Don DeLillo - Running Dog

Propped on an elbow he watched her walk out of the room. When she came back she brought a can of beer, which they shared,

"You have a third baseman's walk."

"I walk crouched," she said.

"Like you've been spending a whole career too close to home plate, expecting the hitter to bunt but always suspicious, ready to dart one way or the other."

"Suspicious of what?"

"He might swing away."

"So that's my walk. A third baseman. What about my body?"

"Good hands," he said. "Taut breasts. A second baseman's."

"I just remembered something."

"Won't get in your way when you pivot to make the double play."

"We're going to the movies. I just realized. There's a Chaplin program at the Little Carnegie and we've got four and a half minutes to get down there."

_The dictator in uniform_.

_Each of his lapels bears the double-cross insignia. His hat is large, a visored cap, also with insignia. He wears knee-high boots_.

_The world's most famous mustache_.

_The dictator addresses the multitudes. He speaks in strangulated tirades. A linguistic subfamily of German. The microphones recoil_.

_The story includes a little barber and a pretty girl_.

_An infant wets on the dictator's hand. Storm troopers march and sing_.

_The dictator sits on his desk, holding a large globe in his left hand. A classic philosophical pose. His eyes have a faraway look. He senses the vast romance of acquisition and conquest_.

_The celebrated scene_.

_To a Lohen grin soundtrack, the dictator does an eerie ballet, bouncing the globe, a balloon, this way and that, tumbling happily on his back_.

_The dictator weeps, briefly_.

_The little barber, meanwhile, studies his image as it appears on the surface of a bald man's head_.

_The dictator welcomes a rival tyrant to his country. The man arrives in a two-dimensional train. The leaders salute each other for many frames_.

_The prerogatives of dictatorship are easier to establish, they learn, when there is only one dictator_.

_There is a ball in the palace. The dictator and his rival eat strawberries and mustard. A treaty is signed. The two men team up_.

_The dictator goes duck-hunting and falls out of his boat_.

_Mistaken identity_.

_The barber, or neo-tramp, who is the dictator's look-alike, assumes command, more or less, and addresses the multitudes_.

_A burlesque, an impersonation_.

In a restaurant nearby, Moll said, "The really funny thing is that I remember the movie as silent, and it's not of course. I even forgot the speech at the end. Incredible. But I guess the visual memory is what dominates. I'll tell you what I never, ever forget when it comes to movies."

"What?"

"Who I saw a particular movie with."

"Who you saw a particular movie with."

"I never forget who was with me at a given movie, no matter how many years go by. So you're engraved, Selvy, on the moviegoing part of my brain. You and Charlie Chaplin forever linked. Charlie said he would never have made _The Great Dictator_ later on in the war or after the war, knowing by that time what the Nazis were capable of. It's a little naïve, in other words. He also said something strange about the dictator being a comedian. But Charlie's so related in my mind to silent film that I completely forgot this was a talkie. Ten, twelve years ago it must have been. Probably more. Fifteen maybe."

"Shut up and eat."

"I do run on at times."

"Just a bit," he said.

Over dessert she said, "Let's go drinking downtown."

"Serious drinking."

"Our original hangout. Some serious drinking. A couple of roustabouts out on the town."

"What's it called, I forget."

"Frankie's Tropical Bar."

"Can we find it?"

"Ask any cabbie. It's famous."

"The guy with the bandage on his head."

"Who tried to throw a bicycle at that fat lady."

"It all comes back," he said.

"Local color. Good talk. Festive music. Disease."

At two in the morning they were still there. Two men and an elderly woman sat at the other end of the bar. On a step leading down to the toilets another man sat sprawled, mumbling something about his landlord working for the FBI. The FBI had placed cameras and bugging devices not only in his apartment but everywhere he went. They preceded him, anticipating every stop he made, day or night.

"Ever get swacked on absinthe?"

"Missed out on that," Moll said.

"Serious derangement of the senses."

"I went through a disgusting mulled wine phase several years ago. It started in Zermatt and I allowed it to continue much too long and in far too many places."

"Doesn't beat a Caribou," Selvy said.

"Yes, very nice. But not to be mentioned in the same breath as a Bellini, which goes down especially well if you happen to be lounging on your terrace in Portofino, overlooking the bay."

"Nothing beats a Caribou."

"This is boring," she said. "Stupid way to converse."

"You're in Quebec City. Picture it. Twenty-two below zero Celsius. People running around everywhere. It's Carnaval. Somebody hands you a glass that's pure alcohol plus red wine. You take a drink. Three days later your body comes hurtling through a snow-blower."

"Dull. Stupid and dull."

Huge stains, as of disruptions in the plumbing, covered part of one wall. The place smelled. There were inclines in the floor, some unexpected grades and elevations. An unfinished mural_palm trees-covered a section of the wall behind the bar.

"Where are you from?" Moll said.

"Originally?"

"Originally, lately, whatever. Or are you the kind of person who sees himself as a man without a history_no past, no relatives, no ties, no binds. You're the kind of person who sees himself as a man without a history."

"But you like that kind of person."

"I like that kind of person, true."

"Because they tend to be mean bastards," he said.

"And I like mean bastards."

"They tend to be very, very mean."

"And I'm attracted to that, yes."

The bartender was a Latin with a terrible complexion. His shirt cuffs were folded over twice. He seemed to tiptoe back and forth, a stocky man, his head wagging. The lighting in the room was dim.

" Arak," she said. "I got wiped out on arak-where?"

" Cyprus."

" Cyprus, that's right. Although I don't think I've been to Cyprus. No, I've never been to Cyprus. So that's not right. You're clearly mistaken, Selvy."

"It wasn't Cyprus and it wasn't arak. It was ouzo and it was Crete."

"Well, now, I admit to having been on Crete."

"And it was ouzo, not arak. You've never touched a drop of arak in your life."

"I don't think I like ouzo. So why would I want to get wiped out on it?"

"You thought it was arak," he said. "But it wasn't. And it wasn't Crete either. It was Malta."

"It was malteds. It was chocolate malteds."

"Right. That's correct. You're making sense for a change."

"Do I get to see the collection?"

"Not a chance," he said affably.

"Is it in Georgetown?"

"Forget it."

"He'll see me. I know he'll see me. Whether or not he'll grant me a real live interview is a whole 'nuther question. But I couldn't care less about the whole thing unless I know the collection's in his Georgetown house. I just want to get near it, understand. I want to know I'm close. So is it in Georgetown? I want to know I've got half a chance."

Selvy was drinking Polish vodka. He drained his glass and pushed it several inches toward the inner rim of the bar. The man sitting on the step near the toilets hadn't stopped talking about the FBI. He was able to see the cameras and listening devices. They were installed everywhere he went. If he went to another bar around the corner, they would be there. If he took a bus uptown, he'd see the little bugging devices, the little cameras under the seats and along the metal edges of the windows. People kept telling him he had the DTs. But the DTs were when you saw rats and birds and insects. It was little cameras he saw. Tiny transmitters. And they were everywhere.