by Don DeLillo
Early man roaming the tundra. You have to name your weapon before you can use it to kill.
Lomax was motionless in the cashier’s shack.
It occurred to him that one day soon areas such as this would be regarded as precious embodiments of a forgotten way of life. Commerce and barter. The old city. The marketplace. Downtown.
What are we doing to our forests, our lakes, our warehouse districts? That’s how it would go. What are we doing to our warehouse districts, our freight yards, our parking lots?
He was tired, hungry and cold. The man who handed out tickets and collected money had left some Ritz crackers stacked on a piece of wax paper. Lomax edged them away with his elbow. Other people’s food. Other people’s refrigerators. He’d always been vaguely disgusted by things he’d happened to see in other people’s refrigerators.
He heard a man shout. The sound had the tone of an insult. Briefly someone’s head became visible over the top of a car parked about fifty yards away. The voice again, screaming insults. A second figure appeared, moving toward the car.
Lomax sucked in his breath and removed the automatic from his waistband holster. He put his left hand on the door handle, ready to push it open if necessary. It was possible his silhouette could be detected in the very dim light cast by a streetlamp not far away. He remained motionless for several minutes. Some more screaming. No one else around. The old city. The abandoned core.
The second figure moved off, toward the warehouse. Lomax opened the door of the shack. There was a gunshot. He moved quickly to the nearest car, crouching down behind it. Someone passed within twenty yards of him, moving quickly, a man, head down, as if he were walking into a stiff wind. Lomax looked over the trunk of the car. Someone was walking in the opposite direction, slowly. Also male. He disappeared behind the freight car.
Lomax stayed where he was for three full minutes, listening. Then he headed toward the car where the shooting had taken place. He held his gun against his thigh. That arm he kept stiff, not swinging naturally as the other arm was. He saw himself leaving the scene. A jump in time. He saw himself getting off a plane at National in Washington. He saw himself selling condominiums on the Gulf Coast.
Both doors were open. On the ground on the driver’s side was a man, breathing deeply. Lomax crouched five feet away, his gun directed at the man’s head.
“Who are you?”
The same worried breathing. The deadweight respiration of a deep sleeper.
“Who are you?” Lomax said.
“Fuck off. I’m hit.”
“I know you’re hit.”
“The slug’s in my throat. I feel something.”
Lomax leaned to his right for a better look. The man had been shot on the left side of the face, below the cheekbone. With the doors open, the car’s interior light had come on and Lomax could see powder burns rimming the hole in the man’s cheek. There was blood all over his mouth.
“What’s your name? Who are you?”
“Mind your own business. Let me breathe.”
“I can get you an ambulance. Would you like that?”
“If I start choking, put your finger down my throat. I’d appreciate your doing that. I hate that feeling of choking. I fucking dread it.”
“No promises,” Lomax said, “unless you tell me who you are.”
“I’m Sherman Kantrowitz.”
“Who are you, Sherman? Who were those other people?”
“I’m the son of Sophie and Nat.”
“Who were those people?”
The same uneven deep breathing. The search for a rhythm.
“Who do you work for, Sherman?”
“I want to swallow but I’m afraid.”
Lomax saw himself playing eighteen holes a day. The sun is shining. There’s a sweet breeze from the Gulf.
Tran Le.
The fields were tawny and sparse. Three-quarters of the wheel and more. Winter’s pure alcohol in the air.
Tran Le standing by the window.
Her eyes were large and dark and had a special dimension inward, an element of contriteness, as of a child always on the verge of being punished. Without this softening depth, her face might have had too much contour. The lines of her cheekbones and jaw were strong and exact, and she had a full mouth, wide and silver-pink and sensual, and a little greedy in a certain light, a little coarse. Again a counterpoise. It mocked the childlike eyes.
She moved from window to window now. Small lamps swung on the patio. A cane chair stood beneath a tree. The end of a red canoe jutted from one of the stables. She crossed to the other side of the room. Leaves turned slowly in the pond. The scarlet runner hung over the edge of a small shed. It was quiet, minutes till sundown, a tinted light in the fields. She watched the ponies graze.
5
It took the cabdriver about sixty seconds to write out a receipt. Moll watched a pair of dog-walkers stop near the curb to give their pets a chance to sniff each other. Cute. She took the receipt and went up the stairs to the front door of the brownstone.
In the vestibule she rang the bell and waited for Grace Delaney to buzz her in. Nothing happened. She rang again. It was after eleven but this was Monday and Grace always stayed until midnight, or later, on Mondays.
Moll had a set of keys. Before opening the door, she peered through the glass panel, her view obscured by the crosshatched metal grating on the other side of the pane of glass.
She entered the building and started climbing to the third floor. She walked with her head twisted to the left and angled upward so that she might see ahead to the landing and the next bend in the staircase.
Both doors on the third floor were locked. She climbed the final flight. Two keys to the door of the outer office. On the second try she fitted each to its respective lock. Only one lock had been fastened.
All the lights were on. She entered hesitantly, calling Grace’s name. She walked through the outer area into Grace’s office. The usual clutter. Proofs, correspondence, photographs. A bottle of hand lotion on the coffee table. A paper cup nearly filled with vegetable soup.
She stood in the middle of the room, feeling a dim presentiment. Something about to happen. Someone about to appear. She picked up the phone and dialed Grace’s home number, if only to break the mood. A recording came on, overamplified and dense: “This is Grace Delaney. I’m not here right now. No one is here. At the beeping sound, leave your name and number—”
Of course. Nobody is where they should be. Moll realized how wrong she’d been to feel apprehensive. The action was elsewhere, and included everyone but her. By refusing sexual alliance with Earl Mudger, she’d sealed herself off from the others. That was the effect, intended or not. There was no danger here. No one watched or listened any longer. Security. Why did it feel so disappointing?
She fastened both locks and walked slowly down the stairs and out of the building.
Grace Delaney sat near the immense Victorian birdcage in the lobby of the Barclay, off Park Avenue. She checked her watch several times and eventually walked over to one of the house phones. A man answered.
“I’m checking the vent in the bathroom.”
“First you get me here,” Grace said. “Then you make me wait.”
“I’m in the middle of checking the vent.”
“I’m coming up.”
“We want to be sure the room’s lily white. Don’t we want that?”
“We want that.”
“Of course we do,” he said.
Fifteen minutes later she got off the elevator at 12. The room was located along the main corridor. Lomax let her in. The curtains were drawn. Only one light was on—a small table lamp—and he’d placed it on the floor, apparently to make the lighting as indirect as possible. He helped her off with her coat and hung it in the closet.
“That dress is a winner.”
“Second-string,” she said. “A relic.”
“You know how to wear clothes. Clothes hang well on you. You have a sense of what lo
oks good.”
He sat on the edge of the bed and took off his shoes.
“You’re a New York woman,” he said. “A classic type.”
“Shut up, Arthur, will you?”
“No, really, in the best sense.”
She took off her dress and put it over a chair.
“I never thought I’d end up in bed with a man who wears Clark’s Wallabees.”
“I don’t wear them in bed.”
“At least they’re not Hush Puppies,” she said. “Good Christ, think of it.”
Lomax stood up to get out of his pants.
“What’s wrong with Clark’s Wallabees? They’re a damn good shoe.”
A pair of chambermaids talked and laughed as they walked past the door.
“What about some room service, Gracie? Scotch, bourbon? This is Scotch weather. This is the season.”
“I’ve got my flask.”
She sat before the mirror in her bra, panties, stockings and garter belt. A bobby pin was in her mouth as she rearranged her hair. Lomax stood nude, briefly; then he slipped under the covers, watching her.
“Did you have to cancel something?”
“Just Moll,” she said.
“My schedule’s a super bitch.”
“Only I didn’t cancel, I just split. Meaning to ask, Arthur. Who was this friend of hers? What friend was she talking about?”
“You mean the collection.”
“I told you she had someone who could get her access to Percival’s collection.”
“Him we forget about.”
“Were they lovers?”
“Yes indeedy.”
“Where is he now?”
“Doesn’t matter,” Lomax said.
“Far away.”
“You seemed rather interested, Arthur, at the time.”
“Fact-gathering, that’s all.”
“And what are the facts?”
“Maybe he gave her access, maybe not. I haven’t thought about it lately. Onward and upward.”
Grace walked over to his side of the bed. He put his hands on her breasts, over the bra, for a long moment. It seemed part of a set program. Then she went into the bathroom, leaving the door open.
“What happened in Dallas, Arthur?”
He didn’t answer. She came out holding her handbag. She took the silver flask out of it and walked over to the far side of the bed. She sat there, removing her stockings.
“What’s this lamp doing on the floor?”
“A little mood thing,” he said.
“Sure it’s not bugged?”
“I ought to know how to sweep a room by now.”
“Sen-si-tive.”
“BasAtards, I wouldn’t put it past them.”
She faced him, reclining on top of the covers, the flask between them.
“Which bastards?”
“PAC/ORD.”
“Aren’t they your bastards, ultimately? Don’t you still have a channel?”
“Did I tell you that?”
“As long as it’s not the tax man,” she said. “As long as you’re keeping the tax man away from my door.”
Lomax leaned over to lick her navel. Someone pushed a room-service tray along the corridor.
“It’s ongoing,” he said. “I have to keep fending off. Tax fraud is no joke.”
“Pricks.”
“Willful omission.”
“Isn’t there a statute of limitations?”
“Not for fraud,” he said.
“This was years ago.”
“You were a political. They love politicals and they love big-time mob figures. And they love to make their cases around February or March. Instills fear in the tax-paying public. That’s when you see pictures of your favorite mob figure coming down the courthouse steps. Late February, early March.”
“Why aren’t they content to just seize my bank account or car or whatever?”
“They favor prosecutions in cases like yours. Of course it depends on how much money’s involved. You were tied into some very radical adventures, Gracie. You were playing around with some large sums of money. Willful omission. Multiple filing schemes. Terribly naughty girl.”
“The movement was a living thing,” she said dryly.
“I’ll show you a living thing.”
“It was one’s duty to beat the system.”
“You want a living thing?”
“What have they got, exactly?”
“I’ve seen your paper. They keep the paper. There’s all kinds of computerized data. But they keep the paper. There are clear indications of fraud. As I say, I’ve been fending off. Fortunately for you, there’s a chain of mutual interests.”
Grace ran the tip of her index finger over his lips. She drank from the flask and passed it to Lomax. Street sounds barely audible. He took a brief surprised swallow.
“This isn’t Scotch.”
“It’s vodka.”
“This is Scotch weather.”
“Wod-ka.”
“Should I call room service?” he said to himself. “Then I’d have to get dressed.”
“Tell me about Dallas, Arthur.”
“Cold and dark.”
“You’ve dropped wee hints.”
“You make me do these things. It’s not to be believed, what you make me do.”
“What we make each other do.”
“It’s because I’ve lost the faith.”
“You don’t give a rat’s ass. I understand, sweet.”
“Take off your top, why don’t you?”
“Due time, love.”
“I don’t believe. I used to believe but now I don’t.”
“I understand, pet.”
She turned toward him, moving closer—the flask, in her left hand, resting on his chest.
“It was frankly nasty,” he said.
“You tell such charming stories.”
“Ain’t it the truth.”
“Let me get all curled up and toasty and snug.”
“What happened, various sets of people were maneuvering for position. That’s standard. I stationed myself according to plan, waiting for Earl. This can be a full-time occupation. It happens with him. Fierce enthusiasms. The earth is scorched for miles around. Other times, where is he? He says thus and so but he’s not where he’s supposed to be, he’s in Saudi on some leasing deal. In the meantime I find myself face to face with a guy who has a bullet in his throat. It’s very dark. What’s going on? After a lot of prodding, I find out he’s free-lancing for Talerico, Vincent, a middle-level mobster. Everybody’s after the same thing. We knew about the Senator’s interest. We knew about Richie’s interest, the kid, Armbrister. Now we have the families in all their Renaissance glory. What happens then, a car comes barreling around the corner and I go diving out of sight. I’m underneath a pickup truck, peering out, feeling this is the onset of a midlife crisis.”
“The dark night of the soul,” Grace said.
“For what, or whom?”
“When the priests stop believing, what does it mean?”
“Of course it was Mudger. He was sitting in the back of an ordinary cab. I crawled out and walked over. Told him what I knew. He suggested I get in, which I did, and we drove off.”
“Leaving the man with the bullet in his throat.”
“That happens, Gracie.”
“Don’t call me Gracie.”
“Do you want me to call you what Earl calls you?”
“What’s that?”
“Never mind,” he said.
“What does Earl call me?”
“Take off your top.”
“Tough darts, bubie.”
She drank from the flask and resettled herself.
“Do I go on?”
“You’re in the cab,” she said.
“Earl, anyway, tells me he’s disillusioned. The whole thing’s a mess. Let the families have the goddamn footage. He no longer wants it.”
“What does he want?”
�
�He wants to start a zoo. He wants to buy a huge tract somewhere and build some kind of safariland. Animals running around, people with cameras, I don’t know. Part zoo, part natural habitat. He wasn’t clear on details. He’d only thought of it on the flight up from San Antonio. It’s part of Earl’s nostalgia for Vietnam. He had a zoo there.”
“I wonder if I’d like him,” Grace said. “Moll did and didn’t.”
“You don’t like anyone. Who do you like?”
“She wrote an interesting piece. Uneven and loose as hell. But her best work really. I was genuinely upset.”
“Earl calls you FCB.”
“What does that mean?”
“It’s a joke name. Doesn’t mean anything. Earl made it up. Actually we both made it up.”
“I don’t think I’d like him.”
“You wouldn’t like the Senator either. You don’t like anyone.”
“I’m old and tired,” she said.
“The Senator is also out of the running. On to something else. A touch more traditional.”
“Who cares? Do I look as though I care?”
“You’re still young,” Lomax said. “I’m the one who’s old. I feel old.”
“You’re younger than I am, Arthur, and I don’t even care.”
“I feel old. I’m the old one. Forget chronology. If I were a dog I’d be only six years old, chronologically, but I feel ready for the meat machine.”
Grace removed her brassiere and lay facing the ceiling. Lomax put the flask on the small table by the bed. His radio pager started beeping. This was a small device he’d lately taken to carrying everywhere. It was in the closet right now, in his coat pocket. Unlike the pagers generally in use, this one operated within a radius of one thousand miles from the originating signal. Activated by computer, the device enabled Earl Mudger to contact Lomax wherever he was, whatever he was doing, within that radius. When the beeping started, Lomax was to call a certain number and receive whatever instructions had been prepared for him.
