LITMIR.BIZ

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Blake was watching the entire operation from a standpoint a few feet away. He didn't look as if his expression were ever going to change.

      "It's all for your own good, Mr. Malone," he said calmly. "Please believe me."

      "My God!" Malone said. He caught somebody's face with one hand and then somebody else grabbed the hand and folded it back with irresistible force. He had one arm free, and he tried to use it--but not for long. "You think I'm nuts!" he shouted, as the three men produced a strait-jacket from somewhere and began to cram him into it. "Wait!" he cried, as the canvas began to cramp him. "You're wrong! You're making a terrible mistake!"

      "Of course," Dr. Blake said. "But if you'll just relax we'll soon be able to help you--"

      The strait-jacket was on. Malone sagged inside it like a rather large and sweaty butterfly rewrapped in a cocoon. Dimly, he realized that he sounded like every other nut in the world. All of them would be sure to tell the doctor and the attendants that they were making a mistake. All of them would claim they were sane.

      There was, of course, a slight difference. But how could Malone manage to prove it? The three men held him up.

      "Now, now," Dr. Blake said. "You can walk, Mr. Malone. Suppose you just follow me to your room--"

      "My room?" Malone said. "Now, you listen to me, Doctor. If you don't take this stuff off me at once I promise you the President will hear of it. And I don't know how he'll take interference in a vital mission--"

      "The President?" Blake asked quietly. "What President, Mr. Malone?"

      "The President of the United States, damn it!" Malone shouted.

      "Hmm," Blake said.

      That was no good, either, Malone realized. Every nut would have some sort of direct pipeline to the President, or God, or somebody high up. Nuts were like that.

      But he was an FBI Agent. A special agent on a vital mission.

      He said so.

      Now, now, Mr. Malone," Blake told him. "Let's get to your room, shall we, and then we can talk things over."

      "I can prove it!" Malone told him. The three men picked him up. "My identification is in my pocket--"

      "Really?" Blake said.

      They started moving down the long front hall.

      "All you have to do is take this thing off so I can get at my pockets--"

      Malone began.

      But even he could see that this new plan wasn't going to work, either.

      "Take it off?" Blake said. "Oh, certainly, Mr. Malone. Certainly. Just as soon as we have you comfortably settled."

      It was ridiculous, Malone told himself as the men carried him away. It couldn't happen: an FBI agent mistaken for a nut, wrapped in a strait- jacket and carried to a padded cell.

      Unfortunately, ridiculous or not, it was happening.

      And there was absolutely nothing to do about it.

      Malone thought with real longing of his nice, safe desk in Washington. Suddenly he discovered in himself a great desire to sit around and collate reports. But no--he had to be a hero. He had to go and get himself involved.

      This, he thought, will teach me a great lesson. The next time I get offered a job a chimpanzee can do, I'll start eating bananas.

      It was at this point in his reflections that he reached a small door. Dr. Blake opened it and the three men carried Malone inside. He was dumped carefully on the floor. Then the door clanged shut.

      Alone, Malone told himself bitterly, at last.

      * * * * *

      After a minute or so had gone by he began to think about getting out. He could, it occurred to him, scream for help. But that would only bring more attendants, and very possibly Dr. Blake again, and somehow Malone felt that further conversation with Dr. Blake was not likely to lead to any very rational end.

      Sooner or later, he knew, they would have to let him loose.

      After all, he was an FBI agent, wasn't he?

      Alone, in a single cheerless cell, caught up in the toils of a strait- jacket, he began to doubt the fact. Maybe Blake was right; maybe they were all right. Maybe he, Kenneth J. Malone, was totally mad.

      He told himself firmly that the idea was ridiculous.

      But, then, what wasn't?

      The minutes ticked slowly by. After a while the three guards came back, opening the door and filing into the room carefully. Malone, feeling more than ever like something in a cocoon, watched them with interest. They shut the door carefully behind them and stood before him.

      "Now, then," one of them said. "We're going to take the jacket off, if you promise to be a good boy."

      "Sure," Malone said. "And when you take my clothing, look in the pockets."

      "The pockets?"

      "To find my FBI identification," Malone said wearily. He only half- believed the idea himself, but half a belief, he told himself confusedly, was better than no mind at all. The attendants nodded solemnly.

      "Sure we will," one of them said, "if you're a good boy and don't act up rough on us now. Okay?"

      Malone nodded. Carefully, two of the attendants began to unbuckle him while the third stood by for reinforcements. Malone made no fuss.

      In five minutes he was naked as--he told himself--a jay-bird. What was so completely nude about those particular birds escaped him for the moment, but it wasn't important. The three men were all holding various parts of the strait-jacket or of his clothing.

      They were still watching him warily.

      "Look in the pockets," Malone said.

      "Sure," one said. The man holding the jacket reached into it and dropped it as if it were hot.

      "Hey," he announced in a sick voice, "the guy's carrying a gun."

      "A gun?" the second one asked.

      The first one gestured toward the crumpled jacket on the floor. "Look for yourself," he said. "A real honest-to-God gun. I could feel it."

      Malone leaned against one wall, looking as nonchalant as it was possible for him to look in the nude. The room being cool, he felt he was succeeding reasonably well. "Try the other pocket," he suggested.

      The first attendant gave him a long stare. "What've you got in there, buddy?" he asked. "A howitzer?"

      "Jesus," the second attendant said, without moving toward the jacket. "An armed nut. What a world."

      "Try the pocket," Malone said.

      A second went by. The first attendant bent down slowly, picked up the jacket and slipped his hand into the other inside pocket. He came out with a wallet and flipped it open.

      The others looked over his shoulder.

      There was a long minute of silence.

      "Jesus," the second attendant said, as if it were the only word left in the language.

      Malone sighed. "There, now," he said. "You see? Suppose you give me back my clothes and let's get down to brass tacks."

      * * * * *

      It wasn't that simple, of course.

      First the attendants had to go and get Dr. Blake, and everybody had to explain everything three or four times, until Malone was just as sick of being an FBI agent as he had ever been of being a padded-cell case. But, at last, he stood before Dr. Blake in the corridor outside, once again fully dressed. Slightly rumpled, of course, but fully dressed. It did, Malone thought, make a difference, and if clothes didn't exactly make the man they were a long way from a hindrance.

      "Mr. Malone," Blake was saying, "I want to offer my apologies--"

      "Perfectly

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