Libra - Don Delillo [58]
Both men had been with Castro, originally, in the mountains.
“The wife and children, Frank? They’re well?”
“Doing okay.”
“Three kids, right? What about Raymo? The right woman doesn’t show up?”
These were the only men Mackey could talk to like this, in extended ceremonial hellos, little arcs of family news and other details of being. It was the necessary foreground. He knew it was expected and he’d come to look forward to it. They had to say something to each other. There was only one subject among them and it did not adapt to easy chat.
All right. Mackey gave them some background on the operation. Extremely dedicated men were behind it. The idea was to galvanize the nation into full awareness of the danger of a communist Cuba. Dirección General de Inteligencia would be exposed as a criminal organization willing to take extreme action against important figures who opposed Castro.
He told them a shooting was in the works, designed to implicate the DGI. He wanted Frank and Raymo to be part of it and he supplied some operational details. High-powered rifles, elevated perches, a trail of planted evidence, someone to take the fall. There would be five hundred dollars a month for each of them, commencing now, and a nice payday when the job was done. The men behind the plan, he said, were respected Agency veterans, deep believers in a free Havana.
He did not mention Everett and Parmenter by name. He did not tell them who their target was or where the shooting would take place. He would let details drop, here and there, in time, as need dictated. The other thing he did not say was that they were supposed to miss.
The Parmenters lived in a stunted frame house at the edge of a brick sidewalk in Georgetown. The sidewalk bulged and rippled and the once-quaint house was slightly shabby now, a mousy relic no one noticed.
It was Beryl who’d wanted to live here. The corporate suburbs were not for them, she said. Guarded shoptalk over drinks and dinner with colleagues and their anxious wives. She wanted to live in town. Fanlights, wrought iron, leaded glass. The security of a small and darkish place with old familiar things lying about, with books, rugs, dust, a wine cellar for Larry, a tininess, an unnoticeability (if such a word exists). There was something about a long and low and open-space house with a lawn and a carport that made her feel spiritually afraid.
Larry paced the small rooms now, drink in hand, wearing an enormous striped robe. Beryl was at her writing desk clipping news items to send to friends. This was a passion she’d discovered recently like someone in middle life who finds she was born to show pedigreed dogs. Nothing that happened before has any meaning compared to this. A week’s worth of newspapers sat on the desk. She sent clippings to everyone. There was suddenly so much to clip.
“Look at this, now. Am I angry or amused?”
She turned around to find her husband.
“Look at this, Larry. A folk singer named Bob Dylan is told by CBS he can’t sing one of his songs on The Ed Sullivan Show. Too controversial.”
“What’s controversial about it?”
“It’s called ‘Tatkin’ John Birch Society Blues.’ ”
“Is he white or Negro? Because white boys shouldn