Libra - Don Delillo [155]
“I’m expecting a huge phone call. Stay away from the phone. Like into next week I’m referring.”
“Who do I ever call?” George said.
“I don’t know. The weather.”
“I don’t follow the weather. I don’t go anywheres near it.”
Jack barely heard. He had the ability to share an apartment with a roommate and just barge and rush around as if the guy wasn’t there. His mind raced too fast for a guy like shapeless George to catch a ride. He didn’t even know what the spare room looked like since George moved in. Maybe he painted it orange. Not that he didn’t like having George around. It’s a matter of once you’re used to a human presence, growing up like I did with seven brothers and sisters plus two dead in infancy, you feel there’s something missing in a household.
Living alone is a pressure situation. The roommates agreed on that.
Jack took a Preludin with his grapefruit juice. He walked around the living room, trying to say in his mind what he was thinking. Six weeks and no word. They were letting him dance in midair. He went into the kitchen and made more juice. He needed a scalp treatment. He was falling behind in every area of personal care.
“Who is the call?” George said.
“A guy from New Orleans I used to know.”
“This is the money.”
“He told me he’d be in Dallas today. Okay. I’m waiting.”
“What about the other guy?” George said.
“Karlinsky? The man is purist-minded from the start. I expected no action and that’s what I got.”
“So you said, what, let me contact New Orleans.”
“I went right through Karlinsky. I went ten feet over his head.”
“This other guy leaves an opening?”
“We wait and see.”
“What, you asked him straight out you needed a loan?”
“He already knew my situation. He knew from last June when we bumped into each other in the street. I was in New Orleans looking at Randi Ryder for the club.”
“I never been,” George said.
“It’s a city where the money’s not so tight and clean.”
He put on his jacket and hat, got his moneybag and revolver, picked up Sheba from her chair and went down to the car. He dropped the dog on the front seat, opened the trunk and tossed the moneybag in. He drove to Commerce Street and bought a couple of newspapers at a corner stand. Back at the car he spotted his dirty laundry in the rear seat, where he’d left it six, seven, eight days ago, tied together with a pajama leg. He looked around for a glass of water. Nervous in the service. Then he drove half a block in reverse to the Carousel, checking the spelling of the girls’ names on the marquee. Some tourists from Topeka were looking at the glossies on the wall out front. Jack introduced himself, shook hands, gave them his card, got the dog from the front seat and went on up the narrow stairway.
Walking into the empty club made him feel how inspirational it was to grow up quitting school in Chicago, nickname Sparky, scalping tickets outside fight arenas, selling carnations in dance halls, and now he is a club owner, a known face, with ads in the paper, as only America can turn out.
He went to his office and called the local IRS and told them he had to postpone the meeting they’d scheduled because he was unable to get his records properly compiled. A phrase his attorney had suggested. They made a new appointment and he promised to bring thirteen hundred cash to ease the matter of delinquency. Another phrase.
He went to the bar, poured a glass of water and swallowed another Preludin. To speed the day along and help him think positive. The phone rang in his office. He hurried in and picked up. It was George at the apartment. The call had come. The man was in town. Tony Astorina. Carousel at noon.
The dogs in the back room were barking to be let out. Jack went down to the car and drove a block and a half to the Ritz Delicatessen. He bought half a dozen sandwiches and beverages and drove right back.
His brother Sam called. He had some new production ideas for those plastic spinners, those twirly things that spin on high wires in front of service stations and car lots for a festive appearance.