back to IVing IV: "What", Doc wondered aloud, "the fuck, is going on here?"

[alice wellintown]

>Mark Kohut wrote:
> p. 283 Doc's  'first thought' was for Penny's safety after looking at this
> folder. Doc is presented as a tender-hearted type---outside of a one-on-one with some Badasses--once again. P shows us steady thoughts of others, especially his women "friends".

Again, I'm reading a very different Larry. The text doesn't say his
first thought was FOR her safety. He understands that she might have
put herself in grave danger by treating the file as any other sealed
ancient history file when it is in fact a very special file; it's a
file that people she works with and people she works for, as well as
other dangerous people, don't want her reading or slipping to people
like Larry. Now, Larry only realizes the super grave nature of this
file after he starts reading it, but he knew that it was no typical
sealed ancient history file. He knew she was putting herself at risk.
He only now realizes how much risk. Penny, it seems has no clue. Not a
fair trade. He traded a wall paper penny stock for a bundle of blue
chips. As they say, it's another day and every dog will have one. This
one belongs to Larry. But let's not confuse one good trade with a
positive year. Penny is not his friend. No definition of friendship
allows that one can shop one's friends or put them in serious harm to
satisfy one's curiosity or get a job done or keep one. No, put it in
quotes, but it ain't even close to a friend. An enemy is more like it.
And Larry is a coward. What Penny did is fairly low on the courage
scale because she didn't know the danger she was in. If she knew how
dangerous that file was when she took it and gave it to Larry, we
might call her fairly courageous, but not a hero because she didn't
take that risk for her friends or brothers and sisters, but in
exchange for information. What Larry did is cowardice. He downplayed
the risk and sent her in harms way to satisfy his own needs and
desires.