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He expressed his dislike for Jews, Poles, gypsies, homosexuals, Russians, Mexicans and so on with a chuckle, usually, which left me with room to assume he wasn't really very serious about it -- and that, of course, was the assumption I preferred to make, since I really liked Slim a lot and Gary was his friend. I think I first met Gary at Slim's one afternoon. Very quickly the conversation got around to politics and we discovered that we both hated Kennedy or something to that effect. Slim interjected: "I did itl I was a catalyst! I would not remember the incident at all, but for Slim's comment. Had that been our only meeting, I would quickly have forgotten Gary entirely. By this time I had another close friend in the Quarter. Her name was Ola Holcomb, She was also an aspiring writer. Ola and I formed a very close non-sexual friendship in a short period of time and she became a convert to my Ayn Rand philosophy. I think Slim met Ola through me and Gary met her through Slim. By sometime in May it looked as if Gary and Ola were going to hit it off together, or so I reconstruct events, because Slim and Gary and Ola all dropped by to visit us on the Memorial Day weekend, probably Sunday afternoon. (I believe Ola was present on this occasion but am not absolutely certain in any case, very soon after, if not by then, she and Gary had a thing going. I do remember a couple of things very clearly about this visit. I recall Gary sitting there, sort of leaning back on a chair with his hands behind his head, smiling and looking at the typewriter sitting on the desk in the living room of the apartment. I also recall Gary making some kind of remark about being or knowing a "fence" for stolen goods. I think he mentioned a pawn shop on Canal Street by name where the guy was willing to purchase things that were stolen. On Memorial Day the typewriter an Olympia (probably e Suice a grand) was stolen while Greg and I were out. It was our habit to leave the door unlocked. We knew almost no one in the city at this time. Our apartment was on the second or third floor. It seemed at that time to both Greg and me that it was a very logical possibility that Gary Kirstein had taken the typewriter. In retrospect I believe strongly this is exactly what happened. I believe that Gary mentioned the "fence" on the Canal Street for two reasons. One, I think he knew the guy and if I had gone in there looking for it, Gary would then know I suspected him. Two, I think Gary wanted me to conclude that if he did steal the typewriter his motives were economic, rather than political. It is important to realize that I had already typed some of the short-story versions of The Idle Varriors chapters on this type- writer. These manuscripts I was to give away later, possibly to Slim, after I reworked them into the novel manuscript. In other words, it is probable that Gary Kirstein had in his possession -- for an indefinte period -- one of the typewriters on which portions of The Idle Warriors, which he probably also got hold of, were typed.

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