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week.”
    â€œDan Smirnoff says you’re working together now.”
    Some beer found its way into my sinuses. I had to give it to Rebecca: she knew her shit.
    Smirnoff was the whole reason for this conversation. All this crap about Pleshy and tank cars was just to get me loosened up. And when I went into my PATEOTS rap, she knew I was ready to be goosed in the ‘nads. How many times had I given her my patented PATEOTS rap? Two or three at least. I like a good story. I like to tell it many times. By now she knew: talk to S.T. about eyedroppers and tank cars and he’ll fly off the handle. Once I got flying on any toxic theme, she could slip in one tough question while my guard was down, watch my hairy and highly expressive face for a reaction, and glimpse the truth. Or find a basis for all her darkest suspicions.
    â€œSmirnoff’s one of these people I have to have contact with. Like a prison guard has to have contact with a certain number of child molesters.”
    â€œYou’d put him in that category?”
    â€œNo, he’s not crafty enough. He’s just pissed off and very full of himself.”
    â€œSounds familiar.”
    â€œYeah, but I have a reason to be arrogant. He doesn’t.”
    â€œPatti Bowen at NEST says …”
    â€œDon’t tell me. Smirnoff went to her and said, ‘Hey, I’m putting a group together, a direct-action group, more hard-hitting than GEE, and Sangamon Taylor is working with me.”
    â€œThat’s what Patti Bowen said.”
    â€œYeah, well Smirnoff got ahold of me the other day—you understand, I just hung up on the bastard, because I don’t want the FBI to even imagine him and me on the same line—so he tracked me down in the food co-op when I was cutting fish. And he said, ‘Patti Bowen and me are working together on a hard-hitting direct-action group, nudge nudge wink wink.’ So I waved my boning knife at him and said, ’Listen, pusswad,
you
are toxic, and if you ever call me, ever callGEE, ever come within ten feet of me again, I’ll take this and gut you like a tuna.’ Haven’t heard from him since.”
    â€œIs that your position? That he’s a terrorist?”
    â€œYeah.”
    Rebecca started writing that down, so I added slowly and distinctly, “And we’re not.”
    â€œSo he’s the same as Hank Boone, in your opinion.”
    I had to squirm. “Morally, yes. But no one’s really like Boone.”
    Boone had this thing about whaling ships. He liked to sink them. He was a founder of GEE and hero of the Soviet invasion, but he’d been kicked out seven years ago. Off the coast of South Africa he had filled a Zodiac full of C-4, lit the fuse, pointed it at a pirate whaler, and jumped off at the last minute. The whaler went to the bottom and he went to hide out in some weepy European social democracy. But he kept dropping out of sight and whaling ships kept digging craters on the floors of the seven seas.
    â€œBoone’s effective. Smirnoff is just pathetic.”
    â€œYou admire Boone.”
    â€œYou know I can’t say that. I sincerely don’t like violence. Honest to God.”
    â€œThat’s why you threatened Smirnoff with a knife.”
    â€œSecond-degree. It’s premeditated violence I can’t stand. Look. Boone isn’t even necessary. The corporations have already planted their own bombs. All we have to do is light the fuses.”
    Rebecca sat back with those green eyes narrowed to slits, and I knew some sort of profound observation was coming down the pipeline. “I didn’t think you were scared of anything, but Smirnoff scares you, doesn’t he?”
    â€œSure. Look, GEE rarely does illegal things and we
never
do violent things. The worst we do is a little property damage now and then—and only to prevent worse things. But even so, we’re bugged and tapped and tailed. The FBI thinks I’m