Don DeLillo - Running Dog

"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 extensive 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 parttime 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.