by Don DeLillo
“I still don’t understand why I didn’t have you screened. We screen people like you.”
“My fried hair. Disarmed you.”
“I know what you really want to talk about.”
“Do you?” she said.
“You don’t want to talk about my family, or my views on world affairs.”
“Don’t I?”
“Let me do something to that drink.”
“No, it’s fine.”
“You want to talk about the hearings.”
“Actually, no, you’re wrong.”
“You want to talk about PAC/ORD.”
“You’re so wrong, Senator.”
“Not that I blame you,” he said. “They’ve got mechanisms. Undercover channeling operations. They’ve got offshoots. It’s damn shocking. At this late date, you’d think I’d be impervious to what those people dream up. Not so.”
“Senator, the truth is I wouldn’t think of asking you to divulge what goes on in closed-door hearings.”
“What about this boss of yours?”
“Yes?”
“Grace Delaney,” he said. “I hear unflattering reports. She’s had dealings with radical groups, among other things.”
“A woman with a past. Isn’t that what makes us interesting? For men, it’s lack of a recorded past that proves so fascinating. Women, no. It’s the shadows behind us that do the trick.”
“Your own, for instance, I would dearly love to hear about.”
“I used to live with Gary Penner. Dial-a-Bomb?”
“I do recall, yes. The name’s familiar.”
“It should be, Senator. He blew up half your goddamn state about ten years ago.”
They shared a laugh over that. Unfolding slowly, Percival’s long body rose from the sofa. He shuffled to the liquor cabinet, bringing a bottle of Jack Daniel’s back to the cocktail table with him.
“You understand nothing I tell you is to be attributed. It is not only unattributed. It is undocumented, unfounded and unreal. I deny everything in advance. Whoever leaked this stuff to you, whichever committee counsel, is not only breaking the law; he’s totally misrepresenting the facts.”
“What you’re saying, really, Senator, is that you decided at some point that Running Dog is precisely the publication this kind of story cries out for. No one else would touch it since you’ve no intention of providing the slightest clue to its authenticity.”
“None of it ever happened. I repeat. It’s all lies. I find it utterly inconceivable that such things could find their way into the pages, so on, so on, so on.”
He told her that PAC/ORD—the Personnel Advisory Committee, Office of Records and Disbursements—had been set up, on the surface, as the principal unit of budgetary operations for the whole U.S. intelligence community. Dealing strictly in unclassified areas, the agency had been established in response to criticism of soaring intelligence expenditures.
Covert operations were beyond its scope. Hiring, firing, paying, promoting, budgeting. This was PAC/ORD territory, on the surface, and it did not extend beyond the legal, administrative and clerical areas. Thousands of people in a number of agencies. PAC/ORD was not unlike the personnel department of a large corporation.
On the surface.
Beyond that, however, the Senator’s investigating committee had learned that PAC/ORD had a secret arm, the kind of cover setup known as a proprietary. This was Radial Matrix, a legally incorporated firm with headquarters in Fairfax County, Virginia. Radial Matrix—the term itself was meaningless—was a systems planning outfit. They advised on, and installed, manufacturing and shipping systems. Their clients included firms across the U.S. and in a number of other countries. In the last three years they’d become a huge success, with several spin-off operations and activities. The only overt connection between PAC/ORD and Radial Matrix was a contract the latter had to install a new computerized wage system on behalf of the former.
The only overt connection.
Radial Matrix was in fact a centralized funding mechanism for covert operations directed against foreign governments, against elements within foreign governments, and against political parties trying to gain power contrary to the interests of U.S. corporations abroad. It was responsible for channeling and laundering funds for unlisted station personnel, indigenous agents, terrorist operations, defector recruitment, political contributions, penetration of foreign communications networks and postal agencies.
So on, so on, so on.
“If you study the history of reform,” Percival said, “you’ll see there’s always a counteraction built in. A low-lying surly passion. Always people ready to invent new secrets, new bureaucracies of terror.”
“Don’t get carried away on my behalf.”
“It’s only fair to point out that these PAC/ORD activities are fairly small-scale, as far as I can tell, compared to the CIA extravaganzas that brought on the thirst for reform in the first place, and of course they’re being run by some of the same people. My point is that these activities satisfy the historical counterfunction. They fill those small dark places. And they’re illegal. Run counter to the spirit and letter of every law, every intelligence directive, that pertains to such matters.”
One of the marvels of all this, the Senator continued, was that Radial Matrix, strictly as a business enterprise, was enjoying such enormous success. Surely this was an unexpected development to the folks at PAC/ORD, who couldn’t have expected their modest creation to become such a world-beater.
Moll told the Senator she didn’t think any of this was very startling, considering past developments and revelations. Percival had an answer for that.
One final level of operations.
Radial Matrix was currently run by a man named Earl Mudger. Handpicked by PAC/ORD, he was former commander of a fighter-bomber squadron (Korea) and long-term contract employee (Saigon desk, Air America) of the CIA. He’d had civilian experience, briefly, in the late fifties, with a firm specializing in production flow systems and automation.
Mudger turned out to be the right man for the job—too much so, it seemed. He fell in love with profits. The profit motive became more interesting to him at this stage of his career than pay records or secret bank accounts or whatever fancy paperwork is necessary to maintain agents in the field and deliver money into the hands of favored political leaders in this or that country.
The Senator poured himself another drink and put his feet up on the cocktail table. First traces of slurred speech.
“What’s happened is that PAC/ORD has lost control of its own operation. Radial Matrix has become a breakaway unit of the U.S. intelligence apparatus. Nobody knows what to do about it. Mudger’s completely autonomous. They’re afraid to move against him. Public scrutiny of the funding mechanism is unacceptable. And it could happen if they try to remove him. Anything could happen. Including disclosures of how Radial Matrix has managed to be so successful.”
“I’d like to hear.”
“Mudger hasn’t forgotten his field training. He uses the same methods in business he used in espionage activities. In actual combat. That’s why the firm’s a whopping success. The man’s made his own set of rules and won’t allow anyone else to use them. He’s got all kinds of links, organized crime and so on. And he’s just sitting out there in the countryside running up profits. Recent scheme is diversification. Systems planning has apparently begun to seem dull. He wants to diversify.”
There was a silence as they pondered this.
“What you have in Mudger,” the Senator said, “is the combination of business drives and lusts and impulses with police techniques, with ultrasophisticated skills of detection, surveillance, extortion, terror and the rest of it.”
“It’s like what Chaplin said in connection with Monsieur Verdoux. The logical extension of business is murder.”
Percival shuddered, a bit theatrically, to indicate his feelings on the subject. He leaned forward to freshen her drink. She waved him off, smiling politely.
He got some ice cubes from the bucket on the liquor cabinet and carried them back in his left hand, watching them slide into his glass one by one. Streetlights were on outside. No further sound of children playing. Moll watched him drink quietly. He finished one, started another.
“I like tall women,” the Senator said.
“So he wants to diversify.”
“Let me ask you something.”
“Sure.”
“Did you ever smoke grass?”
“Did I ever smoke grass? Yes, Senator, in my time.”
“I guess you must have.”
“Being a woman with a past,” she said.
“What I wanted to know. Do you have any with you?”
“Sorry.”
“It’s something, candidly, I would have liked to have done. Some years ago with my youngest daughter, when she was about twenty or so, I thought we should do this because I knew she smoked, I knew she smoked.”
“You thought it would bring you two closer together.”
“I really wanted to,” he said.
“Where, in the Capitol rotunda?”
He finished his drink and poured another.
“I like tall women.”
“I’d be interested in hearing more about this Earl Mudger person. If you want this thing to see print, you ought to tell me everything you know. He wants to diversify, you say.”
“I wonder this.”
“Yes?”
“What can I call you?” he said. “Candidly.”
“Moll will do.”
“Moll, can you keep a secret?”
“Sure, try me.”
“I was in contact with a man. Never mind details, like name and such. We met at a party. First there was a party. New York gallery opening followed by a party. You know the agenda. The talk: politics, sex, movies and dog shit. You know the kind of thing. Then a second party that branched off from this. A small, small gathering of like-minded people. Very small. We had interests in common.”
“Like what?”
“That’s not part of the secret. That’s a different secret.”
“Please go on,” she said.
“This man I met. The second party. I found out later he was a systems engineer. Did contract work for Radial Matrix. Strictly on the up-and-up. Not connected with their covert function. But this was learned later. At the party he had something to sell. Something I was interested in buying. We were like-minded people there. Conversation flowed mostly in one direction. And I learned about this man’s proposal to sell. So we talked and made arrangements to talk again. In my position, being the position I hold, this was done discreetly, taking enormous precautions. But I did give him a certain phone number where he could reach me. This was done because he refused to be contacted himself. There was total insistence on this. What I also later learned was that in his work for Radial Matrix, strictly on the up-and-up, he and Earl Mudger struck up an acquaintanceship. See, Mudger was interested in making the same buy I was. Diversification. His plan to diversify. So then before we could even talk again the man I talked to is found stone cold dead in some condemned building in New York. But this is just between us. Deep background. Because I trust you.”
“I understand.”
“So now, I’d be willing to bet, there are two investigations going on. I’m investigating them. And I’d be willing to bet they’re investigating me. Blackmail in mind. Purposes of blackmail. So we must tread lightly. Everything we do is subject to extreme cautionary procedures.”
She watched his head fall forward. Two minutes later he snapped awake.
“I’m curious about the house, Senator.”
“Do you have any grass or not?”
“I love looking at other people’s houses.”
“I want to smoke grass with a tall woman.”
“Show me around, why don’t you?”
“If I show you around, we have to go to the bedroom. You have to be shown the bedroom just as much as other rooms. All rooms count the same in a house when it’s being shown.”
“Show me the bedroom, Senator.”
“Call me Lloyd,” he said.
He struggled to his feet and held out his right hand. She took it and allowed him to lead her up a short staircase. At the top of the stairs he fell down. He got up, with her help, and then headed into the bedroom, where he fell again. She watched him crawl toward the king-size canopy bed.
“Where’s your housekeeper? Don’t senators have housekeepers? Some little old granny to button the trap door in your pajamas.”
“Gave her the night off.”
“Part of your seduction scheme, was it? Jesus, Lloyd, too bad. All that trouble for nothing.”
“It’s all lies. I repeat. We never had this talk.”
She helped him up on the bed and waited until his breathing grew steady and he passed beyond the outer edges of sleep. Then she went down the hall and turned left, interested in finding the easternmost end of the house, the surface that abutted the brown frame structure next door.
The walls here were lined with antique sconces and turn-of-the-century handbills and steamship prints. She examined three small rooms. In the last of these were two banister-back chairs, a spinning wheel and a Queen Anne writing table. Moll noted the position of the fireplace. East wall. The screen was not in place before the open recess. It was leaning against one of the chairs.
Cleanest fireplace she’d ever seen. She moved closer, bending to inspect. It wasn’t a working fireplace. No flue. Nothing but solid brick above. She leaned further into the recess. The back section was hardwood. Probing in the dimness, she touched a small latch. When she lifted it and applied pressure, the section swung open. A priest’s hole. She moved through hunched way over, not actually crawling. Immediate sense of confinement. Near-total darkness.
This constricting space ended after she’d moved forward fifteen feet. Standing full length she felt along the walls on either side. Her hand found a dimmer-switch and she eased it out and turned it about ninety degrees.
She found she was standing on a grill work balcony overlooking an enormous room of Mediterranean design. She walked down a closed staircase lined with stained glass panels, abstract. The floor below was parquet with a centered rectangle of peacock tiles. There were large tropical plants.
On the walls were perhaps fifty-five paintings. Pieces of sculpture stood among the plants. There were small displays of pottery, jewelry and china. A stone fountain depicted a woman on her knees before an aroused warrior. Mounted in a tempered glass segment of one wall was a bronze medallion scene of Greek courtesans. There was a large bronze on the tiled rectangle: two men, a woman.
Moll moved first along the walls, looking at the paintings and drawings. Very nice, most of them, all labeled. Icart. Hokusai. Picasso. Balthus. Dali. The Kangra school. Botero with his neckless immensities. Egon Schiele with his unloved nudes. Hans Bellmer. Tom Wesselmann. Clara Tice.
She crossed the floor several times, studying the sculptures, the pottery, the section of hand-carved choir stall—naked woman with gargoyles. She realized there were no doors or windows. He’d had the whole house sealed from the inside, all openings bricked and plastered over. Portable humidifiers for the plants. Elaborate lighting system. The only way in or out was through the fireplace in the “real” house.
Her camera case was in the car. She debated getting it. Now that she’d found the collection she didn’t know what to do about it. Maybe Grace Delaney was right. It lacked ramifications. It wasn’t political. It was strictly private, isolated from the schemes and intricacies. She was inclined to let the Senator win his point. Radial Matrix was the story here.
On another level she was curiously indifferent to the objects around her. This was despite their high quality, the dramatic space, the secrecy of the whole setup, the handsome trappings, the subject matter itself. The strongest thing she felt was a sense of the work’s innate limitations. She recalled what Lightborne had said about old and new forms. The
modern sensibility had been instructed by a different kind of code. Movement. The image had to move.
From his window Selvy could see a colorless strip of the Anacostia River. He hadn’t shaved in two and a half days, the first time this had happened since his counterinsurgency stint at Marathon Mines in southwest Texas, a training base for paramilitary elements of various intelligence units and for the secret police of friendly foreign governments.
Shaving was an emblem of rigor, the severity of the double life. Shaving. Proper maintenance of old combat gear. Seats on the aisle in planes and trains. Sex with married women only. These were personal quirks mostly, aspects of his psychic guide to survival.
He’d broken the sex rule and now he had nearly three days’ growth. But the routine still applied. The routine in one sense was his physical movement between New York and Washington, and the set pieces of procedure, the subroutines, that were part of this travel. In a larger context the routine was a mind set, all those mechanically performed operations of the intellect that accompanied this line of work. You made connection-A but allowed connection-B to elude you. You felt free to question phase-1 of a given operation but deadened yourself to the implications of phase-2. You used expressions that contained interchangeable words.
The routine was how your mind had come to work; which areas you avoided; the person you’d become.
He’d known from the beginning that Christoph Ludecke was a systems engineer. When the break developed—Senator linked to transvestite—the dead man’s occupation was among the first things looked into.
He’d also known that systems planning was the cover Radial Matrix used in its role as funding mechanism for covert operations. Obviously. Radial Matrix—an abstraction personified by Lomax, his sole contact—was the entity he worked for.
The connection was unexpected. It didn’t fit the known world as recently constructed. It was a peculiar element in a series of events otherwise joined in explainable ways.
