Page 327 of Edge of Eternity (The Century 3)

"I love you and I want to marry you, but I like Walli too, and I like going to bed with him, and love is free, isn't it? So why lie about it?"

"That's it?" said Dave incredulously. "That's your explanation?"

Walli said: "Take it easy, man, I think I'm still tripping a little."

"You two took acid last night--is that how this happened?" Dave felt a glimmer of hope. If they had only done it once . . .

"She loves you, man. She just passes the time with me, while you're away, you know?"

Dave's hope was dashed. This was not the only time. It was a regular thing.

Walli stood up and pulled on a pair of jeans. "My feet grew bigger in the night," he said. "Weird."

Dave ignored the druggy talk. "You haven't even said you're sorry--either of you!"

"We're not sorry," said Walli. "We felt like screwing, so we did. It doesn't change anything. No one is faithful anymore. All you need is love--didn't you understand that song?" He stared at Dave intently. "Did you know you have an aura? Kind of like a halo. I never noticed that before. It's blue, I think."

Dave had taken LSD himself, and he knew there was little prospect of getting any sense out of Walli in this state. He turned to Beep, who seemed to be coming down from the high. "Are you sorry?"

"I don't believe that what we did was wrong. I've grown past that mentality."

"So you'd do it again?"

"Dave, don't break up with me."

"What's to break up?" Dave said wildly. "We don't have a relationship. You screw anyone you fancy. Live that way if you want, but it's not marriage."

"You have to leave those old ideas behind."

"I have to get out of this house." Dave's rage was turning to grief. He realized he had lost Beep: lost her to drugs and free love, lost her to the hippie culture his music had helped to create. "I have to get away from you." He turned away.

"Don't go," she said. "Please."

Dave went out.

He ran down the stairs and out of the house. He jumped into his car and roared away. He almost ran over a long-haired boy staggering across Ashbury Street, smiling vacantly, stoned out of his mind in the afternoon. To hell with all hippies, Dave thought; especially Walli and Beep. He did not want to see either of them again.

Plum Nellie was finished, he realized. He and Walli were the essence of the group, and now that they had quarreled there was no group. Well, so be it, Dave thought. He would start his solo career today.

He saw a phone booth and pulled up. He opened the glove box and took out the roll of quarters h

e kept there. He dialed Morty's office.

Morty said: "Hey, Dave, I talked to the Realtor already. I offered fifty grand and we settled on fifty-five, how's that?"

"Great news, Morty," said Dave. He would need the recording studio for his solo work. "Listen, what was the name of that TV producer?"

"Charlie Lacklow. But I thought you were worried about breaking up the group."

"Suddenly I'm not so worried about it," Dave said. "Set up a meeting."

*

By March the future was looking bleak for George and for America.

George was in New York with Bobby Kennedy on Tuesday, March 12, the day of the New Hampshire primary, the first major clash between rival Democratic hopefuls. Bobby had a late supper with old friends at the fashionable "21" restaurant on Fifty-second Street. While Bobby was upstairs, George and the other aides ate downstairs.

George had not resigned. Bobby seemed liberated by announcing that he would not run for president. After the Tet Offensive, George wrote a speech that openly attacked President Johnson, and for the first time Bobby did not censor himself, but used every coruscating phrase. "Half a million American soldiers with seven hundred thousand Vietnamese allies, backed by huge resources and the most modern weapons, are unable to secure even a single city from the attacks of an enemy whose strength is about two hundred and fifty thousand!"

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