The Water-Method Man

Lone Tree Co-operative Credit Union

Shive & Hupp

Addison & Halsey

Cuthbert Bennett

The Jefferson International Travel Agency

Lacking was a check for the several thousand dollars owed National Defense Loans - government money for education, which he assumed must emanate from the US Department of Health, Education and Welfare. Instead, he sent HEW a note in which he declared himself 'unwilling and unable to pay this debt, on grounds of receiving an incomplete education'. Then he went to Benny's, drank fourteen draughts and played a lot of violent pinball until Benny called Packer to come take him away.

At Ralph's, Bogus phoned a cable he wanted sent:

Herr Merrill Overturf

Schwindgasse 15/2 Vienna 4, Austria

Merrill

I am coming

Boggle.

'Who's Merrill?' said Ralph Packer. 'Who's Boggle?' Trumper hadn't heard a word from Overturf since the last time he'd been in Europe, with Biggie, more than four years before. If Ralph had known this, or known anything, for that matter, he might have tried to stop Trumper. Conversely, it later occurred to Bogus that Ralph might have some thoughts about Biggie being left alone.

The next morning, Trumper had a phone call at Ralph's apartment from Lufthansa Airlines. They had botched his reservation to Vienna and had him booked on a flight from Chicago, to New York, to Frankfurt. For some unexplained reason, this would cost him less, even if he took a businessman's flight from Frankfurt to Vienna. Especially if I hitchhike from Frankfurt, Trumper thought.

'Frankfurt?' said Ralph Packer. 'Jesus, what's in Frankfurt?'

He told Ralph his 'plan', sort of.

At four in the afternoon, Ralph phones Biggie and informs her that Bogus is 'besotted at Benny's and about to get into a losing fight'. Biggie hangs up.

Ralph calls back. He suggests Biggie bring Colm and the car right away, and that together they can safely stow Bogus in the trunk.

After Biggie hangs up again, Ralph encourages the three silent customers in Benny's to make a lot of background rumpus for the next attempt. That call rings unanswered for almost five minutes while Bogus, near to giving up hope, crouches behind a shrub on Mr Fitch's well-kept lawn. Finally he sees Biggie and Colm leave.

Ralph stalls Biggie at Benny's door with grim tales of blood, beer, teeth, ambulances and policemen before Biggie suspects the hoax and walks boldly past Ralph into the bar. There is a drunk girl, all alone, playing pinball; there are two men in a booth by the door talking cheerfully. Biggie asks Benny if there's been a fight here.

'Yes, about two months ago ...' Benny begins.

When Biggie darts outside, she finds that Ralph Packer has moved the car somewhere, and is strolling down the sidewalk with Colm. Packer won't reveal where he's parked the car until she threatens to call the police.

When she gets home Bogus has been and gone.

He took his tape recorder and all the tapes; his passport; not his typewriter but all his thesis work on the translation of Akthelt and Gunnel. God knows why.

He cleaned out the refrigerator, putting all the food in the basement for Risky Mouse. He destroyed the trap.

By Colm's pillow he left a toy duck, with real feathers, made by Amish farmers. It cost $15.95, the most Trumper had ever spent for a toy.

By Biggie's pillow he left the new checkbook, with a remaining balance of $1,612.47, and a large, French-uplift mauve bra. It was the right size too. In one of the big cups, he crumpled a handwritten note: Big, there was truly none finer.

This is all Biggie discovers of his trip home. She can't know, of course, about his other accomplishment. If Mr Fitch ever cared to be nosy, he could describe for Biggie the sight of Bogus groping through the garbage cans outside his house and rescuing the abandoned duck, by now in an advanced state of decomposition. Fitch registered no surprise when Trumper wrapped up the duck in a plastic bag. Nor would Fitch ever describe Trumper's search for a sturdy box into which the bag containing the duck was crammed, along with a note reading, 'Dear Sir: Please count your change.'

The package was mailed to Bogus's father.

Watching Biggie's stormy return from behind Fitch's shrub, Bogus hung around just long enough to make sure that she didn't jump out any windows. At his see-through curtain with Mrs Fitch, watching Bogus behind the shrub, Fitch had enough good sense to recognize secrecy when he saw it and didn't come out on his porch to make any inappropriate remarks. Once Bogus turned and saw the old couple observing him. He waved; they waved back. Good old Fitch: he must have fussed for years with the Bureau of Statistics, but now he lets things ride. Excepting his lawn, the man knows how to retire.