? Practically speaking, that is.”
“I want to be a pet.”
“I’m sure we all do. All thirteen thousand of us. But the Masters have gone. They’ve deserted us.”
“They’ll return. We’ll wait for them. Here.”
“That’s fine for you, but I can’t stay on indefinitely. When the real Major Worthington arrives—”
“We’ll see he has a good funeral. Mosely, too. I never did like that bastard Mosely. And Frangle—you’re going to start putting the screws on Frangle. Oh, we’ll have fun while we wait, sir, let me tell you. There are about five thousand bee-yoo-tiful bitches in those cells, sir. Five thousand—goddamn!”
“Really, Palmino, if you want to become a pet, you’re going about it in the wrong way. I appreciate your cooperation, but no Master would tolerate the kind of actions you have in mind.”
“So? When they get me, they can reform my character. I won’t object to that. I’d probably like myself a lot better then. They can cure my acne and deepen my voice. They can give me 20-20 vision and fill me brimful with hormones and sweet charity. I’m willing. But meanwhile I’ll enjoy myself.”
“I need time to think about this. By myself.”
“Take fifteen minutes. But remember—if you don’t go along with me, you’ll be going against me. In which case, Captain Frangle will learn all about Major Jones. Think about it—but don’t think you can do with me like you did with Mosely—because I’ve already told four of the guards—friends of mine—which way the wind is blowing. And I don’t intend to let you know which four. But you go right ahead and think about it.”
I went to Mosely’s room. The window above the bed was not barred, and it was a negligible fifteen-foot drop from the ledge. No one would observe me, since the guards were still assembled at attention in the compound. It would be a simple matter to escape across the fields and hide out in other abandoned farmhouses as I worked my way south to St Paul and Darling, Julie. What purpose, after all, could I expect to serve by releasing these thousands of prisoners? What had they that was worth escaping to? Why should they risk their lives? The Masters’ return was, as Palmino had pointed out, their only hope, and the Masters would not be much hindered by prison walls.
I was perched on the window ledge, ready to leap, my feet dangling down over the rough stones, when I heard, distantly, a tenor voice, ineffably sad, a voice that could have melted even so adamantine a heart as Palmino’s with its melancholy refrain:
(Which I would translate roughly thus:
It was the last act of Il Trovatore! It was St Bernard!
St Bernard’s voice was joined by Clea’s faltering soprano. It is unreasonable, I know—it was madness—but I decided that moment that, willy-nilly, I would have to stay. My mother had thought nothing of deserting me when I was the merest pup, but my conscience would not be eased by that. I would have to rescue Motherlove from the Dingoes.