IN CONVERSATION OVER breakfast with his Mom, before she went off for a day of driving her taxi for the benefit of an ungrateful public, Stan Murch gradually came to the conclusion that he wasn't just irritated by what had happened last night, or what in fact had not happened, but he was really very pissed off about it and getting more so by the minute, and who he blamed for the whole thing was John Dortmunder.

At first his Mom didn't get it: "He wasn't even there."

"That's the point."

He had to explain it all about seven times before she saw what he was aiming at, but at last she did see it, and it was really very simple and, straightforward. At the O.J. last night, they had been a little group of people who would come together like that from time to time for what they hoped would turn out to be profitable expeditions and employments, and there was always at least that one preliminary conversation to kick it off, to see if this new project sounded like it might work, to see if everybody wanted to come on board. Each of them in the group had his own specialty — Tiny Bulcher, for instance, specialized in lifting large and heavy objects, while he himself, Stan Murch, was the driver — and John Dortmunder's specialty was in laying out the plan.