The crying of lot 49 Read Online Free PDF

whoosh and the buzzing, distorted uproar from the TV set. She could imagine no end to it; yet presently the can did give up in mid-flight and fall to the floor, about a foot from Oedipa's nose. She lay watching it.
"Blimey," somebody remarked. "Coo." Oedipa took her teeth out of Metzger, looked around and saw in the doorway Miles, the kid with the bangs and mohair suit, now multiplied by four. It seemed to be the group he'd mentioned, the Paranoids. She couldn't tell them apart, three of them were carrying electric guitars, they all had their mouth open. There also appeared a number of girls' faces, gazing through armpits and around angles of knees. "That's kinky," said one of the girls.
"Are you from London?" another wanted to know: "Is that a London thing you're doing?" Hair spray hung like fog, glass twinkled all over the floor. "Lord love a duck," summarized a boy holding a passkey, and Oedipa decided this was Miles. Deferent, he began to narrate for their entertainment a surfer orgy he had been to the week before, involving a five-gallon can of kidney suet, a small automobile with a sun roof, and a trained seal.
"I'm sure this pales by comparison," said Oedipa, who'd succeeded in rolling over, "so why don't you all just, you know, go outside. And sing. None of this works without mood music. Serenade us."
"Maybe later," invited one of the other Paranoids shyly, "you could join us in the pool."
    "Depends how hot it gets in here, gang," winked jolly Oedipa. The kids filed out, after plugging extension cords into all available outlets in the other room and leading them in a bundle out a window.
    Metzger helped her stagger to her feet. "Anyone for Strip Botticelli?" In the other room the TV was
blaring a commercial for a Turkish bath in downtown San Narciso, wherever downtown was, called Hogan's Seraglio. "Inverarity owned that too," Metzger said. "Did you know that?"
"Sadist," Oedipa yelled, "say it once more, I'll wrap the TV tube around your head,"
"You're really mad," he smiled.
She wasn't, really. She said, "What the hell didn't he own?"
Metzger cocked an eyebrow at her. "You tell me."
If she was going to she got no chance, for outside, all in a shuddering deluge of thick guitar chords, the Paranoids had broken into song. Their drummer had set up precariously on the diving board, the others were invisible. Metzger came up behind her with some idea of cupping his hands around her breasts, but couldn't immediately find them because of all the clothes. They stood at the window and heard the Paranoids singing.
serenade
As I lie and watch the moon On the lonely sea, Watch it tug the lonely tide Like a comforter over me, The still and faceless moon Fills the beach tonight With only a ghost of day, All shadow gray, and moonbeam white. And you lie alone tonight, As alone as I;
Lonely girl in your lonely flat, well, that's where it's at, So hush your lonely cry.
How can I come to you, put out the moon, send back the tide?
The night has gone so gray, I'd lose the way, and it's
dark inside. No, I must lie alone, Till it comes for me; Till it takes the sky, the sand, the moon, and the
lonely sea. And the lonely sea . . . etc.        [fade out.]
"Now then," Oedipa shivered brightly.
"First question," Metzger reminded her. From the TV set the St Bernard was barking. Oedipa looked and saw Baby Igor, disguised as a Turkish beggar lad, skulking with the dog around a set she took to be Constantinople.
"Another early reel," she said hopefully.
"I can't allow that question," Metzger said. On the doorsill the Paranoids, as we leave milk to propitiate the leprechaun, had set a fifth of Jack Daniels.
"Oboy," said Oedipa. She poured a drink. "Did Baby Igor get to Constantinople in the good submarine 'Justine'?"
"No," said Metzger. Oedipa took off an earring. "Did he get there in, what did you call them, in an E Class submarine."
"No," said Metzger. Oedipa took off another earring.
"Did he get there overland, maybe through Asia