Libra - Don Delillo [121]
Jack had no idea what the guy was saying. He squeezed a Preludin down his throat. It takes away your procrastination about what you want to do next.
He drove to the Ritz Delicatessen and parked outside. He opened the trunk and threw in the moneybag with the gun and heavy cash so he wouldn’t forget to do it later. The trunk was a little overflowing with barbells, weights, a summer suit, a can of paint, a roll of toilet paper, dog toys and dog biscuits, a holster for his gun, a golf shoe with a dollar bill in it and about a hundred glossies of Randi Ryder that he’d brought back from New Orleans. You might as well call it my life because it’s not any neater at home.
He walked into the Ritz and ordered everything with extra mustard and extra mayonnaise, a dozen sandwiches. Roast beef, corned beef, sliced turkey, tongue, dill pickles, cole slaw, relish, potato salad, black-cheny soda, ginger ale, etc. He told the man to give these sandwiches special handling because they were going to police headquarters.
He got back in the car. These cops of ours deserve the best because they put their lives on the line every time they walk out the door. This is a homicidal town. Barn. He had to remember to go back to the club later to get his dachshund Sheba and clear the register and grab his hat. He didn’t like being without his hat because the balding head is here for all to see. He took scalp treatments that he felt were doing some good although he doubted it.
He drove to the Police and Courts Building, feeling a sharp sting in his left knee and hiking up his pants leg as he drove. A nice ripe gash. A street fight takes up your attention to the point where you don’t know you’re bleeding for an hour. He drove with his left pants leg raised above the knee. No responsible party would finance him because he gave away drinks to nobodies and brought in people and dogs off the street. He got out of the car, lowered his pants leg and went into the old part of the building, walking between the tall columns.
He took the elevator to three, holding the carton with the food and drinks, thinking that if he doesn’t do something soon he will be running a business out of his pants pockets forever, if they let him run it at all, if they don’t turn him into a nothing person completely. He got off the elevator and went down the corridor to the juvenile bureau. He felt blood seeping into his shoe. But just seeing these men in uniform, clean shaven, he wanted to say it is the proudest feeling of my life being a friend of the police in the most pro-American city anywhere in the world.
His rabbi told him many times, “Don’t be so emotional.”
In Dallas
Lee Oswald sat in Sleight’s Speed Wash at midnight, waiting for his clothes to dry and reading H. G. Wells. One other customer was in the place, an obese and scary-looking man who wore slippers cut open near the front to give his swollen feet some room. The air had a sour reek. Lee was slumped over volume one of The Outline of History, biting the skin of his thumb, the book spread open in his lap.
He was living apart, off and on, from Marina and Baby June.