Don Delillo - Players

"You two will talk.”

"Who is he?”

"Not yet," she said.

"Did you ever dream you'd find another George so easily?”

"It's a quality of Americans.”

"What is?”

"Just as Englishmen never cease being schoolboys, Americans are doomed to perform heroic deeds.”

"An ironic saying, he interjected," Lyle said.

"Which illness is worse I leave for you to decide.”

She was smiling. The three boys passed in front of the car, looking in, and crossed over to the empty lot. She seemed to be waiting for Lyle to get out of the car. A man wearing outsized pants and a T-shirt full of holes approached the car on the driver's side. Marina said something in Spanish. Then she looked at Lyle. The man had recently vomited. Not taking her eyes off Lyle, she said something else and the man walked off.

"The bottle is the target," Lyle said. "I keep telling myself, as a soothing reminder.”

"We'll talk soon.”

"I'm getting out, is that it?”

"Yes.”

"And walking.”

"One foot, then the other.”

"Maybe you can drop me at Canal Street, if you're going that way, or anywhere near Lower Broadway.”

"This is better, right here.”

"Or Chinatown," he said. "Maybe you haven't been there lately. Interesting part of the city.”

When he got home he emptied the contents of his pockets onto the dresser. Wallet, keys, ballpoint pen, memo pad. Transit tokens on the right side of the dresser. Pennies and other change on the left. He ate a sandwich and took a drink up to the roof. Four elderly people sat at one of the tables. Lyle went over to the parapet. Noise from the streets rose uncertainly tonight, muffled, an underwater density. Air conditioners, buses, taxicabs. Beyond that, something obscure: the nonconnotative tone that appeared to seep out of the streets themselves, that was present even when no traffic moved, the quietest sunups. It was some innate disturbance of low frequency in the grain of the physical city, a ghostly roar. He held his glass out over the edge of the low protective wall. The other people had been silent since he'd appeared on the roof. He dropped the glass from right hand to left. There was that soft fraction of a second when neither hand touched glass. He resolved to do it five more times, extending the distance between hands each time, before allowing himself to go back downstairs.

He was in bed when Kinnear called.

"This has to be brief, Lyle.”

"I'm awake, but barely.”

"What's your situation?”

"Marina is more or less set on locating you. I don't think she has a clue at the moment as to where you might be, at least that I'm aware of. She still wants to do the Exchange.”

"What's your situation, dollars and cents?”

"You need?”

"I'm looking ahead.”

"What do you need?”

"Don't know for sure. There are several variables. Just want to determine if you'd be willing to aid and abet.”

"I should, what, draw out something now and wait to hear?”

"Draw out fifteen hundred now, good idea, in case the whole thing materializes over the weekend, which could mean trouble getting funds.”

"What, U.S. dollars?”

"Good point.”

"There's an exchange place near my bank.”

"No, stick to U.S.”

"Will you be able to change over easily?”

"U.S. will be fine, Lyle.”

"Are you in how much of a hurry?”

"Like now, zip.”

The next day Lyle was paged on the trading floor and given a telegram, originating locally, with three words on it-nine one five-and the teletyped name disinfo.

The day after that he experienced what at first he thought might be some variation of déjà vu. He'd finished lunch and stood at the door of a corner restaurant, able to see, at a severe angle, the lean elderly man who frequently appeared outside Federal Hall holding a hand-lettered political placard over his head for the benefit of those gathered on the steps. He, Lyle, was cleaning his fingernails, surreptitiously, using a toothpick he'd taken from a bowl near the cash register inside the restaurant. The paradox of material flowing backward toward itself. In this case there was no illusion involved. He had stood on this spot, not long ago, at this hour of the day, doing precisely what he was doing now, his eyes on the old man, whose body was aligned identically with the edge of a shadow on the facade of the building he faced, his sign held at the same angle, it seemed, the event converted into a dead replica by means of structural impregnation, the mineral replacement of earlier matter. Lyle decided to scatter the ingredients by heading directly toward the man instead of back to the Exchange, as he was certain he'd done the previous time. First he read the back of the sign, the part facing the street, recalling the general tenor. Then he sat on the steps, with roughly a dozen other people, and reached for his cigarettes. Burks was across the street, near the entrance to the Morgan Bank. People were drifting back to work. Lyle smoked a moment, then got up and approached the sign-holder. The strips of wood that steadied the edges of the sign extended six inches below it, giving the man a natural grip. Burks looked unhappy, arms folded across his chest.

"How long have you been doing this?" Lyle said. "Holding this sign?”

The man turned to see who was addressing him.

"Eighteen years.”

Sweat ran down his temples, trailing pale outlines on his flushed skin. He wore a suit but no tie. The life inside his eyes had dissolved. He'd made his own space, a world where people were carvings on rock. His right hand jerked briefly. He needed a haircut.

"Where, right here?”

"I moved to here.”

"Where were you before?”

"The White House.”

"You were in Washington.”

"They moved me out of there.”

"Who moved you out?”

"Haldeman and Ehrlichman.”

"They wouldn't let you stand outside the gate.”

"The banks sent word.”

Lyle wasn't sure why he'd paused here, talking to this man. Dimly he perceived a strategy. Perhaps he wanted to annoy Burks, who obviously was waiting to talk to him. Putting Burks off to converse with a theoretical enemy of the state pleased him. Another man moved into his line of sight, middle-aged and heavy, a drooping suit, incongruous pair of glasses -modish and overdesigned. Lyle turned, noting Burks had disappeared.

"Why do you hold the sign over your head?”

"People today.”

"They want to be dazzled.”

"There you are.”

Lyle wasn't sure what to do next. Best wait for one of the others to move first. He took a step back in order to study the front of the man's sign, which he'd never actually read until now.

RECENT HISTORY OF THE WORKERS OF THE WORLD

circa 1850-1920 Workers hands cut off on Congo rubber plantations, not meeting work quotas. Photos in vault Bank of England. Rise of capitalism.

the industrial age Child labor, accidents, death. Cruelty = profits. Workers slums Glasgow, New York, London. Poverty, disease, separation of family. Strikes, boycotts, etc. = troops, police, injunctions. Bitter harvest of Ind. Revolution.

may 1886 Haymarket Riot, Chicago, protest police killings of workers, 10 dead, 50 injured, bomb blast, firing into crowd.

sept 1920 Wall St. blast, person or persons unknown, 40 dead, 300 injured, marks remain on wall of J. P. Morgan Bldg. Grim reminder.

feb 1934 Artillery fire, Vienna, shelling of workers homes, i,ooo dead inc. 9 Socialist leaders by hanging/ strangulation. Rise of Nazis. Eve of World War, etc.

There was more in smaller print fitted onto die bottom of the sign. The overweight man, wilted, handkerchief in hand, was standing five feet away. Lyle, stepping off the sidewalk, touched the old man, the sign-holder, as he walked behind him, putting a hand on the worn cloth that covered his shoulder, briefly, a gesture he didn't understand. Then he accompanied the other man down to Bowling Green, where they sat on a bench near a woman feeding pigeons.