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as he was driving down. He screeched and stalled the Impala, and I slewed the
Magnette crosswise across his path. I
left the motor running and the emergency brake on, and I was out of the car,
dashing toward him, fast as a wad of spit, before he could get coordinated. He
was rolling up the windows and locking the doors as I pulled open the rear
door on the side away from him. With four doors, four windows, he could only
get to so many before I got to him. Logic. Wham!
I yanked open the door and plunged into the rear seat before he could turn
around.
My arm went around his neck and yanked him half-out of the driver's seat. I
used my free hand to slam the door handle beside him, and flung the front door
open. Still holding him, I punched open my door, and reached around. I grabbed
the sonofabitch by his jacket and yanked him sidewise. He went sprawl-assing
out of the car, and I was on him.
"Let's go see your house," I said tightly.
I took the car keys, and using a bring-along I'd learned at jolly old Fort
Benning while doing my two for Uncle Sam, we dogtrotted back to the house. I
unlocked the door and shoved him just enough ahead of me to plant my foot in
the middle of his butt. I jacked my foot forward as hard as I
could and Beau Brummel went flailing across the room, headfirst into the
genuine imitation mahogany portable bar. Glassware went in all directions, his
right hand swept an ornate cocktail shaker against the wall, and he knocked
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the caster-mounted shell on its side. He fell in a very untidy heap, and I
slammed the door behind me as I moved toward him. His eyes were like a pair of
Rolls Royce foglamps.
"Four hundred dollars," I said, very gently, lifting him by his jacket front
and his Jay Sebring twelve-dollar razor-cut.
"No, I, listen--" he started ...
"Curettage," I recited, from reading I had recently done, "is a French word
meaning to scrape out.
This is the simplest operation performed upon the uterus and consists of
scraping the lining of the cavity." I let go of his jacket, still holding him
up by the hair, and cocked back my fist.
"It is performed under a light general anesthesia." I hit him as hard as I
could, just under the left eye. "The normal uterus is a pear-shaped, muscular
organ, about three inches long, two inches wide and one inch thick, lying in
the midportion of the pelvis." He sagged sidewise, and the skin burned, blued,
went gray and he started to bleed from a small cut. His eyes misted.
"The uterus," I continued, slapping him back and forth across the bridge of
the nose to revive him, "consists of three layers--a thin, outer, sheathlike
coat, a thick muscular layer, and a membranous lining to the cavity which is
located in the center of the organ." He came back from wherever he'd fled, and
there was a fear of the Furies gibbering in his blue eyes. His tongue peeked
out of his mouth, and I slammed him with the palm of my hand, and he bit the
tip, screeching at me something I couldn't understand. I cuffed him in the
right ear, then the left, and his head bobbled like the top scoop of an
unsteady ice cream cone.
"Simply stated, the function of the uterus is to receive the fertilized egg
(which travels from the ovary through the Fallopian tubes), nourish and
contain the egg as it develops through pregnancy and"--I hit him with
everything I had, flush in the mouth--"expel the fully developed embryo. Four
hundred dollars, Roger." The lower lip tore, teeth bit through the upper, and
he went far away again.
Softly, "Four hundred, Roger baby." I let him slip back down on his side. He
lay there looking frightened.
I went into the kitchen and drew myself a glass of cold water. He was a lousy
housekeeper; I had to rinse my own glass.
It had not been the most methodical of jobs, but then neither was I a schooled
pistolero. It had
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.txt been informed, however, by a classic frenzy and a degree of
hatred/brutality I'd never known I
contained. I sat there while he sponged off his face with the wet washcloth,
and my knees were shaking. He looked as though someone had mistaken his face
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