Mao II - Don Delillo [39]
She knew he would not say a word, not even going up the ladder, not even the faithful little ladder joke, and she welcomed the silence, the tactful boy lean and pale, climbing her body with a groan.
7
Bill opened the door in the middle of traffic, the thick choked blast of yellow metal, and he walked out into it. Scott called after him to wait, stay, watch out. He moved between stalled cabs where drivers sat slumped in the gloom like inmates watching daytime TV. Scott shouted out a place and a time to meet. Bill threw back a wave and then stood at the edge of the one active lane until there was an opening to the sidewalk.
The rush of things, of shuffled sights, the mixed swagger of the avenue, noisy storefronts, jewelry spread across the sidewalk, the deep stream of reflections, heads floating in windows, towers liquefied on taxi doors, bodies shivery and elongate, all of it interesting to Bill in the way it blocked comment, the way it simply rushed at him, massively, like your first day in Jalalabad, rushed and was. Nothing tells you what you’re supposed to think of this. Well, it was his first day in New York in many years and there was no street or building he wanted to see again, no old haunt that might rouse a longing or sweet regret.
He found the number and approached an oval desk in the lobby, where two security officers sat behind a bank of telephones, TV monitors and computer displays. He gave his name and waited for the woman to check a visitors’ list on the swivel screen. She asked him some questions and then picked up a phone and in a couple of minutes a uniformed man appeared to escort Bill to the proper floor. The woman at the desk gave the man a visitor’s badge, an adhesive piece of paper, which he fastened to Bill’s lapel.
There was another checkpoint at the elevator bank and they passed without delay and rode an express to the top of the building and when the door came open there was Charlie Everson in a bright tie, waiting. He squeezed Bill’s arms at the biceps and looked squarely into his face. Neither man said a word. Then Charlie nodded to the guard and led Bill through a door opposite the reception room. They walked down a long corridor lined with book jackets and went into a large sunny office filled with plant life and polished surfaces.
“Where’s your Bushmills?” Bill said. “A bite of the single-malt will do just fine.”
“I’m not drinking these days.”
“But you keep something in the cabinet for visiting writers.”
“Ballygowan. It’s water.”
Bill looked at him hard. Then he sat down and undid the laces on his shoes, which were new and tight.
“Bill, it’s hard to believe.”
“I know. So many years, so fast, so strange.”
“You look like a writer. You never used to. Took all these years. Do I recognize the jacket?”
“I think it’s yours.”
“Is it possible? The night Louise Wiegand got drunk and insulted my jacket.”
“And you took it off.”
“I threw it right down.”
“And I said I need a jacket and I did need a jacket and she said or someone said take this one.”
“Wasn’t me. I liked that jacket.”
“It’s a nice old tweed.”
“Doesn’t fit.”
“I’ve worn it maybe four times.”
“She gave you my jacket.”
“Louise was damn nice that way.”
“She’s dead, you know.”
“Don’t start, Charlie.”
“What do you hear from Helen?”
“Speaking of dead? Nothing.”
“I always liked Helen.”
“You should have married her,” Bill said. “Would have saved me a ton of trouble.