“Okay, I’m hilarious. But we have to do something fast, or they’ll be on to us. Are those two dead?”
The witch shook her head.
“Then look in these cabinets. There ought to be tape around here someplace. You can wear the nurse’s clothes.”
“Fah! They are bloodstained.”
“We’ll have to risk it.” Candy slammed a cabinet shut and opened another. “My God, look at the dope!”
“Here,” the lanky man said. He nudged her and handed her a roll of adhesive tape.
“Great, but you can do it as well as I can—probably better, because you’re stronger. Take care of the doc. Tape up his mouth first, then do his hands behind his back and tape his ankles together. I’ll help Madame Serpentina strip the girl, then we’ll take care of her.”
The lanky man glanced at the unconscious nurse. “We better bandage that arm while we do it. She looks like she might bleed to death.”
Madame Serpentina clicked her tongue. “So both of you are ministering angels now.” She was pulling off the nurse’s white shoes.
“What’s your name anyway?” Candy asked the lanky man.
“Phil Reeder. I really am a sailor—seaman first—but on a destroyer. No women there. You haven’t seen anything around here to cut this with, have you? I lost my jackknife when they picked me up.”
Madame Serpentina said, “In that drawer,” and pointed. Candy asked, “How do you know?”
“I know. Look.”
Candy did, and handed Reeder a pair of surgical scissors. “That’s Madame Serpentina. You probably already heard me call her that.”
“Right.” He rolled Dr. Roberts over and lovingly spread a piece of wide tape across his mouth.
“She’s a witch. She’s magic—she really is. It’s scary and pretty hard to swallow, but it’s true.”
“And this,” Madame Serpentina said, rising with the nurse’s white pantyhose in her hand, “is my good friend Candy Garth, who has saved me. What I wish to know is why the two of you, who are attempting to fly this place, came here when you heard that foolish woman scream.”
“I didn’t save you,” Candy said. “You saved yourself. You had an arm out, and you could have gotten the rest of yourself out of that thing.”
The witch waved the objection away. “But why did you come?”
Reeder told her, “I think we scared each other into it. She was goin’ down the hall out there and I was comin’ up it, and we heard this yell and sort of looked at each other. I thought she was tellin’ me to go on and see about it, and she must have thought the same thing about me. I know I was scared that if I ran away from the trouble instead of to it, they’d know I didn’t really work here.”
Candy nodded confirmation.
“I have more questions. But first you, Mr. Reeder, must turn your back so that I may put on these things. Good. Candy, will you tape that woman, please. I have already from her all that I require.”
The witch hesitated, and they heard the rustle of fabric.
“Now if I have understood you, one walked in one direction and one in the other. In which direction is the exit from this mad place?”
Reeder pointed. “The way I was goin’. That’s the elevators, anyway.”
Candy said. “There’s stairs there too—I already checked them out.”
“But it was not in that direction that you walked. You were coming toward this room, and your back was to them. You were not trying to leave this hospital then.”
“Okay,” Candy said. “I guess I got to tell.” She propped her plump hips against the side of the examination table. “There’s this kid. Ozzie’s kid, and—”
Reeder leaned forward. “Who?”
“Ozzie Barnes. You don’t know him. I found his kid in the bus station. He was looking for Ozzie, but I don’t think Ozzie ever got the word he was supposed to pick up the kid there. So I figured I’d sit with him—you know, take him around till I ran into Ozzie or we met back at the hotel.” She looked at the witch. “You remember when Stubb was talking at breakfast, he told me to come here and see Proudy, if I could, and find out what he had against us? Come to think of it, what are you doing here anyway? You were supposed to get some friends of yours on our side.”
The witch said. “Possibly it is unwise to speak too much of these things now. Let me say only that I did what I agreed to do, and some of the friends you spoke of came seeking a certain one we both know of. They were detained. I came to free them, and as you have seen, I was detained myself. It is unimportant. Tell me quickly about the child.”
Candy nodded. “I brought him here, and then I got mad at the two-bit piece down at the desk and tried to take a hunk out of her, and they got me. I guess about like they got you. They doped me up and strapped me down, and after a while this doc here—Hey, he’s awake! Hi ya, Doc! He came and talked to me. After that, he talked to Little Ozzie, only Little Ozzie split when they had some kind of ruckus and went looking for me, and when he found me, he undid my straps. This was only about three rooms down from here. Then I went wandering around in those pajamas they put on me. Really, I was looking for my own stuff, my dress and handbag. But one time when the nurse at the desk was gone, I looked under it and found this big package wrapped up in brown paper. I figured it might be something useful, so I took it back to the room where Little Ozzie was, and it turned out to be her laundry, you know? The really lucky part was that she was a pretty big gal, so I was able to get into her stuff. Then I thought, hey, if I could just find a basket or a big box or something like that, I could put Little Ozzie in it and carry him out. I figured he couldn’t just walk out with me, because I knew they were looking for him. So I looked and the big nurse at the desk
