Closing Time (Catch-22 2)

"How much will you pay?" asked Michael awkwardly.

"As much as you want," answered M2.

"He means it," said Yossarian, when Michael looked clownishly at him for interpretation.

Michael tittered. "How about," he ventured extravagantly, watching his father for the reaction, "enough for another year in law school?"

"If that's what you want," M2 immediately agreed.

"And my living expenses too?"

"Sure."

"He means that also," said Yossarian reassuringly to his incredulous son. "Michael, you won't believe this--I don't really believe it either--but sometimes there is more money in this world than anybody ever thought the planet could hold without sinking away into somewhere else."

"Where does it all come from?"

"Nobody knows," said Yossarian.

"Where does it go when it isn't here?"

"That's another scientific mystery. It just disappears. Like those particles of tritium. Right now there's a lot."

"Are you trying to corrupt me?"

"I think I'm trying to save you."

"Okay, I'll believe you. What do you want me to do?"

"A few loose drawings," said M2. "Can you read engineering blueprints?"

"Let's have a try."

The five blueprints required for an artist's rendering of the external appearance of the plane had already been selected and laid out on a conference table in an adjoining outer inner conference room just outside the rear false front of the second fireproof stand-up vault of thick steel and concrete, with alarm buttons and radioactive dials of tritium.

It took a minute for Michael to assemble coherence in the mechanical drawings of white lines on royal blue, which looked at first like an occult shambles ornamented with scribbled cryptic notations in alphabets that were indecipherable.

"It's kind of ugly, I think." Michael felt stimulated to be at work on something different that was well within his capabilities. "It's starting to look like a flying wing."

"Are there wings that don't fly?" teased Yossarian.

"The wings of a wing collar," Michael answered, without lifting his analytical gaze. "The wings of a theater stage, the wings of a political party."

"You do read, don't you?"

"Sometimes."

"What does a flying wing look like?" M2 was a moist man, and his brow and chin were beaded with shiny droplets.

"Like a plane without a fuselage, Milo. I've got a feeling I've seen this before."

"I hope you haven't. Our plane is new."

"What's this?" Yossarian pointed. In the lower left corner of all five sheets the identifying legends had been masked before copying by a patch of black tape on which was printed a white letter S without loops. "I've seen that letter."

"And so has everyone else," Michael answered lightly. "It's the standard stencil. You've seen it on old bomb shelters. But what the hell are these?"

"I meant those too."