Chapter 19 Summary

A cook at the hotel lounge where Bunny, Dwayne, the narrator, and other characters are drinking happens to see Wayne loitering about. The cook, himself an ex-convict, realizes that Wayne has nowhere to go and nothing to do, so he invites him inside the hotel, serves him a steak, and sits him in front of a television. The cook nods to a small peephole drilled in the wall and tells him to look through it. Wayne looks through the peephole into the lounge where Dwayne, the narrator, and others are assembled.

Inside the lounge Rabo Karabekian, Beatrice Keedlser, and Bonnie MacMahon are having a prolonged conversation. Rabo is a minimalist artist who has just sold a vastly over-priced painting to Midland City. Beatrice is a novelist who writes typical novels. Bonnie is a waitress in the lounge. Whenever Bonnie serves a martini she...