Libra - Don Delillo [124]
“What do they expect?”
“They are holding their breath, sexually. What do you like best about the darkroom? It’s the way my room used to look when I had a fever. Childhood fevers were the best times. I had tremendous high fevers. What kind of feeling do you get about this company?”
“I like it here. The work is interesting by comparison to some.”
“Because I get the feeling these various and sundry tasks are not the only things going on around here. For example. Do you want to hear an example?”
“Like what?” Lee said.
“They told me to stay away from the worktables in the typesetting area. Not allowed. No lookee.”
“You can look. No one will stop you. I look all the time.”
“So do I,” Dale said with a jump in his voice. “I’ll tell you what I see if you tell me what you see.”
“They have lists of names for the Army Map Service.”
“What kinds of names?”
“Place names.”
“That’s what I see too. They set the names in type on three-inch strips of paper.”
“Some of the names are in Cyrillic letters. Which I know in Russian. For maps of Soviet targets.”
They were both whispering.
“I’ll tell you what I overheard,” Dale said, “if you promise not to tell anyone. The maps are made from photographs. The photographs are the really secret things. They come from U-2s.”
The light was an eerie neon rouge.
“Isn’t that a neat thing to know? I love being in a position where I can exchange fascinating stuff with someone. Like you tell me, I tell you. U-2s. When I first heard this stuff, around Eisenhower, I thought they were saying you-toos, like there’s me-too and you-too.”
It was a Saturday and they were getting time and a half Lee put in for Saturdays whenever possible because he knew this job was doomed the minute Marion Collings gave the word.
“Do you like the people here?” Dale said. “I saw you with that Russian magazine you were reading. There’s been a little comment. The people here are friendly up to a point. Not that it matters to me, what anyone reads. Do you remember what it was like, being under the blankets, sweating, as a kid? A fever is a secret thing. It’s like falling down a hole where no one can follow but there’s no terror or pain because you don’t even feel like yourself. I love huddling in sweat.”
“I had an ear operation when I was little. I still remember the dreams after they put on the mask.”
“I had four operations! I loved going under!”
Dale was gesturing in the glow, with fluid dripping off his hands into the tray.
“What kind of mind do you have, Lee? One day I heard my mother say, ‘He’ll never be brilliant, Tom.’ She was talking to Tom, my brother. I have used that sentence at dinner a hundred thousand times. ”
The mysterious U-2. It followed him from Japan to Russia and now it was here in Dallas. He remembered how it came to earth, sweet-falling, almost feathery, dependent on winds, sailing on winds. That was how it seemed. And the pilot’s voice coming down to them in fragments, with the growl and fuzz of a blown speaker. He heard that voice sometimes on the edge of a shaky sleep.
Dale Fitzke said, “I’ll listen for things, you listen for things. Then we’ll meet here and talk some more.”
His typing class was at Crozier, the same school where Dupard was taking a course, and they met in an empty classroom whenever they could work out the timing. They talked strategy and philosophy, waiting for the gun to arrive in the mail.
Bobby said, “You think it’s some coincidence this Walker come to live in Dallas? Get off, man. He is here because the fury and the hate is here. This is the city he made up in his mind.”
“Did you see today’s paper? He’s going out of town on a speaking tour. Twenty-nine cities. He won’t be back till April.”
“What’s he doing, the kill-a-nigger tour?”
“Operation Midnight Ride. The dangers of communism here and abroad. It’s going to be pure Cuba. He loves to hit at Cuba. If we have to wait till April, let’s make it worthwhile. We get him on the seventeenth. The second