"And who is Hagbard Celine?" We had reached the cabana and were standing beside it, facing each other, glaring at each other. The woodp.e.c.k.e.r turned his head and looked at us with the other eye.

"What is John Guilt?" Mavis said. I might have guessed, I thought, a Hope fiend. She went on, "It took a whole book to answer that one. As for Hagbard, you'll learn by seeing. Enough for now that you know that he's the man who requested that we rescue you."

"But you personally don't like me and would not have gone out of your way to help me?"

"I don't know about not liking you. That splotch of come on your trousers has had me h.o.r.n.y ever since Mad Dog. Also the excitement of the raid. I've got some tension to burn off. I'd prefer to save myself for a man who completely meets the criteria of my value system. But I could get awfully h.o.r.n.y waiting for him. No regrets, no guilt, though. You're all right. You'll do."

"What are you talking about?"

"I'm talking about your f.u.c.king me, George."

"I never knew a girl-I mean woman-who believed in the capitalist system who was any kind of a good f.u.c.k."

"What has your pathetic circle of acquaintances got to do with the price of gold? I doubt you ever met a woman who believed in the real laissez faire capitalist system. Such a woman is not likely to be caught traveling in your left-liberal circles." She took me by the hand and led me into the cabana. She shrugged out of her trench coat and spread it carefully on the floor. She was wearing a black sweater and a pair of blue jeans, both tight-fitting. She pulled the sweater off over her head. She was wearing no bra, and her b.r.e.a.s.t.s were apple-sized cherry-tipped cones. There was some sort of dark red birthmark between them, "Your kind of capitalist woman was a Nixonette in 1972, and she believes in that half-a.s.s corporate socialist b.a.s.t.a.r.d fascist mixed economy Frank Roosevelt blessed these United States with." She unbuckled her wide black belt and unzipped her jeans. She tugged them down over her hips. I felt my hardon swelling up inside my pants. "Libertarian women are good f.u.c.ks, because they know what they want, and what they want they like a lot." She stepped out of her jeans to reveal, of all things, panties made of some strange metallic-looking synthetic material that was gold in color.

How can I know facts hard and sharp-edged in the sunlight and keep them straight when this happens? "You really want me to f.u.c.k you right now on this public beach in broad daylight?" The woodp.e.c.k.e.r went to work above us just then, banging away like a rock drummer, I suddenly remembered from high school: The Woodp.e.c.k.e.r pecked on the out-house door; He pecked and he pecked till his p.e.c.k.e.r was sore....

"George, you're too serious. Don't you know how to play? Did you ever think that life is maybe a game? There is no difference between life and a game, you know. When you play, for instance, playing with a toy, there is no winning or losing. Life is a toy, George, I'm a toy. Think of me as a doll. Instead of sticking pins in me, you can stick your thing in me. I'm a magic doll, like a voodoo doll. A doll is a work of art. Art is magic. You make an image of the thing you want to possess or cope with, so you can cope with it. You make a model, so you have it under control. Dig? Don't you want to possess me? You can, but just for a moment."

I shook my head. "I can't believe you. The way you're talking-it's not real."

"I always talk like this when I'm h.o.r.n.y. It happens that at such times I'm more open to the vibrations from outer s.p.a.ce. George, are unicorns real? Who made unicorns? Is a thought about unicorns a real thought? How is it different from the mental picture of my p.u.s.s.y-which you've never seen-that you've got in your head at this minute? Does the fact that you can think of f.u.c.king me and I can think of f.u.c.king with you mean we are are going to f.u.c.k? Or is the universe going to surprise us? Wisdom is wearying, folly is fun. What does a horse with a single long horn sticking straight out of its head mean to you?" going to f.u.c.k? Or is the universe going to surprise us? Wisdom is wearying, folly is fun. What does a horse with a single long horn sticking straight out of its head mean to you?"

My eyes went from the pubic bulge under her gold panties, where they'd strayed when she said "p.u.s.s.y," to the mark between her b.r.e.a.s.t.s.

It wasn't a birthmark. I felt like a bucket of ice water hit my groin.

I pointed. "What does a red eye inside a red-and-white triangle mean to you?"

Her open hand slammed against my jaw. "Motherf.u.c.ker! Never speak to me about that!"

Then she bowed her head. "I'm sorry, George. I had no right to do that. Hit me back, if you want."

"I don't want. But I'm afraid you've turned me off s.e.xually."

"Nonsense. You're a healthy man. But now I want to give you something without taking anything from you." She knelt before me on her trench coat, her knees parted, unzipped my fly, reached in with quick, tickling fingers, and pulled my p.e.n.i.s out. She slipped her mouth around it. It was my jail fantasy coming true.

"What are you doing?" doing?"

She took her lips away from my p.e.n.i.s, and I looked down and saw that the head was shiny with saliva and swelling visibly in rapid throbs. Her b.r.e.a.s.t.s-my glance avoided the Masonic tattoo-were somewhat fuller, and the nipples stuck out erect.

She smiled. "Don't whistle while you're p.i.s.sing, George, and don't ask questions when you're getting blowed. Shut up and get hard. This is just quid pro quo."

When I came I didn't feel much juice jetting out through my p.e.n.i.s; I'd used a lot up whacking off in jail. I noted with pleasure that what there was of it she didn't spit out. She smiled and swallowed it.

The sun was higher and hotter in the sky and the woodp.e.c.k.e.r p.e.c.k.e.r celebrated by drumming faster and harder. The Gulf sparkled like Mrs. Astor's best diamonds. I peered out at the water: just below the horizon there was a flash of gold among the diamonds.

Mavis suddenly struck her legs out in front of her and dropped onto her back. "George! I can't give without taking. Please, quick, while it's still hard, get down here and slip it to me."

I looked down. Her lips were trembling. She was tugging the gold panties away from her black-escutcheoned crotch. My wet c.o.c.k was already beginning to droop. I looked down at her and grinned.

"No," I said. "I don't like girls girls who slap you one minute and get the hots for you the next minute. They don't meet the criteria of who slap you one minute and get the hots for you the next minute. They don't meet the criteria of my my value system. I think they're nuts." Carefully and deliberately I stuffed my p.e.c.k.e.r back into my trousers and stepped away from her. It was sore anyway, like in the ryhme. value system. I think they're nuts." Carefully and deliberately I stuffed my p.e.c.k.e.r back into my trousers and stepped away from her. It was sore anyway, like in the ryhme.

"You're not such a schmuck after all, you b.a.s.t.a.r.d," she said through gritted teeth. Her hand was moving rapidly between her legs. In a moment she arched her back, eyes clenched tight, and emitted a little scream, like a baby seagull out on its first flight, a strangely virginal sound.

She lay relaxed for a moment, then picked herself up off the cabana floor and started to dress. She glanced out at the water and I followed her eyes. She pointed at the distant glint of gold.

"Hagbard's here."

A buzzing sound floated across the water. After a moment, I spotted a small black motorboat coming toward us. We watched in silence as the boat grounded its bow on the white beach. Mavis motioned at me, and I followed her down the sand to the water's edge. There was a man in a black turtleneck sweater sitting in the stern of the boat. Mavis climbed in the bow and turned to me with a questioning look. The woodp.e.c.k.e.r felt bad vibes and took off with a flapping and cawing like the omen of Doom.

What the h.e.l.l am I getting into, and why am I so crazy as to go along? I tried to see what it was out there that the motorboat had come from, but the sun on the gold metal was flashing blindingly and I couldn't make out a shape. I looked back at the black motorboat and saw that there was a circular gold object painted on the bow and there was a little black flag flying at the stern with the same gold object in its center. I pointed at the emblem on the bow.

"What's that?"

"An apple," said Mavis.

People who chose a golden apple as their symbol couldn't be all bad. I jumped into the boat, and its pilot used an oar to push off. We buzzed over the smooth water of the Gulf toward the golden object on the horizon. It was still blinding from reflected sunlight, but I was now able to make out a long, low silhouette with a small tower in the center, like a matchbox on top of a broomstick. Then I realized that I had my judgment of distances wrong. The ship, or whatever it was, was much more distant than I'd first realized.

It was a submarine-a golden submarine-and it appeared to be the equivalent of five city blocks long, as big as the biggest ocean liner I had ever heard of. The conning tower was about three stories high. As we drew up beside it I saw a man on the tower waving to us. Mavis waved back. I waved halfheartedly, supposing somehow that it was the thing to do. I was still thinking about that Masonic tattoo.

A hatch opened in the submarine's side, and the little motorboat floated right in. The hatch closed, the water drained out, and the boat settled into a cradle. Mavis pointed to a door that looked like an entrance to an elevator.

"You go that way," she said. "I'll see you later, maybe." She pressed a b.u.t.ton and the door opened, revealing a carpeted gilt cage. I stepped in and was whisked up three stories. The door opened and I stepped out into a small room where a man was waiting, standing with a grace that reminded me of a Hindu or an American Indian. I thought at once of Metternich's remark about Talleyrand: "If somebody kicked him in the backside, not a muscle would move in his face until he decided what to do."

He bore a striking resemblance to Anthony Quinn; he had thick black eyebrows, olive skin, and a strong nose and jaw. He was big and burly, powerful muscles bulging under his black-and-green striped nautical sweater. He held out his hand.

"Good, George. You made it. I'm Hagbard Celine." We shook hands; he had a grip like King Kong. "Welcome aboard the Lief Erickson Lief Erickson, named after the first European to reach America from the Atlantic side, may my Italian ancestors forgive me. Fortunately, I have Viking ancestors, as well. My mother is Norwegian. However, blond hair, blue eyes, and fair skin are all recessive. My Sicilian father creamed my mother in the genes."

"Where the h.e.l.l did you get this ship? I wouldn't have believed a submarine like this could exist without the whole world knowing about it."

"The sub's my creation, built in accordance with my design in a Norwegian fjord. This is what the liberated mind can do. I am the twentieth-century Leonardo, except that I'm not gay. I've tried it, of course, but women interest me more. The world has never heard of Hagbard Celine. That is because the world is stupid and Celine is very smart. The submarine is radar and sonar transparent. It is superior to the best either the American or Russian government even has on the drawing board. It can go to any depth in any ocean. We've sounded the Atlantic Trench, the Mindinao Deep, and a few holes in the floor of the sea that no one's ever heard of or named. Lief Erickson Lief Erickson is capable of meeting the biggest, most ferocious, and smartest monsters of the deep, of which we've found G.o.d's plenty. I'd even risk her in battle with Leviathan himself, though I'm just as pleased that we've only seen him from afar hitherto." is capable of meeting the biggest, most ferocious, and smartest monsters of the deep, of which we've found G.o.d's plenty. I'd even risk her in battle with Leviathan himself, though I'm just as pleased that we've only seen him from afar hitherto."

"You mean whales?"

"I mean Leviathan, man. That fish-if fish it be-that is to your whale what your whale is to your meanest guppy. Don't ask me what Leviathan is-I haven't even gotten close enough to tell you his shape. There's only one of him, her, or it in all that world that's water. I don't know how it reproduces-maybe it doesn't have to reproduce-maybe it's immortal. It may be neither plant nor animal for all I know, but it's alive, and it's the biggest living thing there is. Oh, we've seen monsters, George. We've seen, in Lief Erickson Lief Erickson, the sunken ruins of Atlantis and Lerauria-or Mu, as it's known to keepers of the Sacred Chao."

"What the f.u.c.k are you talking about?" I asked, wondering if I was in some crazy surrealist movie, wandering from telepathic sheriffs to h.o.m.os.e.xual a.s.sa.s.sins, to nympho lady Masons, to psychotic pirates, according to a script written in advance by two acid-heads and a Martian humorist.

"I'm talking about adventure, George. I'm talking about seeing things and being with people that will really liberate your mind-not just replacing liberalism with Marxism so you can shock your parents. I'm talking about getting altogether off the grubby plane you live on and taking a trip with Hagbard to a transcendental universe. Did you know that on sunken Atlantis there is a pyramidal structure built by ancient priests and faced with a ceramic substance that has withstood thirty thousand years of ocean burial so that the pyramid is clean and white as polished ivory-except for the giant red mosaic of an eye at its top?"

"I find it hard to believe that Atlantis ever existed," I said. "In fact"-I shook my head angrily-"you're conning me into qualifying that. The fact is I simply don't believe Atlantis ever existed. This is pure bulls.h.i.t."

"Atlantis is where we're going next, friend. Do you trust the evidence of your senses? I hope so, because you'll see Atlantis and the pyramid, just as I said. Those b.a.s.t.a.r.ds, the Illuminati, are trying to get gold to further their conspiracies by looting an Atlantean temple. And Hagbard is going to foil them by robbing it first. Because I fight the Illuminati every chance I get. And because I'm an amateur archeologist. Will you join us? You're free to leave right now, if you wish. I'll put you ash.o.r.e and even supply you with money to get back to New York."

I shook my head. "I'm a writer. I write magazine articles for a living. And even if ninety percent of what you say is bulls.h.i.t, moonshine, and the most elaborate put-on since Richard Nixon, this is the best story I've ever come across. A nut with a gigantic golden submarine whose followers include beautiful guerrilla women who blow up southern jails and take out the prisoners. No, I'm not leaving. You're too big a fish to let get away."

Hagbard Celine slapped me on the shoulder. "Good man. You've got courage and initiative. You trust only the evidence of your eyes and believe what no man tells you. I was right about you. Come on down to my stateroom." He pressed a b.u.t.ton and we entered the golden elevator and sank rapidly till we came to an eight-foot-high archway barred by a silver gate. Celine pressed a b.u.t.ton and the elevator door and the gate outside both slid back. We stepped out into a carpeted room with a lovely black woman sitting at one end under an elaborate emblem concocted of anchors, seash.e.l.ls, Viking figureheads, lions, ropes, octopi, lightning bolts, and, occupying the central position, a golden apple.

"Kallisti," said Celine, saluting the girl.

"All hail Discordia," she answered.

"Aum Shiva," I contributed, trying to enter the spirit of the game.

Celine led me down a long corridor, saying, "You'll find this submarine is opulently furnished. I have no need to live in monklike surroundings like those m.a.s.o.c.h.i.s.ts who become naval officers. No Spartan simplicity for me. This is more like an ocean liner or a grand European hotel of the Edwardian era. Wait till you see my suite. You'll like your stateroom, too. To please myself, I built this thing on the grand scale. No finicky naval architects or parsimonious accountants in my business. I believe you've got to spend money to make money and spend the money you make to enjoy money. Besides, I have to live in the d.a.m.ned thing."

"And what precisely is your business, Mr. Celine?" I asked. "Or should I call you Captain Celine?"

"You should certainly not. No bulls.h.i.t authority t.i.tles for me. I'm Freeman Hagbard Celine, but the conventional Mister is good enough. I'd prefer you called me by my first name. h.e.l.l, call me anything you want to. If I don't like it, I'll punch you in the nose. If there were more b.l.o.o.d.y noses, there'd be fewer wars. I'm in smuggling mostly. With a spot of piracy, just to keep ourselves on our toes. But that only against the Illuminati and their communist dupes. We aim to prove that no state has the right to regulate commerce in any way. Nor can it, when it is up against free men. My crew are all volunteers. We have among us liberated sailors who were indentured to the navies of America, Russia, and China. Excellent fellows. The governments of the world will never catch us, because free men are always cleverer than slaves, and any man who works for a government is a slave."

"Then you're a gang of Objectivists, basically? I've got to warn you, I come from a long line of labor agitators and Reds. You'll never convert me to a right-wing position."

Celine reared back as if I had waved offal under his nose. "Objectivists?" he p.r.o.nounced the word as if I had accused him of being a child-molester. "We're anarchists and outlaws, G.o.ddam it. Didn't you understand that much? We've got nothing to do with right-wing, left-wing or any other half-a.s.sed political category. If you work within the system, you come to one of the either/or choices that were implicit in the system from the beginning. You're talking like a medieval serf, asking the first agnostic whether he worships G.o.d or the Devil. We're outside the system's categories. You'll never get the hang of our game if you keep thinking in flat-earth imagery of right and left, good and evil, up and down. If you need a group label for us, we're political non-Euclideans. But even that's not true. Sink me, n.o.body of this tub agrees with anybody else about anything, except maybe what the fellow with the horns told the old man in the clouds: Non serviam." Non serviam."

"I don't know Latin," I said, overwhelmed by his outburst.

"'I will not serve,'" he translated. "And here's your room."

He threw open an oaken door, and I entered a living room furnished in handsome teak and rosewood Scandinavian, upholstered in bright solid colors. He hadn't been exaggerating about the scale: you could have parked a Greyhound bus in the middle of the carpet and the room would still seem uncluttered. Above an orange couch hung a huge oil painting in an elaborate gilt frame easily a foot deep on all sides. The painting was essentially a cartoon. It showed a man in robes with long, flowing white hair and beard standing on a mountaintop staring in astonishment at a wall of black rock. Above his head a fiery hand traced flaming letters with its index finger on the rock. The words it wrote were: THINK FOR YOURSELF, SCHMUCK!.

As I started to laugh, I felt, through the soles of my feet, an enormous engine beginning to throb.

And, in Mad Dog, Jim Cartwright said into a phone with a scrambler device to evade taps, "We let Celine's crowd take Dorn, according to plan, and, Harry Coin is, ah, no longer with us."

"Good," said Atlanta Hope. "The Four are heading for Ingolstadt. Everything is go." She hung up and dialed again at once, reaching Western Union. "I want a flat rate telegram, same words, twenty-three different addresses," she said crisply. "The message is, Insert the advertis.e.m.e.nt in tomorrow's newspapers.' Signature, 'Atlanta Hope.'" She then read off the twenty-three addresses, each located in a large city in the United States, each a regional headquarters of G.o.d's Lightning. (The following day, April 25, the newspapers in those cities ran an obscure ad in the personals columns; it said "In thanks to Saint Jude for favors granted. A.W." The plot, accordingly, thickened.) And then I sat back and thought about Harry Coin. Once I imagined I could make it with him: there was something so repulsive, so cruel, so wild and psychopathic there ... but, of course, it hadn't worked. The same as every other man. Nothing. "Hit me," I screamed. "Bite me. Hurt me. Do something." Do something." He did everything, the most agreeable s.a.d.i.s.t in the world, but it was the same as if he had been the gentlest, most poetic English instructor at Antioch. Nothing. Nothing, nothing, nothing.... The closest miss was that strange banker, Drake, from Boston. What a scene. I'd gotten into his office on Wall Street, seeking a contribution for G.o.d's Lightning. Old white-haired buzzard, between sixty and seventy: typical of our wealthier members, I thought. I started the usual spiel, communism, s.e.xism, s.m.u.t, and all the time his eyes were bright and hard as a snake's. It finally hit me that he didn't believe a word of it, so I started to cut it off, and then he pulled out his checkbook and wrote and held it up so I could see it. Twenty thousand dollars. I didn't know what to say, and I started something about how all true Americans would appreciate this great gesture and so on, and he said, "Rubbish. You're not rich but you're famous. I want to add you to my collection. Deal?" The coldest b.a.s.t.a.r.d I ever met, even Harry Coin was human by comparison, yet his eyes were such a clear blue I couldn't believe they could be so frightening, a real madman in a perfectly sane way, not even a psychopath but something they don't have a name for, and it clicked, the humiliation of wh.o.r.edom and the predatory viciousness in his face plus the twenty grand; I nodded. He took me into a private suite off of his business office and he touched one b.u.t.ton, the lights dimmed, another b.u.t.ton, down came a movie screen, a third b.u.t.ton, and I was watching a p.o.r.nographic movie. He didn't approach me, just watched, and I tried to He did everything, the most agreeable s.a.d.i.s.t in the world, but it was the same as if he had been the gentlest, most poetic English instructor at Antioch. Nothing. Nothing, nothing, nothing.... The closest miss was that strange banker, Drake, from Boston. What a scene. I'd gotten into his office on Wall Street, seeking a contribution for G.o.d's Lightning. Old white-haired buzzard, between sixty and seventy: typical of our wealthier members, I thought. I started the usual spiel, communism, s.e.xism, s.m.u.t, and all the time his eyes were bright and hard as a snake's. It finally hit me that he didn't believe a word of it, so I started to cut it off, and then he pulled out his checkbook and wrote and held it up so I could see it. Twenty thousand dollars. I didn't know what to say, and I started something about how all true Americans would appreciate this great gesture and so on, and he said, "Rubbish. You're not rich but you're famous. I want to add you to my collection. Deal?" The coldest b.a.s.t.a.r.d I ever met, even Harry Coin was human by comparison, yet his eyes were such a clear blue I couldn't believe they could be so frightening, a real madman in a perfectly sane way, not even a psychopath but something they don't have a name for, and it clicked, the humiliation of wh.o.r.edom and the predatory viciousness in his face plus the twenty grand; I nodded. He took me into a private suite off of his business office and he touched one b.u.t.ton, the lights dimmed, another b.u.t.ton, down came a movie screen, a third b.u.t.ton, and I was watching a p.o.r.nographic movie. He didn't approach me, just watched, and I tried to get get excited, wondering if the actress was really making it or just faking it, and then a second film began, four of them this time in permutations and combinations, he led me to the couch, every time I opened my eyes I could still see the film over his shoulder, and it was the same, the same, as soon as he got his thing inside me, nothing, nothing, nothing, I kept looking at the actors trying to feel something, and then, as he came, he whispered in my ear, excited, wondering if the actress was really making it or just faking it, and then a second film began, four of them this time in permutations and combinations, he led me to the couch, every time I opened my eyes I could still see the film over his shoulder, and it was the same, the same, as soon as he got his thing inside me, nothing, nothing, nothing, I kept looking at the actors trying to feel something, and then, as he came, he whispered in my ear, "Heute die Welt, Morgens das Sonnensystem!" "Heute die Welt, Morgens das Sonnensystem!" That was the only time I almost made it. Sheer terror that this maniac That was the only time I almost made it. Sheer terror that this maniac knew knew....

Later, I tried to find out about him, but n.o.body above me in the Order would say a word, and those below me didn't know anything. But I finally found out: he was very big in the Syndicate, maybe the top. And that's how I figured out that the old rumor was true, the Syndicate was run by the Order, too, just like everything else....

But that cold sinister old man never said another word about it. I kept waiting while we dressed, when he gave me the check, when he escorted me to the door, and even his expression seemed to deny that he had said it or knew what it meant. When he opened the door for me, he put an arm on my shoulder and spoke, so his secretary could hear it, "May your work hasten the day when America returns to purity." Even his eyes weren't mocking and his voice sounded completely sincere. And yet he had read me to the core, knew I was faking, and guessed that terror alone could unlock my reflexes: maybe he even knew that I had already tried physical sadism and it hadn't worked. Out on Wall Street in the crowd, I saw a man with a gas mask-they were still rare that year-and I felt the whole world was moving faster than I could understand and that the Order wasn't telling me nearly as much as I needed to know.

Brother Beghard, who is actually a politician in Chicago under his "real" name, once explained the Law of Fives to me in relation to the pyramid-of-power principle. Intellectually, I understand: it's the only way we can work, each group a separate vector so that the most any infiltrator can learn is a small part of the design. Emotionally, though, it does get frightening at times: do the Five at the top really have the whole picture? I don't know, and I don't see how they can predict a man like Drake or guess what he's planning next. There's a paradox here, I know: I joined the Order seeking power, and now I am more a tool, an object, than ever before. If a man like Drake ever thought that, he might tear the whole show apart.

Unless the Five really do have the powers they claim; but I'm not gullible enough to believe that bull. Some of it's hypnotism, and some is plain old stage magic, but none of it is really supernatural. n.o.body has sold me on a fairy tale since my uncle got into me when I was twelve with his routine about stopping the bleeding. If my parents had only told me the truth about menstruation in advance ...

Enough of that. There was work to be done. I hit the buzzer on my desk and my secretary, Mr. Mortimer, came in. As I'd guessed, it was past nine o'clock and he'd been out there in the reception area straightening up and worrying about my mood for G.o.d knows how long, while I was daydreaming. I studied my memo pad, while he waited apprehensively. Finally, I noticed him and said, "Be seated." He sank into the dictation chair, putting his head right under the point of the lightning bolt on the wall-an effect I always enjoyed-and opened his pad.

"Call Zev Hirsch in New York," I said watching his pencil fly to keep up with my words. "The Foot Fetishist Liberation Front is having a demonstration. Tell him to cream cream them; I won't be satisfied unless a dozen of the perverts are put in the hospital, and I don't care how many of our people get arrested doing it. The bail fund is available, if they need it. If Zev has any objections, I'll talk to him, but otherwise you handle it. Then make up the standard number-two press release, where I deny any knowledge of illegal activities by that chapter and promise we will investigate and expel anybody guilty of mob action- have that ready for release this afternoon. Then get me the latest sales figures on them; I won't be satisfied unless a dozen of the perverts are put in the hospital, and I don't care how many of our people get arrested doing it. The bail fund is available, if they need it. If Zev has any objections, I'll talk to him, but otherwise you handle it. Then make up the standard number-two press release, where I deny any knowledge of illegal activities by that chapter and promise we will investigate and expel anybody guilty of mob action- have that ready for release this afternoon. Then get me the latest sales figures on Telemachus Sneezed Telemachus Sneezed...." Another busy day at the national headquarters of G.o.d's Lightning was started; and Hagbard Celine, feeding Mavis's report on George's s.e.xual and other behavior into f.u.c.kUP, came out with a coding of C-1472-B-2317A, which caused him to laugh immoderately.

"What's so d.a.m.ned funny?" Mavis asked.

"From out of the west come the thundering hooves of the great horse, Onan," Hagbard grinned. "The lonely stranger rides again!"

"What the h.e.l.l does all that mean?"

"We've got sixty-four thousand possible personality types," Hagbard explained, "and I've only seen that reading once before. Guess who it was?"

"Not me," Mavis said quickly, beginning to color.

"No, not you." Hagbard laughed again. "It was Atlanta Hope."

Mavis was startled. "That's impossible. She's frigid for one thing."

"There are many kinds of frigidity," Hagbard said. "It fits, believe me. She joined women's liberation at the same age George joined Weatherman, and they both split after a few months. And you'd be surprised how similar their mothers were, or how the successful careers of their older brothers annoy them-"

"But George is a nice guy, underneath it all."

Hagbard Celine knocked an ash off his long Italian cigar. "Everybody is a nice guy, underneath it all," he said. "What we become when the world is through messing us over is something else."

At Chateau Thierry, in 1918, Robert Putney Drake looked around at the dead bodies, knew he was the last man alive in the platoon, and heard the Germans start to advance. He felt the cold wetness on his thighs before he realized he was urinating in his pants; a sh.e.l.l exploded nearby and he sobbed. "O G.o.d, please, Jesus. Don't let them kill me. I'm afraid to die. Please, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus ..."

Mary Lou and Simon are eating breakfast in bed, still naked as Adam and Eve. Mary Lou spread jam on toast and asked, "No, seriously: which part was hallucination and which part was real?"

Simon sipped at his coffee. "Everything in life is a hallucination," he said simply. "Everything in death, too," he added. "The universe is just putting us on. Handing us a line."

THE THIRD TRIP, OR BINAH.

The Purple Sage cursed and waxed sorely p.i.s.sed and cried out in a loud voice: A pox upon the accursed Illuminati of Bavaria; may their seed take no root.May their hands tremble, their eyes dim and their spines curl up, yea, verily, like unto the backs of snails; and may the v.a.g.i.n.al orifices of their women be clogged with Brillo pads.For they have sinned against G.o.d and Nature; they have made of life a prison; and they have stolen the green from the gra.s.s and the blue from the sky.And so saying, and grimacing and groaning, the Purple Sage left the world of men and women and retired to the desert in despair and heavy grumpiness.But the High Chapperal laughed, and said to the Erisian faithful: Our brother torments himself with no cause, for even the malign Illuminati are unconscious p.a.w.ns of the Divine Plane of Our Lady.-Mordecai Malignatus, K.N.S., "The Book of Contradictions," Liber 555 Liber 555 October 23, 1970, was the thirty-fifth anniversary of the murder of Arthur Flegenheimer (alias "The Dutchman," alias "Dutch Schultz"), but this dreary lot has no intention of commemorating that occasion. They are the Knights of Christianity United in Faith (the group in Atlantis were called Mauls of Lhuv-Kerapht United for the Truth; see what I mean?) and their president, James J. (Smiling Jim) Treponema, has noted a bearded and therefore suspicious young man among the delegates. Such types were not likely to be KCUF members and might even be dope fiends. Smiling Jim told the Andy Frain ushers to keep a watchful eye on the young man so no "funny business" could occur, and then went to the podium to begin his talk on "s.e.x Education: Communist Trojan Horse in Our Schools." (In Atlantis, it was "Numbers: Nothingarian Squid-Trap in Our Schools." The same drivel eternally.) The bearded young man, who happened to be Simon Moon, adviser to Teenset Teenset magazine on Illuminati affairs and instructor in s.e.xual yoga to numerous black young ladies, observed that he was being observed (which made him think of Heisenberg) and settled back in his chair to doodle pentagons on his note pad. Three rows ahead, a crew-cut middle-aged man, who looked like a surburban Connecticut doctor, also settled back comfortably, awaiting his opportunity: the funny business that he and Simon had in mind would be, he hoped, very funny indeed. magazine on Illuminati affairs and instructor in s.e.xual yoga to numerous black young ladies, observed that he was being observed (which made him think of Heisenberg) and settled back in his chair to doodle pentagons on his note pad. Three rows ahead, a crew-cut middle-aged man, who looked like a surburban Connecticut doctor, also settled back comfortably, awaiting his opportunity: the funny business that he and Simon had in mind would be, he hoped, very funny indeed.

WE SHALL NOT WE SHALL NOT BE MOVED.

There is a road going due east from Dayton, Ohio, toward New Lebanon and Brookville, and on a small farm off that road lives an excellent man named James V. Riley, who is a sergeant on the Dayton police force. Although he grieves the death of his wife two years back in '67 and worries about his son, who seems to be in some shady business involving frequent travel between New York City and Cuernavaca, the sergeant is basically a cheerful man; but on June 25, 1969, he was a bit out of sorts and generally not up to snuff because of his arthritis and the seemingly endless series of pointless and peculiar questions being asked by the reporter from New York. It didn't make sense-who would want to publish a book about John Dillinger at this late date? And why would such a book deal with Dillinger's dental history?

"You're the same James Riley who was on the Mooresville, Indiana, Force when Dillinger was first arrested, in 1924?" the reporter had begun.

"Yes, and a smart-alecky young punk he was. I don't hold with some of these people who've written books about him and said the long sentence he got back then is what made him bitter and turned him bad. He got the long sentence because he was so snotty to the judge. Not a sign of repentence or remorse, just wisecracks and a know-it-all grin spread all over his face. A bad apple from the start. And always h.e.l.lbent-for-leather. In a hurry to get G.o.d knows where. Sometimes folks used to joke that there were two of him, he'd go through town so fast. Rushing to his own funeral. Young punks like that never get long enough sentences, if you want my opinion. Might slow them down a bit."

The reporter-what was his name again? James Mallison, hadn't he said?-was impatient. "Yes, yes, I'm sure we need stricter laws and harsher penalties. But what I want to know was where was Dillinger's missing tooth- on the right side or the left side of his face?"

"Saints in Heaven! You expect me to remember that cuter all these years?"

The reporter dabbed his forehead with a handkerchief-very nervous he seemed to be. "Look, Sergeant, some psychologists say we never forget anything, really; it's all stored somewhere inside our brain. Now, just try to picture John Dillinger as you remember him, with that know-it-all grin as you called it. Can you get the picture into focus? Which side is the missing tooth on?"

"Listen, I'm due to go on duty in a few minutes and I can't be-"

Mallison's faced changed, as if in desperation which he was trying to conceal. "Well, let me ask you a different question. Are you a Mason?"

"A Mason? Bejesus, no-I've been a Catholic all my life, I'll have you know."

"Well, did you know any Masons in Mooresville? I mean, to talk to?"

"Why would I be talking to the likes of them, with the terrible things they're always saying about the church?"

The reporter plunged on, "All the books on Dillinger say that the intended victim of that first robbery, the grocer B. F. Morgan, summoned help by giving the Masonic signal of distress. Do you know what that is?"

"You'd have to ask a Mason, and I'm sure they wouldn't be telling. The way they keep their secrets, by the saints, I'm sure even the FBI couldn't find out."