Don’t want to hear that talk, least of all from you…listen, Lee says, I heard the one, and Sure he’s heard them most, about the Affiliated, you know, how they’re hiding subterranean, I’m talking deep under the earth like in a hollow hollowedout for them through the agency of this worm, if you can believe it — and there holedup in small, definitely incestuous families, it’s said, and wretches that they were, that they are, they’re eating this worm, I mean like they’re feeding on it, drinking its essence, the blood, I don’t know what you’d call it, whether worms have blood or not, their only source of sustenance, right…STOP yourself, and that they hide there, guess what, plotting their takeover, the Final Days, Bill, the no nonsense End of Ends. I also heard the one in which they went off to settle this other planet, led by this mysterious, get this, Doktor Froid, left us in chariots of heavenly light, I heard fire, Bill, ascension with all the fixins, and — wait for it — that they’re planning to return, just waiting for the right moment, to zap the earth back to the ashes it sprang from. Zip, zilch, okay nada. Goddamn Bill, I heard that, and now you want me to believe this, which’ll be even crazier, won’t it: Israelien walking around in plain day, sunlight Sure as my name’s Lee, with a halo over His head and little yellow stars hung from His tits. Anyway, let’s out with it: you have Him, He’s being held, there’s a price on His head, you’re asking a ransom, He’s already dead…enough, give it up, Bill, what’s your deal?
About time, Brove says, keeping in mind STOP who’s paying for the call.
Is that what this is about? I’ll tell you…I have my suspicions, Bill, you cheapo Marx whatever the schmuck, if that’s how it’s said, I wouldn’t know — how do I know you’re not one of them, too?
He’s S/SW, Lee. STOP. Heading for Angels through desert STOP. Moving slow and in the open STOP. Three eyewitness reports STOP: latest in a burgerjoint just outside Tucson.
Why didn’t you say so before? gushing gosh. Don’t answer, rhetorical, say. Haven’t we done anything yet? Go ahead.
Thing is Der knows. STOP. Already sent — Gelt, Frank, alone.
Gelt? That goy couldn’t find himself even if both stood to profit. I got ten Mex working KP duty down here who could do his job in half the time…
For half the pay, says Brove.
And actually get their mensch, says Sure. Why not Mada?
Not his territory STOP, not his sort of people.
You have a point.
You had a few points there yourself.
Which means I’m winning, Bill, he always is, how Lee’s sure of it.
They’re two menschs, witnesses, any…affirmative; even offcamera, they’re always in pairs. In the paramount waitingroom, flipping through periodicals preposterously just a libration or so out of date: last Shabbos’
A Hymie and a Hymie to see you, Doctor, a Hymie says…and Miss de Presser returned’s the sentiment, all nostalgized what with the dust daily rubbed into their gums, tingly — how they aren’t in a state to distinguish; they’ve been burning files for hours, they’ve been shredding documents with their teeth.
Shalom to you, says a Hymie to which one of them, with starring badge in hand him whichever barging like Sabbath’s eve suddenly through the door to the final corridor and its leftmost office after having negotiated the halls and their rooms for an hour, navigating the makeshift, makework waste: flayed paper, document skin, the files purged to stale air, light smoke; the trashcans are smoldering, the watercooler’s too dry to douse.
Upon their entrance, Doctor Tweiss forgets himself to rise, arranging his suit and pants unmatching professional detachment, to lounge up against the shelves of an office wall, uniforming ranks set with volumes of ostensible reference materials, in truth nothing but false spines; he picks at the drip of his nostrils.
We’re from a government agency with such a name as it wouldn’t pay to have an acronym, says one of them to him once they’ve made their marks on initial inspection, but we’ll refer to it as you’ll refer to us, HYMIE…that is, if you want to.
