the container that, for once, holds no fix
The purse snatcher’s response to this conscience appears to have been cruelly striking the Jarvik IX Exterior Artificial Heart repeatedly with a stone or small hammer-like tool
Context
The addict's disappointment rendered as atrocity: the snatched purse holds not money or drugs but a beating artificial heart, and Poor Tony smashes it — the rage of tearing open a container that, for once, contains nothing he can use. The satire reads cruelty; the disease reads a man who took an enormous risk for a prize that turned out worthless.