The pressure of the gun barrel against the back of my neck was starting to hurt and I was hoping my insurance was paid up. I didn't move.
"To what do I owe this extreme pleasure? Anything wrong?" I asked the other end of the gun. From the feel of it, I was guessing it was a .22 and if so, he was a cop. Only gun they carried around here.
"Wrong?" he replied, "Why should you think of anything being wrong, have you been doing something you shouldn't. Yes?"
If you can call putting the toilet paper on so it rolls from the top, yeah I guess I've been doing something wrong.
"Just a manner of speech." I said.
"Well, yes," he went on, "it's just a manner of speech from your Forum Relations Advisor to you that you watch out, little Sam. Because next time it's going to be the barry place and all my work ruined. If you've no respect for your horrible self, you at least might have some for me who'se sweated over you. A big black mark I tell you for every one we don't reclaim. A confession of failure for every one of you who ends up in the stripy hole." He eased up on the gun and allowed me to turn to face him.
It was Sgt. Rufus Leaking from our fine Polizei.
"I've been doing nothing I shouldn't, sir. The millicents have nothing on me, brother, sir, I mean."
I could see the color in his face change.
"Cut out all this clever talk about milicents. Just because the Police haven't picked you up lately doesn't, as you very well know, mean that you've not been up to some nastiness. There was a bit of a nastiness this afternoon, yes. Some very extreme nastiness, yes. A certain doorman was ambluenced off late this afternoon, yes. Your name was mentioned, the word's got thru to me by the usual channels. Oh, nobody can prove anything about anybody as usual, but I'm warning you, little Sam, being a good friend to you as always, the one man in this sore and sick community who wants to save you from yourself." He pulled himself straight and grabbed his pants by the belt and pulled them up hard - so hard that three belt loops broke and he stood there, holding onto his trousers like he was in a Harlem High School. Dixie sat on the couch, transfixed.
"Nobody's got anything on me, brother. I've been out of the rookers of the milicents for a long time now." I started to relax as he lowered the gun.
"That's just worries me. A bit too long, too long to be reasonable. You're about due now by my reckoning, that's why I'm warning you, little Sam, to keep your handsome young proboscis out of the dirt. Do I make myself clear?" He started to look at the box and then at Dixie then back to the box.
"As an unmuddied lake, sir. Clear as an azure sky of deepest summer. You can rely on me, sir." I said.
His hand holding the gun started to caress the large box.
"You can have that if you fancy it." I smiled and sat down on the couch next to Dixie. She looked like the aliens had removed her anal probe.
"No, no. I can only imagine what horror of horrors you have rookered inside. Real horrorshow, yes. But who is the weepy young devotchka?"
"Her? Thats my sis, up from the Midlands, here on holiday, why?" I replied.
"Relative, yes?" and he slammed the top of the box with the pistol, making a sound so loud I just about soiled myself. "Behave, little Sam, behave."
"You try to frighten me, sir, admit so, sir." I said evenly to him, "This is some new form of torture. Say it, brother, sir."
"It will be your own torture. For being a bastard with no manners and not a dook of an idea how to comport yourself publicwise, O my Brother."
And with one last look at me and Dixie, he left as a slight hum from inside the box started vibrating against the floor.
The W0nderful telephöne system