Pages 93–95
Back on the outcropping above Tucson — the hamster page was an interruption, and this picks up the same dusk conversation mid-stride, cigarette being lit. Still Marathe (wheelchair, blanket, hidden machine pistol) and Steeply (huge, badly disguised as a woman), still the Frenchified narration that sits close to Marathe's head. No new people, no new place: the subject now is trust itself — who reports what to whom — plus the dead man from the burglary pages.
Terms, in order of appearance
- 'n sûr / bien sûr (p. 93) — French: of course.
- electrolysis (p. 93) — real hair-removal by electrified needle; the source of Steeply's jowl pimples.
- tripling; quadrupling (p. 94) — the layered-betrayal spy vocabulary endnote 41 defined last scene (p. 92), now stacked one level higher.
- Sterling UL35, Mag Na Port silencer (p. 94) — the machine pistol under Marathe's blanket, given its full arms-catalog name; it "did not have a safety."
- Luria (p. 94) — Luria Perec, the stenographer Tine and DuPlessis shared (p. 92).
- grippe (p. 94) — old word for influenza; a bad cold.
- Tortolitas (p. 94) — real mountain range northwest of Tucson, now swallowing the sun.
After you read: three things
1. The regress finally gets spoken. Steeply confirms Marathe will report this meeting to Fortier — then confirms that Marathe will report the confirming: "Or would it be quadrupling." Marathe answers with the scene's keystone, an unfinishable sentence: "…have I merely pretended to pretend to pretend to betray." Endnote 42 is keyed right there and tries to untangle it — flip for it. Notice that even the narrator declines to adjudicate: Marathe's laugh sounds "false and overhearty, whether or not sincere."
2. You know something neither professional can believe. Marathe scoffs at the cover story for DuPlessis's death: "An inept burglary and grippe indeed," with that false laugh. But you were there (pp. 55–60): it really was an inept burglary, and the man really was sick. The most suspicious-looking death in their world is the one event you watched happen by accident — the scene hands you the irony and trusts you to hold it.
3. Watch the bodies and shadows carry the feeling. Steeply is anatomized without mercy — "a twisted parody of womanhood," lighting his cigarette elbow-out "how no woman lights a cigarette" — and Marathe suspects he "craved the humiliation" of the disguise. Neither man relaxes: wheel-clamps locked, palm on the pistol grip, back never fully turned. Then the tossed stub blooms orange on the dark slope, and "Something tight in the air between them loosened." The shadows that sprawled county-wide at p. 88 are now climbing back up the incline toward their owners as the dusk-line rises.
Written only from this scene and earlier pages. Safe to read before you start.