“Hollywood, Siam.”
“Well American style .”
“What’s the commission? . . . The commission. . . . The Commission.”
“Yes, nugget, a shipload of K.Y. made of genuine whale dreck in the South Atlantic at present quarantined by the Board of Health in Tierra del Fuego. The commission, my dear! If we can pull this off we’ll be in clover.” (Whale dreck is reject material that accumulates in the process of cutting up a whale and cooking it down. A horrible, fishy mess you can smell for miles. No one has found any use for it.)
Interzone Imports Unlimited, which consists of Marvie and Leif The Unlucky, had latched onto the K.Y. deal. In fact they specialize in pharmaceuticals and run a 24-hour Pro station, six ways coverage fore and aft, as a side line. ( Six separate venereal diseases have
been identified to dale.) They plunge into the deal. They form unmentionable
services for a spastic Greek shipping agent, and one entire shift of Customs inspectors. The two partners fall out and finally denounce each other in the Embassy
where they are referred to the We Don’t Want To Hear About It Department, and eased out a back door into a shit-strewn vacant lot, where vultures fight over fish heads. They flail at each other hysterically.
“You’re trying to fuck me out of my commission!”
“Your commission! Who smelled out this good thing in the first place?”
“But I have the bill of lading.”
“Monster! But the check will be made out in my name.”