Anyway, this is all well and good verbal fun and games but what matters isn’t what Ben and Chon say to each other, it’s what they don’t.
Chon doesn’t tell Ben about Sam Casey getting ripped off and beaten up, and his response to said provocation, because Ben wouldn’t approve and he’d get all bummed out about the necessity of force in a world that’s supposed to be about love and peace, blah blah.
Ben doesn’t tell Chon about the weird interaction with OGR because, well, it’s just weird and random and probably nothing, and besides, what’s Chon supposed to do about it? He’s on his way to the Stan, he has enough to worry about (like staying alive), so Ben doesn’t want to bother him.
And so they miss this critical junction, this intersection of events, this opportunity to put one and one together and get
One.
One same problem.
They’re not stupid, they would have put it together, but “would have” is just another way of saying
“didn’t.”