A Plague of Hearts by Patrick Whittaker (best large ereader .TXT) 📖

die if it just means going to some other world that’s anything like this one. How can Heaven be Heaven if it’s filled with people? Tell me that!’
‘Ignore him,’ said the Knave of Hearts. ‘He’s just feeling sorry for himself because he got into a nasty fix. They sent him here for deserting.’
‘I thought they shot deserters,’ said the March Hare.
The Deserter laughed. ‘They do normally, but when they caught up with me, I begged them to do it. I said, "Please bind my wrists and put me against the nearest wall. You don’t even have to bother with a blindfold."
And that really pissed them off. Army brass hats hate it when they’re told what to do by a private.
‘They think I’m mad, you know. They tried to get rid of me by sending me on a suicide mission, and do you know what I did? I completed the mission and came back alive. They didn’t like that one bit, but me - I just cracked-up! I laughed so loud and so long they thought I would never stop laughing. Which is why I’m here.
‘Even now, I’m laughing inside. I may look miserable and broken, but I promise you that my ribs ache with suppressed laughter. I’m just one big bundle of mirth.
‘Life is nothing but a sustained joke, and the longer it goes on, the more you realise that the punch line is going to be a real corker - a right old side-splitter. And I’m chuckling in anticipation of the final twist. Do you understand? Can you see what I’m getting at?’
‘No,’ said the March Hare. ‘So shut up.’
‘I will,’ said the Deserter. ‘If that’s what you want. Live and let live - that’s what I say. Also, I think that sedative the Nurse gave me is beginning to work. Is it...? Yes. I believe it is.’
His eyes fluttered like a pair of badly-fitted blinds. Then he fell onto his side and was silent again.
The Knave beckoned with his head for the March Hare to bend down so that he could whisper in his ear. ‘Do you know what I think?’ he asked in a muffled voice. ‘I think the bastards are out to get me.’
‘You’ve still got friends,’ said the March Hare, holding out the only grain of comfort he had to offer.
‘Did you see Doctor Ormus?’
The March Hare nodded, conscious of the television camera hovering above his head like a bird of prey. He could not bring himself to tell the Knave that his friends had given him up for dead. ‘The Doctor’s very optimistic about your situation. He’s been in touch with his lawyers and they think they can get you off.’
‘You’re a lying bastard,’ said the Knave. ‘But thanks for trying. If Ormus has got any sense, he’ll forget about me and concentrate on putting TARTS out of action.’ The Knave groaned. ‘I wish that bitch, Nurse Jane, would stop giving me enemas.’
‘Do you want me to try to persuade her to leave off?’
‘You wouldn’t stand a chance. Besides which, I don’t want to hurt her feelings. She’s quite likable in a horrid sort of way.’
‘I suppose she is sweet.’
‘Sweet? She’s a bloody monster.’
‘I remember you once describing your ideal woman as being tall, blonde and threatening. I would say Jane fits that perfectly.’
A key turned in the lock. Nurse Jane entered, followed by the tallest man the March Hare had ever seen. If he was less than seven feet tall, it could not have been by much. Perhaps by normal standards he was not particularly thin, but his height and the harsh angles of his face gave the impression of a man who was all skin and bone.
With his hands in the pockets of his trousers, he ducked through the doorway, sidestepped the swiveling camera, then sat down on the edge of the Knave’s bed. He seemed about to speak, but Nurse Jane got in first. ‘It seems,’ she said to the Knave, ‘that you’ve been a very bad boy. I’ve just been down to the Therapy Unit and seen a video of you chatting with a rather large cat with a very irritating grin. We have rules here against bringing pets into the hospital, and I don’t like to see my patients breaking them.
‘We’ll go into how the moggy got in and out of your room later, but I just wanted you to know that your transgression has been duly noted and will - when the time comes - be dealt with.’
As she spoke, her chest rose and fell in a steady rhythm. Whatever punishment she planned to mete out to the Knave, she was clearly looking forward to it. As for the Knave, the March Hare wondered how his employer felt about Jane. There was an ambivalence in their relationship that would take a lifetime to unravel.
The tall man rubbed his hands together in a brisk, business-like manner. ‘Well,’ he said, cheerfully, ‘ this is cozy, isn’t it. My name’s Doctor Malpractice, and yours isn’t.’
‘My what isn’t what?’ asked the Knave.
‘Oh you can speak, can you?’ said Nurse Jane. ‘I was beginning to wonder.’
‘Your name isn’t Malpractice,’ said Malpractice. ‘I made sure of that before I operated on you. You may think me over-cautious, but I make it a rule to never operate on someone with the same surname as myself.’
‘That’s a safeguard,’ said Nurse Jane, beaming happily. ‘It prevents him from accidentally operating on his own body. Works quite well.’
‘One can never be too careful,’ added the Doctor. ‘I once knew this chap who mistakenly took out his own appendix. I had to pop it back in for him before the Medical Council found out. They’re very strict about these things.’
‘How is he?’ asked the March Hare.
‘Dead. Died a few days later in the middle of giving himself open-heart surgery.’
‘I meant the Knave.’
‘Oh him. He’s fine. Just fine. That hernia he’s got is just a bit worrying, but a hernia never killed anybody, did it?’
‘What about his jaw?’
‘Hardly worth mentioning. Fractures come and fractures go. They don’t bother me in the least. You’d be amazed out how well the human body copes with such things. ‘Of course, his leg’s a different kettle of fish entirely. I’m afraid it just won’t straighten out, no matter what we do. Still, so long as he doesn’t wear tight trousers, I doubt that anyone will notice.’
‘We’ll soon have him on his feet,’ said Nurse Jane.
‘Foot,’ said Malpractice. ‘We had to chop off his left one in order to remove his trousers.’
‘You could have cut them,’ said the March Hare, appalled.
‘We thought about it, but we couldn’t find anything sharp enough. Besides, it was a nice pair of trousers. It would have been a shame to ruin them.’
‘I wasn’t wearing trousers,’ said the Knave. ‘I had stockings on.’
Doctor Malpractice punched him playfully on the shoulder. ‘Only kidding. We surgeons have a great sense of humour, you know.’
‘I wish you could have saved my stockings,’ said the Knave plaintively. ‘If there’s one thing I’ll never forgive the Secret Police for, it’s the way they tore apart my beautiful fishnets. They were pure silk and had little pink teddy bears on the heels.’
Nurse Jane clucked sympathetically. ‘I have a pair like that,’ she said. ‘You can have them when you leave.’
‘Thank you. That means a lot to me.’
‘Anything else we can do for you?’ asked Doctor Ormus. ‘We do like to keep our patients happy, you know.’
‘There is just one thing,’ said the Knave. ‘Perhaps you could have a look at my stomach sometime. It keeps rattling.’
‘Whoops,’ said Doctor Malpractice, reddening just a shade beyond pink. ‘Silly me. I never was one for scalpel counts.’
‘My stomach is full of scalpels?’
‘No more than two or three. It’s nothing to worry about. They’re quite blunt and I don’t need them right now. If you don’t pass them in the next few days, I’ll just dig them out during the postmortem.’
‘I don’t think I’m up to a postmortem. Couldn’t we just skip it?’
‘Afraid not. Hospital regulations and all that. Corpses have to be dissected and labeled. Can’t see the point myself, but rules are rules.’
‘Small point, Doc. But doesn’t one have to be dead to be a corpse?’
‘You’ve noticed that, have you? Yes, you’re quite right. That’s a very astute observation.’
‘So I’m going to die?’
‘Unless you’ve got yourself a red-hot lawyer.’
The Knave looked to the March Hare, a desperate plea in his one good eye. ‘I don’t want to die,’ he said. ‘I kind of like me the way I am.’
‘Look on the bright side,’ said Nurse Jane. ‘At least you’ll never grow old. Die young, stay pretty - that’s what I always say.’
‘On the other hand,’ said the Knave, ‘looks aren’t everything. I don’t mind becoming all stooped and wrinkled. Really I don’t.’
Jane shot him a look of reproach. ‘You’re not going to have one of your sulks, are you? Because you know what I’ll do if you are.’
‘Not another enema!’
‘I don’t know why you always have to make such a big fuss over a little thing like an enema. I’d have thought you’d be used to them by now.’
‘Maybe I would be if you didn’t keep using Big Bertha. Or if you at least lubricated the shower head properly.’
‘There’s a war on. Or had you forgotten? It’s just not that easy to get axle grease these days. Now it’s time for your afternoon nap. I want you asleep within five minutes - and you’d better not let me catch you snoring.’ She turned to the March Hare, treated him to a look of desire.
‘It’s been nice meeting you, Mister Rabbit. I do hope to see you again very soon.’
‘I’m a hare. Rabbits have shorter ears and wet noses.’
‘How interesting. You’ll have to tell me about it sometime.’
The March Hare got up to leave, but had reached no further than the end of the bed when the door opened and the Penguin breezed in. He tipped his hat. ‘I hope I’m not disturbing you good folks. Just popped-in for a quick chat with the patient.’
‘Not at all,’ said Nurse Jane, pushing back her hair and pouting flirtatiously. ‘You know you’re always welcome here.’
The Penguin nodded a stiff greeting at the March Hare. ‘And how’s our friend the mentally unstable Bunny then? I hear you’ve rejoined the King’s Staff. The old boy must have forgotten that you set fire to his bed. I wonder if he’s aware of your association with certain criminal elements.’
‘He knows of my relationship with the Knave of Hearts, if that’s what you mean.’
The Penguin stepped over Doctor Malpractice’s legs and fixed his attention on the Knave. ‘Relationship, hey? Now there’s a word with interesting connotations.’
‘Screw you,’ said the Knave.
‘Succinctly put, my friend. But somehow rather cryptic.’
‘Screw you.’
‘Now you’re repeating yourself, and that’s always a bad sign. Still, I can understand that. I never did much like hospitals myself.’
‘Screw you.’
‘So you’ve said. Tell you what - if you should get bored of astounding us all with your extensive vocabulary, perhaps you’d care to chew over the fact that your trial