Part 4, Chapter 3 Summary

In late July, conference-bound academics compete with other tourists for space on airlines. A week after the debacle in Geneva, Persse has a U.S. visa and a seat on low-cost Skytrain bound for Los Angeles. He is, apparently, the only person in the world who has not heard that the DC-10 fleet has been grounded. He has to rebook at greater cost on Braniff. He freezes on the Boeing 747 and bakes at the stop-over in Dallas/Fort Worth. Southern California is refreshing as he boards a free shuttle bus to the Beverly Hills Hotel, which he discovers is staggeringly expensive. In the Los Angeles phonebook he finds 27 Pabst entries, but none of them are Hermann.

Zapp's non-appearance in Vienna has occasioned little interest, because people often fail to show up, but he is missed in Bellagio when he fails to...