The Gauntlet Comments

Constable: [in the car, he's driving, Ben's in front, she's in the back seat, with him leering at her in the mirror] You mind if I ask you a question? How many times a month you spread your legs?

Ben Shockley: Just drive the car, will you?

Constable: See now, I got me a chance to learn something, colonel. I mean, as long as I got to chaffeur the little strumpet, you don't mind if a country boy picks up a little education, do you?

[smirks]

Constable: I... I got this here buddy, he had the idea one time to open up a string of whorehouses and advertise like them fried chicken places. "Finger lickin' good!"

[snorting laugh]

Constable: How's it work with your kind? You go to some kind of special school or something?

Gus Mally: [coolly] I have a B.A. from Finch College.

Constable: That where you learned to give head?

Ben Shockley: Will you shut up, for Chrissake?

Constable: Hey now, colonel, you come to the strumpet's rescue? I bet you had some ideas of getting some gash yourself. Maybe you already had a taste of it, huh? Ain't nothing like a slice of the damp, is there?

Ben Shockley: Jesus.

Constable: You can't fool ol' Deke, I seen you zipping your fly-...

Ben Shockley: [pointing the gun at him menacingly] Will you shut up!

Gus Mally: [calmly] It's all right, let him talk.

Constable: Were you going to shoot a fellow officer, colonel? What'll you tell them back home? That I was insulting your whore?

[Ben grimaces]

Constable: Gmmph!

[to Gus]

Constable: Looks like you done lost your hero-boy.

Gus Mally: [coolly] I can take care of myself.

Constable: I bet you can at that. Let's just me and you have a little talk, huh? Did you ever go down on another little girl? Ever have it done to you? I mean, whores just don't make it with guys. They'll make it with anybody with the cash, right? Bet you do. Bet I'd like to watch you too. Yes, ma'am. I'd really dig watching you. Them little ol' melons all pink and tight. That little ass a-humping and a-jerking around.

[Ben looks at him askew]

Constable: Them long legs all jacked up juicy-like. I'll bet it don't take much to get you all wet and hot to trot, does it?

[smirks]

Constable: Hey, come on, talk to me, I wanna know what it's like being a whore.

Gus Mally: Actually, I always thought it was rather like being a cop.

Constable: You did?

[dirty laugh]

Gus Mally: Yeah. Not unlike being on the take at two dozen bars in downtown Vegas. Taking money from some politician every time you peel his drunken kid's Cadillac off a telephone pole.

[toying with a cigarette]

Gus Mally: Strong-arming the Chicanos in the barrio on Saturday night. Busting kids for smoking grass then taking a kickback from the heroin dealers. Or those occasions where you do bust a pusher and skim the haul when you've made the collar. Sell what you skim to your dope addict buddies on the force.

Constable: [laughs] She's sure on to all our tricks, ain't she?

Gus Mally: As I see it, the only difference between you and me is that when I quit work, I take a long hot bath and I'm as clean as the day I was born. But a cop, especially a flunkie like you, when the sheriff whistles, you squat. And what he does to you rots your brain. No amount of water on earth can get you clean again.

Constable: [to Ben] You're going to sit there and take that kinda crap?

Ben Shockley: [vague grin] You were the one who wanted her to talk.

Gus Mally: I know you don't like women like me. We're a bit aggressive. We frighten you. But that's only because you got filth in your brain. And I'm afraid the only way you'll clean it out is to put a bullet through it.

[leaning over towards him]

Gus Mally: And does your wife know you masturbate?

[causes him to yell in dismay and lose control of the car, almost smashing into a truck]

Ben Shockley: [holding the gun against the driver's head] You've had your chat!

[fed up with him]

Ben Shockley: Now drive!

[Ben and Gus look at each other in a new light, sharing bonding looks]

Gus Mally: Shockley...?

Ben Shockley: Yeah?

Gus Mally: What's gonna happen at the border?

Ben Shockley: We'll pick up an escort to take us to Phoenix.

Gus Mally: Who?

Ben Shockley: Police. Arizona police.

Gus Mally: How do you know?

Ben Shockley: Because I asked for 'em.

Gus Mally: Did you call the same person you telephoned from the house?

[looks worried, brushes through her hair with her hand]

Ben Shockley: Yeah.

Gus Mally: Well, when I saw you back there in the culvert, you said you'd been set up.

Ben Shockley: It seemed that way at the time.

Gus Mally: What's changed since then?

Ben Shockley: [at a loss] What are you trying to say?

Gus Mally: That somebody's trying to kill me. And since you're along, you're a target too. That car that blew up, and those two guys who shot at us, now that could've been the Mob, but back at the house there, those were cops outside, and somehow they got the wrong message. Now maybe it was a legitimate mistake, maybe not, but if it wasn't, who would have given them the wrong message?

Ben Shockley: How would I know? It wouldn't be my guys, not the guys on my own force, for Chrissakes!

Gus Mally: You're probably right, but... I mean, let's just say that there's a chance you're wrong. Just one chance in a thousand.

[this strikes home with Ben]

Gus Mally: The state line is a pretty lonely place to find out.

Constable: You hear what she said about your own people? You going to sit there and take that shit?

Ben Shockley: How far is the state line?

Constable: About ten miles.

Gus Mally: Shockley... I really do have a college degree.

[throws her hair back, as the car passes through hilly country]