The younger man, Ben Volpe, gulps. "Look, Mr. Mal-donado, there's something I've got to tell you. I know how the… Brotherhood… is when somebody fucks up and hides it."
"You didn't fuck up," Banana-Nose says, bewildered. "In fact, you lucked out amazingly. That schmuck Oswald is going to fry for it. He came along at just the right time. It was a real Fortuna… Jesus, Mary and Joseph!" Banana-Nose sits up straight as the thought hits him. "You mean… you mean… Did Oswald really do it? Did he shoot before you?"
"No, no," Volpe is miserable. "Let me explain it as clearly as I can. I'm there on top of the Dallas County Records Building like we planned, see? The motorcade turns onto Elm and heads for the underpass. I use my magnifying sight, swinging the whole gun around to look through it, just to make one last check that I have all the Feds spotted. When I face the School Book Depository, I catch this rifle. That was Oswald, I guess. Then I check out the grassy knoll and, goddam, there's another cat with a rifle. I just went cold. I couldn't figure it out. While I'm in this state, like a zombie, a dog barks and just then the guy in the grassy knoll calm and cool as if he was at a shooting range lays three of them right into the car. That's it," Volpe ends miserably. "I can't take the money. The… Brotherhood… would have my ass if they ever found out the truth."
Maldonado sat silently, rubbing his famous nose as he did when making a hard decision. "You're a good boy, Bennie. I give you ten percent of the money, just for being honest. We need more honest young boys like you in the Brotherhood."
Volpe swallowed again, and said, "There's one more thing I oughta tell you. I went down to the grassy knoll, after the cops run from there to the School Book Depository. I thought I might find the guy who did the shooting still hanging around and tell you what he looked like. He was long gone, though. But here's what so spooky. I ran into another galoot; who was sneaking down from the triple underpass. Long, skinny guy with buck teeth, kind of reminded me of a python or some kind of snake. He just looks at me and my umbrella and guesses what's in it
His mouth falls open. 'Jesus Christ and his black bastard brother Harry,' he says, 'how the fuck many people does it take to kill a President these days?'"
("And they're teaching them about perversions as well," Smiling Jim was building toward his climax. "Homosexuality and lesbianism are being taught in our schools and we're paying for it out of our tax money. Now is that communism or isn't it?")
"Welcome to the Playboy Club," the beautiful blonde said, "I'm your bunny, Virgin."
Saul took his seat in the dark wondering if he had heard correctly. Virgin was an odd name for a bunny; perhaps she had actually said Virginia. Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus.
"How do you wish your steak, sir?" the bunny was asking. A stake through the heart, for a vampire.
"Medium well," Saul said, wondering why his mind was wandering in such odd directions. ("Odd erections," somebody said in the nearby dark- or was it a distorted echo of his own voice?)
"Medium well," the bunny repeated, seemingly speaking to the wall. A medium wall, Saul thought.
Immediately the wall opened and Saul was looking into a combination kitchen and butcher shop. A steer was standing not five feet from him, but before he could recover from this shock a male figure, stripped to the waist and wearing the hood of a medieval executioner, caught his attention. With one stroke of a huge hammer, this figure knocked the steer unconscious and it fell to the floor with a crash. Immediately the executioner produced an axe and chopped its head off; blood gushed in a crimson pool from its neck.
The wall closed, and Saul had the terrifying feeling that the whole scene had been a hallucination- that he was losing his mind.
"All our lunches are educational today," the bunny said in his ear. "We believe every customer should understand fully what's on the end of his fork and how it got there, before he takes a bite."
"Good God," Saul said, getting to his feet. This wasn't a Playboy Club, it was some den of lunatics and sadists. He stumbled toward the door.
"No way out," a man at another table said softly as he passed.
"Saul, Saul," the maitre d' murmured politely, "why dost thou persecute me? Hab' rochmunas."
"It's a drug," Saul said thickly, "you've given me a drug." Of course, that was it- something like mescaline or LSD-and they were guiding his hallucinations by providing proper stimuli. Perhaps they were even faking some of the hallucinations. But how had he fallen into their hands? The last thing he remembered, he was in Joe Malik's apartment with Barney Muldoon… No, there was a voice saying, "Now, Sister Victoria," as they came out the door onto Riverside Drive…
"No man should marry a woman more than thirty years younger than himself," the maitre d' said mournfully. How did they know about that? Had they investigated his whole life? How long had they held him?
"I'm getting out of here," he shouted, pushing the maitre d' aside and bolting for the door.
Hands grasped for him and missed (they weren't really trying, he realized: he was being allowed to reach the door). When he plunged through the doorway, he realized why: he was not on the street but in another room. This was the next ordeal.
A rectangle of light appeared on the wall; somewhere in the darkness there was a projector. A card, light an old silent-movie caption, appeared in the rectangle. It said:
ALL JEW GIRLS LIKE TO BALL WITH BUCK NIGGERS
"Sons of bitches," Saul shouted back at them. They were still working on his feelings about Rebecca. Well, that would get them nowhere: he had ample reason to trust her devotion to him, especially her sexual devotion.
The card moved out of the rectangle, and a picture appeared in its place. It was Rebecca's, in her nightgown, kneeling. Before her stood a naked and enormous black man, six feet six at least, with an equally impressive penis which she held sensuously in her mouth. Her eyes were closed in bliss, like a baby nursing.
"Motherfuckers," Saul screamed. "It's a fake. That's not Rebecca- it's an actress with makeup. You forgot the mole on her hip." They could drug his senses but not his mind.
There was a nasty laugh in the darkness. 'Try this one, Saul," a voice said coldly.
A new picture slid into view: Adolph Hitler, in full Nazi uniform, and a naked Rebecca backing up to him, taking his penis in her rectum. Her face showed both pain and pleasure- and the mole on her hip was visible. Another fake- Rebecca was born years after Hitler died. But they hadn't produced the slide in the thirty seconds after his shout, and that meant they knew her body, intimately… And they also knew how skeptical and quick his mind was, and were prepared to administer a series of jolts until something got past his ability to doubt.
"No comment?" the voice asked mockingly.
"I don't believe a man who died thirty years ago would be buggering any woman today," Saul said dryly. "Your tricks are kind of corny."
"Sometimes, with the vulgar, we must communicate vulgarly," the voice replied- and it was almost gentle and pitying this time.
A new picture appeared- and this time, without doubt, it was Rebecca. But it was Rebecca three years ago, when he first met her. She sat at a table in a cheap East Village pad, wearing the emaciated and self-pitying look he remembered from those days; and she was preparing to inject a needle in her arm. It was the real thing, but the terror was in its implications: they had been watching him that long ago. Perhaps- it was hard to date the picture precisely, although he remembered her apartment in those days- they even knew he would fall in love with her before he knew it himself. No; more likely, a friend of hers in those days had taken the picture and they had somehow found it when they became interested in him. Their resources must be fantastic.