I had to stop and work through my ire after reading that.
There's a lot of ways to handle character deaths. In many cases they're dramatic affairs, with tragic dying words and environmental symbolism and the like. Alternatively, death can be sudden, unexpected, and almost callous, like Cedric's death from Goblet of Fire. The former approach has its uses, but the latter method is particularly good at shocking the audience, reminding them what kind of cruel and dangerous world the story is set in. I think this is what Hubbard was going for with Mary's death.
Except this is a story of "satire," an "essentially humorous dissection of life" on Earth. Which is just one of Mission Earth's many problems, really - the schizophrenic tone. Last book had the "Well the birds liked it!" and "WHERE THE HELLS WAS LOMBAR?!" comedic bits intermeshed with Gris pulling someone's entrails out through their ribs and other acts of murder. This book's had the "lighthearted" antics of Gris playing with his staff and spooking Jimmy "The Gutter" Tavilnasty, coupled with Gris purchasing a sex slave and now the death of an addict.
So Mary's sudden, offscreen death both feels out of place and wholly appropriate at the same time. If it was intended as an audience sucker punch it probably succeeded, but it's just as likely that Hubbard is simply being half-assed about his narrative again.
Well, Heller jolts at the news, and asks why the FBI killed her. Stupewitz, "innocence itself" explains that Mary died in the ambulance of heart failure before even reaching the hospital. Since Hubbard included the sentence "innocence itself" we should immediately suspect that the agent ordered a paramedic to kill her while she was being loaded up, but Stupewitz blames "Big H" for Heller's loss. Heller remembers to ask what a fix is, and Agent Maulin decides to give Heller a crash course in illegal pharmaceuticals.
And then, it happens.
"For chrissakes, Junior," said Maulin, annoyed by the noise. "Why are you wearing baseball spikes?"
Ten chapters. Ten bloody chapters, but someone finally, finally mentioned that Jettero Heller is dressed like an imbecile... well, more specifically someone noticed that he's wearing loud shoes. There's still been no comment on the hideously-clashing outfit chosen to make him stand out, and the shoes were only purchased a few chapters ago. But I'm going to stop with the running tally now.
Maulin leads Heller into the FBI's drug lab, explaining that even though other departments are supposed to look after this sort of thing, it's the FBI that's "really in charge of the government and sometimes we even have to shake down the DEA." He advises Heller to learn how to identify all the various illicit substances by sight, smell and taste (!) and gets him to go down the rows, jar by jar, getting a good sniff or lick of everything (!!). But he makes sure Heller spits out anything he tastes, for safety's sake.
I'm trying to remember, but aren't Voltarians supposed to be like five times more susceptible to drug effects? Like how even a carved-off portion of Speed almost did Gris in? Well, Heller's obviously much more robust, and has no ill effects after getting a little hit of every drug the FBI has in stock. He's not even slightly high or tipsy or anything.
He is interested in a can of brown powder, which turns out to be opium. This leads to the agent explaining how it's imported from places like Turkey, leading Heller to ask what Afyonkarahisar means after seeing it on the label. Gris is at least smart enough to be spooked by Heller making the connection between a Very Bad Drug and the Apparatus' base of Earth operations.
Maulin and a friendly lab tech decide to fetch some literature for Heller, but alas, their coworkers have been "using it for toilet paper again." Why would they do that, Hubbard? Why would the FBI use textbooks as toilet paper rather than readily-available and inexpensive actual toilet paper, which is often quilted for softness? You've already implied that they've killed a woman, you've described their offices as being bloodstained and filled with the sound of screaming victims, so why is insulting their hygiene a necessary part of your continued defamation of these guys?
Maybe it's an excuse for his next jab. Since the FBI texts are currently clogging up toilets, someone buys Heller a copy of Recreational Drugs, as recommended by Psychology Today, naturally. The agents don't pay for it themselves, of course, and hit Heller up to cover the cost, but are nice enough to rustle up a hamburger and drink along with their finder's fee. And as Heller retrieves his money, he uses a weird Voltarian gambler's technique where the bills get wrapped around his fingers so it looks like he has twice as much money as he has. This is important because falling back into this mannerism allows Gris to deduce that Heller is rattled.
So it takes Heller handling currency to get across his reaction to his companion's sudden and shocking death. Seriously, the entirety of his response to the news was jolting in his chair once and asking "Why did you have to kill her?" If you skipped the first page and read the rest of the chapter, you'd have no way of knowing that the woman Heller has been traveling with six or seven chapters has died.
Or maybe Heller's just feeling all those drugs he took little samples from.
Using his super-special-awesome powers, Heller is able to read the book in the time it takes him to finish a glass of milk, then it's off to the FBI museum. There's exhibits on Chicago mobsters during Prohibition, of course, but that's a major part of FBI history, not a manifestation of the author's gangster fetish. Probably. At a display of weapons Heller asks if the guns are chemical or electrical, while the agent extols the virtues of the sawn-off shotgun ("it'll blow a man in half!") and the burp gun ("point it down a crowded street and it mows down dozens of innocent bystanders. Totally effective."). Then there's modern mock-ups of bank security systems, which Maulin helpfully shows Heller how to disable. After that comes a tour of the FBI forensic labs and a discussion of investigative techniques.
Why are they doing all this? Gris suspects that the agents are up to something and are stalling for time. So they're teaching this guy all about their top secret agency and the particulars of how it controls the country. Hey guys, you want to keep someone busy for a few hours, give them a magazine!
Then it's back to the mobsters from the '30s, and Maulin waxes poetic about our lord and savior, J. Edgar Hoover.
"Hoover had the greatest imagination in history. He used to dream up," said Maulin proudly, "the God (bleepest) dossiers for people. Total inventions! Right off the top of his head. Pure genius! And then he could go out and shoot them down! In a blaze of glorious gunfire! A master craftsman! He taught us how and we were left with the heavy responsibility of carrying on this magnificent tradition!"
To recap: all those gangsters from the bad old days? Innocent victims. Hoover was simply a serial killer who made up excuses to personally murder people.
What about this is "essentially humorous," Hubbard? How is this a "dissection of life on this sometimes manic, often deadly planet" when it bears so little resemblance to reality?
Not content with exposing the terrifying secrets of his organization and teaching this random kid espionage skills, next Maulin takes Heller down to the firing range. After acquiring proper ear protection, Maulin and Heller take turns plugging away at wanted posters with magnum revolvers, because male authors gravitate towards magnums in a way that gives women authors endless amusement. Maulin, of course, shoots the wrong target.
There is - and I am reluctant to say this - a somewhat funny bit. Heller, who is a Fleet commando, is able to easily and one-handedly hit his target dead center with his first shot. Maulin calls him out on his poor form, shows him how to take a proper firing stance, and is proud of his teaching skills when Heller proceeds to hit his second target dead center.
The chapter wraps up with Heller learning how to fire numerous other weapons - in exactly as much detail as I just described - and then Maulin checks his watch and says it's time to go back to his office. Gris deduces that whatever the agents have planned has been set up. I bet next chapter's gonna be exciting.
R.I.P. Horsey Mary Schmeck. I'd say you will be missed, but I'm not quite convinced you're dead, and if you are then there's a good chance that you won't be mentioned for the rest of this book. But at any rate you're out of the story, so things worked out alright for you.
Back to Chapter Three
The funny thing about the toilet paper bit is that ex-Scientology workers talk a great deal about how most orgs or even important buildings lack toilet paper pretty much constantly.
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