Samizdat and Separatism: Steeply's questions, JOI's name, and the Entertainment (the mailer crux)

pivotal · 3–7 Nov YDAU

• When: 3–7 Nov YDAU (the co-pondering phone calls; the samizdat question is 7 Nov, n110)
• What: Fed questions by "Helen," Orin badgers Hal by phone over Québecois anti-O.N.A.N. Separatism and — the tell — the word "samizdat," "in connection" with which "The Mad Stork's name would come up." Hal, suspicious, presses: "Whom do you think this is really about? Can you be that sick that you can't even admit it over the fucking phone?" This is the closest the book brings Orin to the mailer question: he is the auteur's estranged relative-with-access whom the agent Steeply is cultivating, being drawn to think about JOI's lethal cartridge and its dissemination. (Elsewhere in the hunt — scene 145 — the A.F.R. reason that DuPlessis "received his original copies from this relative, an athlete," i.e. Orin.) Whether Orin actually mailed the Entertainment to JOI's enemies is left open; record the evidence, resolve nothing.