Gerry heard her own breath hissing between her teeth as she drew the air into her lungs. She heard her own voice, the words tumbling out, “There is no room in my life for sex. I decided long ago that I must go one way or another...”
Her vision blurred and her mouth had a salty taste. Then she knew that he had struck her a sharp, backhand blow across the mouth.
Gerry’s eyes were so wide now that white showed around the pupils. She found no words and words were Cold Gerry’s most deadly defense.
The man was speaking, “... so I done a stretch on the rockpile, just on account of one like you. And I’m not ashamed of it either. Be good and we’ll get along.”
Summoning all her strength, Gerry squirmed free and tore loose from his grip, her hair disheveled, her dress ripped under the arms, breathing heavily. “Leave this apartment at once. Before I call the police.”
He seized one of her hands and drew her toward him. She tripped over his foot and fell where he wanted her to fall — back on the beige sofa that matched the rug. Now he had her hands over her head, her thumbs imprisoned in his fist; as he tightened his hold the bones of her thumbs grated cruelly together. Then he relaxed the pressure, stopping the punishment but still keeping her body his prisoner.
“You aren’t going to get away with it, honey. Not this time. You seen me four nights running. You’re going to put out.”
The scream got to her lips but somehow couldn’t get past them. She felt the blood vessels of her throat pounding with great hammerlike blows and knew that his other hand was clamped on them, his iron fingers digging in. She felt one of her pumps come off as she kicked and she felt the sharp angle of his hipbone holding her down.
Cold Gerry seemed to burn with a bright flame that was as cold as ice.
“You got half a minute. Going to be a woman?”
And then it was an insane mixture, with Warm Gerry yielding and Cold Gerry fighting, and her wildness was so great that his own wildness grew, and he took a switch-knife from his pocket and pressed it into her back even as he fought to kiss her. And Warm Gerry surged in triumphant, free at last, as the light in her brain went out.
Even after the heart stopped beating, Warm Gerry lived on for a dozen long, ecstatic seconds, singing with fulfillment, feeling the man’s teeth meet in her lower lip...
Prognosis Negative
by Floyd Mahannah
Makin had nothing to lose, so he went after Fidako. This way, he might be dead just a little bit sooner.
Prognosis negative. We may as well get that part straight right now. It’s a medical term, and what it means is that your chances are exactly zero.
You’re going to die.
I walked out of the clinic that afternoon in a kind of daze, not seeing much of the busy street or the trees or the sunshine, because I was still wrestling with the idea that I was going to die; and it might even happen the next minute. It could be the next minute, but the doc’s best estimate was a year; the outside limit was two years. Your mind just doesn’t accept a thing like that.
The bartender said, “What will you have, sir?”
“Uh — rye. Straight rye.”
I sat there with the rye in my hand, looking at the mirror behind the bar, and at the guy staring back at me. Jim Makin: age thirty-three, height six even, weight one-eighty, hair black, eyes gray, occupation private detective — prognosis negative.
“Something wrong, sir?”
“Wrong?”
“Something wrong with the drink?”
“No.” I drank it, and I didn’t taste a thing. “No, everything’s fine.”
There had been no doubt about what ailed me. Today’s clinic had been the fifth; and today’s neurosurgeon had been the big league, the court of final appeal. He said I had an inaccessible tumor growing in my brain; he said the prognosis was negative; and when he said a thing like that, you were the same as dead.
I left the bar. I walked a long time, aimlessly, and I guess it was force of habit that brought me finally to my office door:
I hadn’t noticed before how dingy it looked, the peeling gold leaf, the dirty frosted glass. I put my key in lock, and I found it was already unlocked. I went in.
The place was a mess — more of a mess than usual, I mean. A lot more. Papers were all over the floor, files hung open, drawers had been pulled out. And in the middle of it stood a man.
Big Sam Cannon.
Yesterday I’d have been scared. Yesterday my heart would have pulled up in my throat, I’d have tried to paste a smile on my face, and I’d have started talking as fast as I knew how. But today nothing was real. Not Jim Makin, not prognosis negative, not even Big Sam.
“Hello, Sam.”
“Hello, peeper.”
Big Sam grinned, showing all his broken teeth; and when Big Sam grinned, you were supposed to start shaking, because Big Sam was the right arm of Ernie Fidako; and Ernie Fidako — well, Ernie Fidako was the big stuff in this part of California. If you call gambling, dope, and running wetbacks big stuff. Now Big Sam said:
“Where is she, peeper?”
“Where is who?”
“Don’t dummy on me. Revita Rosales. The tamale that took off with sixty grand of Ernie’s dough. And don’t tell me you’re not hiding her.”
A detached part of my mind was thinking that this was it: now that they knew what I’d done, it was going to end only one way — a ride down the river in a barrel of concrete, and a grave in the deep part of San Francisco Bay. But it still wasn’t real.
“Come on, where is she?”
“Where you won’t find her.” It didn’t sound like my voice.
He grinned like a big, broken-toothed cat. “So you have got her, huh? Imagine, a two-bit dick like you teaming up against Ernie Fidako. Where is she?”
I shook my head, but I didn’t say anything.
“Spill it, and Ernie might forgive and forget. Otherwise—” He left it lying there — the alternative — the slug in the back, the concrete coffin, the long sleep under the Bay.
I grinned at him, suddenly.
Big Sam’s leathery forehead creased like he didn’t understand. The way he saw it, I ought to be scared silly, I ought to be talking a blue streak. I’d crossed Ernie Fidako, and in this town that was poison.
“What’s so funny?” he asked.
“Ever hear of prognosis negative, Sam?”
“Riddles, huh?” Big Sam grunted. He was in no hurry; he liked this cat and mouse game. “What’s it?”
“It’s a cold, ugly thing, Sam. It follows you around wherever you go. You wake up at two in the morning, and there it’ll be, roosting on the foot of your bed. It’s bad. You wouldn’t like it, Sam. There’s only one good thing about it.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. You don’t have to be scared of anything else any more. You’ve got nothing to lose. Does that make sense, Sam?”
“Is it supposed to?”
I swear, I didn’t even know I was going to hit him.
My fist slammed into his mouth. He staggered back, smacked into my desk, went half up on top of it; and I was as surprised as he was. He hung there on the desk long enough for the blood to form in his smashed lips; then he came off the desk with a harsh, gargled sound that had no words in it. I didn’t back away. I stepped in close, inside his swing, and I sunk my fist into his belly, and it went in like it was going to come out the back. He jackknifed forward, and I backed a little, and when his head came down, I gave him a knee in the face, and he went over backwards, half under the knee hole of the desk. This time he stayed put.