Exterminator.
Mm-hmm.
You want I should spit right in your face?
You want, hmm? You want? You want?
I ran out.
You ran out? Oh, that's nice.
You ran out. It's impossible you run out.!
What'd you do, eat the stuff?.
The Chink shortchanged me.
No "glot." Come "Fliday."
It's funny. It's actual very funny what you just said.
Ran out.
They can either paint it, or draw it, or write it down and then pass it on to somebody.
They read what you're saying, and then they reexperience.
That's the only connection you have with that, man.
So you can't rewrite...
'cause to rewrite is to deceive and lie...
and you betray your own thoughts.
To rethink the flow and the rhythm and the tumbling out of the words...
is a betrayal.
And it's a sin, Martin. It's a sin.
I don't accept your, uh...
Catholic interpretation of my compulsive, uh...
necessity to rewrite every single word at least 100 times.
Guilt is -Thanks. Guilt is the key, not sin.
Guilt re not writing the best that I can.
Guilt re not, uh, considering everything from every possible angle.
Balancing everything.
Well, how about guilt re censoring your best thoughts?
Your most honest, primitive, real thoughts...
because that's what your laborious rewriting amounts to, Martin.
Is rewriting really censorship, Bill?
Because I'm completely fucked if it is.
Exterminate all rational thought.
That is the conclusion I have come to.
What is the man talking about? I'm being serious.
So is he.
So how is the extermination business going there, Bill?
Somebody's stealing my roach powder. Somebody's got it in for me.
Hmm. Well, Bill, maybe you should take it as a sign.
Maybe you ought to try your hand at writing pornography.
Yeah, a novel a week at 120 bucks. It's serious money.
I can connect you with the guy.
We're thinking of collaborating on one ourselves.
I gave up writing when I was 10.
- Too dangerous. - Only if someone reads what you write.
So far we haven't had that problem.
I've found my profession. I'm an exterminator.
Of course, Bill. That's just what the world needs- more literate exterminators.
Give me a cigarette.
Of course, then, you know...
you're gonna have trouble if you can't keep track of your roach powder.
Wait a minute. Do you boys know something about this?
We don't exactly know anything.
No, but we suspect it's a domestic problem.
- My God, what are you doing? - You weren't supposed to see this.
Well, now that I'm seeing it, what is it?
I'm shooting up your bug powder.
You might like to try it yourself.
Or you might not.
I ran out in the middle of a job.
You gotta stop using the stuff,Joan.
They ration it out like snakebite serum.
Well,just do what everybody else does -
cut it with baby laxative.
The roaches will shit themselves to death.
It's the best job I ever had.
If I run out again, I'm finished.
Hmm.
It's, um -
It's a very literary high.
Very literary.
Is that why Hank and Martin know all about it?
No, we just, uh -
We all just tried it together- spur of the moment thing.
They didn't like it, I did.
What do you mean, it's a literary high?
It's a Kafka high.
You feel like a bug.
Try some.
Well, I don't know.
I don't know.
- I think our metabolisms are very different. - Whose?
Yours and Kafka's?
I thought you were finished with doing weird stuff.
I thought I was, too, but I guess I'm not.
Personally...
I prefer a pyrethrum job to a fluoride.
With the pyrethrum...
you kill the roaches right there in front of God and the client...
whereas this starch and fluoride-
leave it around, the roaches eat it...
come back a few days later, they're running around fat as hogs.
And there it is, Bill. You want to put on some weight...
you gotta switch from that yellow powder diet of yours...
to some of this good fluoride stuff right here.
Sure works for the Chink. He's healthy enough.
You see him scarfthat poison down?
He doesn't really eat it.
It's sleight of hand.
The hell he doesn't. Been breathing in the powder so long, it just makes him laugh.
Just like them roaches.
William Lee.
- What is this? - He's ºÀË¹. I'm O'Brien.
City Narcotics. We're gonna take you downtown, Bill.
Little matter of possession of a dangerous substance.
You've got quite a record, Bill.
A lot of drugs poured down the old vein.
I was a troubled person then. I'm married now.
Straight. Got a good job.
That's good, Bill. That's nice.
- What's this, then? - That's my job.
I use it to kill bugs.
- He says it kills bugs. - He could be right.
- I'd like to see it. - Me, too.
- I'd like to see it, too. - Well, gee.
I'd like to demonstrate, but I already got rid of that last case of crabs I had.
Very funny, Bill.
But, you know...
I think we got a bug around here somewhere.
You're right.
Let's see if that yellow stuff will kill it.
We'll be back later to see how it worked out, kiddo.
Yeah.
Break a leg.
William Lee?
I have arranged all this just to have a moment alone with you.
I am your case officer.
- Uh, my what? - Case officer.
You are my agent.
I, in turn, report to your controller.
Come, come, Mr. Lee. You don't have to play dumb with me.
Oh. No. Well...
that would be foolish, wouldn't it?
It would. Say, Bill...
do you think you could rub some of this powder on my lips?
Uh, yeah.
Sure.
Well, now.
As you might have expected...
I have instructions for you from Control.
It's about the little woman.
- The what? - The little woman.
Your little woman.
- Your wife. - Tell me.
Your wife is not really your wife.
She is an agent of Interzone Incorporated.
You must kill her.
Kill Joan Lee.
It must be done soon- this week.
And it must be done real tasty.
Interzone Incorporated?
An organization based in Interzone...
a notorious free port on the North African coast.
A haven for the mongrel scum of the Earth...
an engorged parasite on the underbelly of the West.
Ah, I can't see it.
Why would a classy American woman like Joan...
ever want to work for a two-bit outfit like Interzone Incorporated?
But who says Joan Lee is really a woman?
In fact, who says she's human at all?
- What do you mean by that? - I can say no more.
Hey, where you going?
Don't do it. Don't do it. There'll be hell to pay.
We've been made. We gotta get out of town.
Wait a minute.
- What's going on? - I got busted for bug powder.
I started hallucinating behind the stuff.
God knows what I really said to those two flatfeet.
I'm not even sure how I got out of there.
Did you bring back tomorrow's bug powder?
Did you, Bill? Did you?
My God,Joan. You're acting like a full-fledged junkie.
And it's bug powder, for Christ's sake!
Oh.
I do have a little bit of a habit, yes, hon.
You ought to at least give me a few marks for originality.
How did you know it just wouldn't kill you?
I don't know, Bill.
I felt drawn to it.
You know?
Like you feel drawn... to an old lover.
Say, Bill...
could you rub some of this powder on my lips?
Could you, Bill?
Please?
Hey!
Bill.
Hey, where were you this morning?
We missed you at the Automat.
I, uh, got in a bit of a jam.
I misplaced the gear, in a manner of speaking.
Yeah. We heard about it.
We saw you go off with the heat, in fact.
They won't give it back to Cohen.
It's evidence, they say.
Yeah. It's an embarrassment, yes.
Is that why you tried to lift mine?
That's unkind, Edward.
"Lift" is unkind.
I'm doing a job for a friend.
The centipedes, Edward. The centipedes are getting downright arrogant.
They're starting to attack his children.
Take it from me, Bill.
You're not the first one to develop a bug powder problem.
See this man.
He'll help ya.
"Dr. A. Benway...
General Practitioner."
Bug powder?
- You mean, uh, pyrethrum? - Yes.
Hmm. I get a lot of you folks in the extermination trade.
You better help this friend of yours get off the yellow stuff.
- It'll kill him. - How do I get him to kick?
- Kick? - H-How do I get him off it?
Oh.
Mix it with this.
Gradually increase the percentage of black without telling your friend...
and he'll lose his taste for the bug powder soon enough.
What is it? What does it do?
Oh, it's all natural. It's made from, uh...
aquatic Brazilian centipede or some such outlandish thing.
It shuts down the brain's response to the bug powder. That's all.
The powder becomes irrelevant to the addict...
and the addict then ceases to be addicted.
Side effects?
Nothing that will surprise the addict.
But, uh, before I - before I do your cure...
I've gotta score some bug powder.
Score?
You're not trying to... pull a fast one on the old doctor, are you?
I came here for help.
Of course you did.
Phew!
My God.
It smells like a... tainted cheese.
You'll see how elegantly this works.
The black will disappear completely.
And there'll be no smell, no discoloration.
It's like an agent -
an agent who's come to believe his own cover story...
but who's in there, hiding...
in a larval state...
just waiting for the proper moment to hatch out.
Extra, extra.! Read all about it.!
Thirty-nine cents,just for today.! Special.
Thirty-nine cents. Fresh cabbage.
Centipedes.
"Followers of obsolete, unthinkable trades...
"doodling in Etruscan...
"addicts of drugs not yet synthesized...
"black marketeers of World War III...
"excisors of telepathic sensitivity...
"osteopaths of the spirit...
"investigators...
"of infractions denounced...
"by bland, paranoid chess players...
"servers of fragmentary warrants taken down...
"in hebephrenic shorthand...
"charging unspeakable mutilations of the spirit...
officials of unconstituted police states, broke -"
Hi, Bill.
Say, why don't you and I join them?
Hank and I were just bored. It wasn't serious.
I didn't take it seriously.
Where is Hank?
He got embarrassed and left.
Not before he came, I hope.
Hank's on junk. He doesn't come.
Not before you came, I hope.
I'm on bug powder. I don't need to come.
"Officials of unconstituted police states...
"brokers of exquisite dreams and nostalgias...
"tested on the sensitized cells of junk sickness...
"and bartered for raw materials of the will...
"drinkers of the Heavy Fluid...
sealed in translucent amber of dreams. '"
I guess it's about time for our William Tell routine.
Oh, God.
Joan.
Oh,Joan.
Are you a faggot?
Not by nature, no.
I'm not.
I wouldn't say... faggot.
No.
However, circumstances have forced me to consider the possibility that -
I'd like you to meet a friend of mine.
He specializes in sexual ambivalence.
Sexual ambulance, did you say?
My God.
He's called Mugwump.
No point in feigning surprise.
You knew we would be getting in touch with you.
Why else would you come to a waterfront dive like this?
Why else?
I suggest a Clark Nova portable.
It has mythic resonance.
Clark Nova. A typewriter? You suggest it for what?
For your report from Interzone, of course.
Handwriting is not considered professional.
Interzone.
My report.
And don't leave out any of the tasty details -
the small red hole in the forehead...
or...
the look of astonishment on her face.
Listen to me. You'rejust gonna have to leave town...
and Interzone is the only place...
that'll have a shady character like you at such short notice.
Take this.
Take what? What is that?
Your ticket to Interzone.
Tourist class, I'm afraid...
but what can you expect these days?
We'll contact you there.
Hmm. It's commie trash.
And it's been fired very recently.
You use it in a holdup?
I want that-that typewriter in the window. I want the portable.
This plus...
$8.00.
You got any ammo to go with it?
These'll cover the state tax.
- Bill. - Martin.
Listen, Bill, I told the police it was a drunken accident, that I saw it.
So at least that's on the record. They're after you though.
They're saying that - that you escaped from custody...
and murdered your wife, and-and they want you.
I'd better- I'd better lie low till my ship sails.
- You booked passage somewhere already? - Sure. Look.
Got my ticket.
Put this away, for God's sake, Bill.
- I'll send you a report. - You'll send me a report?
Well, I'll send you a copy of the report.
Are you gonna be all right?
I hear Interzone's really nice this time of year.
He woke up in bed...
to find himself wedged...
between a Dutch transvestite...
and six Arab men.
Clark Nova.
Very nice for writing reports.
I use a Krups Dominator myself.
Company policy.
You're American, correct?
You know Dr. Benway?
I am interested in selling...
a large stash of the black meat.
Verstehen Sie?
The sun-dried, powdered black meat...
of the giant aquatic Brazilian centipede.
And...
for some reason...
I am certain that you are working for Herr Dr. Benway.
I'm - I-I-I'm sorry.
I apparently mistook you for somebody else.
But as it happens, Mr. Lee, I am, among other things...
a provider of rare services to the arts...
and in my experience as a provider of rare services to the arts...
I have found that writers are a-a particularly needy group.
Is there nothing I can provide for you...
Mr. Lee?
A very professional...
operation...
as you can see, Mr. Lee.
You like a taste?
I'd be happy to join you in a taste, if you're planning to have one.
You can understand that if you were...
a purchasing agent for a foreign power...
how it would be to my advantage...
to impress you with the cleanliness...
and the sincerity...
of our operation.
- You, uh, mentioned a Dr. - - Benway.
- Benway. Correct.
Yes.
Does he qualify as a foreign power?
Oh, but yes! He's very foreign.
May I?
Yes.
Lee, wake up.
This is no time to doze off...
like a freckled-face boy on a fishing raft.
What's up?
Now, now, Bill. No need for that.
You didn't think we'd abandon you, did ya?
No, no. The thought never occurred to me.
Good. We like confidence in an agent.
But don't let it make you careless.
I was, uh -
I was just in the...
process of configuring my report.
That's good, Lee. Admirable.
But there have been some changes -
- Changes at the top. - Oh? Yeah?
Good changes, Bill. Fresh blood. Sparkling insights.
Uh, Bill, could you do me a favor?
What?
I want you to type a few words into me -
words that I'll dictate to ya.
Yeah.
Sure. What the hell.
Okay. Now, the first sentence is...
"Homosexuality is the best all-around cover an agent ever had."
Aw, come on, Bill.
Don't be such a pansy! Be forceful.
Hurt me.
I love it.
That is a great sentence.
These are words to live by, Bill.
I'm glad these words are going into your report.
Our new management will be so pleased...
that you see our point of view.
What -What point of view?
Well, uh,just that we appreciate...
that you might find the thought of engaging in, uh, homosexual acts...
morally and, uh, possibly even...
physically repulsive...
and, uh, we are encouraged...
that you are able to overcome these personal, uh, barriers...
to better serve the cause to which we are all so devoted.
You have left the Clark Nova at home?
It's doing all right without me.
And, uh...
you have contacted Dr. Benway?
I told you before I never met the man.
Bill, I can smell him on you.
Benway marks out all those whom he has met like a lemur...
pissing on a liana vine to mark his territory.
You're a marked man, Bill.
Joanie.
Joanie, shall we go?
Yes. Yes.
Hans. Hans, that couple.
Who are they?
They are Tom and Joan Frost.
Americans who have lived here a very long time.
They're both writers.
Writers of fiction, like you.
They live in a nice flat...
in the new building at the foot of the mountain.
They're visited constantly...
by many handsome, young Interzone men.
Sometimes...
two or three at a time.
Can you, uh, introduce me?
I do not think it would be to your advantage.
For some reason...
that woman has taken a serious dislike to me.
Kiki.
Come sit with us.
Kiki, this is Mr. Lee.
Hello.
Mr. Lee is curious about the Frost couple.
He would like to meet them.
I think the woman would have sex with you, Mr. Lee.
The man, he only likes Interzone boys.
I don't want to fuck 'em. I just want to talk to 'em.
You know how Americans are, Kiki.
They love to travel...
and then they only want to meet other Americans...
and talk about how hard it is to get a decent hamburger.
There's a party tonight at the O'Leary place.
Frost will be meeting a group of us here...
and then walking through the casbah.
My friends and I would be happy to take you with us.
You're the new writer, aren't you? You've just arrived.
A few days ago. I write, uh, reports.
Oh? Uh, and did you come to Interzone for the boys?
- No, I didn't. - Tom and I did.
That's quite a hot threesome you arrived with.
They're very cheap, and they're really a lot of fun.
Yoo-hoo!
You use a Clark Nova, don't you?
To write with. Typewriter.
Oh, I do. Yes.
I wouldn't use a Clark Nova myself.
- Too demanding. - Demanding?
Oh, come on. We're both writers. We know what we're talking about.
Well, I'm new to this game, to tell you the truth.
If I get blocked again, I'll let you try my Martinelli.
Her inventiveness will surprise you.
I can't wait.
They say you murdered your wife.
- Is that true? - Who told you that?
Word gets around.
It wasn't murder. It was an accident.
There are no accidents.
For example...
I've been killing my own wife slowly, over a period of years.
- What? - Well, not intentionally.
I mean, on the level of conscious intention, it's insane, monstrous.
But you do consciously know it. You just said it. We're discussing it.
Not consciously.
This is all happening... telepathically.
- Nonconsciously. - What do you mean?
If you look carefully at my lips...
you'll realize that I'm actually saying something else.
I'm not actually telling you about the several ways...
I'm gradually murdering Joan -
about the housekeeper Fadela, whom I've hired...
to makeJoan deathly ill by witchcraft...
about the medicines and drugs I've given her...
about the constant nibbling away at her self-esteem and sanity...
that I've managed without being at all obvious about it.
Whereas Joanie finds that she simply...
cannot be as obsessively precise as she wants to be...
unless she writes everything in longhand.
Look, uh, I'm afraid, um...
I'm not gonna be very good company tonight.
Thanks for the invite anyway. I think I'll - I'll have to take a rain check.
Oh.
Enjoying the beach?
I would never have expected to see you up and out so early.
You certainly were in rough shape at the O'Leary party last night.
Was I?
You were very raw - emotionally, I mean.
You seemed to be in a lot of pain.
Pain.
I don't remember... pain.
And, in fact, I don't remember the O'Leary party.
In fact, I don't remember you.
Well, it was a very intense performance in any case.
My name's Cloquet.
Yves Cloquet.
Can I buy you breakfast?
I've seen you around, but I had no idea you were queer.
Queer.
I saw you arrive with those three Interzone boys.
What an entrance.
You all looked very...
familiar with each other.
Queer.
A curse. Been in our family for generations.
The Lees have always been perverts.
I shall never forget the unspeakable horror...
that froze the lymph in my glands...
when the baneful word seared my reeling brain -
I...
was a homosexual.
I thought of the painted, simpering female impersonators...
I had seen in a Baltimore nightclub.
Could it be possible I was one of those subhuman things?
I walked the streets in a daze...
like a man with a light concussion.
I would have destroyed myself-
But a wise old queen-
Bobo, we called her-
taught me that I had a duty...
to live and to bear my burden proudly for all to see.
Poor Bobo came to a sticky end.
He was riding in the Duc de Ventre's Hispano-Suiza...
when his falling hemorrhoids blew out of the car...
and wrapped around the rear wheel.
He was completely gutted, leaving an empty shell...
sitting there on the giraffe-skin upholstery.
Even the eyes and the brain went...
with a horrible "schlupping" sound.
The duke says he will carry that ghastly schlup with him to his mausoleum.
You sound as if you could use a drink. My place?
A drink.
A drink?
No.
No, I can't. I gotta go home.
I have a - I have a -
I have a report to write. Excuse me.
Hmm.
You made a big hit with our young friend Yves.
- Yves? - Cloquet.
Yves said you were wonderfully funny.
Said you did a little routine that made him... chuckle to himself all day.
Yes, you-you could, um -
You could probably get him into bed if you worked at it a bit.
Deadly aphrodisiac, humor.
I'm not, uh -
I don't really-
Have you seen Hans around?
Oh, you mean you haven't heard?
No. I haven't heard.
Hans was arrested and deported two weeks ago.
- Deported. - Mm-hmm.
They let him take his clothes and his passport.
That was it. Everything else - nationalized, as they say.
Why?
He neglected to pay the right officials, I think.
You knew he ran a drug factory in the medina?
What, um -
What drug did he manufacture?
Nothing too exotic.
Majoun, I think. It's a local hash resin-almond paste.
You'd spread it on a muffin likejam.
Try it.
While you're at it, why don't you try my Martinelli?
Take her now.
Try her out.
Holy shit. That machine doesn't belong to me. It's Tom Frost's.
My God, Lee...
Surely you know better than to bring an enemy agent into your own home.
You gave me no choice. You were giving her access to your innermost vulnerabilities...
forcing them on her, for God's sake!
But what am I gonna tell him?
What's your assessment of the situation?
Did Frost know that his machine was an Interzonal agent?
He, uh - He and his wife appear to have a close connection...
with the indigenous population here.
His wife. Yeah, yeah!
Of course! The key is Joan Frost.
You will seduce her, and you will discover the substance of her report...
and deliver it directly to me.
Seduce her? But what about -
What about Kiki and the Interzone boys? My cover.
It'll work beautifully, Bill. The opposition will be thrown into total confusion.