Yossarian felt the need to take a stand. "Mr. Gaffney," he said "how soon can I see you? I'm afraid I insist."

There was a moment of chortling, a systematic bubbling suffused with overtones of self-satisfaction. "You already have seen me, Mr. Yossarian, and you didn't notice, did you?"

"Where?"

"At the bus terminal, when you went below with Mr. McBride. You looked right at me. I was wearing a fawn-colored single-breasted herringbone woolen jacket with a thin purple cross-pat tern, brown trousers, a light-blue Swiss chambray shirt of finest Egyptian cotton, and a complementing tie of solid rust, with matching socks. I have a smooth tan complexion and am bald on top, with black hair trimmed very close at the sides and very dark brows and eyes. I have noble temples and fine cheekbones. You didn't recognize me, did you?"

"How could I, Mr. Gaffney? I'd never seen you before."

The quiet laughter returned. "Yes, you did, Mr. Yossarian, more than once. Outside the hotel restaurant after you stopped in there that day with Mr. and Mrs. Beach following the ACA-CAMMA meeting at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. In front of the Frank Campbell Funeral Home across the street. Do you remember the red-haired man with a walking stick and green rucksack on his back who was with the uniformed guard at the entrance?"

"You were the redheaded man with the rucksack?"

"I was the uniformed guard."

"You were in disguise?"

"I'm in disguise now."

"I'm not sure I get that one, Mr. Gaffney."

"Perhaps it's a joke, Mr. Yossarian. It's told very widely in my profession. Maybe my next sally will be better. And I really believe you ought to call your nurse. She's back on the day shift and free for dinner tonight. She can bring that friend."

"Her roommate?"

"No, not Miss Moorecock."

"Her name is Miss Moore." Yossarian reproved him coldly.

"You call her Miss Moorecock."

"You will call her Miss Moore, if you wish to keep working for me. Mr. Gaffney, keep out of my private life."

"No life is private anymore, I'm sad to say."

"Mr. Gaffney, when do we meet?" Yossarian demanded. "I want to look you in the eye and see who the hell I'm dealing with. I'm not easy with you, Mr. Gaffney."

"I'm sure that will change."

"I'm not sure it will. I don't think I like you."

"That will change also, after we talk in Chicago."

" Chicago?"

"When we meet in the airport and you see that I'm trustworthy, loyal, helpful, courteous, and kind. Better?"

"No. I'm not going to Chicago."

"I believe you will be, Mr. Yossarian. You could make reservations now."

"What will I be doing in Chicago?"

"Changing planes."

"For where?"

"To come back, Mr. Yossarian. From Kenosha, Wisconsin, after your visit to Mrs. Tappman. Probably, you will want to continue to Washington directly for your meetings with Mr. Minderbinder and Mr. Wintergreen, and perhaps Noodles Cook too."

Yossarian sighed. "You know all that about me now?"

"I hear things in my work, Mr. Yossarian."

"Who else do you work for when you hear things about me?"

"For whoever will pay me, Mr. Yossarian. I don't discriminate. We have laws now against discrimination. And I don't play favorites. I'm always objective and don't make distinctions. Distinctions are odious. And invidious too."

"Mr. Gaffney, I haven't paid you yet. You haven't sent me a bill or discussed the fees."

"Your credit is good, Mr. Yossarian, if the credit rating companies can be believed, and you can get that mortgage anytime you want. There are excellent lakefront properties available now in New York, Connecticut, and New Jersey, and good seashore values too in Santa Barbara, San Diego, and Long Island. I can help you with the mortgage forms, if you like, as well as with your DNA. This is a good time for a mortgage and a very good time to buy."

"I don't want a mortgage and I don't want to buy. And who was that friend you mentioned before?"

"Of your nurse?"

"'I have no nurse, damn it. I'm in excellent health, if you're still keeping track, and by now she's a friend. Melissa."

"Nurse MacIntosh," Mr. Gaffney disagreed formally. "I am reading from the records, Mr. Yossarian, and the records never lie. They may be mistaken or out-of-date, but they never lie. They are inanimate, Mr. Y."

"Don't dare call me that!"

"They are not able to lie, and they are always official and authoritative, even when they are in error and contradict each other. Her friend is the nurse in the postoperative surgical recovery room you expressed a desire to meet. Her given name is Wilma but people are prone to call her angel, or honey, particularly patients as they emerge from anesthesia after surgery, and two or three physicians there, who now and then entertain ambitions of, as they put it, not I, getting into her pants. That may be a medical term. You may be joined by Miss Moore."

"Miss Moore?" Yossarian, with senses awhirl, was finding (t still harder to keep up. "Who the hell is Miss Moore?"

"You call her Moorecock," reminded Gaffney, in a dropped tone of admonition. "Forgive me for inquiring, Mr. Yossarian. But our listeners have not picked up sounds of sexual activity in your apartment in some time. Are you all right?"

"I've been doing it on the floor, Mr. Gaffney," answered Yossarian steadily, "below the air conditioner, as you advised me to, and in the bathtub with the water running."

"I'm relieved. I was concerned. And you really should call Miss MacIntosh now. Her telephone is free at this moment. She has troubling news about the Belgian's blood chemistry, but she seems eager to see you. I would predict that despite the differences in your respective ages-"

"Mr. Gaffney?"

"Forgive me. And Michael is just about finishing up and making ready to return, and you might forget."

"You see that too?"

"I see things too, Mr. Yossarian. That's also essential to my work. He's putting on his jacket and will soon be back with his first sketches of this new Milo Minderbinder wing. You'll permit Señor Gaffney that little wisecrack? I thought you might find it funnier than my first one."

"I'm grateful, Jerry," said Yossarian, with no doubt left that he was finding Mr. Gaffney a jumbo pain in the ass. He kept to himself his temper of hostile sarcasm.

"Thank you amp; John. I'm pleased we are friends now. You'll phone Nurse MacIntosh?"

"No fancy lingerie yet?" Melissa taunted when he did. "No Paris, or Florence?"

"Use your own for tonight," Yossarian bantered back. "We ought to keep seeing how we get along before we take off on a trip. And bring your roommate, if she wants to come."

"You can call her Angela," Melissa told him tartly. "I know what you did with her. She told me all about you."

"That's too bad, I think," Yossarian said, taken somewhat aback. With these two, he saw, he must keep on his mettle. "For that matter," he charged, "she told me all about you. It must be a nightmare. You could enter a convent. Your antiseptic terrors are almost unbelievable."

"I don't care," Melissa said with a hint of fanatical resolution. "I work in a hospital and I see sick people. I'm not going to take chances anymore with herpes or AIDS or even chlamydia, or vaginitis or strep throat or any of those other things you men like to pass around. I know about diseases."

"Do what you want. But bring that other friend of yours. The one that works in the surgical recovery room. I might as well start getting friendly with her now."

"Wilma?"

"They call her angel, don't they, and honey?"

"Only when they're recovering."

"Then I will too. I want to look ahead."