CoL49 group reading ch4: the quotable Fallopian

[Michael Bailey]

“I’ve had hints,” he told her, “sure. I wrote to Sacramento about that
historical marker, and they’ve been kicking it around their bureaucratic
morass for months. Someday they’ll come back with a source book for me to
read.

“It will say, ‘Old-timers remember the yarn about,’ whatever happened.
Old-timers. Real good documentation, this Californiana crap. Odds are the
author will be dead. There’s no way to trace it, unless you want to follow
up an accidental correlation, like you got from the old man.” “You think
it’s really a correlation?” She thought of how tenuous it was, like a long
white hair, over a century long. Two very old men. All these fatigued brain
cells between herself and the truth. “Marauders, nameless, faceless,
dressed in black. Probably hired by the Federal government. Those
suppressions were brutal.” “Couldn’t it have been a rival carrier?”
Fallopian shrugged. Oedipa showed him the WASTE symbol, and he shrugged
again.

“It was in the ladies’ room, right here in The Scope, Mike.” “Women,” he
only said. “Who can tell what goes on with them?”


Such dismissiveness!