Commandant has turned over a prisoner to Stevenson for examination and fly-wrinkle
bad court half long presses command overview sky interrogative moon phases.
Bleeding rectums on Main Street in Anytown, USA; all concurrent with processed
data of heaven, hell, purgatory, afterlife.
"What we see here," Stevenson explains as he stitches the fingers back
on, "is proto-tumors, the regicide of the body. Tumors are the body's
natural early warning system. These ones here, they could have come from
any damn whore the boy ever fucked. You can tell by the length of his
nails, by nicotine stains on the fingers, that he was a man of considerable
ill repute."
Commandant is interrogating the deceased prisoner while his personal assistant
stands behind, writing down what is said.
"You know a house in Fair Oaks?" Commandant asks.
"You talking to me or the stiff?" the assistant shoots back.
"We can cover it up." Commandant turns to Stevenson and says, "Might you
be prepared to autopsy this piece of shit?"
"He's a bleeder," Stevenson replies. "New money always bleeds. Metabolic
phenomenon. Great blisters of corpuscles spreading underneath the skin,
as suggested by proto-tumors."
Kell emerges from the backroom of Stevenson's villa, sniveling and unbalanced,
bleeding from the ears. He produces a ten pieta note and says glumly,
"This will cover the damage to the closet that looks like a bathroom in
the dark."
Stevenson becomes agitated and shouts, "Estrogen, estrogen! We'll shoot
this corpse up until a chromosome's been changed!"