Sergeant Gilhooly's bulls had held him against the wall with the threat of cattle-prods as Officers Kerr and Bean shackled his hands, feet, knees, elbows and neck. He had about 200 pounds of chain over his dress whites. He gave them no trouble. He didn't need to. He enjoyed this monthly ritual.
Sometimes, to amuse himself, Dr Proctor would break the chains. To look at him, people could never see the Devil inside. His strength was in his brain, he knew, but he had not neglected the cultivation of his body. He needed an instrument to carry through his schemes. As they clapped the manacles around his thick wrists, he remembered the sharp snaps of the spines he had broken. It was a good, clean method. In Tulsa, he had taken out the linebackers of the local pro ball team, one after another. All it took was a little dexterity, a little pressure, and a lot of muscle. He smiled at Gilhooly, imagining how little it would take to break him.
As he was led down Monsters' Row, the chanting began. It was McClean who began it.
"Otto-kar! Otto-kar!''
Then Staig, Brosnan and Mizzi joined in.
"Otto-kar! Otto-kar! Otto-kar!"
He smiled, and did his best to take a bow.
"Otto-kar! Otto-kar!"
They were all at it, Voorhees in his sub-mongoloid gargle, the silent Myers with a nod of his usually immobile head.
"Otto-kar! Otto-kar! Otto-kar! Otto-kar! Otto-kar! Otto-kar.'"
A man should be king of something, Dr Ottokar Proctor thought, even if it was only King of the Monsters.
Etchison rattled a plastic cup against the bars.
"Otto-kar! Otto-kar!"
The serial murderers punched the air. Kerr, the officer in charge of the block, snapped out an order. Guards hurried up and down the row, administering reprimands, waving cattle prods. That just encouraged them.
"Enjoying this, aren't you. Otto?" said Gilhooly. "Makes you feel like Colonel of the Nuts?"
"I don't like to be called Otto, Sergeant. My name is Ottokar."
"Otto-kar! Otto-kar! Otto-kar!"
"Shaddup, yah goddamn freakin' looneys," yelled Officer Kerr. "No privileges, no visits, no lawyers, no nothin'!"
In his cell, Herman Katz refrained from harming a fly.
He nodded to Dr Proctor as the nice man was led past. He didn't join in the chanting, but he approved.
"Otto-kar! Otto-kar! Otto-kar!"
Childress rumbled like a chainsaw as Dr Proctor was led past his cell. They didn't call them "confinement spaces" on Monsters' Row.
"If you ask me. Otto, this is where you ought to be, not in that luxury room out back. You should be with all the rest of the whackos."
"I told you, Sergeant. My name is not Otto."
"Otto-kar! Otto-kar! Otto-kar!"
Gilhooly muttered to himself, something about finding another route from Dr Proctor's quarters to the conference room.
Voorhees shook his bars, and the whole row vibrated. He strained against the hardcrete-rooted durium, and plaster fell from the ceiling. He had taken his machete to over a hundred teenagers before they caught him.
"Good morning, Jason," Dr Proctor said, "how's your sciatica?"
Voorhees roared, and Gilhooly flinched, his hand twitching towards his gun.
"I don't think shooting him would do any good, Sergeant. They tried that back in '82. They also tried drowning, stabbing, burning and electrocution. Nothing doing. It's a tribute to the endurance of the human spirit, don't you think?"
They were nearly at the end of the row.
"Miss Doe, how are you?" Dr Proctor was courteous to the poisoner.
"Very well thank you, Ottokar. When are you going to come over and try some of my home-baked apple pie? You're looking thin, you know. I'm sure you're not eating properly."
"Maybe next week, ma'am. I'm a little tied up at the moment." Apologetically, he lifted his manacled hands. "Thank you for the cinnamon cookies. They were delicious."
Incredulously, Gilhooly asked, "You ate them cookies? After what she did?"
"She's no threat to me. Sergeant."
The cell nearest the door was Tendenter's.
"Rex, good to see you…"
Tendenter flashed his million-dollar smile. "Hey, doctor, how are you doing?"
"Can't complain."
"I've nearly finished that book you lent me. I'd like to talk to you about the Greater Rhodesian economy sometime. I've had some thoughts about it I'd like to share with you."
"That's a fascinating field, Rex. I'd like very much to confer with you, but my President calls…"
"That's okay, doctor, I understand."
"Otto-kar! Otto-kar! Otto-kar! Otto-kar! Otto-kar!"
"That's it," screamed Officer Kerr. "Lockdown in the booby hatch! No exercise periods! No teevee! No porno!"
"Otto-kar! Otto-kar! Otto-kar! Otto-kar! Otto-kar!"
The door guard opened up, and Dr Proctor was bundled through. He tried to wave goodbye to his peers, but the chain between his knees and his wrists was too short.
The door slammed shut, and the soundproofing cut out the chants. The hospital corridor was almost unnaturally quiet after Monsters' Row.
"Ahh," said Dr Proctor, "my public."
"Come on, Otto," said Gilhooly, dragging him.
"I believe you are being deliberately obtuse. Sergeant."
Gilhooly didn't reply. Dr Proctor did his best to keep up with the sergeant, rattling his chains as he jogged down the corridor on his leash, like a good dog. Bean kept up the rear, riot gun cradled like a baby in his beefy arms.
Dr Ottokar Proctor liked dogs, cartoons, Italian opera, Carl Jung, French food, Disneyworld, The New York Times Review of Books, pre-Columbian art, good wine, walks in the park on Sundays, horse-racing, Percy Bysshe Shelley, the romantic novels of Margaret Thatcher, and killing people.
They were waiting for him in the conference room. F. X. Wicking of the T-H-R Agency, Julian Russell from the Treasury, and a dark-faced man he didn't recognize.
"Good morning, gentlemen," he said.
"Dr Proctor," said Russell, "can we get you anything?"
Dr Proctor chinked as he shrugged. "My freedom would be nice."
Wicking sighed and dropped his papers. This was going to be just like all the other meetings, he was thinking. He was wrong.
Dr Proctor sank into the specially-adapted, floor-rooted chair, and Bean padlocked his chains to the spine.
A secretary came in with coffee. She did her best not to look at Dr Proctor. He was reminded of the girl in the Coupe de Ville between Coronado Beach and Chula Vista three years ago. The one who had lasted for two nights and a day. She put cups in front of the delegates, and handed Gilhooly a child's dribble-proof plastic container. The sergeant propped it on Dr Proctor's shoulder-shackles, and angled the nipple so he could suck it, snarling as he did so.
"Thank you, sergeant." He took a mouthful. "Ahh, real coffee. Nicaraguan?"
Nobody answered. Russell spooned three loads of sugar into his cup.
"Watch your blood sugar levels, Julian," cautioned Dr Proctor. "You could be cruising into heart-attack country."
Wicking pulled out his filofax, and switched it on. It hummed as the miniscreen lit up. The Op would be in contact with his home base throughout this consultation.