He shoved the Webley. 45 automatic revolver into his holster and buttoned it in. It is, far as I know, the only automatic revolver ever made. There are etchings in the cylinder so that each shot turns the cylinder and recocks the revolver. It was sold as the fastest handgun ever made.
"Come along to the club, old man. You could do with a drink." The officer turned. The policeman had approached reluctantly; and the officer gave him some orders in crisp Malay.
Clinch Smith: "I'd like the kris as a souvenir, you understand. He was my houseboy."
"Oh, yes, of course, old chap. Quite understand. I'll have it sent along to your digs."
The Scientologist, meanwhile, whose name was Reg, walked away in a down-stat condition. He could feel his gains ebbing away in the afternoon streets that were suddenly full of raw menace that seemed to bounce off walls and windows. The arc was flowing out of him and he felt a terrible weakness. He feared the sin of self-invalidation.
"I must up-stat myself," he told himself, firmly. "I'll make a report to Ethics". He swayed and steadied himself on a tree. Silver spots boiled in front of his eyes. He turned a corner, and there, just ahead, a knot of people. Accident, fight perhaps, here was a chance to prove himself. Perhaps he could save a little girl from dying of burns with a brilliant touch-assist. The words of Ron came back to him: "in any kind of emergency, just be there, saying firmly, 'You are standing in my space.'" And while the Wogs think that over he is past them and right up to the front where he sees some hippies fighting with local youths and landed gentry. He looked up and caught his breath. Five members of the Sea Org resplendent in blue uniforms shoved their way through the crowd.
"Hey, you're not proper boogies." A gang of boys from Glasgow were closing in, slow hands caressing switchblades in their pockets.
Lord Westfield had been born intelligent, at the same time very rich. This unusual occurence of retrograde planetary juxtapositions, all agree it was a radioactive day, when everything is ugly and menacing street boys scream insults. Mules foaled and the hooded deal did gibber in the streets in Clayton, Missouri. Four schoolboys caught jacking-off by MacIntosh the druggist who is a self-styled sodomy fighter and goes around looking for the bastards, screaming, "I will D R A A A A G you to the police!" Got five years for sodomy.
In Mississippi they strung a nigger up under a railroad bridge, burning his genitals off with a blowtorch. The face of the man with the torch? "Well, we dressed him up in Esquire clothes, it became the new look, the bold look. And he was a pretty hot property. Now, we had an exclusive on this good thing; and I happened to remember the day was one thing like that after the other."
"A woman bit the cock off her husband because he was queer; and her copper loving brother stomped him to death."
Now, had Lord Westfield been born under any other circumstances, he would undoubtedly have been successful. From an early age he observed the deference paid him by the townspeople. He was not stupid enough to think this was his by some mysterious right. Lord Westfield disliked mysteries. A mystery is an unknown factor and therefore dangerous. He could see these people were cowed and broken; but he wanted to know exactly how this had been done so he could make sure such a desirable state of affairs would continue.
As a child and adolescent he amused himself by seeing how many insults humiliations he could inflict on the local villagers. "Always," he told himself, "inflict as much damage as you possibly can on anyone you encounter. If you leave him feeling worse than when you saw him, something of value has been accomplished."
To this end he betook himself to secret studies and employed a firm of private investigators who were glad to do anything for his Lordship, who never forgot them on Christmas and no questions asked.
"Go look into this and that. See what Doctor Miller has to say. You have journalistic credentials...Scientists are very absentminded, thank God. Get me the data on Scientology."
The agent dumps a pile of books and pamphlets on Lord Westfield's desk. Lord Westfield leafs through a book. Wearily he sweeps the pile of books to the floor.
"This isn't what I want....this illiterate drivel...I want the course material, I want all of it, on the market or in preparation. You understand me?"
"You mean I have to go and take courses, Sir? Why not just lift the lot?"
The firm of Jenkins and Coldbourne were experts in gaining access to premises, photographing and replacing documents. They had done a number of these jobs for Lord Westfield with exemplary efficiency.
"No, I want you to go and take the courses. Then I want you to come back here and run 'em through it with me, day by day, you understand?"
"They'll smell me out on the E-meter, if you'll pardon the expression, Sir; they have this lie-detector, Sir. You can't beat it, Sir. You see, I did a job for them once...my wife took a personal efficiency course at the London Center and that's how I got into it. Well, I padded my expense account a bit; and this grim old biddy drags me into a broomcloset, puts me on the cans, and says should I have told her anything I didn't."
"That reads, what do you think this could mean. She bloody dragged it out of me, Sir, and said I would have to wear a gray rag, Sir, and go around and ask every decent Scientologist if I could rejoin the group. I quit, Sir."
"Don't worry about Sec-Checks, all you need to do is take one of these." Lord Westfield shoves a bottle of pills across the table. "Sit down, Jenkins, and stop pretending to be stupider than you are.
Now this drug lowers the electrical resistance of the brain."
Now Jenkins has dropped his obsequious Cockney voice. "Yes, Sir, of course. The E-meter works on resistance."
"I believe that electronics is a hobby of yours, Jenkins?"
"Yes, Sir, in fact I've been working on an E-meter that'll work on non-resistance."
"Have you really? When you get it finished, bring it along, perhaps the Technical Department will be interested. Now, on this assignment you have to watch every word and every move. There isn't a man or woman in the org won't turn you in if you so much as nip into a bar for half a pint on course, so for Christ's sake, don't get caught out taking a pill."
"I used to give sleight-of-hand shows in the Council Hall, Sir. I was on the junk in New York. I know ten different ways of getting a pill into my mouth under closed-circuit TV."
Of course, Lord Westfield knew all this and a lot more about Jenkins. Intelligence during the war, electronics and demolitions expert, expert at gaining access to premises, photographing and returning documents, & expert in electronic spying devices.
"And remember this, Jenkins, you're going to have to study. It's a tough course, they tell me."
Jenkins went pale..."You don't mean I have to take the special briefing course, Sir?"
"No, Jenkins, just what you need to get the clearing course, then you can lift the rest."
Two weeks later when Jenkins showed up for the daily lesson, he looked worried... "Lord Westfield, it's them pills, Sir."
"Yes, Jenkins?"
"Well, if you'll pardon the expression, Sir, they loosen my rectum, Sir. I've had, er, several accidents, Sir. You see, there's been a scandal about the confidental material; and they've gone Sec-Check mad, Sir. It's a side-effect."
"Well, Jenkins, you can lift the rest."
Scientology was one of the many subjects that interested Lord Westfield. On the surface he was a highly-placed but obscure civil servant at the Home Office. There were select dinners for highly-placed officials...Lord Westfield, who was on his way to a Top Secret meeting with Olga Hardcastle, looked out the one-way window of his Bentley and saw that fight was in progress. He stopped the car, got out and sat on his cane seat to watch the fight.