Chapters 36-46 Summary

John returns to find his apartment trashed by Sherman Krebbs. Krebbs is an acquaintance John allowed to use the apartment in his absence. The man is a poet and the National Chairman of Poets and Painters for Immediate Nuclear War. The poet has murdered John's cat, hanging a sign that says "meow" around the animal's dead neck. Krebbs has also written poetry in John's absence - in excrement on the kitchen floor.

One Sunday, John accidentally discovers where the fugitive Franklin Hoenikker is. In a special supplement to the Sunday New York Times paid for by a banana republic, John discovers a photograph of Frank. He is identified as the son of the Nobel Prize winner and the current Minister of Science and Progress in the Republic of San Lorenzo.

San Lorenzo is a small island in the Caribbean, presided over...