This is it, thought Milford. I am in hell. I don't know how I got here, and I don't remember dying, but I am in hell.
"And so," said the fat man called Big Daddy, "if you two gentlemen will be so kind as to accompany me."
"No," said Milford.
"What'd you just say?" said the man at the podium.
"I said no," said Milford.
"How fucking dare you," said the guy. He pointed the old-fashioned key attached to the dirty rabbit's foot at Milford. "You are cruising for a bruising, punk."
"Well, fuck you," said Milford.
"What'd you just say?"
"I said fuck you," said Milford.
"Oh, boy," said the podium guy, and he turned to Addison. "You better talk to your little boyfriend, fella. You better talk to him quick."
"What do you want me to say to him?" asked Addison.
"I want you to tell him that he is putting himself into a world of trouble. And pain. A whole fucking universe of trouble and pain."
Addison took a drag from his cigarette, which had now burnt down to its last inch and a half, but he always smoked his cigarettes down to the last half-inch at least.
"I am waiting," said the podium man.
Addison slowly exhaled a gentle cloud of Chesterfield smoke before responding.
"In the words of Melville's Bartleby," said Addison at last, "I would prefer not to."
"Who the fuck is Melville's Bartleby?" said the podium man.
"All right," interposed the fat man, tapping an inch of cigar ash to the floor. "We have tried to be patient with you two. But you have forced our hands. I will give you both one more chance to come peacefully with me to my table, like the consummate douchebags you are, where we will sit and drink and talk shite, or, alternatively, we shall be forced to, in your parlance, 'play rough'."
"I say we play rough right now, Big Daddy," said the podium guy. He was now gripping the rabbit's foot in his fist, with the jagged key protruding between the knuckles of his index and middle fingers like the tip of a miniature halberd. "Just give me the go-ahead, please."
"Not yet, Cerberus," said the fat man. "But stand at the ready."
"Oh, I'm ready," said the podium man. "I am so ready. I'd like to ram this key right into this little twerp's eye socket, and twist it around."
"Oh, please," said Milford.
"Please what?" said the podium guy.
"You don't look that tough to me," said Milford.
"What?"
"I mean, I'm a total weakling, and have never won a fight in my life, but you look like an only partially re-animated corpse."
"Oh, wow," said the podium guy. "Just you wait."
"Okay," said Milford. "I'll wait."
"I'm gonna come around from this podium and show you how animated a corpse I am."
"What are you waiting for?"
"All I'm waiting for is the word from Big Daddy."
"So you take your orders from him?"
"Yes. I do."
"Why?"
"Why? Because he's Big Daddy, why do you think why?"
"So you do everything this fat tub of lard tells you to do?"
"Oh, man," said the podium guy. He turned to the fat man. "Big Daddy, did you hear what he just called you?"
"I did," said the fat man.
The podium man turned back to Milford.
"That was extremely hurtful," he said. "You shouldn't talk about Big Daddy that way."
"I shouldn't call him a fat tub of lard?"
Addison snorted, and coughed, then looked at his cigarette.
"What are you laughing at, wise guy?" the podium man said to Addison.
"Well," said Addison, "you have to admit that 'fat tub of lard' is a not inaccurate description of Mr. Big Daddy."
"Oh, boy," said the podium man.
"I'll have you know, sir," said the fat man to Addison, "that I may be somewhat heavyset, but if I choose to set upon you, you will know that you have been set upon."
"Do you mean you're going to sit on me?" said Addison. "That would be uncomfortable, I must admit."
"Please, Big Daddy," said the podium man. "I beg of you. Just give me the word."
"I'll have you also know," said the big man, still addressing Addison, "that I am possessed of a glandular condition which is entirely congenital in nature. And I think it is quite insensitive of you to speak thus so rudely."
"You mean my saying that 'fat tub of lard" is an accurate, if figurative, description of you?"
"You go too far, sir."
"Well, you said that my friend Milford and I are douchebags, what did you expect?"
"Even a douchebag must observe some proprieties, sir."
"I can only assume," said Addison, "that you are a past master of the proprieties of douchebags."
"Very well," said the fat man. "Enough badinage. I give you two gentlemen – and I use that term in its most liberal sense – I give you two 'gentlemen' one supernumerary but absolutely final chance to avoid physical violence and to come peacefully with me."
Addison took a drag from what was left of his Chesterfield, looked at its glowing stub, and then flicked it into the fat man's eye, who dropped his cigar and clapped his enormous hands to his face while staggering backwards and emitting a great roar.
"Big Daddy!" screamed the podium guy, coming around and embracing the fat man. "Big Daddy!"
The fat man emitted another great roar, like that of a rhinoceros fatally wounded by a great white hunter's high-powered rifle.
Milford noticed that the podium guy had left his key and its rabbit's foot on the ledge of his podium. Quickly he grabbed it and went to the door.
The fat man continued to roar, while the podium man embraced what he could of his enormous torso.
"Big Daddy!" whined the podium man again.
"Addison!" shouted Milford.
Addison turned.
"Yes?"
Milford had successfully inserted the key into the lock, and had opened the door.
"Come on," said Milford.
"Oh, right," said Addison. He turned and looked again at the roaring fat man and the podium guy embracing him and crying the fat man's name.
"Addison!" said Milford again.
"Yes, I'm coming," said Addison, and he turned and hurried through the doorway.
Leaving the key in the lock, and with one last glance at the bellowing fat man and his whining minion, Milford followed Addison, pulling the door shut behind him.
"Which way?" said Milford.
"Does it matter?" said Addison.
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