Schrödinger's Cat Trilogy

POLITICS OF THE IMPOSSIBLE

The robot whose passport said "Frank Sullivan" landed at Kennedy International on December 26, 1983, and brought $500,000 worth of hashish through customs without any trouble, since the customs officials had orders from the CIA never to interfere with him.

"Sullivan" affixed his gas mask and hailed a cab, which took him to the Hotel Claridge on Forty-fourth Street.

In rapid succession, following a genetic script, he took a quick shower, shaved, changed into his best suit, went out for a slow stroll on Forty-second Street, and picked up a boy lounging outside the Fascination pinball arcade.

They returned to "Sullivan's" room and the boy there received a slurpingly hedonic blow job, for which he was paid $25.

The lad was then covered with rapturous kisses and compelled (out of politeness) to listen to an interminable monologue on the world's injustices to Ireland, the villainy of England, and the perfidy of the Masonic Jews. More kisses followed, the boy told a lugubrious story of poverty and legal problems, "Sullivan" coughed up $5 more, and the transaction was ended. "Sullivan" lounged on the bed for a while after the boy left, discovered that another $15 had disappeared from his wallet, cursed mildly, showered again, and set out on his night's business.

Another taxi delivered him to the Signifyin' Monkey, a nightclub on Lenox Avenue in Harlem. He checked his Luger before getting out of the cab and darting across the sidewalk; he knew what was likely to happen to melanin-deficient persons on that street at that hour.

The maitre d' recognized "Sullivan" and made an almost imperceptible movement with his head. "Sullivan" ascended the stairs in the back, knocked quickly three times, then five times, then three times more, and was admitted to the private office of Hassan i Sabbah X.

"Ah," said Hassan, "the goodies from Afghanistan have arrived."

A sordid commercial transaction followed, distasteful to both parties-Hassan and "Sullivan" each regarded himself as fundamentally a philosopher unwillingly forced to grub and hustle in the jungle of commerce. Nonetheless, each bargained professionally and they were both quite happy by the time they came to the ritual of sharing one sample of the merchandise to seal their friendship anew.

"You know," Hassan said when they were both floating, "I don't really believe you're IRA."

"That's funny," said "Sullivan" with a hash giggle, "I don't believe you're really CIA, either."

They both chortled happily, having their keys.

"Complicated world," said Hassan.

"Getting more complicated every day," pseudo-Sullivan agreed benignly.

"Could you place a Klee with a European collector?"

"A Paul Klee?" Sullivan had heard "clay" originally and wondered if he were being asked to peddle pottery.

"An honest-to-Jesus Klee original. From his mescaline period, I would say."

"Hold on to it a day or two," Sullivan said grandly. "I'll have to make a few phone calls first." He was thinking that Hassan i Sabbah X wore the most brilliantly maroon ties he had ever seen. For that matter, the rug danced with hues worthy of a sultan's harem. Definitely superior-grade hash, he decided.

A door opened in the back of the office and another man stuck his head into the room. He was a black man, white-haired, gold spectacles, rather conservative blue suit and vest: "Sullivan" automatically memorized his features and sent them through his computer to recorders-and-identifi-cation.

"Oh, pardon me," the man said, backing out.

But Sullivan-who was not IRA at all, as Hassan surmised, but was CIA, at least part-time-had already come up with a "make." The man was George Washington Carver Bridge, one of the top scientists on Project Cyclops in the seventies. Now what was a man of that caliber doing skulking about the den of so large and carnivorous a mammal as Hassan i Sabbah X?

"Who was that?" he asked idly.

"One of the boys," Hassan replied carelessly. "Just one of the boys."

But Sullivan went back to his hotel mulling over the perversities and paradoxes of the hashish state, and the ever-maddening question "What is Reality?" for his memory kept insisting that just before the door closed he had noted that the esteemed Dr. Bridge was carrying in his hand the amputated penis of a white man.