Chapter 14 Summary

Pat spends a few days driving around and killing time, wondering how to extricate himself from Doc's plans. One day he drives to the diner where he and Doc had first visited after his parole, and he sits on a roadside bench and contemplates the scene of ecological destruction spread out before him. Pat then discovers that he has been tailed out of town by Myrtle Briscoe and a uniformed policeman. Myrtle talks to him and explains that she feels he has been paroled to discredit her in the upcoming elections. As the president of the board of paroles, Myrtle would be held accountable if Pat were to perform any untoward activity while paroled.

Myrtle then begins to question Pat about a car that was recently purchased in his name. Pat, of course, has purchased no such car and, after a few minutes...