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suggested that Allied Enterprises go into the yachting business. He and Betty would withdraw $10,000 from the partnership's account and go to Miami, where they'd use the money to secure the boats. Then, he told Parsons, they would sail them back to California to be sold at a profit. Excited by the adventure of the business and confident that Hubbard's proficiency as a sailor and sea captain would stand them in good stead, Parsons readily agreed to the plan. Hubbard had meanwhile written to the chief of naval personnel, * requesting permission to leave the country in order to sail around the world collecting "writing material"under the patronage of Allied Enterprises. But Parsons had no knowledge of that proposal, and so it was that in April 1946, L. Ron Hubbard left Pasadena for Miami, spiriting away both Jack Parsons's onetime mistress and his money.
    Parsons finally began to worry when a month went by without hearing from his business partners. Chastened after several members of his household, and Aleister Crowley, warned him that he had been the victim of a confidence trick, Parsons flew to Miami in June, where he found that his fears were justified. Hubbard and Sara—she was called Betty only at 1003 South Orange Grove—had taken out a $12,000 mortgage and purchased the boats: two schooners, the
Harpoon
and the
Blue Water
II,
and a yacht named the
Diane.
Now, having hired a crew with Parsons's money, they were preparing to sail away on the
Harpoon.
Quickly, Parsons secured an injunction to prevent them from leaving the country, and a week later, Allied Enterprises was formally dissolved. In exchange for Parsons's agreement not to press charges, Hubbard and Sara agreed to pay half of Parsons's legal fees and relinquish their right to the
Diane
and the
Blue Water II.
They were allowed to keep the
Harpoon,
which they ultimately sold, but they paid Parsons $2,900 to cover his interest in the ship. Parsons returned to Pasadena "near mental and financial collapse,"as he said, and soon afterward sold 1003 South Orange Grove. * The era of the Parsonage was over.
    But the era of L. Ron Hubbard had just begun. L. Sprague De Camp, Hubbard's colleague in science fiction, had attended Caltech and knew Jack Parsons. De Camp was aware of Hubbard's friendship with the scientist and also knew of his most recent escapade in Miami. De Camp, skeptical from the beginning, saw in Hubbard's activities a familiar pattern. Sometime soon, De Camp predicted in a letter to Isaac Asimov, Hubbard would arrive in Los Angeles "broke, working the poor-wounded-veteran racket for all it's worth, and looking for another easy mark. Don't say you haven't been warned. Bob [Robert Heinlein] thinks Ron went to pieces morally as a result of the war. I think that's fertilizer, that he always was that way, but when he wanted to conciliate or get something from somebody he could put on a good charm act. What the war did was to wear him down to where he no longer bothers with the act."
    On August 10, 1946, L. Ron Hubbard, then thirty-five, and Sara "Betty" Northrup, twenty-two, were married (bigamously, as Hubbard had never bothered to get a divorce from Polly). * They settled into a small cottage in Laguna Beach, where Hubbard, nearly penniless, tried to resume his writing career. True to De Camp's predictions, Hubbard started filing claims with the Veterans Administration, hoping to increase his disability pension. He complained of numerous ailments, including psychological problems, and in one letter appealed to the VA to help him pay for psychiatric counseling. In that letter, dated October 15, 1947, Hubbard complained of "long periods of moroseness" and "suicidal inclinations"—symptoms that, in more recent years, might suggest a form of posttraumatic stress disorder. But he'd "avoided out of pride" seeking help, or even confiding in a physician, in the hopes that "time would balance a mind which I had every reason to suppose was seriously affected