Winifred shook her head. "Fools are precisely what it is not proof against. And you, Wolfgang, know that best of all."

It was dark now. The large tent made of cloth-of-gold was sheltered between the fence and a relatively secluded gra.s.sy knoll. There was greatest privacy here, because this corner of the festival area was farthest from the stage, and because the area was full of Discordians. Hagbard went into the tent and stayed there awhile. Joe and George stood outside, talking. George was thinking that Hagbard was probably in there with Mavis and he wished he could dash in there and kill the son of a b.i.t.c.h. Joe, agonizingly nervous, suspected that Hagbard was in the tent with a woman, probably Mavis, and he wondered it he should rush in and kill Hagbard while the Discordian leader was occupied. He kept his hand in his pocket, fingers curled around the small pistol.

I circle around, I circle around ...

After about half an hour Hagbard emerged from the tent, smiling. "Go on in," he said to Joe. "You're needed in there."

George grabbed Hagbard's arm, trying to sink his fingers in. But the muscle felt like iron, and Hagbard didn't seem to notice. "Who's in there?" he demanded.

"Stella," said Hagbard, looking down at the stage, where the Plastic Canoe was playing.

"And you were f.u.c.king her?" Joe asked. "To release the energies? And now I'm supposed to f.u.c.k her too? And George after me? And then everybody else? That's left-hand magic, and it's creepy."

"Just go in," Hagbard said. "You'll be surprised. I wasn't f.u.c.king Stella. Stella wasn't in there when I was."

"Who was?" George asked, thoroughly confused.

"My mother," said Hagbard happily.

Joe turned toward the tent. He would make one more effort to trust Celine, but then...Suddenly the hawk face leaned close to him and Hagbard whispered, "I know what you're planning for afterwards. Do it quickly."

SHE'LL BE WEARING RED PAJAMAS WHEN SHE COMES On February 2 Robert Putney Drake received a book in the mail. The return address, he noted, was Gold & Appel Transfers on Ca.n.a.l Street, one of the corporations owned by that intriguing Celine fellow who had kept appearing at the best parties for the last year or so. It was t.i.tled Never Whistle While You're p.i.s.sing Never Whistle While You're p.i.s.sing, and the flyleaf had a bold scrawl saying, "Best regards from the author," followed by a gigantic C like a crescent moon. The publisher was Green and Pleasant Publications, P.O. Box 359, Glencoe, Illinois 60022.

Drake opened it and read a few pages. To his astonishment, several Illuminati secrets were spelled out rather clearly, although in a hostile and sarcastic tone. He flipped the pages, looking for other interesting tidbits. Toward the middle of the book he found: DEFINITIONS AND DISTINCTIONS.

FREE MARKET: That condition of society in which all economic transactions result from voluntary choice without coercion.THE STATE: That inst.i.tution which interferes with the Free Market through the direct exercise of coercion or the granting of privileges (backed by coercion).TAX: That form of coercion or interference with the Free Market in which the State collects tribute (the tax), allowing it to hire armed forces to practice coercion in defense of privilege, and also to engage in such wars, adventures, experiments, "reforms," etc., as it pleases, not at its own cost, but at the cost of "its" subjects.PRIVILEGE: From the Latin privi privi, private, and lege lege, law. An advantage granted by the State and protected by its powers of coercion. A law for private benefit.USURY: That form of privilege or interference with the Free Market in which one State-supported group monopolizes the coinage and thereby takes tribute (interest), direct or indirect, on all or most economic transactions.LANDLORDISM: That form of privilege or interference with the Free Market in which one State-supported group "owns" the land and thereby takes tribute (rent) from those who live, work, or produce on the land.TARIFF: That form of privilege or interference with the Free Market in which commodities produced outside the State are not allowed to compete equally with those produced inside the State.CAPITALISM: That organization of society, incorporating elements of tax, usury, landlordism, and tariff, which thus denies the Free Market while pretending to exemplify it.CONSERVATISM: That school of capitalist philosophy which claims allegiance to the Free Market while actually supporting usury, landlordism, tariff, and sometimes taxation.LIBERALISM: That school of capitalist philosophy which attempts to correct the injustices of capitalism by adding new laws to the existing laws. Each time conservatives pa.s.s a law creating privilege, liberals pa.s.s another law modifying privilege, leading conservatives to pa.s.s a more subtle law recreating privilege, etc., until "everything not forbidden is compulsory" and "everything not compulsory is forbidden."SOCIALISM: The attempted abolition of all privilege by restoring power entirely to the coercive agent behind privilege, the State, thereby converting capitalist oligarchy into Statist monopoly. Whitewashing a wall by painting it black.ANARCHISM: That organization of society in which the Free Market operates freely, without taxes, usury, landlordism, tariffs, or other forms of coercion or privilege. RIGHT ANARCHISTS predict that in the Free Market people would voluntarily choose to compete more often than to cooperate, LEFT ANARCHISTS predict that in the Free Market people would voluntarily choose to cooperate more often than to compete.

Drake, now totally absorbed, turned the page. What he found seemed to be an anthropological report on an obscure tribe he had never heard of; he quickly recognized it as a satire and a parable. Putting it aside for a moment, he buzzed his secretary and asked to be connected with Gold and Appel Transfers.

In a moment a voice said, "G and A T. Miss Maris."

"Mr. Drake calling Mr. Celine," Drake's secretary said.

"Mr. Celine is on an extended voyage," Miss Maris replied, "but he left a message in case Mr. Drake called."

"I'll take it," Drake said quickly. There was a click as his secretary went off the line.

"Mr. Celine will send an emissary to you at the appropriate time," Miss Maris said. "He says that you will recognize the emissary because he will bring with him certain artworks of the Gruad era. I'm afraid that is all, sir."

"Thank you," Drake said hollowly, hanging up. He knew the technique: he had used it himself in moving in on the Syndicate back in 1936.

"You were f.u.c.king Stella?"

"Who says I was f.u.c.king anybody?"

Joe went in. The tent was as richly hung as that o any Moorish chieftain. At one end was a diaphanous veil, behind it a figure on a pile of cushions. The figure was light-skinned, so Hagbard had been lying about being in here with Stella. Joe went over and pulled the veil aside.

It was Mavis, all right, just as Joe had guessed. She was wearing harem pajamas, red but translucent, through which he could see her dark nipples and the full bush of hair between her legs. At the expectation of making love to her, Joe could feel his c.o.c.k begin to swell. But he was determined to impose his head trip on this scene.

"Why am I here?" he said, still holding the curtain back with one hand, trying to a.s.sume a casual pose. Mavis smiled faintly and motioned him to sit down on the cushions beside her. He did so, and found himself automatically sliding to a half-reclining position. There was a faint suggestion of perfume from Mavis, and he felt the tension in his loins build up a little more.

"I need all the energies we can set in motion to defeat the Illuminati," said Mavis. "Help me, Joe." She held out her arms.

"Were you f.u.c.king Hagbard? I never did like sloppy seconds."

Mavis gave a little snarl and threw herself on him. She slathered her drooling lips over his and plunged her tongue deep into his mouth, at the same time pressing her thigh between his legs. Joe fell back and gave up struggling against her. She was just too G.o.dd.a.m.ned attractive. In a minute she had his pants open and his stiff hot p.r.i.c.k throbbing in her hand. She lowered her head over it and began sucking it rhythmically.

"Wait," said Joe. "I'm going to go off in your mouth. It's been a week since I got laid, and I'm on a hair trigger."

She looked up at him with a smile. "Eat me, then. I hear you're good at that."

"Who'd you hear that from?" asked Joe.

"A gay priest friend of mine," she said with a laugh as she undid the drawstring of her red trousers.

Joe explored the lips of her v.u.l.v.a with his tongue, reveling in the acrid, musky odor of her bush. He began a businesslike up-and-down, up-and-down motion with his tongue over her c.l.i.toris. After a moment he felt her body tensing. It grew more and more rigid. Her pelvis began to buck, and he clamped both hands on her hips and lapped away inexorably. At last she gave a small shriek and tried to drive her whole mons veneris into his mouth.

"Now f.u.c.k me, quickly, quickly," she said, and Joe, his pants pulled down and his shirttail flapping, mounted her. He came in a series of exquisite spasms and dropped his head to the pillow, beside hers. She let him rest that way for a few minutes, then gently nudged him to pull out and rolled to her side to face him.

"Am I dismissed?" Joe said. "Have I done my job? Released the energies, or whatever?"

"You sound bitter," said Mavis, "and sad. I'd like you to stay with me a while longer. What's bothering you?"

"A lot of things. I feel like I did the wrong thing. George is obviously in love with you, and you and Hagbard treat it as a joke. And Hagbard treats me as a joke. And both of you are quite obviously using me. You're using me s.e.xually, and I'm beginning to think Hagbard is using me in other ways. And I think you know about it."

"You didn't take the acid, did you?" she said, looking at him sadly.

"No. I knew what Hagbard was doing. This is too serious a moment to play games about the Pa.s.sion of Christ."

Mavis smiled. She pressed her body closer to him and began playing with his limp p.e.n.i.s, rubbing the head gently into her bush. "Joe, you were raised as a Catholic. Catholics have a finer appreciation of blasphemy than anybody. That's why Hagbard chose you. How's your pa.s.sion, Joe? Is it mounting?" Pressing her naked body against his, she whispered, "How'd you like to f.u.c.k the Virgin Mary?"

Joe saw his mother's face, and he felt the blood throbbing in his p.e.n.i.s. Now he thought perhaps he knew what Hagbard meant when he said his mother was in the tent.

A little later, when he was in her, she said, "I am a perpetual virgin, Joe. And every woman is, if only you have eyes to see. We wanted to give you eyes tonight. But you refused the Sacrament. You've chosen the hardest way of all, Joe. If you're going to make it through this night you're going to have to find a way to see for yourself. By other means than the one Hagbard provided. You'll have to find your own Sacrament."

And after she came, and he came, she whispered, "Was that the Sacrament?"

He pushed himself up and looked down at the triangular red tattoo between her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. "No. You're not the Virgin Mary. You're still Mavis."

"And you still have to make the decision," she said. "Good-bye, Joe. Send George to me."

As Joe was dressing, feeling the weight of the pistol in his trouser pocket, Mavis rolled over so that she was lying on her stomach, not looking at him. Her naked b.u.t.tocks seemed utterly defenseless. He looked at the pillow on which her bottom had been resting during their lovemaking. It was a cloth-of-gold pillow, and embroidered on it in swirling letters was the word KALLISTI. Joe shook his head and left the tent.

As he emerged, Hagbard was saying in a low voice to Otto Waterhouse, "... would have been up your alley if we hadn't had other work for you. Anthrax Leprosy Pi can wipe out the whole population of the earth in a matter of days."

Suddenly, the white of Hagbard's shirt, the gold of the tent cloth, the blazing spotlights of the festival, all were coming in super-bright. That was adrenalin. My mouth was dry-dehydration. All the cla.s.sic flight-fight symptoms. The activation syndrome, Skinner calls it. I was so keyed up that it was a trip.

"h.e.l.lo, Joe," said Hagbard softly. Joe suddenly realized that his hand was clenched around the pistol. Hagbard smiled at him, and Joe felt like a little boy caught playing with himself, with his hand in his pocket. He took his hand out quickly.

"She wants George," Joe said weakly. He turned his back on Hagbard to look down at the stage, where the sign, glowing in the darkness, said LOAF AND THE FISHES. They were singing, "I circle around, I circle around, the borders of the earth..."

On a pile of cushions behind a diaphanous veil at one end of the tent lay Stella, wearing nothing but a red chiffon pajama top.

"Were you letting Joe f.u.c.k you?" George said.

"Joe has never f.u.c.ked me" me" Stella replied. "You'll be the first person to do that tonight. Look, George, we've got to Stella replied. "You'll be the first person to do that tonight. Look, George, we've got to get get every bit of available energy flowing to combat the Illuminati Come over here and every bit of available energy flowing to combat the Illuminati Come over here and get the get the energies going with me." energies going with me."

"This is Danny Pricefixer" Doris Horus said. "I met him on the plane coming over."

("Holy Jesus," said Maria Imbrium, vocalist with the Sicilian Dragon Defense, "there are angels coming out of the lake. Angels in golden robes. Look!"

("You're tripping on that Kabouter Kool-Aid, baby," a much-bandaged Hun told her. "There's nothing coming out of the lake."

("Something is coming out of the lake," the drummer with the Sicilian Dragons said, "and you're so stoned you don't see it." is coming out of the lake," the drummer with the Sicilian Dragons said, "and you're so stoned you don't see it."

("And what is it, if it isn't angels?" Maria demanded.

("Christ, I don't know. But whoever they are, they're walking on the water.") Wearing my long green feathers, as I fly, I circle around, I circle around ... ...

("Jesus. Walking on the water. You people are zonked out of your skulls."

("It's just a bunch of surfers, wearing green capes for some crazy reason."

("Surfers? My a.s.s! That's some kind of gang of Bavarian demons. They all look like the Frankenstein monster wrapped up in seaweed.") "Pricefixer?" said Kent, "Didn't I meet you five or six years ago in Arkham? Aren't you a cop?"

("It's a gigantic green egg egg...and it loves loves me ...") me ...") John Dillinger muttered to Hagbard, "That red-headed guy over there-the one with the black musician and the girl with the fantastic b.o.o.bs. He's a cop on the New York Bomb Squad. Wanta bet he's here investigating the Confrontation Confrontation bombing?" bombing?"

"He must have been talking to Mama Sutra," Hagbard said thoughtfully.

SHE'LL BE WEARING RED PAJAMAS SHE'LL BE WEARING RED PAJAMAS WHEN SHE COMES.

When Otto Waterhouse entered the tent, it was Miss Mao who was waiting for him. "I never f.u.c.ked a Chinese broad," said Otto, stripping off his clothing. "I don't think Stella is going to like this."

"It will be okay with Stella," said Miss Mao. "We need to get all the energies moving to combat the Illuminati. And we need your help." She held out her arms.

"You don't have to ask twice," said Otto, crouching over her.

At 5:45 in Washington, D.C., the switchboard at the Pentagon was warned that bombs planted somewhere in the building would go off in ten minutes. "You killed hundreds of us today in the streets of Washington," said the woman's voice. "But we are still giving you a chance to evacuate the building. You do not have time to find the bombs. Leave the Pentagon now, and let history be the judge of which side truly fought for life and against death."

The highest-ranking personnel in the Pentagon (and, with revolution breaking out in the nation's capital, everybody everybody was there) were immediately moved to underground bombproof shelters. The Secretary of Defense, after consulting with the Joint Chiefs of Staff, declared that there was a 95 percent probability that the threat was a hoax, intended to disrupt the job of coordinating the suppression of revolution across the nation. A search would be inst.i.tuted, but meanwhile work would go on as usual. "Besides," the Secretary of Defense joked to the Chief of Staff, Army, "one of those little radical bombs would do as much damage to was there) were immediately moved to underground bombproof shelters. The Secretary of Defense, after consulting with the Joint Chiefs of Staff, declared that there was a 95 percent probability that the threat was a hoax, intended to disrupt the job of coordinating the suppression of revolution across the nation. A search would be inst.i.tuted, but meanwhile work would go on as usual. "Besides," the Secretary of Defense joked to the Chief of Staff, Army, "one of those little radical bombs would do as much damage to this this building as a firecracker would to an elephant." building as a firecracker would to an elephant."

Somehow the fact that the caller had said bombs (plural) had not gotten through. And the actual explosions were far more powerful than the caller had implied. Since a proper investigation was never subsequently undertaken, no one knows precisely what type of explosive was used, how many bombs there were, how they were introduced into the Pentagon, where they were placed, and how they were set off. Nor was the most interesting question of all ever satisfactorily answered: Who done it? In any case, at 5:55 P.M., Washington time, a series of explosions destroyed one-third of the river side of the Pentagon, ripping through all four rings from the innermost courtyard to the outermost wall.

There was great loss of life. Hundreds of people who had been working on that side of the building were killed. Although the explosion had not visibly touched their bombproof shelter, the Secretary of Defense, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and numerous other high-ranking military persons were found dead; it was a.s.sumed that the concussion had killed them, and in the ensuing chaos n.o.body bothered to examine the bodies carefully. After the explosions the Pentagon was belatedly evacuated, in the expectation that there might be more of the same. There was no more, but the U.S. military establishment was temporarily without a head.

Another casualty was Mr. H. C. Winifred of the U.S. Department of Justice. A civil servant with a long and honorable career behind him, Winifred, apparently deranged by the terrible events of that day of infamy, took the wheel of a Justice Department limousine and drove wildly, running twenty-three red lights, to the Pentagon. He raced to the scene of the explosion brandishing a large piece of chalk, and was trying to draw a chalk line from one side of the gap in the Pentagon wall to the other when he collapsed and died, apparently of a heart attack.

At 11:45 Ingolstadt time the loudspeakers and the sign over the stage announced the American Medical a.s.sociation. After a ten-minute ovation, the four strange-eyed, ash-blond young people began to play their most popular song, "Age of Bavaria." (In Los Angeles the Mercalli scale on the UCLA seismograph jumped abruptly to grade 1. "Gonna be a little disturbance," Dr. Vulcan Troll said calmly, noting the rise. Grade 1 wasn't serious.) "What made you think we'd find him down here?" Saul asked "What made you think we'd find him down here?" Saul asked.

"Common sense and psychology," Dillinger said. "I know pimps. He'd s.h.i.t purple before he'd get the guts to try to cross a border. They're strictly mama's boys. The first place I looked was his own cellar, because he might have a hidden room there."

Barney laughed. "That's the first place Saul looked, too."

"We seem to think alike, Mr. Dillinger," Saul said drily.

"There isn't much difference between a cop and a crook, psychologically speaking," Dillinger mused.

"One of my own observations," Hagbard agreed. "What conclusion do you draw from it?"

"Well," Dillinger said. "Pricefixer didn't just pick up that girl because he wanted a lay. She has to fit somehow."

"The musician doesn't know that," Hagbard commented. "Watch his hands. He's repressing a fight impulse; in a few minutes he'll start a quarrel. He and the lady were lovers once-see the way her pelvis tilts when she talks to him?- and he wants Whitey to go away. But Whitey won't go away. He has her linked with the case he's working on."

"I used to be used to be a cop," Danny said with an engaging imitation of frankness. "But that was years ago, and the work really didn't appeal to me. I'm a salesman for a cop," Danny said with an engaging imitation of frankness. "But that was years ago, and the work really didn't appeal to me. I'm a salesman for Britannica Britannica now. Better hours, and people only slam doors in my face -they don't shoot at me through them." now. Better hours, and people only slam doors in my face -they don't shoot at me through them."

"Listen," Doris said excitedly. "The AMA is playing 'Age of Bavaria,'" It was the song that, more than any other, both expressed and mocked the aspirations of youth around the world, and the accuracy with which it expressed their yearnings and the savagery with which it denied them had won them over.

It started almost the instant the music began. A mile below the surface of the lake, near the opposite sh.o.r.e, an army began to rise from the dead. The black-uniformed corpses broke loose from their moorings, rose to the surface, and began to drift toward sh.o.r.e. As more and more of the semblance of life returned, the drifting became swimming motions, then wading. They fell into ranks on the sh.o.r.e. Under the steel helmets their complexions were greenish, their eyes heavily lidded, their black lips drawn back in wide grimaces. The mouths of the officers and noncoms moved, forming words of command, though no sound came forth. No sound was needed, it seemed, for the orders were instantly obeyed. Once again the power that had been granted to Adolf Hitler by the Illuminated Lodge in 1923 ("Because you are so preposterous," they told him at the time)-the power that had manifested itself in steel-helmed armies that had won Hitler an empire stretching from Stalingrad to the Atlantic, from the Arctic Circle to the Sahara Desert-once again that power was visible on the earth.

"They are coming. I can feel it," Werner whispered to his twin, Wilhelm, as Wolfgang thundered on the drums and Winifred belted out: This is the dawning of the Age of Bavaria-Age of Bavaria-Bavaria-Bavaria!

The tanks and artillery were rolling into position. The caterpillar treads of the troop carriers were churning. Motorcycle couriers sped up and down the beach. A squadron of partially dismantled Stukas was lined up in the road. After the festivalgoers had been ma.s.sacred and Ingolstadt had been overrun, the planes would be trucked to the nearby Ingolstadt Aerodrome, where they would be a.s.sembled and ready to fly by morning.

The dead men removed black rubber sheaths from rolled up red-white-and-black banners and unfurled them. Many of them were the familiar swastika flags and banners of the Third Reich, with one addition: a red eye-and-pyramid device superimposed on the center of each swastika. Other banners carried Gothic-lettered mottos such as DRANG NACH OESTEN and HEUTE DIE WELT, MORGENS DAS SONNENSYSTEM DRANG NACH OESTEN and HEUTE DIE WELT, MORGENS DAS SONNENSYSTEM.

At last all was in readiness. The blue-black lips of General-of-the-SS Rudolf Hanfgeist, thirty years dead, shaped the command to march, which was relayed in similar fashion from the higher-ranking officers to the lower-ranking officers to the men. The lights and music on the opposite sh.o.r.e beckoned across the dark, bottomless waters. Moonlight glinting on the death's heads on their caps and runic SS insignia on their collars, the soldiers moved out, company by company. The only sound was the growl of the diesel engines of troop carriers and the clank of weapons.

"They're coming," said the woman under Hagbard, who was neither Mavis nor Stella nor Mao, but a woman with straight black hair, olive skin, fierce black eyebrows, and a bony face.

"Coming, Mother," said Hagbard, giving himself up to the irresistible onward sweep of sensation to the brink of o.r.g.a.s.m and over.

"I'm not your mother," said the woman. "Your mother was a blond, blue-eyed Norweigian. And I look Greek now, I think."

"You're the mother of all of us," said Hagbard, kissing her sweat-damp neck.

"Ah," said the woman. "Is that who I am? Then we're getting somewhere."

Then I started to flip, Malik eclipsed by Malaclypse and Celine hardly serene, Mary Lou I Worship You, the Red Eye is my own Mooning, What is the meaning of moaning? and suchlike seminal semantic antics (my head is a Quicktran quicksand where The Territorial Imperative The Territorial Imperative always triggers always triggers Stay Off My Turf Stay Off My Turf, the Latin and the Saxon at war in poor Simon's synapses, dead men fighting for use of my tongue, turning Population Explosion into We're f.u.c.king Overcrowded and backward also, so it might emerge Copulation Explosion, and besides Hag barred straights from this Black-and-White Ma.s.s, the acid was in me, I was tripping, flipping, skipping, ripping, on my Way with Maotsey Taotsey for the number of Our Lady is an hundred and fifty and six-there is Wiccadom!), but I never expected it this way.

"What do you see?" I asked Mary Lou.

"Some people who were swimming, coming out of the lake. What do you see?"

"Not what I'm supposed to see."

For the front line, clear as claritas claritas, was Mescalito from my peyote visions and Osiris with enormous female b.r.e.a.s.t.s and Spider Man and the Tarot Magus and Good Old Charlie Brown and Bugs Bunny with a Tommy gun and Jughead and Archie and Captain America and Hermes Thrice-Blessed and Zeus and Athene and Zagreus with his lynxes and panthers and Micky Mouse and Superman and Santa Claus and Laughing Buddha Jesus and a million million birds, canaries and budgies and gaunt herons and holy crows and crowly hose and eagles and hawks and mourning doves (for mourning never ends), and they'd all been stoned since the late Devonian period, when they first started eating hemp seeds, no wonder Huxley found birds "the most emotional cla.s.s of life," singing all the time, stoned out of their bird-brained skulls, all singing "I circle around, I circle around," except the mynah Birds squawking "Here, kitty-kitty-kitty!" and I remembered again that existence isn't sensible any more than it's hot or red or high or sour, only parts of existence have those qualities, and then there was the Zig-Zag man and my G.o.d my G.o.d my father leading them in singing SOLIDARITY FOREVER.

SOLIDARITY FOREV ERRRR.