“You know, we seem to have similar problems,” she told him as he pushed the elevator button.
“What do you mean?”
“My frigidity and your impotency.”
“I’m not impotent, damn it! At least I never was before this weekend!”
I was only thinking that perhaps we could work on our problems together.”
Archer took a long look at her. She looked good in clothes. But, he remembered, she looked even better without them. “That's an interesting thought,” he said finally.
She smiled again and handed him a slip of paper.
“What’s this?”
“My name and phone number. Will you call me?”
“Okay. I’d like to.”
The elevator came and they rode down to the ground floor in silence. “I’ll be waiting to hear from you,” Iceberg said as they emerged. She smiled a goodbye and headed for a group of phone booths in the lobby.
She entered one of the booths, fished a dime out of her purse, and dialed a number. After a half-minute, she spoke into the mouthpiece. “Hello, Neva. I’ve dropped the bait and the fish is biting. You can tell E. Z. that the encounter thing was a dud, but I think his boy will be all right once I get him to myself. Once he’s in my hands, the Company can rest easy. . . .”
CHAPTER SEVEN
The trouble with all the therapies-—Fromm, Adler, to Ziggy and including practices both Horney and horny, treatment by the Jung-at-heart, rational and ir, heads shrunk individually, or by the dozen, aggression-releasing confrontations and marathon encounters (most especially marathon encounters)—is that reality almost always intrudes on the results. Sooner or later the patient has to leave the womb-couch and face a mother who knows nothing re the therapeutic ground rules and who stubbornly behaves counter to all the Oedipal insights ingested during the fifty-minute hour. The boss yanks the rug out from under Id and Ego and the supportive group falls through the floor. A cat leaps from a garbage can and eats the undersized analysand before he can even fill the feline in on what a big man he is since his shrink deshrunk him. That’s how it goes. And that’s how it went with some of the alumni of Dr. Baariasol’s modified marathon encounter.
Archer emerged from the Hussalin Institute building just in time to see it happen. The other members of the group, except for Iceberg, had already left the building. They were walking ahead of Archer, down the block. Furthest in front was Little Gat. About twenty feet behind him was Job. Strolling together, only a few yards in front of Archer, were the redhead and Fat Tits. The two girls were walking slowly and talking.
As little Gat approached the corner, a large sedan about half a block further down the block suddenly switched on its brights. The car had been parked at the curb with its motor running. Now the engine was gunned and the over-powered vehicle shot down the street toward Little Gat.
He saw it coming. He dived for cover behind a bunch of garbage cans. Instinctively, his hand went to his shoulder holster.
But the butt of the Luger didn’t fall into his palm the way it always had. It took Little Gat only a split second to remember that he was packing a smaller gun and to grope deeper inside his jacket for it. However, that split second was fatal. By the time he’d yanked the toylike revolver out, the sedan was already on top of him. The tommygun was chattering its fatal message before he could act.
Little Gat toppled without firing a shot. His head landed in the remains of a cheese souffle garnished with melted peach melba and coffee grounds. With his life running out of him, Little Gat looked up to see an alley cat perched on the rim of the garbage can and staring at him unblinkingly.
Little Gat had no way of knowing it, but this was the very same cat which had devoured Job’s pint-size brother.
That’s how it goes. Anyway, Little Gat stared back at the cat and spoke his dying words to it.
“It ain’t how big da gat is, it’s how ya use it what counts,” he said. “Bullshit!” he added. And died.
Meanwhile, the car having mounted the curb so the triggerman could more accurately spray lead at Little Gat, it careened up the sidewalk and struck Job just before it roared away. Job went flying through the plate-glass window of a men's clothing store. A large sliver of plate glass neatly castrated him. Blank window dummies welcomed him to their ranks.
“I’m in control of my life,” Job moaned. “My bad luck is self-inflicted. It’s punishing myself ’cause I feel guilty,” he groaned. “That must be why I castrated myself. But,” he added painfully, “if ever I get my hands on that know-it-all doctor, I’m going to do the same to him!”
"Yish! What a sight!
“But it serves you right!”
—said the redhead to Job as she and Fat Tits passed him and ran up to the spot where Little Gat had fallen.
“She’s rhyming again,” Job noticed in his agony. “So much for encounter therapy!”
“Ooohhh!” Fat Tits was wailing. “He’s dead! The only man who ever thought I was attractive is dead. I feel so awful! I feel so ugly! I feel so fat! I feel so hungry!” She spotted a hot-dog stand up the block and headed for it on the run. A moment later she was shoveling in French fries with both hands. That’s how it goes.
Archer came up to the redhead and looked down at Little Gat. Is he—-? he asked.
“—-as a doornail
"Beyond the Vale!”
“Where are you going?” Archer asked her as she started to walk away.
“Violence makes my heels grow round!
“But you’re the only man around.
“You're too limp for satisfaction,
“So I'm off to find some action!”
That’s how it goes . . .
“How did it go?” Llona, awake and waiting, asked the question when Archer arrived home in the mid ayem.
“It seems I have a problem,” Archer sighed.
“Well, that’s why the company sent you there.” He’s got a problem! Llona stewed. I've got an ironclad contract with death for a year from now or less, and he’s got a problem!
“I wonder how they knew,” Archer mused as he got ready for bed.
“What do you mean?”
“I didn’t even know I had this problem before this weekend. I wonder how the Company knew.”
“Are you going to tell me what the problem is?”
Archer told her. He was embarrassed and he mumbled. Llona was privately delighted. When she’d made up that ridiculous story for Neva Holdkumb, she hadn’t even hoped that it could turn out to be true. However, she had wanted to punish Archer for his infidelity, and he was obviously being punished. So she was delighted.
“But how do you know you’re impotent?” she asked him, her voice a-drip with wifely concern.
“I just know.” Archer wasn’t about to admit that he’d put it to the test during the encounter marathon.
“Maybe you’re wrong. Let’s see.” Given the advantage, Llona was sure of her skill in putting it to use. She’d been married to Archer long enough to know just how to subtly confirm his fear. Now her hand slid down to the waistband of his pajama pants. Her fingers slipped under it and kneaded his belly. Her breath was hot in his ear. “Let’s just see,” she murmured seductively.
“I don’t think—-”
“Oh, no? . . . then what’s this?”
“Well, now! Maybe--”
“No maybe about it!” Llona’s fingers tangled in his pubic hair as she gently grasped the hilt of his manhood.
“I’ll be damned!” Encouraged, Archer slid both his hands up under her nightie and clutched her derriere. He buried his face between her breasts, then turned to catch one long nipple between his lips. When she moaned, he moved one of his hands between her nether-cheeks until the fingertips were in position to strum the straining clitoris.