Page 156 - The Perpetrations of Captain Kaga

Breaking the Grapefruit Connection
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“I was making progress. And that was my downfall. This morning I
had a religious experience while deep in meditation. My breathing had
almost stopped, and my heart was beating very slowly. Suddenly I had
a powerful vision of my stream of consciousness pouring out of
nothing into nothing—but it wasn’t moving! I simultaneously felt it
pass through me and I through it , but neither I nor it moved. At that
moment I keeled over, gasping.”
“Hallucination induced by anoxia,” Kaga pronounced.
“Maybe so. But it seemed real enough when it happened. I caught
my breath and rushed out of the room. Pamplemousse usually did not
grant an audience to monks before late afternoon, but I couldn’t wait
I burst into his chambers, eager to relate my experience. As soon as I
entered the room I realized something was wrong. Several of the
monks were there, sitting around a table playing cards. Pamplemousse
himself was among them. He demanded to know what I was doing
there at that hour. I started to tell him, but he dismissed me
immediately. I returned to my room badly shaken.”
“Then I started thinking. The whole operation of the monastery
began to look funny. I went out again, moving quietly this time, and
snuck up to that same door I had thrown open a few minutes earlier.
I heard voices from within. Much of what they were saying was
unintelligible, but I finally heard Pamplemousse say quite clearly, ‘I’ll
get rid of him today; we could use an extra bag of grapefruit.’”
“This remark was greeted by laughter inside the room, but it struck
terror into my heart. I turned and ran out of the monastery. I thought
of you immediately, that you would be able to help me. No one else
would have believed me. I nearly made it to you in your club, but all
of a sudden I was here. Actually I was lying on top of some sacks of
grapefruit in another room in this building. Two men grabbed me and
asked me a lot of questions. I guess I gave the wrong answers,
because they threw me in here.”
‘‘You are obviously not one of their gang, Lugo.”
“Well, if I’d known what to say I would have tried to fool them.
But I was dazed by the instantaneous dislocation. I have my wits
about me now, though, and I’ve figured out what their racket is. It’s
smuggling.”
“Smuggling what? Grapefruit?”
“No: people. The grapefruit are just a convenient source of
equivalent mass to send back when someone is transported to the
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