The Illuminatus! Trilogy

(Frank Sullivan, capitalizing on his only real asset, was operating in Havana as a Cuban Superman, using the name Papa Piaba, when the Brotherhood spotted his resemblance to John Dillinger. "Gosh," he said when they made the offer, "five thousand dollars just to take two ladies to a movie one night? And it's only a practical joke, you say?" "It'll be a very funny joke," Jaicapo Mocenigo promised him. And the Smithsonian acquired Mr. Sullivan's asset as one of their most interesting relics.)

WE'LL KILL THE OLD RED ROOSTER

(Hagbard was accompanied by Joe Malik when he returned to the stateroom. "You go to the beer hall in Munich," he was saying, "and steal any item, anything at all, as long as it's obviously old enough to have been there the night he tried the Putsch. Then you rejoin the rest of us in Ingolstadt. Understood?")

WE'LL KILL THE OLD RED ROOSTER

Lady Velkor, wearing a green peasant blouse and green hotpants, looked around the geodesic Kool-Aid dome. A man in a green turtleneck sweater and green slacks caught her eye, and she walked over to him, asking, "Are you a turtle?"

"You bet your sweet ass I am," he answered eagerly and so she had failed to make contact- and owed this oaf a free drink also. But she smiled pleasantly and concealed her annoyance.

WE'LL KILL THE OLD RED ROOSTER WHEN SHE COMES

Robinson and Lehrman of the Homicide Department actually started the last phase of the operation. I was in New York to see Hassan i Sabbah X about a new phase of Laotian opium operation (I had just come from Chicago, after staging that conversation with Waterhouse for Miss Servix's benefit), and I decided to check with them for those little nuances that can't go into an official report We met in Washington Square and found a bench far enough from the chess nuts to give us some privacy.

"Muldoon is on to us," Robinson told me right off. He was wearing a beard; I figured that meant he was currently in a Weather Underground group, since he was too old to pass for under twenty-one and get into Morituri.

"Are you sure?" I asked.

He made the usual reply: "Who's ever sure of anything in this business? But Barney is pure cop through and through," he added, "and his instincts are like dowsing rods. Everybody on the force knows we've infiltrated them by now, anyway. They even make jokes about it 'Who's the CIA man in your department?'- that kind of thing."

"Muldoon is on to us, all right," Lehrman agreed. "But he's not the one I worry about."

"Who is?" I brushed my walrus mustache nervously; being the first pentuple agent in the history of espionage was starting to grind me down. I really wasn't sure which of my bosses should hear about this, although the CIA certainly had to be told, since for all I know Robinson and Lehnnan might be reporting to them twice, having another contact as a fail-safe check on my own integrity.

"The head of Homicide North," Lehnnan said. "An old geezer named Goodman. He's so damned smart, I sometimes wonder if he's a double agent for the Eye themselves. His mind jumps ahead of facts just like an Adeptus Exemptus in the Order."

I looked up at the statue of Garibaldi, remembering the old NYU myth that he would pull his sword the rest of the way out of the scabbard if a virgin ever walked through Washington Park. "Tell me more about this Goodman," I said.

("Check out the pair on that chick," a Superman said enthusiastically.

("Watermelons," a second Superman agreed enthusiastically. "And you know how us cullud folk dig watermelons," he added, licking his lips.)

("Skin!" the first cried.)

("Skin!" the second agreed.)

(They slapped palms, and Clark Kent came out of his reverie. Having sampled the Kool-Aid a while earlier, he was beginning to float a little, although not yet aware of what was happening-he just felt a rather unusual tug of memory from his days as an anthropologist, and was deeply concerned with a new insight about the relationship between the black Virgin of Guadalupe, the Greek goddess Persephone, and his own sexual proclivities-and he came out of it with a start, looking at the woman whose breasts had inspired such reverence.)

("Son of a bitch," he said piously, his mouth spreading in a grin.)

Rebecca Goodman left the house at 3 P.M., hauling a shopping cart and walking past the garage. The nearest supermarket was a good ten minutes on foot, and big enough to keep her busy for a half-hour finding what she wanted and getting through one of those checkout lines. I slipped out of the car and walked right to the back of the house, perfectly secure from neighboring eyes in my Bell Telephone overalls.

The kitchen door had an easy slip-lock, and I didn't even need my keys. A playing card did the job, and I was in.