— I didn't see that, I don't read the papers and I don't give one damn what's going on out there, what I'm trying to tell you Lester. I'm through with it, I've been around the ring twice and I'm not going round again isn't that clear?
— Then what good's this work you did for Klinger. What good is it to you, it's just part of this trash heap you're cleaning up isn't it? His boot rummaged the open carton turning up scraps of pages, torn envelopes, nondescript landscapes, — timetable for the Benguela railway what good is that to you, it's no good even when you're standing there in Kolwezi hoping for a train. Here's your contract with the Euthanasia Society when the time comes you can't make your own decisions you haven't signed it, what good is it. Five thousand cash. Five thousand for your timetable and the rest of this rubbish or five thousand for your field notes, diagrams, original mapping all of it, what's the difference. You don't give one damn what's going on out there what's the difference to you? Here… he was back digging in the file drawer for a dented yellow tin of — State Express, when did you open it, ten years ago? and came up with a passport perforated CANCELED flicking its pages stamped in blues, greens, reds, ovals and triangles, stayed by the photograph. — You looked better then, didn't you. Like this Frank Kinkead, that's what he's supposed to look like isn't it, this cool unwavering glance where he says from now on he's going to live deliberately? He's like you isn't he, he expects everybody else to behave like he would in their situation. If they were you they wouldn't be in their situation in the first place… He waved off a grey billow of expired smoke, — but he's too good to pick his nose isn't he, he's too busy rescuing his destiny from chance isn't he.
— You saw how it ends.
— I know how it ends. It doesn't end it just falls to pieces, it's mean and empty like everybody in it is that why you wrote it?
— I told you why I wrote it, it's just an afterthought why are you so damned put out by it. This novel's just a footnote, a postscript, look for happy endings I come out mixed up with people like you and Klinger.
— Five thousand. He tossed the canceled passport into the open carton, — you're going to need it… and his boot thrust out to tip the shoe crossed over a knee there, — see that? See where there's no hair growing till way above your ankle there? That's what I told you, that's the whisky and the cigarettes working on you together that's your circulation failing, that's when your toes turn green. Either smoke your cigarettes or drink your whisky that would mean you'd decided to, that you wanted it, but both of them together you know what that is McCandless? That's a character flaw, that shows an inferior character you know that? Talk about your lobotomies, when you used to say I'd rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy where'd you get that, that's somebody else too isn't it because you've got one, the figures on lung cancer right in front of you like the facts staring those primates square in the face out there choking on Genesis and you say it's just a statistical parallel and light another. Five thousand. You're going to need it just for hospital bills… and his boot, gone back to fretting the carton, brought him down for a handful of scraps, snapshots, repetitive landscapes, uncomposed glimpses of dips, outcroppings, — is this it? He held one out, — Klinger's site? They all look the same.
— If you don't know what you're looking for.
— I know what I'm looking for. It's in this mess someplace if you, is that it? Everything you got up for Klinger you've sold it, you've already sold it.
— Fine, I sold it. If that gets you out of here I've sold it.
— I don't believe you. Who, who did you sell it to. I don't believe you, McCandless. He threw down the crumpled snapshots shaking free the torn half of an envelope, — what was in it. Eyes of addressee only what was in it… and he was down digging a hand in the carton, — where's the rest of it. You might have some classified material in this mess you know that? You might have walked off with some classified material… he straightened up emptyhanded. — They could clean this place out, get a court order and come in here with a truck they could clean you right out, you think that's something to grin about? Go ahead, pour another drink, you ever seen the FBI on a rampage? Tear out your bookcases rip up your floors you think they wouldn't do it?
— You think they'd waste the time? you think they'd even…
— I'll tell you who'll waste the time. I'll tell you who'll waste more time than you've left alive McCandless. That's somebody who thinks there's a leak and brings the pressure down from the top, and won't stop till they find it. Maybe three or four agencies running down sources and none of them knows what the other ones are after. They don't know who else is after what they're after. They're so jealous they won't share the time of day. They don't know if the other side's in there too, they don't even know who's on the other side and every one of them thinks the other ones have been penetrated so they penetrate each other. They're afraid they're being fed disinformation so they put out a little disinformation of their own, the only thing they know is if somebody says he's got what they're after and they haven't got it, if the other side says they've got it and pulls out the rug there's no way to prove they haven't. What did they pay you. That work you did for Klinger, you just said you sold it who did you sell it to. What did they pay you.
— I thought you didn't believe me.
— I don't… He came down stiff on the heels of the boots, picking short steps past the roll of the tent, the heaped magazines, back scanning the rows of books. — Maybe they'd turned Klinger. Maybe they thought we'd doubled him so they dropped him in that alley. They'd turned Seiko… he was pushing books aside on the shelf, peering in at the wall behind them. — Seiko brought you in, you knew that… He reached in tapping the wall there, pushed more books aside and tapped again. — You're not that important, you know that? Just a piece in the puzzle, a little piece in the big puzzle… He stood picking paint from a moulding with his thumbnail, — how much are you holding out for, ten?
— If it's not that imp…
— Ten thousand dollars, did you hear me? Because we don't like surprises. Because Cruikshank thinks there might be something to that story about the strike you made thirty years ago when you first went out there, that strike up above the Limpopo when nobody would believe you, when the…
— Then why should he believe me now. That bloodless bastard why should he trust me now any more than I trust him. He's still trying to recolonize the whole continent? take it back a hundred years when Europe cut it up like a pie and they all took a piece?
— I said cash, McCandless. Ten thousand cash you don't have to trust anybody, sitting here in this mess pretending you don't know what's going on over there? Look at it, it's a nightmare, twenty years of independence and the whole continent's a nightmare, they've wiped out everything it took a hundred years to put together. Everything's gone backwards, more than a million of them killed by their own governments, the rest can't even feed themselves. Ninety five percent of those countrief. used to grow their own food now every one of them imports it, seven or eight hundred different languages they can't even talk to each other, one in a hundred of them's a refugee, sleeping sickness, river blindness, starvation, madness, anywhere you go there's madness, people going staring mad is that any better? is that what you want?
— Good God no Lester, far be it from me. Better off with your missionaries back there in good old King Leopold's Congo, the Belgians using them for pistol practice, chopping off their hands, stringing them on fences, burning their…
— Will you stop it? It's just your, you know what it is? It's cheap. It's like your book there it's cheap, it's the same cheap, condescending, twisting things around like this having business with the Bible and all the rest of your cheap…