One to Count Cadence Read Online Free

the male nurse, rushed in, pushing a rattling tray of hypos. He was a short, stocky, hairy man who tried to give the impression he had seen everything. But he had not seen me.
    “Okay, son,” he said, “Take it easy. Everything’s going to be all right.” He advanced, needle held like a knife in his hand, and reached for my unbroken arm. “This’ll make everything all right.”
    “Then you take it. Keep off, man.” I jerked my arm away.
    “Okay, buddy, let’s stop with the games.” He had a low level of patience. He tried to make his voice cold and military; but I didn’t give a shit for that now.
    “Butt out, Larkin. Get that damned needle away.”
    He reached again, and I slapped the needle out of his hand. The swinging of my arm released something in my blood, something hot and clean. It hardened into a calm, mean thing, clear and clean now, and I liked it.
    “Okay, bud, we’re through with the games now,” he said, preparing another dose. “I don’t want to break your other arm, but you’re gonna get this one way or the other.”
    “Don’t talk so much, tough man. Get on with it.” I felt a smile like a dare on my face. Larkin hesitated, then shook his head as if wondering what there was to be afraid of. I caught him with a stiff thumb in the windpipe as he leaned over the bed. Not too hard. Not too easy either.
    He staggered backwards, his hands pleading at this throat, his eyes praying to me, then crashed into his tray. It danced drunkenly away on two legs, bounced off the wall, then swayed, throwing its glittering mad burden across the floor, then rolled slowly back towards Larkin. He gurgled and moaned, tossing.
    “Don’t fuck with the Phantom,” I said, and he heard me before he passed out. The spasm in his larynx relaxed, and his breathing started again. But I didn’t pay too much attention. Christ was a carpenter; he could afford to forgive his enemies; I’m a warrior, and can’t.
    It was quiet again, and I rested, testing the air with my bleeding nose. I pitied Bones for a moment, wondering how I might apologize. But kindness never really repays cruelty, I thought, Let her hate me. That might be the kindest thing of all. But then I laughed as I wondered what poor soul might rattle Bones together some day. “What a mess,” I whispered. “What a silly mess.” I was sure that somehow this was all Morning’s fault. Maybe the bastard was going to haunt me. I might have offered his ghost a drink of blood or Scotch, whatever its preference, but the Air Policeman Bones had called came in.
    He was so tall and strong, his face nearly all jaw under the shadow of his cap. His mouth was compressed into a thin, unbent line, and he stood as if he might challenge the gods of war themselves; but he was a soldier, not a warrior. All show and slow to boot.
    “All right,” he said, sharply. “What seems to be the trouble here.” He had glanced at Larkin and the scattering of glass with a look which said “inoperative” and dismissed them from his mind. “You there! What’s going on here?” He addressed an imaginary point where my head would have been if I could have stood.
    “Me? Geez, I don’t know. I just work here.”
    “You, fellow.”
    “Say, sonny, ya’ll tilt that there sombrero back jest a scrunch so’s Ah cain sees ya’ll’s eyeballs. Ain’t likely Ah’d talk with a man, ifn Ah cain’t sees his eyeballs.”
    He snapped to attention. “Cut the lip, huh.”
    “You taking me in, airman?”
    “No,” he answered in all seriousness. “Just going to hold your arm while they stick a needle in it. I’ve handled you nut-house cases before.”
    “Oh, really. Well, let me show you something before you start handling this nut-house case,” I said, holding up my left hand. “See that hand, sonny. That’s a real mean hand. Registered with the police in seven states as a dangerous weapon. See those calluses on the side there, and on the fingertips. That’s a killer’s hand,