Where We're At: Part 4.3: Against the Day

Venice.

• Foley Walker returns to Venice from Gottingen and tells Scarsdale Vibe that Kit has taken off. Why? Foley thinks it's because Kit knows Scarsdale paid for Webb to be killed. Scarsdale wants to know when Kit knew.
• Foley's feeling like Scarsdale's increased the humiliating tasks he's asking of Foley and is beginning to get irritated.
• Reef and Kit watch Scarsdale diving (and Foley supervising) in the lagoon. They've been tracking him, waiting for a clear shot. Reef wonders whether Kit will follow through--he thinks Kit's had something else on his mind since the seance. Kit thinks Reef's talking like an anarchist--Reef doesn't deny.
• Dally randomly runs into Kit and Reef (Kit introduces her to Reef); later she and Hunter Penhallow run into Reef with Ruperta and Algernon(?). Hunter and Pert are old acquaintances. Hunter arranges to have dinner with Pert at a cafe where he and Dally scrounge after rich people (not their place, at all).
• The Principessa Spongiatosta, who Dally's staying with, has been meeting with Derrick Theign and other random people. Hunter tells Dally that the Princess is at risk but Dally will be fine if she's careful.
• Kit feels that Venice is unreal and wonders whether Inner Asia will feel any realer. (Real numbers, unreal/irrational numbers.)
• Dally offers to help Kit and Reef with whatever they're doing; they're conspicuous, she's not. If she doesn't know who they should be dealing with, she knows someone who does. Finally Kit tells her that Scarsdale Vibe killed Webb, and they're in Venice to kill Scarsdale Vibe. Dally pretty much knew this when she offered to help. Kit explains that moreover, something must have gone wrong in the States, because now Vibe's people are after him--that's why he left Germany. Kit's plan is to do the deed, then head for Inner Asia. Dally's kind of in love with him and feels like he's going to abandon her again--he says he'll come back but can't promise when. It also feels to Dally like Merle's craziness.
• Ruperta leaves for Marienbad; Hunter goes along for part of the ride.
• With Hunter gone, Dally joins forces with Kit and Reef. Vibe needs to be shot at close range so no one else gets hurt; Reef thinks Kit should do it, Kit thinks he'd be at risk from Scarsdale. Dally's getting impatient with the discussion and says that they're not the only ones looking to get to Vibe: "You're in Anarchist country, buckaroo. Sooner or later over here, they're bound to run out of royalty to shoot at and start lookin for more of the riffraff--politicians, captions of industry, so forth. And that's a list Scarsdale Vibe has been on for some time." Reef asks if there's really something already being planned.
• Dally takes them to meet Andrea Tacredi, the artist and anarchist. He's upset because Vibe is buying up Venetian art, turning passion into commerce. He's been talking anarchism and assassination.
• The Principessa takes Dally, who's mooning over Kit, to a big party where Scarsdale Vibe is also a guest. Reef and Kit are outside doing reconnaissance. Reef sees that Dally is in love with Kit; Kit doesn't. There's a huge storm and the city is flooded. A gunshot is heard as Vibe and Foley arrive. Tancredi is in the street looking out of place; he's carrying what he'd described as an infernal machine that would bring down Vibe; police or bodyguards hired by Vibe shoot and kill Tancredi. Vibe eggs on the police as they kick at the corpse. He sees Kit.
• Dally says that someone sold out Tancredi; she's mourning him. Kit has to leave (Venice and Dahlia because Vibe saw him). He promises to come back.
• The moment that Vibe saw Kit was the moment Kit realized he had no "future" (in the material success sense). He's running now not for anything or anyone (God, Yashmeen, Vectorism) but to save his own life.
• Reef blames Kit for not killing Vibe at the party. He walks away "soon absorbed into a mobility of hundreds of separate futures, whose destiny could not be told in any but a statistical way. And that was that."
• Kit leaves on a steamer for Trieste.

p. 747.