The Crying of Lot 49

Oedipa returns to the Echo Courts hotel. There the Paranoids are lingering near the pool. Serge is "crackers with grief" (112) and sings a song about Lolita, the Nabokov novel about a man who falls in love with a child. Serge explains to Oedipa that Metzger fled to Nevada so he can get married to Serge's girlfriend. Metzger has signed over all legal responsibilities to a different lawyer at his firm. He is no longer connected to the Inverarity Estate. Oedipa then tries to call Emory Bortz but can reach only his wife. She tells Oedipa to pass by their house for a conversation about Jacobean revenge plays. Oedipa accepts the invitation.

As she drives to the Bortz house, Oedipa notices that the bookstore where she bought a copy of The Courier's Tragedy has burned down. She asks the men in the neighboring store for information, and they explain the owner "set fire to his own store for the insurance" (114). When she reaches Bortz's house, Oedipa sees him delivering a lecture in his yard to a group of students. He speaks about the version of The Courier's Tragedy that contains the reference to the Tristero. He claims this is a vulgar, "pornographic" (116) version of the play. These days, the only copy is in the Vatican. It was used to by a devoutly religious group as a propaganda tool. According to Bortz, the best scholar on The Courier's Tragedy and its author, Wharfinger, is Driblette. However, Driblette died by suicide just a few days ago. Oedipa may never discover why Driblette chose to stage this specific version of the play.

Oedipa is shown Bortz's slides, in which the Vatican version of the play is visible. Bortz explains how the reference to the Tristero may have been the Puritans' attempt to describe the "the brute Other" (120). Bortz hands Oedipa a copy of An Account of the Singular Peregrinations of Dr. Diocletian Blobb. In the book's eighth chapter, Blobb takes a ride on a coach belonging to Torre and Tassis. The coach is attacked by riders in black capes, sent by the Tristero. Blobb survives the attack, as does his servant. The pair is sent back to England to share a message with the world about the strength of the Tristero.

Oedipa learns about the history of the Tristero. The group was founded in the Netherlands in 1577. William of Orange won independence for the Netherlands and ruled with "a junta of Calvinist fanatics" (122), which included Leopold I. Together with Jan Hinckard, Leopold I owned the Thurn and Taxis postal monopoly. Hinckard was challenged for his family's fortune by his cousin, a man named Hernando Joaquin de Tristero y Calavera. Tristero claimed to be the rightful heir to everything Hinckard owned, including the monopoly on postal services. The two rivals fought a war that began in 1578 and ended in 1583. During this time, the postal service in the country fell apart. At the end of the fighting, Tristero set up his own eponymous postal service. The Thurn and Taxis system, Oedipa later learns, found operation difficult throughout the 1600s.

She suggests this was due to Tristero's relative success. Bortz suggests the end of the Thirty Years' War is relevant, as someone may have tried to combine the two postal systems as the "two systems could [have] be[en] invincible" and could have held a monopoly over all communications between the most important people on the continent (126). This attempt failed. The Thurn and Taxis monopoly, Oedipa learns, ended during the French Revolution. She speculates as to whether this means Tristero won the war. Over the course of the following days, she visits libraries. She meets with Bortz again and returns to Genghis Cohen. During this time, she also attends Driblette's funeral. There, she is annoyed no one will talk to her about the Tristero reference in the play. Oedipa begins to lose faith in her investigation.

Oedipa goes to The Scope and talks to Mike Fallopian. She updates him on her investigation. Mike suggests the Tristero might be an elaborate "hoax, maybe something Inverarity set up before he died" (129). Oedipa does not want to entertain this possibility. Feeling angry, she leaves.

Later, she receives a call from Genghis Cohen. He shows her a stamp featuring the acronym W.A.S.T.E., this time standing for "We Await Silent Tristero's Empire" (130). He tells her the stamp was attached to a letter that was from the same bookstore in San Narciso that recently burned down. Feeling desperate, Oedipa goes back to the hotel room and searches through the documents in Pierce's estate. She believes Pierce owned the bookstore as well as the neighboring store. She believes he owned the theater where she watched Driblette's version of The Courier's Tragedy. Each time she followed a clue that led her to Tristero, she realizes, she was also led "back to the Inverarity Estate" (131). Even the San Narciso college where Bortz lectures was funded largely by Pierce. She now worries whether Pierce possibly paid every single person she met and talked to during the investigation. She worries she is the victim of Pierce's elaborate joke.

Oedipa can no longer be certain about anything in her life. For a few weeks, she retreats into her own solitary obsessions. She is anxious and suffers from a series of medical issues, particularly with her teeth. Each day, Genghis reaches out to her with new information. He found an article from 1865 that discusses infighting in the Tristero organization in the early 1800s. He believes "the Tristero refugees" (133) came to America during this time and then moved to the West. They produced stamps as a secret way of identifying themselves.

Oedipal does not believe the article is real. She suffers from vivid, haunting dreams and a terrible toothache, which seems to worsen each day. Oedipa receives news from Genghis that Pierce's stamp collection is being put up for auction. They will "be sold, as lot 49" (135). According to Genghis, an agent named C. Morris Schrift will be at the auction on behalf of an unnamed party who plans to bid on the lot. Oedipa is intrigued. She attends the auction, meeting Genghis. He tells her the mysterious bidder decided to attend the auction "in person" (141). Oedipa is struck by the idea that this man may be able to answer her questions. She waits anxiously for the bidding to begin so she can spot the man who might hold all of the answers to her long investigation. As she waits, Genghis explains to her how the auction works. The man who does the bidding is called the crier. Oedipa sits in a chair. She waits for "the crying of lot 49" (142).