And now Stan is there, in the E-den, re-trenched, re-shaded and looking at Ned doing a doppleganger in a black  wool mask over his featureless face, he wears the same trench coat, gloves and a pandora, or rather  (Stan waves away the pesky mistake), a fedora, the type that Stan wanted to wear but didn't. Stan wonders how Ned will drink his beer, but Ned is not interested in the Bud, he is into the bottle which he strokes like a host on an altar in languorous transfiguration caresses, he is inching his serpentine fingers down the spout to the neck to the gentle curve of the bottle hips, and down further, lingering about the cul, it was not the Bud that mattered but the blossoming bottle that Betty Boop once stroked into midnight sallies spurting their bold memories now on the gnarled wood E-den table. Return to Sender. The E-den's synthesizer screams, the waitresses giggle-jiggle, boobs bounce. Stan orders another beer then another. Ned does not speak,  the blue booming music reaches a  pitch, Stan forks over a twenty to cover as Ned rises, giving a head signal towards the door.

They walk over to Seedy Motel that has spawned, under the trashy'ello moonlight, tumescent Betty Boops cock-roaching its outside walls, its sign pinballs its fruit candy lights. I want to enter you. A voice pounds Stan's head. "Tale unfinished," HAL stops all.

They enter. Stan feels the dust nip at his heels, there are acarid oceans in every inch of carpet and wall, the air is rife with life, the bed linens will be swamps of microscopic critters. A hot breeze curls around his left pavilion, runs along the flap, clams up the canal, his cerumen surges, clearing  the way in.

"Hi!" says Vick.

"Hi!" says Tim.

"Has he got the money?" asks Vick. "If heez got the money, we got the bottle, if heez got the money, we got the book, if heez got the money, we got the room if heez got..."

"Just hand me the key," Stan yells. A long lurid corridor loops like an erudite labyrinth, he is leading Ned, still masked, trenched, gloved and fedorad. God! The walls are acne-ed with blinking bulbs. Is he in Conk'ring Worm's body? It was senseless, like doing 100 at 13. It was thrilling, like simpering Betty Boop's boobs. Return to Senda. A grim latch jailhouse-clicks. They are in. "Tale unfinished," HAL peters out.

"I've got the money!" Stan's words jump out. "I've got the money." He unrolls the wad, but Ned at the bed says, "Nein." Stan flag-flaps the Benjamins. Ned nods no.

"Nine thousand, that's what we agreed," Stan cries, crashing the bread on the cheap peach dresser. "Nine grand," he slings out the slang. Ned plops his mobster frame onto the bed. "Nein." His voice flits up an octave. He crosses his feet dandily, like Huck waiting for fish at a cool breezed pond.

"You are nervous, my friend," Stan whimpers, "a completely understandable attitude given the stress you have been under, but I would like to remind you that our contract was to liquidate a liability and return with proof of its liquidation, in this case, the hand with four fingers which the object forming the terms of our contract was the proprietor of, and which  furnishes proof that our contract was fully and duly honored."

"Nein."

"Or think of it this way. I have contracted you to seek and retrieve for the sum of 9000 dollars a human left hand possessing only 4 fingers, indicating  ..."

"Indicating nothing," Ned slips in.

Silence. "Suit yourself," Stan peeps up.

"The tale has not been read in full," says Ned.

"Which tale? What are you talking about?"

"I issued Yale warnings, but you ignored them," Ned answers. Stan divines a scowl.

"Do you think that a few calls are sufficient?" Ned kicks off his shoes, his feet are dainty vessels turned around. A line of bugs bracelets an ankle. Ned's trench crawls with life. Stan recoils "Do you think that it all ends with a phone order?" sighs Ned.

"What is it?" Stan, stunned, asks.

"It ist du."

"I know it's due. Don't pull a fast one. We complete our transaction and then I don't know you and you don't know me."

"You did not finish the tale."

Stan sloshed a Johnnie into a glass. "Here have this, it'll make you feel better." Stan held the drink over Ned's head.

But Ned nodded no. And drew an automatic from his pocket. "Make me feel better? Undress me!"

Stan trembled his drink to the floor. "What does all this mean ?"

"Undress me! You have no choice. My trench has fallen, my trousers are off. My legs are as pillars of marble, my hill, fecund and fertile, is strung with mange pearls. Bed mites run busily over  the hairy whorls embossed like jewels across my chest where two breasts hang fruitily, as when you left the cherry of your 17th year. Then, you bathed in my tunnel while you washed me with your milk, white and ruddy.  You poured your youth into me, I shall not perish. Unhook my face covering, lick the lice that run about my neck. My wild dark eyes are slits of the almond nut, and my face, a familiar carbuncle of memory.  Lick my lice or I shall pierce you with my lead as Ned... Ummm! Your tongue licks hotly like a cat at milk."

"They prickle prettily the tongue, the little lice. Feel their squirming heat as they coast down your throat. They become one with you, grind into your entrails, take possession of your earth like vines. Your meat and theirs become one."

"Crouch down now on the bed beside me. The lurid bulb is as the sun and the universe at its beginning. Naked and unadorned. The world is at its end as it is at its beginning. Strange and pretty. Agile beds for agile liers. Remove your clothes, my gun is pointed at your chest, but you move quickly as if you were my bridegroom.

You are sinking into my lice laden loveliness, you dig your nose into my hairy whorls, and like a playful lad, you wish to undo them with your teeth, you wish to count the little mange beads, suck them forth from their tiny  cocoons, they pearl like golden drippings, you feel the tingle as they press lightly against your tongue, before you place them shyly in my orifice, as you sense they will enhance my pleasure while you recover them with your organ. Come now, so shall we share the delight of harlots' games. Naked and unadorned, you are sinking into me, but I feel a hesitation that clouds my beloved's mind. But I am kind and sweet and clever. I am removing my left glove. The four fingers are already freed from their sarcophagus, my bridgroom. The black sheath lies despairingly on the floor and with it, my hand. "