by Don DeLillo
“I’m all in favor.”
“Odell is my cousin.”
“I understand, Richie.”
“He’s one of the few people around me that I would use the word knowledgeable.”
“I know how much value you attach to that word.”
“What with the people I’m usually surrounded with.”
“Plus he’s a relative.”
“They’re imbeciles. They dribble. They have to be told over and over.”
“Believe me, Richie, I understand, I’m in sympathy, I empathize completely.”
Lightborne poured steaming water over the tea bags. If Richie wanted to live in the barricaded warehouse where his materials were stored, that was fine with Lightborne. He himself, in Richie’s position, might have chosen a quiet street in Highland Park.
If Richie elected to surround himself with people he’d known all his life—the bodyguards, the advisers, the relatives, the hangers-on, and the husbands, wives, girlfriends and boyfriends of all of these—Lightborne wasn’t inclined to raise trivial objections, although in the same position he would have set up a board of administrators. Men and women skilled in diverse corporate fields. Perhaps an academic presence as well.
“I don’t know about staying, Lightborne. Do I have time for a cup of tea?”
“It’s your plane, Richie. The plane doesn’t leave until you’re ready.”
“I’m ready. I’m anxious to scram.”
“Drink your tea. I have a gift.”
“There’s an element in this business,” Richie said. “They’re taking more and more. They’re very grabby. And something’s been going on. My bodyguard thinks he’s been seeing the same face, wherever we go, for the past three days. Not that his expertise is worth two dollars on the open market. But I’m better off home. Where I know where I am.”
“You tell Odell I’m standing by.”
“I’ll be waiting for word. I’ll be expecting. This is the big thing today. First-run movies. People want to tone up their fantasies. Feature-length is the right direction. I’ll be waiting, Lightborne. I’ll be looking forward.”
“Finish your tea, Richie.”
Earlier in the day, after searching in hardware stores, millinery shops, Fourteenth Street rummage dumps, Lightborne had finally found what he was looking for. He found it in a grocery store on Thompson Street, not far from his building. With Thanksgiving not too far off, the place was well stocked with specialty items. The Danish butter cookies, Lightborne noticed, came in circular metal containers, precisely the kind of thing he was looking for. He chose the super economy size.
“A little something I bought for your trip, to munch on the plane going back.”
“What is it, candy?”
“Cookies,” Lightborne said.
After displaying the shiny can, he wrapped it tightly in plain brown paper, very tightly, so that anyone watching Richie emerge from the building would have no trouble noting the circular shape. He used gummed tape, masking tape, glue and string to keep the wrapping intact.
“Cookies. Festive cookies. To make the trip go faster.”
How much more pleasant it was to talk with Miss Robbins, who arrived about half an hour after Richie left. Not that he disliked Richie. Richie had human qualities. More than once he’d given Lightborne a token of his continuing friendship. String ties. A set of coasters depicting scenes of the Alamo. It was only fitting that Lightborne eventually reciprocate.
He asked Moll Robbins if she’d prefer another chair. She was sitting in the chair with the broken springs and had sunk considerably into it. She waved him off, eager to hear why he’d asked her to drop by.
“I’m still the chief skeptic in this enterprise.”
“I remember your saying.”
“Do you remember Glen Selvy? The man who was here the night I first mentioned the Berlin film.”
“Yes.”
“The man bidding on behalf of a certain someone.”
“I remember,” she said.
“That certain someone’s been in direct contact with me.”
“Lloyd Percival.”
Lightborne sat back, stroking the side of his jaw.
“You’ve been active.”
“On and off,” she said.
“I was surprised when you said you hadn’t finished the series.”
“I got sidetracked.”
“But you’re back with it.”
“It would seem.”
“Then I’m glad I called,” he said. “It’s my feeling that a journalist on the scene tends to advance whatever is meet and just in a given situation.”
“Hip hip.”
“Of course my own role must be handled circumspectly. This isn’t Lightborne the dealer in erotic junk, outgoing and colorful. This is a source close to the situation. This is a well-placed source. My name mustn’t see print.”
“I give the usual assurances.”
“This footage is arousing mighty appetites. Let me tell you, I’ve been turning it in my mind. The utterly compelling force of the man. He wasn’t impotent, you know, despite earlier claims to that effect.”
“Hitler, you mean.”
“He had a remarkable impact on women. They sent him love letters, sex poems, underwear. His motorcades, women hurled their bodies at his car. Like a pop hero. Some modern rock ’n’ roller. Women threw themselves beneath the wheels.”
“Surface affection,” Moll said.
“Girls were constantly offering to yield their virginity to him. We see his speeches, where women fell into states of hysteria. We see collective frenzy. He had hypnotic powers over women. I think this is clear.”
“You’re suggesting there’s some basis.”
“The rumors have never specified the old boy,” he said.
“You’re building a case.”
“Think of the value such footage would have. And the man with whom I originally discussed this matter, I recall him clearly stating that I wouldn’t be disappointed in the identities of those who appear.”
“Dead, I recall your saying.”
“This matter is fraught with every kind of pressure. I myself have put certain forces to work. I’ve also taken action to deflect attention. I feel more secure now, people knowing there’s a journalist in the vicinity.”
“How do people know?”
“I think they know.”
“You feel they have ways of knowing.”
“They know. I think they know.”
He turned off one of the two lights in the room. Moll decided her chair was in fact uncomfortable and pushed up out of it, moving to a metal folding chair near the bookcase.
“He had youthful fantasies about a blond girl in Linz,” Lightborne said. “There were other blonds later who were more than fantasy. He may have had an eye for blonds. Also an eye for actresses. His niece of course. An all-consuming affair. When you get serious with nieces, this is suggestive of a deep fire in the man.” Pause. “He made drawings. He sketched her parts. At close range.”
“That showed bad taste.”
Lightborne made a worldly gesture.
“Before pop art, there was such a thing as bad taste. Now there’s kitsch, schlock, camp and porn.”
“But wasn’t he in terrible shape at the end? Totally spaced on medication.”
“My point exactly,” Lightborne said. “I’ve made that point. He was enfeebled. I think it was his right arm, shaking wildly. They were using leeches for his blood pressure. He’d aged shockingly.”
“You concede this is evidence against.”
“I insist on it,” he said. “I’m advancing theories largely for my own delectation. I admit. I’m making noises, merely.”
“I never thought of him as a lover.”
“Not your type.”
“In addition to which I have to say I don’t really understand why droves of people would pay money to see some gray old staticky footage of a funny-looking man running around naked, even if he was who h
e was.”
“I’ve made that point. It’s a vital question. Who cares? Yet I’m getting vibrations from all over. People with money and power. Forces are collecting around this thing, jumpy footage or not. You look a little bored, Miss Robbins.”
“Not at all,” she said. “It’s just that I don’t see what the appeal is. It’s a little distasteful, frankly. Not that I’m above such things, Mr. Lightborne. But, really, all this activity for what?”
“Because it’s him. Hitler. The name, the face. All the contradictions and inconsistencies. It would take an hour to list them.”
“All great men. We know about great men and their public and private selves.”
“Very furtive mind. Many doors locked. Hints, whispers of unnatural sexuality. Hush-hush even today. Women associated with Hitler tended to commit suicide or at least to attempt it. After his death, women all over Germany killed themselves. Suicides unnumbered.”
“Are you trying to depress me?”
“The bunker was an interesting mix. You had secretaries, orderlies, SS guards, kitchen staff, so on. There were women brought in off the streets by and for the SS men. You had visitors from military units. There was a drunken revel, a sex thing, in the SS rooms. How many people involved I don’t know.”
“Maybe that’s it. The footage.”
“They thought he was dead. They were celebrating. But he didn’t do it till later. True, maybe that’s it. But I’m holding out hope for better.”
“The old boy himself.”
“We live in curious times,” Lightborne said reflectively.
He thanked her for coming and promised to keep her closely informed. They walked through the darkened gallery toward the door. Moll bumped into a table and Lightborne apologized, asking her to remain there while he turned on a light. She noticed he didn’t go for the wall switch but instead walked to a corner of the room to turn on a small lamp, the bulb perhaps twenty-five watts.
“It’s getting so I don’t like well-lighted rooms, or talking on the telephone. I never had a suspicious nature. Old age, I guess. First signs of deterioration.”
“You’ve got a long way to go, Mr. Lightborne, I would judge.”
“First signs.”
“We’re all a little wary.”
He nodded, standing in the dimness. She recalled the first night she’d been here, the room getting progressively darker as he went around turning off lights, giving her clues to Selvy’s destination that night.
“Go into a bank, you’re filmed,” he said. “Go into a department store, you’re filmed. Increasingly we see this. Try on a dress in the changing room, someone’s watching through a one-way glass. Not only customers, mind you. Employees are watched too, spied on with hidden cameras. Drive your car anywhere. Radar, computer traffic scans. They’re looking into the uterus, taking pictures. Everywhere. What circles the earth constantly? Spy satellites, weather balloons, U-2 aircraft. What are they doing? Taking pictures. Putting the whole world on film.”
“The camera’s everywhere.”
“It’s true.”
“Even in the bunker,” she said.
“Very definitely.”
“Everybody’s on camera.”
“I believe that, Miss Robbins.”
“Even the people in the bunker under the Reich Chancellery in April 1945.”
“Very definitely the people in the bunker.”
“You believe that, Mr. Lightborne.”
“I have the movie,” he said.
He’d moved gradually to the end of the room, about twenty feet from the source of light, standing against a blank wall, suddenly disproportionate in shape, an illusion sustained by his own shadow on the wall behind him. His body seemed tiny. He was all head.
“Have you looked at it?”
He moved toward her a step or two, as though to whisper, a strange gesture considering the space between them.
“I haven’t even opened the can.”
He laughed.
“I’m waiting for technical help.”
He laughed again.
“I’m afraid the whole thing will crumble if I open the can the wrong way. It’s been in there over thirty years. There’s probably a right way and a wrong way to open film cans when the film’s been in there so long. There might be a preferred humidity. Safeguards. Recommended procedures.”
“Who is your technical help?”
“Odell Armbrister.”
This time Moll laughed.
“Richie’s cousin,” he whispered.
“Who is Richie?”
“Richie Armbrister’s cousin. The Dallas smut king. The boy genius. That lives in a warehouse.”
“Fascinating,” she said.
Lightborne sank into a chair, wearied by these disclosures.
“Fascinating, yes. An interesting word. From the Latin fascinus. An amulet shaped like a phallus. A word progressing from the same root as the word ‘fascism.’ ”
He was whispering again.
On a straightaway on U.S. 67, Glen Selvy, both hands on the wheel, decided to close his eyes and count to five. He didn’t hurry the count. At five he even paused for half a second before opening his eyes again.
He was going eighty.
PAC/ORD had recruited openly. They needed administrators, clerical people, personnel investigators, career panelists, budget directors. As Selvy progressed through batteries of tests and interviews, he began to realize he was part of an increasingly selective group of candidates. Everybody else filed into Rooms 103, 104 or 105. Selvy’s group convened behind an unmarked door.
There were weeks of further culling. Periodic technical interviews, or polygraphs. A progressively clearer picture. At intervals, candidates were asked to state their willingness or unwillingness to continue the program.
Selvy went on salary in a PAC/ORD division called Containment Services, Guidance and Support. For six weeks he checked personnel files and evaluated job candidates. This led to another series of tests, including thorough physicals. At intervals, he was asked to state his willingness or unwillingness to continue the program.
He saw her waving: Nadine Rademacher.
She was standing outside a Howard Johnson’s located near a highway interchange. She got into the car smiling and hefted her suitcase over the back of the seat as Selvy drove off.
“Nice seeing Joanie. You could have done worse than show up for a little home cooking. Where to next?”
“Where to next.”
“All these ramps and levels. You be sure to pick a good one now.”
“I think we ought to just keep going in the same straight line we’ve been going in ever since New York.”
“Have we been going in a straight line?”
“Ever since New York.”
“I’m glad to see you, Slim. Were you afraid I wouldn’t think you’d show up?”
“We’ll have to go through that question point by point some time.”
“It’s a tricky one.”
“Where to next,” he said. “Check the glove compartment.”
“You’re looking kind of tired and glum.”
“There’s a map.”
“Tell you what I don’t like. It’s this little nip in the air. It’s too early and we’re too far south.”
Her hand came away from the glove compartment holding the small dagger that Selvy had taken from the ranger about a day and a half earlier. She waited for him to notice.
“What’s that?” he said.
“Hey, bub.”
“I use it for fingernails. A grooming aid.”
“Is this what they call an Arkansas toothpick?”
“This is smaller.”
“Being we’re in Arkansas.”
“You thought you’d ask.”
“What’s it for?” she said.
“I slash mattresses when I’m depressed.”
They sent him to Marathon Mines. Here he attended classes in coding and electronic monitoring. There was extensi
ve weapons training. He took part in small-scale military exercises. He studied foreign currencies, international banking procedures, essentials of tradecraft. For the first time he heard the term “funding mechanism.”
His instructors conveyed the impression that he was part of the country’s most elite intelligence unit. It was manageably small; it was virtually unknown; there was no drift, no waste, no direct accountability. He heard the words “Radial Matrix.”
A great deal of time was spent studying and discussing the paramilitary structure of rebel groups elsewhere in the world.
They analyzed the setup the Vietcong had used. The part-time village guerrilla. The self-contained three-man cell. And tieu to dac cong, the special duty unit considered the most dangerous single element in the VC system. Suicide squads. Special acts of sabotage in ARVN-controlled areas. High-risk grenade assaults. Assassination teams.
They studied the Algerian moussebelines, or death commandos, groups undertaking extremely hazardous operations independent of local army control. They discussed the action of the FLN bomb network that operated out of the Casbah, maintaining a state of terror for nearly a year despite its limited numbers.
Selvy thought it curious that intelligence officers of a huge industrial power were ready to adopt the techniques of ill-equipped revolutionaries whose actions, directly or indirectly, were contrary to U.S. interests. The enemy. This curious fact was not discussed or studied. He heard the phrase “internal affairs enforcement.”
Groups attached to various agencies, U.S. and foreign, trained at the Mines. From people belonging to some of these groups, Selvy kept hearing about the exploits of the original chief training officer—the man, more than any other, responsible for the techniques and procedures currently employed. Earl Mudger. Said to be in business these days somewhere in the East.
“Remember chocolate cigarettes?” Nadine said.
Selvy drove along a two-lane road until they found a restaurant. It was a long room with a state trooper at one table talking to a waitress in sneakers.
“Miss the lights?” Selvy said.
“Gotta be kidding.”
“Times Square.”
“Arm, leg, hip, breast.”
“You think that woman might come over and take our order sometime before sundown.”
“She’s visiting, Glen.”
