Bad news is that this chapter's more about Gris' sex life. Good news is that we'll be taking a break from it for a bit after this.
Miss Pinch brings in the next pair of women to be rescued from Psychiatric Birth Control, an American-Indian going by the name "Chief Malcomb" and Bucket, a "plump high-yellow." I think we met our first "high-yellow" woman about a year ago, in Book Two, and I still don't know what the hell the author is talking about when he uses the term.
The encounter goes badly; Chief admits that she's scared half to death, and Gris freaks out, orders that Pinchy call for an electrocardiograph, and is only willing to perform his duty if he can watch the little needle charting his client's heartbeat. Because that's the only way he can now convince himself that he's not interacting with a corpse.
The girls are unsatisfied - though they admit that an awkward night with Gris' magical dongle is still better than anything they'd experienced before - and Miss Pinch chews him out because Bucket is used to... um. Let's just say "big things" without going into the specifics of what the lady actually slept with. So Pinch is worried that Gris' failure might cause Bucket to fall back into bad habits.
Gris tries to make up for his shortcomings when he attends to Candy and Pinch, but when they thrash about they disconnect the heartbeat monitors, causing Gris to panic that he's sleeping with a flailing, screaming corpse. So he gets kicked to the couch, just in time to receive a phone call from our friend Torpedo. Gris gives the hitman the location and description of Krak's new land yacht, and demands to know why Torpedo's in Harlem instead of Hairytown. The killer replies that he'd stolen a gun, a double-barreled magnum elephant rifle with a superpowered night scope, and he's such a professional that he needed to test it out before he made the hit.
And Hubbard double-downs and adds necrophilia to a chapter already containing bestiality. Oh, and Torpedo has syphilis now. We get to hear too many details before Gris finally yells at the man to top telling his terrible stories, and he goes to bed, but is now worried about STDs.
The next morning Torpedo phones in to report that the land yacht has moved on, so Krak isn't dead and defiled yet. Even worse, not only has the note and envelope Gris gave him earlier disappeared, but the money in it has evaporated into a green powder!
Oh, (bleep)! That timed disintigrator spray had gotten on the money in the envelope!
I was joking! I was joking when I wondered why the spray didn't disintegrate anything else! I just assumed the paper was specially-treated to interact with the spray... can I not think of something too stupid to be included in this story?
So Torpedo's broke and literally (bleeping) around instead of doing the job. Gris takes two thousand bucks out of Pinchy's purse, leaves a note explaining that he's going to meditate on a mountaintop for a week, grabs his federal ID (in case anyone asks about the hitman) and his other gear, and hits the road.
No more lesbian deprogramming in Candy and Pinchy's apartment! Gris has picked up his gun, he's going to track down the Countess Krak, and he is going to make damn sure that the hitman he hired kills her, because that's the only way to be rid of that woman.
Back to Chapter Four
"High-yellow" is a very archaic term (about as old-fashioned as arsenic treatments for syphilis) for the skin tone of someone part-black but mostly white (for some reason, 50% black still tend to look very dark). I'm surprised LRH doesn't tell us whether she was "quadroon" or "octoroon".
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