Texas by the Tail

morning.'

'Save yourself a trip,' the gambler said. 'I can get your head beat off here for free.'

Mitch scoffed that the Lords couldn't be that bad. 'Let's face it, Frank. This is still Texas and it's still the twentieth century.'

'Why would I kid you?' Downing asked. 'They'll push your tonsils right out your tail, Mitch. You'll have to take off your pants to brush your teeth.'

'You're just saying that to cheer me up,' Mitch said. 'Well, thanks anyway, Frank. I-'

'Sit down.'

'I wish I could, but-'

'Sit down,' Downing said. 'I've got some questions to ask you.'

Mitch sat down, not liking it but accepting it; wondering at the change that had come over the gambler. Downing lighted a cigarette, studying him through the smoke.

'Now, lay it on the line for me. The Lords have let you know they don't want to pay those checks. Just how do you figure to make 'em? How do you figure to gain by walking right into their own private little kingdom?'

'I don't know,' Mitch said. 'It's simply something I've got to try.'

'Why?'

'Why?'

'Uh-huh, why? You're a gambler. You don't buck the odds. You've been pulling down heavy for years, and you've got a lot of years left to go on pulling it down. Yet here you are, pissing it all off on a long shot chance of collecting a few stinking bucks.'

'Thirty-three grand stinks?'

'You know what I'm talking about,' Downing said. 'You've got a big kitty. You can afford to swallow a loss like this. Now, why don't you do it instead of jumping into a bear-trap?'

'Why, Frank,' Mitch said lightly. 'I didn't know you cared.

'I asked you a question. And about you I don't care. But I liked that redhead, and I know she's nuts about you. I figure it would just about break her heart if anything happened to you. So I want to know just why you're so damned anxious to get your head parted.'

Mitch hesitated, seeking a way out, knowing that there was none. He said quietly, 'I'm broke, Frank. There isn't any kitty.'

'I figured,' Downing nodded, 'and Red doesn't know it. That's why you didn't bring her with you. If she knew the truth, she'd never let you do this.'

'If she knew the truth,' Mitch said, 'she'd probably kill me.'

Downing shook his head. 'How could she do that when I'm going to? Or maybe you've got a real good reason for cheating the nicest kid I ever met.'

'Ah, Frank, for God's sake…!'

'Let's have it!' Downing snapped. 'Start talking and talk fast, or by Christ you won't be able to! You'll be at the bottom of the Trinity talking to the turtles!'

His saturnine face was white with anger. Mitch started talking and he talked fast.

He told the whole story, starting with his marriage to Teddy; then, going on to the birth of his son and the discovery that she was a whore. He told it all-his meeting with Red, his sincere belief that Teddy had died or divorced him, her unexpected reappearance and the years of blackmailing that had ensued.

'Well, that's it, Frank,' he concluded. 'That's the story. That's where the money went.'

Downing looked at him, no longer angry so much as puzzled. 'I guess I must have missed something,' he said. 'Like why do you let this half-baked whore clip you for practically everything but your bean money?'

'I told you. To keep her quiet.'

'And this was the only way? You couldn't think of anything better than taking from the woman who loves you to give to the one who hates you?'

'Well, what else-?' Mitch broke off, looking into the dead flatness of Downing's eyes. 'No, Frank,' he said quietly. 'I couldn't do anything like that.'

'Who said you had to? You could have it done.'

'It's the same difference. I don't play that way, Frank.'

'And why the hell not? You don't have to have her killed, dammit. Just a little working-over would do the trick.'

Mitch said again that he couldn't do it. He agreed that Teddy would never be satisfied, and that getting out of his present predicament would only postpone the inevitable showdown. He agreed that Teddy deserved anything that happened to her. But still.

It would be so simple, of course; so easy and swift and final. Just a few little words to the right people, and then no more trouble from Teddy. Yes, there was a chance that you might have trouble with those aforesaid right people. And there was every likelihood that solving your problems in this way would become a habit. You would become addicted to it, substituting it more and more often for talent and intelligence and all the other qualities which distinguished you from the animals you employed. Until, in the end, you were identical with them.

'I'm sorry, Frank,' he said, and possibly he was sorry- the thing would have been so easy. 'Maybe I'm a sap, but that's the way I am.'

Downing scowled at him. Then, he laughed and spread his hands, seemingly accepting Mitch's perversity. 'Well, skip it. It's your problem and I figure you can work it out. Need any scratch to travel on?'

'No, I'm not completely flat.'

'Then, lots of luck with the Lords. You can use my name with 'em if you want to.'

'Why, thanks,' Mitch said. 'That's nice of you, Frank.'

They shook hands. Downing bent back over his ledgers, and the adding machine began to click and hum. Mitch went out the door, too relieved by the gambler's geniality to consider the reason behind it. Without knowing it, he saw the reason-a double one-coming toward him as he emerged from the side corridor and entered the main one.

They were very boyish and gay-looking young men; black-haired, olive-skinned, trim and slender of build. They wore crisp white linen jackets, perfectly creased dark trousers and two-tone black and white shoes. Their names, their actual names-probably the only thing they had ever received from best-forgotten parents-were Frankie and Johnnie, and they were fraternal twins.

They had begun to snicker and whisper to one another, at first sight of Mitch. Suddenly, when he was only a few feet away (and doing his best to ignore them) they came at him with a rush.

'Mitch, sweetheart! How are you, baby? Now, aren't you the big, beautiful chunk of man!'

They flung themselves on him, squeezing his arms, slapping his back, sniggering and giggling at his obvious discomfiture. Mitch drew his elbows in, then abruptly shot them backwards, throwing the brothers against the wall.

'Now, I'm telling you bastards!' he said angrily. 'You ever lay a hand on me and you'll pull back a stump!'

'Aw, now baby! We just wanted to kiss you.'

'Get out of my way!' he snapped, and he pushed past them savagely, and their taunting sniggers followed him until he had left the corridor.

Appearances to the contrary, he knew the fag bit of the two was strictly an act. Another way of adding to their general obnoxiousness. That was how they got their kicks, Frankie and Johnnie. By making themselves hateful to people. It was another facet of the sadism which made their work a pleasure for them.