Pemulis catches Avril and John Wayne — the leverage

pivotal · 9 Nov YDAU, late P.M.

• When: late P.M., Monday 9 Nov YDAU (Pemulis-POV)
• What: Prowling the darkened Comm.-Ad. building after hours in a deliberately insolent get-up, Pemulis walks in on Avril Incandenza and 18-A John Wayne in her doorless office in a compromising cheerleader/football tableau — Wayne in helmet, shoulderpads and jockstrap in a three-point stance; Avril in a green-and-white cheerleader's outfit doing near-splits with a pellet-less whistle. Pemulis makes "rather a show of not looking south of her face" and coolly announces he wants "a second of your time." This sighting is the leverage he will cash the next day to escape on-spot urinalysis (event 18) — and the leaflet he later floats ("how 17 can actually go into 56," a joint John Wayne/Dr. Avril Incandenza arithmetic presentation) turns the same knowledge into public needling (n324/n332). [This cements Pemulis as the character who knows E.T.A.'s hidden machinery and trades in leverage.] (Cross-ref: the same tableau and its blackmail are carried from Avril's side in her chronology, event 24, with the full Wayne-attestation lattice there.)