The Crying of Lot 49

After noticing that her script for The Courier's Tragedy differs from the version she saw performed, Oedipa returns to Berkeley. The written copy contains no reference to Tristero, though this may be due to errors in the printing process. Nevertheless, Oedipa wants to talk to a literature professor. Emory Bortz lectures at Berkeley and authored the foreword to the anthology of plays in which Oedipa noticed the "corrupt and probably spurious lines" (77). She hopes Bortz can explain why there are seemingly four versions of the play. However, Bortz is not in Berkeley, as he recently moved to a college in San Narciso. Before following Bortz to San Narciso, Oedipa visits John Nefastis. She talks to him about Stanley Koteks and is asked to be tested to determine whether she is a sensitive and therefore able to operate the Nefastis Machine.

Nefastis talks about entropy, which is essential to the way his machine works. Entropy is the connection between the flow of information and thermodynamics, both of which were used by Maxwell's Demon. Nefastis leaves Oedipa in a room with a version of Maxwell's Demon. He wants to see whether she can use it. Oedipa is challenged to use her brain power to operate the Demon to sort molecules. Oedipa fails. She is not a “sensitive.” When Nefastis returns, he is not concerned. He offers to "have sexual intercourse" (81) with Oedipa, who then runs out of the house.

Oedipa now sees the Tristero as her personal version of Maxwell's Demon. To her, Tristero is holding together all the information in her mind. The Tristero is the nexus of all of her curiosities and conspiracies, the focal point that ties together all her obsessions. These obsessions include the muted post horn, the Thurn and Taxis system, the prevalence of the post-horn watermark, the killers of Indigenous Americans, and the Pony Express. She walks around as she thinks, heading nowhere in particular and beginning to "drift" (82). Unthinkingly, Oedipa is ushered inside a gay bar named the Greek Way. Inside, she sees a man with the post-horn symbol on a button on his coat. He refuses to say anything about Tristero, even as Oedipa reveals everything she uncovered.

Instead, the man mentions the name Kirby. Oedipa remembers seeing the name Kirby scrawled beneath the post-horn symbol in the bathroom stall of the Scope. Kirby, the man says, is a code word. Explaining further, he tells Oedipa the post-horn button on his coat indicates that he is a member of Inamorati Anonymous. Inamorati Anonymous is a support group for people who have an addiction to falling in love, only to be hurt over and over again. He claims this is "the worst addiction of all" (85). The man explains the history of the group. Oedipa is surprised the muted post horn could be the symbol for two very different organizations.

Outside, Oedipa walks around the city. Her imagination begins to blur with reality as she sees strange symbols on the walls. In a possible dream, she reaches Golden Gate Park. A "circle of children in their nightclothes" (89) forms in the park each night, the children exploring their dreams so much that they feel exhausted the next day. The children speak to Oedipa about the post-horn symbols. They draw the symbols on the sidewalk when they play hopscotch, singing a rhyme that contains the words "Tristoe" and turning taxis.

Oedipa visits a late-night diner where she meets one of Pierce's old friends. Jesus Arrabel and Oedipa met briefly during a visit to Mexico; they are connected via Pierce, which makes Oedipa think of Pierce as another Maxwell Demon that links together disparate forces. After, she rides the bus around the city and sees the acronym D.E.A.T.H. written on the walls. The acronym stands for "DON'T EVER ANTAGONIZE THE HORN" (92). The post-horn symbol is also visible in a laundromat and an airport bathroom. In the airport, a woman tells her son to write a letter during his time away. She tells him to send the letter via W.A.S.T.E. so the government will not read it. The blurring between dreams and reality deepens. Oedipa sees the post-horn symbol everywhere. As dawn approaches, she meets an elderly man in a rooming house in the Embarcadero. He hands a letter to Oedipa and instructs her to deliver it to a group known as the horn people.

They can be found "under the freeway" (95), and he gives her directions. He would deliver the letter himself, he claims, but he is too frail. Oedipa is concerned the old man is unwell. She helps him return to his room. Inside, an even older man lives with him. Leaving money for alcohol, Oedipa voices her concerns that the man who handed her the letter might die as he develops psychosis.

Outside, Oedipa follows the directions to the freeway. A garbage can "with a swinging trapezoidal top" (98) resembles part of the muted post horn. The acronym W.A.S.T.E. is written on the can. Finding a place to hide, Oedipa sees a youngster approach and place a letter in the garbage can. Oedipa does the same, then returns to her hiding place. Eventually, a man arrives and collects the letters from the garbage can. Oedipa follows the man, who meets another mail carrier and then takes a bus that is heading to Oakland. Oedipa follows the carrier around Oakland and then as he takes another bus to Berkeley. As Oedipa follows him, she realizes they are going to John Nefastis's house. After he visits Nefastis's house, Oedipa stops following the carrier.

She returns to her hotel, where she discovers that a convention is taking place for deaf-mute people. A "handsome young man in a Harris tweed coat" (100) grabs Oedipa and leads her in a dance. All around her, the deaf-mute convention-goers assemble in pairs and start to dance even though there is no music. Oedipa dances for half an hour without hitting anyone or even falling out of step with her fellow dancers. She cannot understand how they can all dance in time without music and wonders if this is another conspiracy. She dismisses this thought, choosing to believe they follow an unseen conductor.

Oedipa returns to Kinneret to see Mucho. She also wants to see her psychiatrist, Dr. Hilarius. She wants him to assure her that everything she saw was merely a dream, including everything she learned about the Tristero conspiracy. When she reaches the doctor's house, however, someone fires a gun at her. She runs inside, ushered through the door by Helga Blumm, Hilarius's nurse. She claims Dr. Hilarius has "gone crazy" (101). He is currently locked inside his office, armed with a rifle. He fired at Oedipa, and he is firing at anyone he sees, convinced that terrorists or fanatics with machine guns are coming for him.

Oedipa speaks through the office door. Hilarius describes how has lost his faith in Freudian psychology. He also makes anti-Semitic comments about "that cantankerous Jew" (102) Freud. The police arrive, and Oedipa fails to convince Dr. Hilarius not to shoot at them. He aims his rifle at the officers, convinced they were sent by Sigmund Freud himself. Hilarius wants the agents of Freud to die and loudly declares he did not take LSD. The police enter the house. Hilarius brings Oedipa into his office. Inside, he tells her about his special facial expression. When he makes this particular face, he says, he can destroy people's minds.

He developed this technique at the Buchenwald concentration camp, he says, when he worked for the Nazis during World War II. At Buchenwald, he also worked on a series of drugs that caused "experimentally-induced insanity" (105). Now, Hilarius is convinced Israeli secret agents were sent to kill him for his past crimes. He is horrified to admit he once believed in theories developed by a Jewish man like Sigmund Freud. As Hilarius talks, he lays down his rifle. Oedipa picks up the gun and turns it on the psychiatrist. Hilarius accuses Oedipa of being sent to kill him. As she tries to assure him he is hallucinating, he tells her fantasies are what separate humans from other species. Fantasies should be cherished, he says. Oedipa shouts out for the police officers to knock down the door.

As the police break into the room and arrest Hilarius, Oedipa sees a group of news crews gathered outside. One of the news vans belongs to the KCUF station, which is where Mucho works. Oedipa goes outside and tells Mucho what happened; this is then broadcast live on the radio. Mucho and Oedipa return to the radio station to talk. Mucho explains how he is recently able to carry out "spectrum analysis, in [his] head" (109). His colleagues are concerned about him. As they talk, Oedipa realizes her husband took LSD. He began taking the drug regularly and talks about how LSD helps him with a recurring nightmare "about the car lot" (110). Oedipa leaves Mucho and returns to San Narciso. She can no longer feel as though she knows Mucho, even though he is her husband.