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The Zone is a single, vast building. The rooms are made of a plastic cement that bulges to accommodate people, but when too many crowd into one room there is a soft plop and someone squeezes through the wall right into the next house, the next bed that is, since the rooms are mostly bed where the business of the Zone is transacted. A hum of sex and commerce shakes the Zone like a vast hive: "Two thirds of one percent. I won't budge from that figure; not even for my bumpkins." "But where are the bills of lading, lover?" "Not where you're looking, pet. That's too obvious." "A bale of levies with built-in falsie baskets. Made in Hollywood." "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 quaran- tined 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 accumu- lates 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 Mar- vie 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 date. ) 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 Hail 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." "Bawstard! You'll never see the bill of lading until my cut is deposited in escrow. |
