TOAST: Damned if you do.

KATE: Damn right you’re damned. We’re all damned. I—tossed—a coin. (Pause.) What’s gonna happen to me?

TOAST: Nothing. It’s ludicrous. Just this interview. We’ll close this off and get little old Marigold’s termination back on track—

KATE: But me. What’s gonna happen to me?

TOAST: I don’t think…

Pause.

KATE: We are. We’re all damned. Aren’t we. Don’t tell me you don’t think. Tell me yes or no. Are we damned?

TOAST: Yes.

KATE: We’re damned.

TOAST: Yes.

KATE: Are you upstairs?

TOAST:…Yes.

KATE (peering at her watch): How long—

TOAST (also peering at her watch): Forty, forty-five—figure five minutes to walk over there—

KATE: I want you to take me upstairs. And then I want you to take me. Take me any way you want. And then I want you to drag me into that conference room. And then I want you to do whatever you want to me. Whatever you want.

Pause. They kiss again, softly and beautifully, one long loving kiss.

BLACKOUT

3. Hellhound on My Trail

Lights come up dimly on a room at the Paradise or Starlight or Aces Motel. The TV plays soundlessly, broadcasting a changing light. On the bed MARK CASSANDRA, known as CASS, sleeps in his jeans. The curtains are drawn.

In the upstage wall, the bathroom door stands open, and the bathroom is full of daylight. A toilet, and a small window above it. Just outside the bathroom is the sink. Right of bed, a chest of drawers. Couple of lamps, etc. At stage left, a green door and a curtained window.

CASS wakes abruptly. Swings around and sits up as if he knows exactly what he should be doing right now, then realizes he doesn’t. Begins coughing—a smoker. Looks around, completely disoriented. Peers at the TV. He’s sitting on the remote—digs it out and points:

WOMAN’S TV VOICE:—leaves twenty-two days, Jim, just twenty-two days in which to seize this golden opportunity, twenty-two days. And that’s—

CASS hits the mute, lies back down, frisks himself for a smoke, reaches out a hand to the nightstand, clearing his throat. His hand finds a revolver. He sits up. His throat-clearing turns to screaming moans. He leaps out of bed and cuts on the lamp.

He examines the gun fearfully: sniffs at the gun barrel, opens out the cylinder and spins it, tosses the thing down and starts to dress.

CASS: Oh yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah…

(Muttering, rapid, searching around:) Oh yeah, oh yeah, we got the shit-hole motel, we got the puke on the sheets, we got the gun with a bullet missing…We’re gonna bust in with a warrant and ride you to the principal’s office in the electric chair. You got a toothbrush? Do you at least have that? You got one boot. How about a sock then? (Finds his smokes on the floor, sticks one in his mouth.) LIGHTER? LIGHTER?…Will you at least get rid of the evidence? Will you at least do that?

He strips a pillow, wipes the gun, wraps it in the pillowcase, and, shoving open the bathroom window, starts to drop it outside.