Oscar began the liquidation of his fortune. Without Pelicanos to manage his accounts and investments, the time demands were impossible. And, on some deep level, he knew the money was a liability now. He was encouraging thousands of people to abandon conventional economics and adopt a profoundly alien way of life, while he himself remained safely armored. Huey had already made a few barbed comments along that line; the fact that Huey was a multimillionaire himself never hampered his sarcastic public outbursts.