Part Forty-Nine, Chapter Six - Outwitting the Foe by Shouting "Look Behind You!"

I'm trying to remember how the optical bugging equipment works.  Yeah, it's attached to Heller's optic nerve, but I can't recall whether or not Heller's superhuman eyesight usually gets transmitted to Gris' viewscreen.  Here it doesn't - Heller idly enjoys a sandwich while the ship is on autopilot, then catches sight of a "speck several miles ahead" that Gris can't distinguish from the other sea traffic, but evidently Heller can.  So only Heller's special brain can interpret all of the data his eyes are picking up, but Gris' viewscreen can get the 95% that isn't superhuman.  Or the optical bugs can only pick up some of the neural impulses from Heller's eyeballs.

Whatever, continuity or even plausible science fiction aren't this book's biggest problems.

So Heller finishes his (nonalcoholic) beer and throws it in the trash, not the recycling, and then conveniently talks to himself so Gris and the audience can hear it.

"Hello, hello," he said.

The Countess just dumped him and he's already trying to pick up someone new.

"You look like a military craft.  And travelling at high speed."

He stepped back over the windshield and dropped to the cockpit.  He perched on the edge of the pilot chair.  "And now we'll see, Mr. Military Craft, if you have any interest in me."

"Why, yes!  Who wouldn't be?  Are... you interested in me too?"

"Aha," he said.  "An intercept!"

And so forth.  Heller computes that the other ship is going three percent faster than him, then decides to test its intentions by closing the distance.  A radio message orders him to "lie to," but Heller disregards it, pulling a "foam-flying" U-turn to try and outrun the boat he just calculated is faster than him.  Not that the Coast Guard ship has the patience for a race.

A flash from the bow!

A GEYSER OF SALT WATER DEAD AHEAD OF HELLER!

THE AUTHOR USED CAPSLOCK TO TRY AND MAKE HIS ACTION SEQUENCES MORE EXCITING!

BLAM!

The sound of the shot reverberated like a single beat of a bass drum.

Heller declares that this is "all I wanted to know" and pulls out a Voltarian handgun, spins its dial, aims at the "Coast Guarder"'s deck gun some two hundred years away, and takes the shot.  Seconds later the two-man gun crew abandons their post, screaming.  Gris sees that "THEIR GUN BREACH WAS MELTING!" and realizes Heller must've "fired a heat shot, centered by the handgun computer, down the barrel of that thing!"  And I'm kinda disappointed it was a computer-assisted shot.  What, the guy with scoped eyeballs couldn't hit a target less than two football fields away?  Some action hero he is.

The race continues.  Heller hears a crackling on his radio, understands this to mean that the other ship is calling its base, and melts the aerials of the other boat with his Ray Gun.  But the Coast Guard isn't running, and Heller talks to himself about how he doesn't want to kill them, because they're "Fleet."  If they were Federal agents or random thugs in the park or hired goons he wouldn't be batting an eyelash, of course.

As Gris points out Heller's "insane gallantry" and some of the enemy crew take potshots at him with rifles, Heller gets out a signalling lamp and once again helpfully narrates his own behavior as he flashes "Y-O-U-R E-N-G-I-N-E-S A-R-E A-B-O-U-T T-O B-L-O-W U-P."  Oh, did I mention that Heller learned Morse Code at some point?  No?  Well, the book didn't either, but he must have, obviously.

And the Coast Guard buys it.

Everyone on deck starts running around, three guys pop up from a hatch to go check on their engines.  Evidently none of the actual crew is monitoring them.

Think this would work on a cop?  "Pull over!"  "I think your engine's about to explode!"  And then they pull over while you speed away?  Couldn't hurt to try, I guess.

Well, Heller doesn't do that, precisely.

"Now that you're all in sight . . ." muttered Heller.  And he put a small device on top of the Aldis lamp and pressed its trigger.

There was no sound.  There was no flash.

ALL THE MEN ON THE DECK OF THE COAST GUARDER COLLAPSED!

He had said he wasn't going to kill them and then it appeared that he had!

He said he wouldn't do it but he did it anyway!  The guy who just said he didn't want to kill those guys did something that made them all fall over, as if they had been killed, by him!  Even though he said he didn't want to! 

A split-second after undoubtedly crapping his pants at this unexpected act of murder, Gris suddenly realizes that oh, Heller just used a "radio nerve-paralysis beam."  Of course!  Really, we should've known from the start that it was a radio never-paralysis beam.  It's just a classic Heller move by now, he's used it so many times.

Buuut it turns out he might kill the Coast Guard after all, because he's knocked them out while they're boat's pointed at the shoreline with the throttle set to full.  Whoopsie.  So Heller ties some strings to his own throttle, right, and takes the autopilot-onna-cable so he can steer from outside on the railing, intercepts the Coast Guard ship, and pulls alongside it.  "The suction that occurs between two ships" causes the two vessels to bump into each other, Heller grabs the patrol craft with one hand, hits a switch on the autopilot with another, and yanks on the strings connected to the throttle with his third hand.  Then he jumps ship.

The Sea Skiff is sent away from the shore with its engines cut off, while Heller races to the Coast Guard ship's helm and slams the propellers into full reverse.  Dramatic bump and scrape in the shallows followed by the boat safely moving away from land.

He looked out on the deck where a man with a lot of chevrons on his jacket was lying draped over a bitt.  Peevishly, Heller said, "You're supposed to SAVE people, not GET saved."

Hey, when did Gris learn these salty nautical terms like "bitt" and how the sea was "on his beam?"  Just that one boat ride out of Istanbul?  But he didn't learn to call a ship's toilet a "head" or the proper name for the Bernoulli effect.


Back to Chapter Five

Forward to Chapter Seven

Part Forty-Nine, Chapter Five - Boat Enthusiasts

At first I thought that the Inspector Grafferty really was stupid enough to help the lawyers serve the "real" Whiz Kid in person, see that he looked nothing like the Whiz Kid in the papers, and then not tell any of his men to update their perp description accordingly.  Then I read ahead and found the truth.  It's just as stupid, but at least it doesn't mean that Grafferty is quite as dumb as I thought.

Anyway, the police are completely useless, and Heller is getting away on his new speedboat.  Only one group can save Gris now - "The Coast Guard!"

But he won't call them right away, because he needs to get "just a little more data."  So instead of dialing them up and saying "there's a fugitive on a Sea Skiff who just left the 79th Street Boat Basin headed towards Atlantic City, get out there quick!", Gris decides to watch Heller boat around for a page and a half.  To get that crucial data.  And I thought I was good at procrastinating.

Heller quickly figures out the gyrocompass, engages the autopilot, and goes belowdecks, poking around the bunks and head until he finds some charts.  He comes out, carelessly slips just by the stern of a huge freighter, and takes his seat.

Typically Heller, he perched himself sideways on the edge of the pilot's seat, hooked a foot under a rung and without the least concern for the absolutely jammed traffic on the river, sat comfortably in the warm sun and began to examine the chart.

He was giving me the data I needed.

Yeah, Gris needs to know Heller's whole route before calling down the Coast Guard, apparently.  It's only when he sees that Heller's coming up on the Coast Guard station at Fort Jay that he actually calls them, informing them that they can apprehend that criminal they are now close enough to see with binoculars.

Unfortunately, the Coast Guard isn't any more competent than the police.

"Jesus, is that right, Petey?  Mister, Petey says she's clocking 42.3 knots.  Man, look at her go! . . . Hey, wait a minute.  That number is familiar.  Petey, ain't that the old Faustino Sea Skiff? . . . Yeah, I thought so.  Man, look at her GO!  Petey, git your nose out of the radar and eyeball this. . . . You ever seen a prettier sight?"

Another voice, "Yowee!  Man, would I like to be in that on a beautiful day like this, huh, Dicey?"

"(Bleep) it!" I screamed.  "DO something!"

Seaman Second Class Dicey said, "I'm sorry, mister.  That's just some guy from the Faustino mob going out to pick up a load of dope from some foreign freighter off Sandy Hook.  Why would the Coast Guard be interested?"

"Arrest him!" I howled.

"There's no speed limit where he is now.  He can't be arrested unless he doesn't have a foghorn and I didn't see him throw anything overboard to litter the harbor."

So while Heller cruises past the Statue of Liberty, raising a hand in salute, thereby making a bald eagle somewhere shed a single patriotic tear, Gris tries to prod the Coast Guard into action.  He first claims that the boat is stolen, only for the Coast Guard guy to check and verify that it was in fact just purchased legally.  So he gets kicked up to a superior officer, and then explains that the guy on the boat is a wanted criminal fleeing a Federal warrant issued by Rockecenter's henchmen.  Which he should have done first thing, in a phone call made the minute Heller left the harbor.

All in all, it takes nearly three pages for Gris' orders to get through - intercept the Sea Skiff before it enters international waters, arrest its occupant, and put him in leg irons before handing him over to the New York police.  Gris insisted on the leg irons. 

Only then did I allow myself a smile, a very Apparatus smile.  Heller was just passing under the Verrazano Narrows Bridge, white spray, blue water and bright, spring sun.  Little did he know the trap that had been laid.

He had gotten past or around the police some way I could not fathom.

Like I said, it's pretty stupid, and it requires two very contrived coincidences to be any mystery to Gris.

But I had not mentioned any name or identity to the Coast Guard.  They would grab anybody in that boat!  And I would make sure, through Dingaling, Chase and Ambo, that that was a grab that would be made to stick!

Heller, admire the gulls as you streak by.  This is NOT the day you will see your lady love!

Again, this is all being told to us after the fact, a prison confession.  So imagine if your grandpa or whatever was telling you about fighting Charlie in the jungle, and his tale went like "so I smiled to myself and said 'this time it is I who will be doing the ambushing!'  Then we got in a helicopter and flew for a few hours, and when we got out I said to myself 'enjoy this evening, because it will be your last!'" 

Also, I'd really love to read Justiciary Turn's responses to all this garbage.  "Gris, I don't really need to know the names and appearances of every single lesbian you slept with, could you focus on Lombar's activities please?"


Back to Chapter Four

Forward to Chapter Six

Part Forty-Nine, Chapter Four - I've Lost Track of How Many Vehicles Heller Owns Now

Heller drives to the docks, "avoiding piles of this and that and people," gets out, and finds the dockmaster to ask about a fleet of cabs dropping someone off.  Luckily the man remembers the "real tomato" who came by one day to hire a ride to a yacht.  He remembers that said tomato looked sad, and since she used a credit card issued to "Sultan Bey and concubine" concludes that she was being sold to "some God (bleeped) Turk."  The dockmaster who willingly participated in what he thought was human trafficking directs Heller to contact Boyd's of London to figure out where her yacht went, because why call the port authority when you can ring up an insurance company?

Heller places a trans-Atlantic call, speaking with an operator who uses famous Britishisms like "doncha know" and "caught us with the panties half off."  They're initially leery of giving away personal information until they mistake Heller for a bill collector and happily look up where Krak's boat went off, notifying him that the Golden Sunset is anchored just off Atlantic City.

Aaaand it gets stupid.

Before Heller is even on the phone, Gris is elated to hear the approaching sirens of Grafferty's men.  The cops show up while Heller's in the middle of his conversation, but run past the phone kiosk without noticing him.

Remember, when Madison was first unleashed upon Heller back in Book Two... or Three? ...he needed a "Whiz Kid" on hand for his publicity stunts, and so hired a body double.  Unfortunately, he went with a "body double" with buck teeth and enormous thick glasses, so Heller had to put on a disguise to look like this faux "Whiz Kid."  Which means that the policemen hunting him down here are using the wrong description to do so.

And so any suspense or tension is tossed into the trash due to the aching stupidity of this book's villains, turning what could be an exciting manhunt into a farce.  Heller ignores the cops completely, going about his business while New York's finest look under shipping crates.  The police ask Mortie who his passenger/driver was, but since Mortie only knows our hero as "Clyde Barrow" he doesn't give Heller away, and is in fact quite astonished at the Whiz Kid's adventures in bigamy.  The police ask Heller at one point if he's seen the Whiz Kid, but Heller claims to have seen "Not a soul."  Not sure if he's just lying or subtly deriding everyone on the planet.

Oh, and Heller buys a boat.  It's a Sea Skiff, if you're interested, a thirty-six-foot oceangoing speedboat.  The purchase takes about two and a half pages while cops run back and forth in the background.  So Heller acquires transportation, while Gris calls up Grafferty's secretary or whatever to tell them that they guy they're looking for is right there, but gets hung up on.

Heller and Mortie the cab driver part ways, but not before Mortie acts all concerned, 'cause Heller's been given a real "man-killing boat," so the cabbie makes sure that he's loaded up with gas and supplies, including a six-pack of nonalcoholic beer.  Because... it's funny?  That Heller's like thirty but looks eighteen, so nobody lets him drink?  Pretty doggone funny. 

The chapter ends with Mortie waving Heller off with another description of how dangerous the ocean is, implicitly making Heller all the more heroic for daring to venture out upon it.  And Gris seethes that the cops are useless, and "HE WAS GETTING AWAY!"

It goes without saying that Heller has no trouble operating a boat.  For what is a spaceship but an enclosed boat able to fly between worlds?


Back to Chapter Three 

Forward to Chapter Five

Part Forty-Nine, Chapter Three - I Hope Nobody Paid for this Product Placement

Once he's done chortling about the unholy alliance of psychiatry and litigation, Gris turns his attention back to the viewscreen, finding Heller moping in the shadow of a statue of Giovanni de Verrazzano, one of the earliest European explorers of the North American coast.  Heller chats with the statue in Voltarian and sympathizes with the long-dead man after reading the plaque about Verrazzano's death at the hands of cannibals, then continues to conveniently talk aloud to himself and wonders where Izzy's at.

Gris acts!  Since Heller's obviously waiting around to meet someone, he calls the police and tells Inspector Grafferty to get over to the park and arrest Heller!  That done, he settles down to watch Heller, waiting for the cops to show up.  Thrill as you watch a guy watch a guy!

Izzy shows up to report that the cops have padlocked and staked out Heller's offices, the private investigators still haven't found any sign of Krak, but Bang-Bang is offering to steal a helicopter so Heller can make his escape to Brazil, where there are no lawyers, only ants.  When Heller of course refuses to stay behind and search for Krak, Izzy hands over a wad of thousand-dollar bills courtesy of the time-telescope stock market cheating device.

Why hasn't Gris gotten Izzy arrested?  The guy seems to still be able to operate, so even if you seize Heller's personal assets, Izzy's still accumulating a pile of money Heller will be able to use.  This is the second time he's watched the accountant throw money at Heller, but Gris has had absolutely no reaction to it.

Izzy leaves, Gris goes to a run-down bar called the Stockbroker, advertising a "Suicide Special," an alternative to throwing yourself out a window when the Dow crashes.  He buys a 7-Up - excuse me, "Seven Up" - with a thousand-dollar bill and asks to use the dingy restroom.  He uses an Earth razor rather than a "spin razor," and cuts himself twice.  He uses space lotion and a cellology light to heal his face.  He uses a "spin brush" to clean his teeth.  Gris gets fed up and calls Grafferty's office again, urging the cops to hurry along.  Remember, this is supposed to be tense and exciting, not achingly dull.

Gris goes back to watching Heller change clothes.  Heller is annoyed that he can't get proper engineer gloves.  He leaves the washroom, asks to use the place's phone, and calls the Red Cab Company, telling them to get Mortie Massacurovitch over to him right away.  You remember, the guy who taught Heller to drive waaay back in Book Two.

The friendly bartender thinks this is all part of some insider trading scheme, and Heller grimly replies that he's "going to make a killing."  Gris gets nervous.  Mortie shows up with bandages around his eyes from when a "dumb spick hit me in the face with a load of mace."  Using "damned" after the word "God" earns a (bleep) from the censor, but not ethnic slurs.

Heller drives Mortie off, and the two come up with a plan to call all the cab companies to see which one sent a fleet of taxis to carry off Krak and her luggage at a certain time.  Heller finally learns that she went to Hudson Harbor.  Gris calls Graffery's men again to update them on the fugitive's location, and tells them to get moving.

Look, it takes awhile for an exciting chase scene to start, alright?  You gotta spend seven and a half pages building up the tension by having a guy order a soft drink and shave. 


Back to Chapter Two

Forward to Chapter Four

Part Forty-Nine, Chapter Two - Beauty is Aryan

So having suddenly decided to use Dr. Crobe to defeat Krak and Heller once and for all, Gris calls up the lawyers he so recently tipped off to stop Krak and Heller once and for all.  They proudly announce that they've put out a warrant for bigamy that will put the Whiz Kid in jail, where they can squeeze him for everything he's got.  Because this is a work of subtle satire, they go into detail about how common this is.

"You may have trouble arresting him."

"Oh, I think not," said Ambo.  "We have connections in the police and we will now have every airport and bus station and train depot watched.

Notice what mode of transportation they omitted.

They try to run when they get hit this hard.  So we'll pick him up, throw him in the can and make him squirm.  Standard legal procedure.  The old routine shakedown.  Sue them civilly, trump up something criminal and then bleed them to death.  Routine."

That's not enough for Gris, though.  No, he commands the lawyers to add an order to have Heller sent to Bellevue for a mental examination.  The lawyer's impressed.

"Oh, wonderful!  That implies that, committing bigamy, he is irresponsible and of unsound mind and we can be appointed executors of his estate, split it up amongst ourselves and be rich!  This is wonderful."

In an amazing coincidence, L. Ron Hubbard went through a bigamous marriage of his own that led to newspapers calling him insane.  His (second) wife's divorce suit involved accusations of beatings, sleep deprivation, kidnappings, and urges for her to commit suicide.  She eventually did settle and signed a statement Hubbard wrote declaring that he was a "fine and brilliant man" in order to get custody of their daughter.

That's enough history, let's get casually racist.

"In that order," I said, "specify that as his face is too attractive, it might pervert nurses and so it is to be blackened."

Yeah, this white guy's too pretty.  Make him black, that'll stop the nurses from falling for him.

"Nothing easier.  You can write anything in a court order.  Then all you have to do is get the judge to sign it and he never reads what he signs.  An absolutely novel idea.  Will make good press, too.  Gives the whole thing a sinister ring.  You can't win these things, you know, unless you try them first in the press."

Gris remains on a roll.  He adds a description of the Whiz Kid's "gun moll," Miss Heavenly Joy Krackle, a real fiend.  The lawyer readies some trumped-up conspiracy charges to get her imprisoned until she cooperates, and Gris makes sure Krak's to be sent to Bellevue too, only with a mask on, since her face "has been known to turn men to stone!"

This idiocy is of course to prevent Dr. Crobe from recognizing the people he's mortally afraid of.  But Gris isn't completely certain his precautions will be enough.  So he adds an order that Dr. Phetus P. Crobe is not to see them.  Under absolutely no circumstance is for Dr. Crobe to see the Whiz Kid and Miss Krackle.  Very explicitly spell that out.  They're to be assigned to the same mental hospital as him, but he is not to see them.  Got it?

Gris, honey?  If you want to keep Krak and Heller from meeting Crobe, send them to a different hospital.  It really is that simple.  You don't have to go through blackface or gorgon masks or anything.

The book's villain is confident that Heller and Krak (wherever she is) are now doomed to life in a mental institution, where they'll be dropped off "drugged, placed in electric-shock machines and ruined for the rest of their lives."  Which of course would cause Heller to miss his next mission report, causing Voltar to grow suspicious and send an investigation that would blow the lid off the whole Apparatus conspiracy to use Earth drugs to take over the Confederacy.

Does anyone in this stupid book still remember that subplot?

The courts and the law and psychiatry were a priceless team.  Why had I bothered to hire a hit man when I had them at my beck and call?

Good question!  So, Hubbard, why did you waste a third of this book with a necrophiliac hitman who utterly failed at his mission?

How could I miss?  If Heller was not caught at once, he might find Krak and if he found Krak he might bring her straight into this morass the lawyers had made so they could become rich.  It was a bottomless pit and would swallow them both!  With a grinning gulp!  Bless the Earth legal-psychiatric liaison!  It might be totally insane but, good Gods, was it useful to the power elite!

Is it really a "liaison" when you were the one who suggested adding the psychiatry angle?  Really, this is the first time the two professions have mixed.  


Back to Chapter One

Forward to Chapter Three

Part Forty-Nine, Chapter One - Snakes on a Brain

Let's meet a horrible new character and check on a horrible old character.

Now, this is all supposedly the jailhouse confession of Solton Gris, written well after all the events of Mission Earth have occurred.  He's thinking back and telling us how he felt when it all was happening.  Only in this case, he's thinking back to the morning when he was thinking back to the night before.  He's remembering the time he remembered something instead of just remembering that something.  It seems a very odd narrative decision, that's what I'm getting at.

I'm stalling.  Meet Teenie.

One of the candidates for sexual reeducation last night had been a thin thing, mostly bones.  In addition to an immature body, her breasts had not yet developed fully.  I speculated on her age: she must have been fourteen or fifteen at the most.  Someday she would be good-looking, maybe, but right now her eyes were too big and round and her oversized mouth was far too large for her face.  She wore her light brown hair in a ponytail.  She chewed bubble gum with very loud satisfaction.

Wonder if this character is based on someone, like the whole Rockecenter thing?  Vaguely horrifying thought.  "Well, the good news is that you're sorta in a book..."

Her name was Teenie and her job was licking stamps in Rockecenter's Medical Association Control Department.  I gathered that she had not been on the job very long, had come straight out of some psychology sex-education group in grade school and had not been wholly converted to Psychiatric Birth Control yet.  So, according to Adora, it was important that pains be taken with her: my pains of course!

Rockecenter has the planet by the short and curlies and he's paying somebody to lick stamps.  I'm assuming this is meant to show how he can afford to be stupid with his money, rather than making the reader question how he's still in business.

Last night Teenie had certainly expressed her enthusiasm for reeducation!  But "enthusiasm" is too mild a word for it.  She had been all over the place with me!  ACTIVE!  And the others had just smiled indulgently

And so the main character proceeds to bitch about having rough sex with a fifteen-year-old.  All that scratching, weird phrases like "Ride 'em, cowboy!"  Gris decides to reassure himself by counting out his paycheck, but finds himself wondering if it was really worth what he went through to get it.  He panics, worries that he's entering a state of "hypernegation," which would be Krak and Heller's fault, so Gris starts worrying about Krak and Heller, and how Heller might suspect him (a reasonable concern), or how Krak might hunt him down and sic Crobe on Gris (what?).  Then Gris remembers that he hasn't checked on Crobe in a while and does so.

Crobe is addressing an audience of "evident psychiatrists" - so evident that the author feels no need to explain how you can tell at a glance whether a someone is a psychiatrist.  He's got a patient strapped down, with a snake is sticking out of the poor guy's skull.  Gris immediately recognizes that Crobe is back to his old grafting tricks, while the evident psychiatrists are enthralled at this breakthrough on how you can stimulate the reptile brain to grow with Crobe's new wonderdrug.

"Zo!" cried Crobe with a flourish, "you dgentmens iss zo right!  Dere iss a reptile brain.  Man runs on de reptile brain.  It iss the zource which makes man zo evil!  Zychiatric zience iss right!"

The assembled evident psychiatrists immediately nominate Crobe for Psychiatric Genius of the Year, but wait, there's more!

"Zis patient coom here zuffering from inanity [sic, joke?].  By feeding Drug 32, I 'ave brought de cause to light.  Now, right beefoor yer eyes, I vill CURE de patient!"

The emotional-scale letters of the viewer said:

GLEE

The hall hushed.  Crobe took a huge knife from the table.  He flourished it.  It whistled through the air.

THUNK!

It severed the snake from the skull!

Blood spurted all over the place!

The patient went into death seizures!

He died.

The letters on Crobe's viewer flashed:

PLEASURE

Crobe's voice rang out in triumph.  "You zee?  De end product uf psychiatry 'as been attained.  ZE PATIENT ISS QUIET!"

Thunderous applause broke out.  The psychiatrists were on their feet in a standing ovation!

So the goal of psychiatry is to achieve peace and quiet by killing mental patients.  They've spent years screwing around with pills and electroshock and homosexual indoctrination, but it takes an alien with a fluctuating accent to remind everyone that a knife works a lot faster.

The press and mental health physicians swamp Crobe to congratulate him, while Gris turns off the viewer, blaming Krak and Heller for forcing him to bring Crobe over.  He's gripped by a "sudden rage" as he thinks of a way he could use this to his advantage, then immediately cheers up at the thought of sending one of his enemies to suffer at the hands of a man who makes snakes grow out of people's skulls.  Gris is confident that he'll think of some way of circumventing that whole "freak out at the sight of Heller" programming that Krak put Crobe under.

I had all the resources in the world.  Rockecenter's influence permeated everything and it was at my fingertips whenever I cared to use it.

I would strike back!

I thought the whole point of the last few chapters was that Heller and Krak had suffered devastating blows?  There's nothing to really strike back against.  Krak's run off and Heller is threatening to destroy immigrants' livelihood.

Still, at least Gris is taking what passes for a proactive stance for him, rather than sitting around hoping that things will go his way.  I'm sure he'll still find a way to botch things, of course.


Back to Part Forty-Eight, Chapter Six 

Forward to Part Forty-Nine, Chapter Two

Part Forty-Eight, Chapter Six - No Hero to His Valet

Gris starts off the chapter by deflecting responsibility for his situation.

Never drink alcohol and smoke pot at the same time.

The result can be near fatal, as I found out when I awoke to another terrible day.

Gris crawls out of his room in time to catch his wives as they head to work, asks for money, and gets thrown seven dollars.  He tries to treat his hangover with some water, aspirin and champagne, then settles down to watch Heller's adventures in the American legal system.

Heller's breakfasted is interrupted by another legal attack ("Well, kick them out."  "I can't, sir.  There's police with them and they've got guns.")  The Shabby Man In The Shabby Coat With A Shabby Hat serves Heller a seizure order, nabbing all his financial assets as if it were illegal to hide money behind a false identity!  Absolutely outrageous!  Again, they chew him out for pulling a gun on a lawyer, even though the author never actually showed it happening.  Police Inspector Grafferty's along too, and thinks he recognizes Heller from a sex offender lineup a few years ago, rather than a restaurant where Heller smeared pasta sauce all over the officer's face in front of his favorite actors.

Man, that was a stupid chapter.

So Heller's broke, homeless, carless, and even his staff are leery of interacting with him for fear of getting sucked into his legal troubles.  All those wonderful things that fell into his lap without any real effort on his part have been taken away from him!  How devastating.  Especially that nice apartment he got all of ten chapters ago, that might be the most painful loss of all.

Gris watches Heller wander around New York, stop in the shadow of the Empire State Building, and scribble a note "so fast I could not follow it."  I'd ask why a slow-mo replay is impossible, but it doesn't matter - all he's doing is passing on a note to Izzy, so this "mystery" lasts less than a page.  While he waits for his friend to arrive, Heller kills time in a restaurant.

Robert E. Lee once said "The power which the strong have over the weak, the employer over the employed, the educated over the unlettered, the experienced over the confiding, even the clever over the silly — the forbearing or inoffensive use of all this power or authority, or a total abstinence from it when the case admits it, will show the gentleman in a plain light."  Sirius Black of the Harry Potter books put it a little simpler: "If you want to know what a man's like, take a good look at how he treats his inferiors, not his equals."

Heller went up the street to the Sukiyaki Bar and Grill.  He went in.

A Japanese came over.

"Give me a glass of water," said Heller.

"You no order food?  You no order drink?"

"Give me a glass of water," said Heller.

"I'm most sorry, we don't serve water.  If you broke, go to Salvation Army soup kitchen."

"You like this place?" said Heller.

"Yes."

"You don't want this place wrecked?"

"NO, sir!"

"Then bring me a glass of water."

The heroic Japanese waiter stands firm and generously allows Heller to sit, but refuses to serve him anything.  Unlike back in Chapter Three, Gris is able to appreciate and respond to Heller's miserable situation, and claims that it even helps cure his hangover.  Eventually Izzy shows up - Heller explains he was all secretive and passed his note via third party because he's noticed that "people seem to know where I am and where I go."  Gris has absolutely no reaction to this comment.

Izzy and Heller talk about the current situation, and we get more scathing satire of the legal system - "This can't be very legal."  "Well, legal is whatever the lawyers say it is."  Izzy assures him he's taking the case to one of the fastest lawyers in town, so it might get resolved in a matter of months.  He also reports that the private detectives Heller evidently hired off-camera have yet to find any sign of the Countess Krak.  Heller again worries about "That poor kid."  I start to worry about Krak's age, given the amount of ephebophilia in this wretched series.

In other news, well, Izzy shows Heller a newspaper screaming "WHIZ KID BIGAMIST SECOND WIFE SUES FOR DIVORCE."  Apparently the Whiz Kid was in Mexico posing as a revolutionary and fell for a local girl, but their (bleeping) got her "jealous burro" braying so a priest found out and made them get married.  I suddenly realize I am reading a crappy story within a crappy story and feel a rush of vertigo.  Izzy has to explain that no, they can't throw this new girl in jail.

Izzy does toss Heller a wad of money (causing a waiter to arrive with two glasses of water.  Heller says nothing.) so he can run to Brazil, like he first suggested back in... Book Three, I think?  But Heller resolutely says he's got to find his girl.

The Japanese came over.  "You order now?"

"I'm going to order somebody vaporized before this is through," said Heller.  He walked out.  He was looking up and down the street, as though by that he could locate the Countess Krak.

I was jolted.  I had never heard him sound so cross before.  Did he mean me?

Nervously, I threw the blanket over the viewer.  Irrationally, I thought he might look back through it and see me.

And even though this seems a logical point to end the chapter, there's three and a half pages more.

Gris tries to get some sleep, but his headache and a nagging worry that won't go away keep him up.  Then his wives come home, he asks for money, and they call a meaning to explain the situation.  They give him invoices and open the safe for him, and Gris eagerly dives into the piles of money.  "There must be $65,000 here or more!"

But then the former Miss Pinch drops her bombshell, before Gris gets any ideas about trying to run off with his money.  See, by marrying not one but two women, Gris has committed the crime of bigamy!  That's why Gris has been worried these past few chapters, he's been reading all about the Whiz Kid's bigamy fiasco without realizing that it also applies to him!  He's that stupid!

So Gris is horrified and the horrible women laugh at him and order him to take a shower.

"Why?" I pleaded.  I had had enough horror today.

"Why?" she mimicked.  Then her eyes narrowed and she poked her face very close to mine, for all the world like Lombar.  Her voice became very deadly indeed.  "You can stop your underhanded, chauvinistic machinations right now!  By plying us with champagne and pot on our wedding night and then refusing to do your duty, you thought you could throw us back into lesbianism.  You tried to make me break my sacred vow to crush Psychiatric Birth Control forever!  Well, buster, you did NOT succeed!"

She slapped at my side just like Lombar.  "It was NO good!  You only confirmed my determination!  Two lesbians will arrive in the next half hour and they'll be two ex-lesbians when we're through.  And no more tricks to wreck the program!  No more whining about them being dead!"

Y'know, the first time Gris got brutalized by Candy and Pinch, he tried to kill them and solve his problem that way.  The thought doesn't even occur to him now.  Guess marriage does change a man.

Defeated utterly, I began to crawl out of my clothes.  I felt terribly confused.  I kept thinking I did not want to have sex with Dolores Wister nee Pubiano de Cópula's burro.  But there was nothing I could do about it!

Belatedly, I started screaming.  I hate burros!

So, back to the subplot where Gris has sex with lesbians until they turn straight.  Oh, and we'll check in with our old friend, Dr. Crobe.


Back to Part Forty-Eight, Chapter Five

Forward to Part Forty-Nine, Chapter One