“Greetings, gate, need an opiate?” Tiny red eyes in a vast pink Jell-o of a face, and an avaricious smile. It is Albert Krypton, corpsman striker of the U.S.S. John E. Badass, who now produces from inside a secret jumper pocket a glass vial full of white tablets. “Codeine, Jackson, it’s beautiful—here.”

Bodine sneezes violently and wipes the snot away with his sleeve. “Not for any fucking cold, Krypton. Thanks. You seen Avery?”

“He’s in great shape. He was getting in some last-minute practice down the goat hole when I came over.”

“Listen, old buddy,” begins the enterprising tar. This decrypts into 3 ounces of cocaine. Bodine comes up with a few squashed notes. “Midnight, if you can. Told him I’d see him out at Putzi’s after the fight.”

“Solid. Hey, you checked under the barracks lately?” Seems the CBI returnees get together to play marbles with opium balls. You can pick up hundreds if you’re any good. Corpsman Krypton pockets his money and leaves Bodine flexing his thumb and thinking about it, moves on copping feels, pausing to drink from a shell case of grain alcohol and grapefruit juice, whilst dealing the odd tablet of codeine. He has a brief paranoid episode as two red-hatted MPs show up, stroking their billy clubs and giving him, he fancies, pregnant looks. He slides into the night, peeling away, banking through dark sky. He is coming on to a proprietary mixture known as the Krypton Blue, and so it is a giddy passage to the dispensary, not without moments of deep inattention.

Inside, his connection, Pharmacist Birdbury, is conducting the last act of La Forza del Destino crackling in from Radio Luxembourg, and singing along. His mouth snaps shut as Krypton comes taxiing in. With him is what appears to be a gigantic, multicolored pig, the plush nap of its coat reversed here and there, which widens the possible range of colors. “Micrograms,” Krypton striking his head dramatically, “that’s right, micrograms, not milligrams. Birdbury, gimme something, I’ve OD’d.”

“Ssh.” The dispenser’s high forehead wrinkling in and out of operatical cross-furrows. Krypton goes back in among the shelves, and watches the lighted room through a bottle of paregoric till the opera’s over. Comes back in time to hear the pig asking, “Well where else would he head for?”

“I got it third-hand,” Birdbury laying down the hypodermic he’s been using as a baton. “Ask Krypton here, he gets around a bit.”

“Greetings, gate,” sez Albert, “let’s inoculate.”

“I hear Springer is supposed to be coming in tonight.”

“First I’ve heard. But go on out to Putzi’s, why don’t you. That’s where all that sort of thing goes on.”

The pig looks up at a clock on the wall. “Got a funny schedule tonight, is all.”

“Look here, Krypton, there’s a bigwig from SPOG due in here any moment, so whatever it was, you know… .” They haggle over the three ounces of cocaine, the pig politely withdrawing to leaf through an old News of the World. Presently, taping the last of the crystal-stuffed bottles to his bare leg, Krypton invites everyone to the runcible spoon fight. “Bodine’s holding some big money, folks in from all over the Zone—”