White Noise - Don Delillo [131]
He spoke first, without taking his eyes from the flickering screen.
“Are you heartsick or soulsick?”
I stood against the door.
“You’re Mink,” I said.
In time he looked at me, looked at the large friendly figure with the slumped shoulders and forgettable face.
“What kind of name is Willie Mink?” I said.
“It’s a first name and a last name. Same as anybody.”
Did he speak with an accent? His face was odd, concave, forehead and chin jutting. He was watching TV without the sound.
“Some of these sure-footed bighorns have been equipped with radio transmitters,” he said.
I could feel the pressure and density of things. So much was happening. I sensed molecules active in my brain, moving along neural pathways.
“You’re here for some Dylar, of course.”
“Of course. What else?”
“What else? Rid the fear.”
“Rid the fear. Clear the grid.”
“Clear the grid. That’s why they come to me.”
This was my plan. Enter unannounced, gain his confidence, wait for an unguarded moment, take out the Zumwalt, shoot him three times in the viscera for maximum slowness of agony, put the gun in his hand to suggest a lonely man’s suicide, write semi-coherent things on the mirror, leave Stover’s car in Treadwell’s garage.
“By coming in here, you agree to a certain behavior,” Mink said.
“What behavior?”
“Room behavior. The point of rooms is that they’re inside. No one should go into a room unless he understands this. People behave one way in rooms, another way in streets, parks and airports. To enter a room is to agree to a certain kind of behavior. It follows that this would be the kind of behavior that takes place in rooms. This is the standard, as opposed to parking lots and beaches. It is the point of rooms. No one should enter a room not knowing the point. There is an unwritten agreement between the person who enters a room and the person whose room had been entered, as opposed to open-air the-aters, outdoor pools. The purpose of a room derives from the special nature of a room. A room is inside. This is what people in rooms have to agree on, as differentiated from lawns, meadows, fields, orchards.”
I agreed completely. It made perfect sense. What was I here for if not to define, fix in my sights, take aim at? I heard a noise, faint, monotonous, white.
“To begin your project sweater,” he said, “first ask yourself what type sleeve will meet your needs.”
His nose was flat, his skin the color of a Planter’s peanut. What is the geography of a spoon-shaped face? Was he Melanesian, Polynesian, Indonesian, Nepalese, Surinamese, Dutch-Chinese? Was he a composite? How many people came here for Dylar? Where was Surinam? How was my plan progressing?
I studied the palm-studded print of his loose shirt, the Budweiser pattern repeated on the surface of his Bermuda shorts. The shorts were too big. The eyes were half closed. The hair was long and spiky. He was sprawled in the attitude of a stranded air traveler, someone long since defeated by the stale waiting, the airport babble. I began to feel sorry for Babette. This had been her last hope for refuge and serenity, this weary pulse of a man, a common pusher now, spiky-haired, going mad in a dead motel.
Auditory scraps, tatters, whirling specks. A heightened reality. A denseness that was also a transparency. Surfaces gleamed. Water struck the roof in spherical masses, globules, splashing drams. Close to a violence, close to a death.
“The pet under stress may need