Well, I was young and ignorant of everything outside ten million books I'd gobbled and guilty-unsure about my imaginative flights away from my father's realism and of course stoned of course but I finally understood why he was watching me that way, it was (this part of it) pure Zen, there was nothing I could do consciously or by volition that would satisfy him and I had to do exactly that which I could not not not do, namely be Simon Moon. Which led to deciding then and there without any time to mull it over and rationalize it just what the h.e.l.l being Simon Moon or, more precisely SimonMooning, consisted of, and it seemed to be a matter of wandering through room after room of my brain looking for the owner and not finding him anywhere, sweat broke out on my forehead, it was becoming desperate because I was running out of rooms and the Padre was still watching me. do, namely be Simon Moon. Which led to deciding then and there without any time to mull it over and rationalize it just what the h.e.l.l being Simon Moon or, more precisely SimonMooning, consisted of, and it seemed to be a matter of wandering through room after room of my brain looking for the owner and not finding him anywhere, sweat broke out on my forehead, it was becoming desperate because I was running out of rooms and the Padre was still watching me.

"n.o.body home," I said finally, sure that the answer wasn't good enough.

"That's odd," he said. "Who's conducting the search?"

And I walked through the walls and into the Fire.

Which was the beginning of the larger and funkier part of my (Simon's) education, and where we cannot, as yet, follow him. He sleeps now, a teacher rather than a learner, while Mary Lou Servix awakes beside him and tries to decide whether it was just the pot or if something really spooky happened last night. Howard sports in the Atlantic; Buckminster Fuller, flying above the Pacific, crosses the international date line and slips back into April 23 again; it is dawn in Las Vegas and Mocenigo, the nightmares and anxieties of night forgotten, looks forward cheerfully to the production of the first live cultures of Anthrax-Leprosy-Pi, which will make this a memorable day in more ways than he expects; and George Dorn, somewhere outside this time system, is writing in his journal. Each word, however, seems magically to appear by itself as if no volition on his part were necessary to its production. He read the words his pencil scrawled, but they appeared the communications of another intelligence. Yet they picked up where he had left off in his hotel room and they spoke with his private idiom: ... the universe is the inside without any outside, the sound made by one eye opening. In fact, I don't even know that there is a universe universe. More likely, there are many multi multiverses, each with its own dimensions, times, s.p.a.ces, laws and eccentricities. We wander between and among these multiverses, trying to convince others and ourselves that we all walk together in a single public universe that we can share. For to deny that axiom leads to what is called schizophrenia.

Yeah, that's it: every man's skin is his own private multiverse, just like every man's home is supposed to be his castle. But all the multiverses are trying to merge, to create a true universe such as we have only imagined previously. Maybe it will be spiritual, like Zen or telepathy, or maybe it will be physical, one great big gang-f.u.c.k, but it has to happen: the creation of a universe and the one great eye opening to see itself at last. Aum Shiva!

-Oh, man, you're stoned out of your gourd. You're writing gibberish.

No, I'm writing with absolute clarity, for the first time in my life.

-Yeah? Well what was that business about the universe being the sound of one eye opening?

Never mind that. Who the h.e.l.l are you and how did you get into my head?

"Your turn now, George."

Sheriff Cartwright stood in the door, a monk in a strange red and white robe beside him, holding some kind of wand the deep color of a fire engine.

"No-no-" George started to stammer. But he knew.

"Of course you know," the Sheriff said kindly-as if he were suddenly sorry about it all. "You knew before you left New York and came down here."

They were at the foot of the gallows. " ... each with its own times, s.p.a.ces, laws and eccentricities," George was thinking widly. Yes: if the universe is one big eye looking at itself, then telepathy is no miracle, for anyone who opens his own eyes fully can then look through all other eyes. (For a moment, George looks through the eyes of John Ehrlichman as d.i.c.k Nixon urges lewdly, "You can say I don't remember. You can say I can't recall. I can't give any answer to that that I can recall." I can't give any answer to that that I can recall.) I can't give any answer to that that I can recall.) "All flesh will see it in one instant": who wrote that? "All flesh will see it in one instant": who wrote that?

"Gonna miss you, boy," the Sheriff said, offering an embarra.s.sed handshake. Numbly, George clasped the man's hot, reptilian palm.

The monk walked beside him up the gallows' steps. Thirteen, George was thinking, there are always thirteen steps on a gallows.... And you always cream in your jeans when your neck breaks. It has something to do with the pressure on the spinal cord being transmitted through the prostate gland. The o.r.g.a.s.m-Death Gimmick, Burroughs calls it.

At the fifth step, the monk said suddenly: "Hail Eris."

George stared at the man dumbfounded. Who was Eris? Somebody in Greek mythology, but somebody very important....

"It all depends on whether the fool has wisdom enough to repeat it."

"Quiet, idiot-he can hear us!"

I got some bad pot, George decided, and I'm still back on the hotel bed, hallucinating all this. But he repeated, uncertainly: "Hail Eris."

Immediately, just like his one and only acid trip, dimension began to alter. The steps grew larger, steeper-ascending them seemed as perilous as climbing Mount Everest. The air was suddenly lit with reddish flame- Definitely Definitely, George thought, some weird and freaky pot some weird and freaky pot....

And then, for some reason, he looked upward.

Each step was now higher than an ordinary building. He was near the bottom of a pyramidal skysc.r.a.per of thirteen colossal levels. And at the top.... And at the top....

And at the top One Enormous Eye-a ruby and demonic orb of cold fire, without mercy or pity or contempt -looked at him and into into him and through him. him and through him.

The hand reaches down, turns on both bathtub faucets full-power, then reaches upward to do the same to the sink faucets. Banana-Nose Maldonado leans forward and whispers to Carmel, "Now you can talk."

(The old man using the name "Frank Sullivan" was met, at Los Angeles International Airport, November 22, 1963, by Mao Tsu-Hsi, who drove him to his bungalow on Fountain Avenue. He gave his report in terse, unemotional sentences. "My G.o.d," she said when he finished, "what do you make of it?" He thought carefully and grunted, "It beats the h.e.l.l out of me. The guy on the triple underpa.s.s was definitely Harry Coin. I recognized him through my binoculars. The guy in the window at the Book Depository very likely was this galoot Oswald that they've arrested. The guy on the gra.s.sy knoll was Bernard Barker from the CIA Bay of Pigs gang. But I didn't get a good look at the gink on the County Records building. One thing I'm sure of: we can't keep all this to ourselves. At the very least, we pa.s.s the word on to ELF. It might alter their plans for OM. You've heard of OM?" She nodded, saying, "Operation Mindf.u.c.k. It's their big project for the next decade or so. This is a bigger Mindf.u.c.k than anything they had planned.") "Red China?" Maldonado whispers incredulously. "You musta been reading the Readers Digest. Readers Digest. We get all our horse from friendly governments like Laos. The CIA would have our a.s.s otherwise." Straining to be heard over the running water, Carmel asks despondently, "Then you don't know how I could meet a Communist spy?" We get all our horse from friendly governments like Laos. The CIA would have our a.s.s otherwise." Straining to be heard over the running water, Carmel asks despondently, "Then you don't know how I could meet a Communist spy?"

Maldonado stares at him levelly. "Communism doesn't have a good image right now" he says icily; it is April 3, two days after the Fernando Poo Incident.

Bernard Barker, former servant of both Batista and Castro, dons his gloves outside the Watergate; in a flash of memory he sees the gra.s.sy knoll, Oswald, Harry Coin, and, further back, Castro negotiating with Banana-Nose Maldonado.

(But this present year, on March 24, Generalissimo Tequilla y Mota finally found the book he was looking for, the one that was as precise and pragmatic about running a country as Luttwak's Coup d'Etat Coup d'Etat had been about seizing one. It was called had been about seizing one. It was called The Prince The Prince and its author was a subtle Italian named Machiavelli; it told the Generalissimo everything he wanted to know-except how to handle American hydrogen bombs, which, unfortunately, Machiavelli had lived too soon to foresee.) and its author was a subtle Italian named Machiavelli; it told the Generalissimo everything he wanted to know-except how to handle American hydrogen bombs, which, unfortunately, Machiavelli had lived too soon to foresee.) "It is our duty, our sacred duty to defend Fernando Poo," Atlanta Hope was telling a cheering crowd in Cincinnati that very day. "Are we to wait until the G.o.dless Reds are right here in Cincinnati?" The crowd started to scream their unwillingness to wait that long-they had been expecting the G.o.dless Reds to arrive in Cincinnati since about 1945 and were, by now, convinced that the dirty cowards were never going to come and would have to be met on their own turf-but a group of dirty, longhaired, freaky-looking students from Antioch College began to chant, "I Don't Want to Die for Fernandoo Poo." The crowd turned in fury: at last, some real reds to fight.... Seven ambulances and thirty police cars were soon racing to scene.... Atlanta Hope was telling a cheering crowd in Cincinnati that very day. "Are we to wait until the G.o.dless Reds are right here in Cincinnati?" The crowd started to scream their unwillingness to wait that long-they had been expecting the G.o.dless Reds to arrive in Cincinnati since about 1945 and were, by now, convinced that the dirty cowards were never going to come and would have to be met on their own turf-but a group of dirty, longhaired, freaky-looking students from Antioch College began to chant, "I Don't Want to Die for Fernandoo Poo." The crowd turned in fury: at last, some real reds to fight.... Seven ambulances and thirty police cars were soon racing to scene....

(But only five years earlier Atlanta had a different message. When G.o.d's Lightning was first founded, as a splinter off Women's Liberation, it had as its slogan "No More s.e.xism," and its original targets were adult bookstores, s.e.x-education programs, men's magazines, and foreign movies. It was only after meeting "Smiling Jim" Trepomena of Knights of Christianity United in Faith that Atlanta discovered that both male supremacy and o.r.g.a.s.ms were part of the International Communist Conspiracy. It was at that point, really, that G.o.d's Lightning and orthodox Women's Lib totally parted company, for the orthodox faction, just then, were teaching that male supremacy and o.r.g.a.s.ms were part of the International Kapitalist Conspiracy.) "Fernando Poo," the President of the United States told reporters even as Atlanta was calling for all-out war, "will not become another Laos, or another Costa Rica."

"When are we going to get our troops out of Laos?" a reporter from the New York Times New York Times asked quickly; but a man from the asked quickly; but a man from the Washington Post Washington Post asked just as rapidly, "And when are we going to get our troops out of Costa Rica?" asked just as rapidly, "And when are we going to get our troops out of Costa Rica?"

"Our Present Plans for Withdrawal are going Forward according to an Orderly Schedule," the President began; but in Santa Isobel itself but in Santa Isobel itself, as Tequilla y Mota underlined a pa.s.sage in Machiavelli, 00005 concluded a shortwave broadcast to a British submarine lying 17 miles off the coast of the island: 00005 concluded a shortwave broadcast to a British submarine lying 17 miles off the coast of the island: "The Yanks have gone absolutely bonkers, I'm afraid. I've been here nine days now and I am absolutely convinced there is not one Russian or Chinese agent in any way involved with Generalissimo Tequilla y Mota, nor are there any troops of either of those governments hiding anywhere in the jungles. However, b.u.g.g.e.r is definitely running a heroin smuggling ring here, and I would like permission to investigate that." (The permission was to be denied; old W., back at Intelligence HQ in London, knew that 00005 was a bit bonkers about b.u.g.g.e.r himself and imagined that it was involved in every mission he undertook.) "The Yanks have gone absolutely bonkers, I'm afraid. I've been here nine days now and I am absolutely convinced there is not one Russian or Chinese agent in any way involved with Generalissimo Tequilla y Mota, nor are there any troops of either of those governments hiding anywhere in the jungles. However, b.u.g.g.e.r is definitely running a heroin smuggling ring here, and I would like permission to investigate that." (The permission was to be denied; old W., back at Intelligence HQ in London, knew that 00005 was a bit bonkers about b.u.g.g.e.r himself and imagined that it was involved in every mission he undertook.) At the same time, in a different hotel, Tobias Knight, on special loan from the FBI to the CIA, concluded his nightly shortwave broadcast to an American submarine 23 miles off the coast: "The Russian troops are definitely engaged in building what can only be a rocket-launching site, and the Slants are constructing what seems to be a nuclear installation...."

And Hagbard Celine, lying 40 miles out in the Bight of Biafra in the Lief Erickson Lief Erickson, intercepted both messages, and smiled cynically, and wired P. in New York: activate MALIK AND PREPARE DORN.

(While the most obscure, seemingly trivial part of the whole puzzle appeared in a department store in Houston. It was a sign that said: NO SMOKING. NO SPITTING.THE MGT.

This replaced an earlier sign that had hung on the main showroom wall for many years, saying only NO SMOKINGTHE MGT.

The change, although small, had subtle repercussions. The store catered only to the very wealthy, and this clientele did not object to being told that they could not smoke. The fire hazard, after all, was obvious. On the other hand, that bit about spitting was somehow a touch offensive; they most certainly were not the sort of people who would spit on somebody's floor-or, at least, none of them had done such a thing at any time since about one month or at most one year after they became wealthy. Yes, the sign was definitelv bad diplomacy. Resentment festered. Sales fell off. And membership in the Houston branch of G.o.d's Lightning increased. Wealthy, powerful membership.

(The odd thing was that the Management had nothing at all to do with the sign.) George Dora awoke screaming.

He lay on the floor of his cell in Mad Dog County Jail. His first frantic, involuntary glance told him that Harry Coin had vanished completely from the adjoining cell. The s.h.i.t-pot was back in its corner and he knew, without being able to check, that there would be no human intestines in it.

Terror tactics, he thought. They were out to break him-a task which was beginning to look easy-but they were covering up the evidence as they went along.

There was no light through the cell window; it was, therefore, still night. He hadn't slept but merely fainted.

Like a girl.

Like a long-haired commie f.a.ggot Oh, s.h.i.t and prune juice, he told himself sourly, cut it out. You've known for years that you're no hero. Don't take that particular sore out and rub sandpaper on it now. You're not a hero, but you're a G.o.ddam stubborn, pigheaded, and determined coward. That's why you've stayed alive on a.s.signments like this before.

Show these redneck mammyjammers just how stubborn, pig-headed, and determined you can be.

George started with an old gimmick. A piece torn off the tail of his shirt gave him a writing tablet. The point of his shoelace became a temporary pen. His own saliva, spat onto the polish of the shoes themselves, created a subst.i.tute ink.

Laboriously, after a half hour, he had his message written: WHOEVER FINDS THIS $50 TO CALL JOE MALIK, NEW YORK CITY, AND TELL HIM GEORGE DORN HELD WITHOUT LAWYER MAD DOG COUNTY JAIL.

The message shouldn't land too close to the jail, so George began looking for a weighted object. In five minutes, he decided on a spring from the bunk mattress; it took him seventeen minutes more to pry it loose.

After the missile was hurled out the window-probably, George knew, to be found by somebody who would immediately turn it over to Sheriff Jim Cartwright-he began thinking of alternate plans.

He found, however, that instead of devising schemes for escape or deliverance, his mind insisted on going off in an entirely different direction. The face of the monk from his dream pursued him. He had seen that face somewhere before, he knew; but where? Somehow, the question was important. He began trying in earnest to re-create the face and identify it-James Joyce, H. P. Lovecraft, and a monk in a painting by Fra Angelico all came to mind. It was none of them, but it looked somehow a little like each of them.

Suddenly tired and discouraged, George slouched back on the bunk and let his hand lightly clutch his p.e.n.i.s through his trousers. Heroes of fiction don't jack off when the going gets rough, he reminded himself. Well, h.e.l.l, he wasn't a hero and this wasn't fiction. Besides, I wasn't going to j.a.c.k.-.o.f.f. (after all, They might be watching through a peephole, ready to use this natural jailhouse weakness to humiliate me further and break my ego). No, I definitely wasn't going to jack-off: I was just going to hold it, lightly, through my trousers, until I felt some life-force surging back into my body and displacing fear, exhaustion and despair. Meanwhile, I thought about Pat back in New York. She was wearing nothing but her cute black lace bra and panties, and her nipples are standing up pointy and hard. Make it Sophia Loren, and take the bra off so I can see the nipples directly. Ah, yes, and now try it the other way: she (Sophia, no make it Pat again) is wearing the bra but the panties are off showing the pubic bush. Let her play with it, get her fingers in there, and the other hand on a nipple, ah, yes, and now she (Pat-no, Sophia) is kneeling to unzipper my fly. My p.e.n.i.s grew harder and her mouth opened in expectation. I reached down and cupped her breast with one hand, taking the nipple she had been caressing, feeling it harden more. (Did James Bond ever do this in Doctor No's dungeon?) Sophia's tongue (not my hand, not not my hand) is busy and hot, sending pulsations through my entire body. Take it, you c.u.n.t. Take it, O G.o.d, a flash of the Pa.s.saic and the gun at my forehead, and you can't call them c.u.n.ts nowadays, ah, you c.u.n.t, you c.u.n.t, take it, and it is Pat, it's that night at her pad when we were both zonked on hashish and I never never never had a blow-job like that before or since, my hands were in her hair, gripping her shoulders, take it, suck me off (get out of my head, mother), and her mouth is wet and rhythmic and my c.o.c.k is just as sensitive as that night zonked on the hash, and I pulled the trigger and then the explosion came just as I did (pardon the diction) and I was on the floor coughing and bouncing, my eyes watering. The second blast lifted me again and threw me with a crunch against the wall. my hand) is busy and hot, sending pulsations through my entire body. Take it, you c.u.n.t. Take it, O G.o.d, a flash of the Pa.s.saic and the gun at my forehead, and you can't call them c.u.n.ts nowadays, ah, you c.u.n.t, you c.u.n.t, take it, and it is Pat, it's that night at her pad when we were both zonked on hashish and I never never never had a blow-job like that before or since, my hands were in her hair, gripping her shoulders, take it, suck me off (get out of my head, mother), and her mouth is wet and rhythmic and my c.o.c.k is just as sensitive as that night zonked on the hash, and I pulled the trigger and then the explosion came just as I did (pardon the diction) and I was on the floor coughing and bouncing, my eyes watering. The second blast lifted me again and threw me with a crunch against the wall.

Then the machine-gun fire started.

Jesus H. Particular Christ on a crutch, I thought frantically, whatever it is that's happening they're going to find me with come on the front of my trousers.

And every bone in my body broken, I think.

The machine gun suddenly stopped stuttering and I thought I heard a voice cry "Earwicker, Bloom and Craft."-I've still got Joyce on my mind, I decided. Then the third explosion came, and I covered my head as parts of the ceiling began falling on me.

A key suddenly clanked against his cell door. Looking up, I saw a young woman in a trench coat, carrying a tommy gun, and desperately trying one key after another in the lock.

From somewhere else in the building there came a fourth explosion.

The woman grinned tensely at the sound. "Commie motherf.u.c.kers," she muttered, still trying keys.

"Who the h.e.l.l are you?" I finally asked hoa.r.s.ely.

"Never mind that now," she snapped. "We've come to rescue you-isn't that enough?"

Before I could think of a reply, the door swung open.

"Quick," she said, "this way."

I limped after her down the hall. Suddenly she stopped, studied the wall a moment, and pressed against a brick. The wall slid smoothly aside and we entered what appeared to be a chapel of some sort.

Good weeping Jesus and his brother Irving, I thought, I'm still still still dreaming. still dreaming.

For the chapel was not anything that a sane man would expect to find in Mad Dog County Jail. Decorated entirely in red and white-the colors of Ha.s.san i Sabbah and the a.s.sa.s.sins of Alamout, I remembered incredulously-it was adorned with strange Arabic symbols and slogans in German: "Heute die Welt, Morgens das Sonnensystem," "Ewige Blumenkraft Und Ewige Schlangekraft!" "Gestern Hanf, Heute Hanf, Immer Hanf." "Heute die Welt, Morgens das Sonnensystem," "Ewige Blumenkraft Und Ewige Schlangekraft!" "Gestern Hanf, Heute Hanf, Immer Hanf."

And the altar was a pyramid with thirteen ledges-with a ruby-red eye at the top.

This symbol, I now recalled with mounting confusion, was the Great Seal of the United States.

"This way," the woman said, motioning with her tommy gun.

We pa.s.sed through another sliding wall and found ourselves in an alley behind the jail.

A black Cadillac awaited us. "Everybody's out!" the driver shouted. He was an old man, more than sixty, but hard and shrewd-looking.

"Good," the woman said. "Here's George."

I was pushed into the back seat-which was already full of grim-looking men and grimmer-looking munitions of various sorts-and the car started at once.

"One for good measure," the woman in the trench coat shouted and threw another plastic bomb back at the jail.

"Right," the driver said. "It fits, too-that makes it five."

"The Law of Fives," another pa.s.senger chuckled bitterly. "Serves the commie b.a.s.t.a.r.ds right. A taste of their own medicine."

I could restrain myself no longer.

"What the h.e.l.l is going on?" I demanded. "Who are you people? What makes you think Sheriff Cartwright and his police are communists? And where are you taking me?"

"Shut up," said the woman who had unlocked my cell, nudging me none too affectionately with her machine gun. "We'll talk when we're ready. Meanwhile, wipe the come off your pants."

The car sped into the night.

(In a Bentley limousine, Fedrico "Banana Nose" Mal-donado drew on his cigar and relaxed as his chauffeur drove him toward Robert Putney Drake's mansion in Blue Point, Long Island. In back of his eyes, almost forgotten, Charlie "The Bug" Workman, Mendy Weiss, and Jimmy the Shrew listen soberly, on October 23, 1935, as Banana Nose tells them: "Don't give the Dutchman a chance. Cowboy the son of a b.i.t.c.h." The three guns nod stolidly; cowboying somebody is messy, but it pays well. In an ordinary hit, you can be precise, even artistic, because after all the only thing that matters is that the person so honored should be definitely dead afterwards. Cowboying, in the language of the profession, leaves no room for personal taste or delicacy: the important thing is that there should be a lot of lead in the air and the victim should leave a spectacularly gory corpse for the tabloids, as notification that the Brotherhood is both edgy and short-tempered and everybody better watch his a.s.s. Although it wasn't obligatory, it was considered a sign of true enthusiasm on a cowboy job if the guest of honor took along a few innocent bystanders, so everybody would understand exactly how edgy the Brotherhood was feeling. The Dutchman took two such bystanders. And in a different world that is still this world, Albert "The Teacher" Stern opens his morning paper on July 23, 1934, and reads FBI shoots dillinger, thinking wistfully If I could kill somebody that important, my name would never be forgotten If I could kill somebody that important, my name would never be forgotten. Further back, back further: February 7, 1932, Vincent "Mad Dog" Coll looks through the phone-booth door and sees a familiar face crossing the drugstore and a tommy-gun in the man's hand. "The G.o.d-d.a.m.ned pig-headed Dutchman," he howled, but n.o.body heard him because the Thompson gun was already systematically spraying the phone-booth up and down, right and left, left and right, and up and down again for good measure ... But tilt the picture another way and this emerges: On November 10, 1948, the "World's Greatest Newspaper," the Chicago Tribune Chicago Tribune announced the election to the Presidency of the United States of America of Thomas Dewey, a man who not only was not elected but would not even have been alive if Banana Nose Maldonado had not given such specific instructions concerning the Dutchman to Charlie the Bug, Mendy Weiss and Jimmy the Shrew.) announced the election to the Presidency of the United States of America of Thomas Dewey, a man who not only was not elected but would not even have been alive if Banana Nose Maldonado had not given such specific instructions concerning the Dutchman to Charlie the Bug, Mendy Weiss and Jimmy the Shrew.) Who shot you? the police stenographer asked. the police stenographer asked. Mother is the best bet, Oh mama mama mama. I want harmony. I don't want harmony Mother is the best bet, Oh mama mama mama. I want harmony. I don't want harmony, is the delirious answer. Who shot you? Who shot you? the question is repeated. The Dutchman still replies: the question is repeated. The Dutchman still replies: Oh mama mama mama. French Canadian bean soup Oh mama mama mama. French Canadian bean soup.

We drove till dawn. The car stopped on a road by a beach of white sand. Tall, skinny palm trees stood black against a turquoise sky. This must be the Gulf of Mexico, I thought. They could now load me with chains and drop me in the gulf, hundreds of miles from Mad Dog, without involving Sheriff Jim. No, they had raided Sheriff Jim's jail. Or was that a hallucination? I was going to have to keep more of an eye on reality. This was a new day, and I was going to know facts hard and sharp-edged in the sunlight and keep them straight.

I was stiff and sore and tired from a night of driving. The only rest I'd gotten was fitful dozing in which Cyclopean ruby eyes looked at me till I awoke in terror. Mavis, the woman with the tommy gun, had put her arms around me several times when I screamed. She would murmur soothingly to me, and once her lips, smooth, cool and soft, had brushed my ear.

At the beach, Mavis motioned me out of the car. The sun was as hot as the bishop's jock strap when he finished his sermon on the evils of p.o.r.nography. She stepped out behind me and slammed the door.

"We wait here," she said. "The others go back."

"What are we waiting for?" I asked. Just then the driver of the car gunned the motor. The car swung round in a wide U-turn. In a minute its rear end had disappeared beyond a bend in the Gulf highway. We were alone with the rising sun and the sand-strewn asphalt.

Mavis motioned me to walk down the beach with her, A little ways ahead, far back from the water, was a small white-painted frame cabana. A woodp.e.c.k.e.r landed wearily on its roof like he had flown more missions than Yossarian and never intended to go up again.

"What's the plan, Mavis? A private execution on a lonely beach in another state so Sheriff Jim can't get blamed?"

"Don't be a dummy, George. We blew up that commie b.a.s.t.a.r.d's jail."

"Why do you keep calling Sheriff Cartwright a commie? If ever a man had KKK written all over his forehead, it was that reactionary redneck p.r.i.c.k."

"Don't you know your Trotsky? 'Worse is better.' Slobs like Cartwright are trying to discredit America to make it ripe for a left-wing takeover."

"I'm a left-winger. If you're against commies, you've got to be against me." I didn't care to tell her about my other friends in Weatherman and Morituri.

"You're just a liberal dupe."

"I'm not a liberal, I'm a militant radical."

"A radical is nothing but a liberal with a big mouth. And a militant radical is nothing but a big-mouthed liberal with a Che costume. b.a.l.l.s. We're the real radicals, George. We do things, like last night. Except for Weatherman and Morituri, all the militant radicals in your crowd ever do is take out the Molotov c.o.c.ktail diagram that they carefully clipped from The New York Review of Books The New York Review of Books, hang it on the bathroom door and j.a.c.k.-.o.f.f. in connection with it. No offense meant." The woodp.e.c.k.e.r turned his head and watched us suspiciously like a paranoid old man.

"And what are your politics, if you're such a radical?" I asked.

"I believe that government governs best of all that governs least of all. Preferably not not at all. And I believe in the laissez faire capitalist economic system." at all. And I believe in the laissez faire capitalist economic system."

"Then you must hate my politics. Why did you rescue me?"

"You're wanted," she said.

"By whom?"

"Hagbard Celine."