Texas by the Tail

here, he wasn't going to have Red put up with this.

'Maybe you'd better run along now,' he told her. 'We'll have that date some other night.'

'Well -..' Her eyes told him it was all right. 'I was just thinking that Mr. Lord might like to come along. To keep Alice company.'

'Oh, he probably wouldn't want to bother. After all, it's getting late, and we were having a little game-'

Lord said to screw the game and how goddamned late it was, then bowed wobblingly in Red's direction. 'Have to excuse the language, honey. Be perfectly all right as soon as I have a drink.'

'I understand,' Red murmured. 'I hope you don't mind putting on a dinner jacket.'

'Don't mind a bit, baby. What kind you like-plaid, white, black-?'

'Black will be fine. Alice and I will be waiting down in the car, Mitch.'

She swept out of the room, with another brilliant smile at Lord. He promptly returned to the bar, took a long drink direct from the bottle, and slammed it down with a shuddery hiccup. Then, turning slowly, he treated Mitch to a long, thoughtful and seemingly sober stare.

'Seen you somewhere before, haven't I?' he said.

'Have you?' Mitch said.

'Seen that redheaded broad, too. Seen the two of you together.'

'We've been together before,' Mitch nodded. 'Now that I think of it, I believe I've seen you somewhere, too.'

'So who cares? Everybody's seen me. Known far and wide.'

'I'm sure you're right. Hadn't you better be getting dressed if we're going to meet the girls?'

'Don't be so goddamned rude,' Lord scowled. 'Can'tcha see I'm havin' a drink?'

'You can take the bottle along with you if you like.'

'Now you're tryin' to patronize me,' Lord declared. 'Actin' like I don't have any whiskey of my own.'

Mitch sighed, wondering vaguely if there wasn't an easier way to make a living. Lord would have to be carried to his suite if he didn't leave very soon. His appearance to the contrary, he must be very near the point of collapse. And yet, well, he just might not be. With Winfield Lord, Jr., one could never be sure.

His behavior was always erratic. His speech was invariably obscene. He had been sodden with alcohol for so long that drunkenness was the norm for him. Now, he was apt to be sober when he appeared to be drunkest.

'Tell you where I saw you,' he was saying. 'In a cage at the zoo. You were trying to slip it to another ape.'

'Imagine that,' Mitch yawned. 'I didn't know anyone was watching.'

'Just testing,' Lord said wisely. 'Always test people like that. Keeps 'em worried, know what I mean? Think I remember 'em they don't try to pull anything.'

'That's very shrewd of you,' Mitch nodded. 'Then you haven't seen me before tonight?'

Lord said hell no, he hadn't, and that was one thing he had to be grateful for, 'But I got to keep testing, see? I run into someone like you or that redheaded broad, I test 'em. And you know why I do it?'

'To keep them worried?'

'Well, shut up and I'll tell you, then!' Lord said. 'Here's my ass, see?' He slapped his rump. 'And here's the whole goddamned world'-he held up the stiffened forefinger of his right hand. 'That's the world, just waitin' the chance to jab poor ol' Winnie Lord in the t-tail..' His voice broke, and he sobbed. Then, getting control of himself, he glowered ferociously at his upheld finger. 'So what do I do about it? What does Winnie Lord do when the whole world's a big screwin' finger? Huh? Hah? Well, I'll tell you what! He bites the goddamned thing off!'

Mitch grabbed him. Frantically, he tried to force Lord's mouth open, to pull the finger out of his mouth. But Lord was slippery and strong. They struggled about the room, stumbling over furniture, almost going through a window. At last Lord opened his mouth, and burst into jeering laughter.

'Jesus Christ!' he said. 'Are you ever a jerk!'

The finger had been doubled over. There wasn't a mark on it. Strangely, or perhaps not so strangely, Mitch was almost grateful to him.

That took care of any twinge of conscience he had felt at beating Lord for thirty-three thousand dollars. His feeling now was that he had earned the money, and then some.

The feeling increased as Lord suddenly remembered 'Helen and Alice.' Mitch suggested that he go to his own suite, so that they could be dressing simultaneously. But Lord wouldn't have it that way. No, sir! No, by God! Mitch should get dressed, and then accompany him, while he was dressing.

'Gonna keep an eye on you, get me? Y'aren't gettin' away from me for a mother-lovin' minute!'

'Suit yourself,' Mitch shrugged. 'You can have another drink while I'm changing.'

'Stop ordering me around,' Lord said. 'Who the hell you think you are, anyway?'

At last they were on their way, Lord holding himself very erect, looking like a matinee idol as they descended in the elevator. Mitch guided him to his own suite, sat him down inside, and wheeled the portable bar close to him. He sat down across from him, and Lord resumed his drinking and his endless and pointless obscenities. And Mitch could not feel sorry for him-how could you feel sorry for someone who had everything and flatly refused to do anything with it? But still he was subtly perturbed; naggingly puzzled by the riddle, this particularization of the universal, which Lord represented.

You could say he was a bastard by choice. And that was true. You could say that he could hardly be anything else, in view of his heritage. And that was true. But still there had to be more to it than that; some hideous note that only he could hear in the Leitmotif to which he marched through life.

Why did he choose to be as he was? Why had his ancestors chosen to be as they were? Why did a person-a people- who were fortunate beyond their wildest dreams use their all to crap up the only world they had to live in?

Where was the answer? Did it exist in them, or in oneself? Once, finding himself on the campus of a large university, Mitch had chosen to stroll through the main engineering building. A building whose main corridor was a hundred yards long. At its beginning, the beginning of the corridor, that is, the mathematical equivalent of pi was engraved upon the wall-3.14159. But that, the accepted workaday definition, was not true pi, of course. So there had been more decimals behind the customarily final one; on and on and still on, until the end of the corridor was reached. But that still was not the end of pi, as was indicated by the plus sign behind the final decimal.

Somewhere, possibly, within the limitless infinity of mathematics, a period could be correctly put to the equation. Or, possibly, it could never be. Perhaps what was missing was not intrinsic to the formula itself, but in the eye that beheld it. Some new dimension which would illuminate the darkest corners of human knowledge, including the perverse minds of men like Winnie Lord.

However it was, Mitch decided, as he waited wearily for Lord to pass out, the answer to such imponderables as true pi and man's meanness was not his to provide.

However it was, he decided, he was damned glad that he was Mitch Corley, with all of Mitch Corley's problems, instead of Winfield Lord, Jr.

Lord at last drew a blank. Mitch felt his pulse, making sure that he was suffering from nothing