"Sure, we'll flip for it," Johnnie said. "What'll you take, heads or tails?"
"Tails," Frankie said.
"I'll take tails too," Johnnie said.
"Now, wait a minute," Teddy laughed happily. "You both can't take tails."
They said of course they could; tail was what they had come for. And Teddy laughed again.
"I know, but-but you have to take different things, darlings. You see…"
They had been advancing casually, as the banter went on. Moving forward and sideways, so that they were now separated by several feet and she was forced to turn from one to the other. Thus, she was looking at Johnnie when Frankie spoke to her.
"How come," he asked, snickering, "you've got your asshole under your nose?"
"What?" Teddy gasped. "What did you-"
"He asked you if you were a stud with tits," Johnnie giggled, and she whirled in his direction.
"Now, look you two! Don't you-"
Frankie suddenly slugged her in the guts. She turned white, a greenish white. The air went out of her with a rushing sound, and she doubled slowly and sank down on the floor, on her face. She felt paralyzed, unable even to groan. She still made no sound when Johnnie gave her a vigorous kick in the butt.
"See?" he cackled. "It came up tails. We both won."
"She's all ass," Frankie said. "How can you tell the front from the back?"
He grabbed her by the hair and pulled her upright. Thrusting his face close to hers, he ordered her to come clean with him. "You ain't really a dame, are you? Huh? You're one of those bitchy studs, ain't you?"
"Sure, she's a dame," Frankie said. "Look at them bubbies on her."
Johnnie said that that didn't mean anything; studs were always buying rubber bubs for themselves so that they could pass for dames. "Look," he said. "See what I mean?" He swung his hand viciously, whipping it back and forth against Teddy's breasts. She groaned at that- only breathlessness kept her from screaming-but Johnnie seemed not to hear her.
"She didn't feel a thing, see? Because they ain't the real thing. She's just a phonied-up stud."
"You think so, huh. Well, maybe…"
Frankie suddenly grabbed her by the breasts, and twisted. Again she tried to scream, and was stopped with another gutpunch. She fainted, and when she drifted back into consciousness, she was sitting on a burner of the kitchenette stove. They were holding hands with her- holding them with her fingers bent back toward her wrists. They spoke to her conspiratorially, as though letting her in on a delicious secret.
"Now, we're going to cook it a little, know what I mean, honey? So if you ain't a stud, you can holler and we'll know you're for real."
"Naw, she'd better not holler. You better not, get me, tutz? We'll just do our cooking, and she can tell us if it hurt afterwards."
There was a click as a burner was flicked on. It was not the burner under Teddy, but she was convinced that it was. It clicked on and off, and each time she could feel the flame lick up her loins. She could feel it reach up inside her, and she smelled the cooking flesh, heard the crackling and the sizzling as the flames consumed her. She could not scream- there were always those torturously bent-over fingers, the hands drawn back to slug her in the breasts. She could only endure, the silent tears flooding over her face, her flank muscles jerking convulsively, her very womanhood burning, burning, burning…
"Because you're not a dame, right? A dame don't louse up her husband, does she? She don't make things tough for her own kid."
"Oh, no, no no no no no no no no no nononono…"
"She's good to her husband, right? She gets herself a nice quiet divorce, and she never gives him no more trouble."
"Oh, yes, yes yes yes yes yes yes yesyesyes…"
"You want to be a woman or a stud?"
"A woman, a woman woman woman woman woman woman…"
Just short of the ultimate answer there is another, one that embodies all the truth and the glory, which justifies the life that is about to trade itself for death. One may see it but once, as the curtain closes on the stage of immediate concern. One sees it immediately for what it is, though it appears in many guises. Neither life nor death but something between the two as they suddenly become one.
There it is, the truth and the glory: In the space which separates the down-rushing body and the up-hurtling pavement, in the bridge linking the last yellow capsule and the one next to last, in the trillionth-inch between bullet and brain, in all those dark byways where man lifts his foot from life and steps across to death.
It must be there. Where else would it be when one has found it nowhere else? Why else would so many see it there?
So Teddy having not-quite-died, knew a happiness and a peace she had never known before. It was as though she had been drained of her filth as fear drove the hot urine from her body. All the shoddiness, all the vicious and degenerate urges were gone, and she felt clean and reborn.
Lying in bed with the sheets tucked modestly around her, she looked up lovingly at Frankie and Johnnie, and they beamed down at her. They felt very good themselves, as comfortably satiated as though they had used her in a way she had so often been used. They were also pleased at having done their job so well.
"Now, about that divorce, honey…"
"Oh, I'm going to get it right away! Oh, I can hardly wait to do it. Oh, I-"
"Yeah, sure, sure you will, baby. But what about money? You got the dough to do it on?"
Teddy babbled happily that she had lots and lots of money, and she mentioned the amount. The smiles of Frankie and Johnnie faded, and they exchanged a look of bitterness. It was, of course, out of the question for them to take the dough. Downing would find out about it- he had an unbelievable talent for finding out the closest-kept secrets of his minions- and since he had not explicitly told them to rob Teddy, they would be charged with bad conduct. And how about that anyway?
Downing had instructed them only to scare the hell out of Teddy, to see to it that she never again made trouble for Mitch. That was all, so that was all they could do. But it was really a hell of a note, wasn't it? Here was this lousy pig with a mattress full of dough, and they-
Wait a minute. Wait just a peanut-pickin' minute!
They couldn't whip her for the loot, but did that mean they couldn't perform an act of simple justice? Did it mean that they had to leave the pig loaded, while they, fine young men that they were, were in relative want?
Frankie and Johnnie exchanged another glance, their eyes bright with malice. Then, they turned back to Teddy, and her smile abruptly faded and she began to tremble with terror.
"That's not your dough," Frankie said coldly. "You squeezed it out of Mitch."