White Noise - Don Delillo [134]
I advanced into the area of flickering light, out of the shadows, seeking to loom. I put my hand in my pocket, gripped the firearm. Mink watched the screen. I said to him gently, “Hail of bullets.” Keeping my hand in my pocket.
He hit the floor, began crawling toward the bathroom, looking back over his shoulder, childlike, miming, using principles of heightened design but showing real terror, brilliant cringing fear. I followed him into the toilet, passing the full-length mirror where he’d undoubtedly posed with Babette, his shaggy member dangling like a ruminant’s.
“Fusillade,” I whispered.
He tried to wriggle behind the bowl, both arms over his head, his legs tight together. I loomed in the doorway, conscious of looming, seeing myself from Mink’s viewpoint, magnified, threatening. It was time to tell him who I was. This was part of my plan. My plan was this. Tell him who I am, let him know the reason for his slow and agonizing death. I revealed my name, explained my relationship with the woman in the ski mask.
He put his hands over his crotch, tried to fit himself under the toilet tank, behind the bowl. The intensity of the noise in the room was the same at all frequencies. Sound all around. I took out the Zumwalt. Great and nameless emotions thudded on my chest. I knew who I was in the network of meanings. Water fell to earth in drops, causing surfaces to gleam. I saw things new.
Mink took one hand from his crotch, grabbed more tablets from his pocket, hurled them toward his open mouth. His face appeared at the end of the white room, a white buzz, the inner surface of a sphere. He sat up, tearing open his shirt pocket to find more pills. His fear was beautiful. He said to me, “Did you ever wonder why, out of thirty-two teeth, these four cause so much trouble? I’ll be back with the answer in a minute.”
I fired the gun, the weapon, the pistol, the firearm, the automatic. The sound snowballed in the white room, adding on reflected waves. I watched blood squirt from the victim’s midsection. A delicate arc. I marveled at the rich color, sensed the color-causing action of nonnucleated cells. The flow diminished to a trickle, spread across the tile floor. I saw beyond words. I knew what red was, saw it in terms of dominant wavelength, luminance, purity. Mink’s pain was beautiful, intense.
I fired a second shot just to fire it, relive the experience, hear the sonic waves layering through the room, feel the jolt travel up my arm. The bullet struck him just inside the right hipbone. A claret stain appeared on his shorts and shirt. I paused to notice him. He sat wedged between the toilet bowl and wall, one sandal missing, eyes totally white. I tried to see myself from Mink’s viewpoint. Looming, dominant, gaining life-power, storing up life-credit. But he was too far gone to have a viewpoint.
It was going well. I was pleased to see how well it was going. The trucks rumbled overhead. The shower curtain smelled of mildewed vinyl. A richness, a smashing intensity. I approached the sitting figure, careful not to step in blood, leave revealing prints. I took out my handkerchief, wiped the weapon clean, placed it in Mink’s hand, cautiously removing the handkerchief, painstakingly wrapping his bony fingers, one by one, around the stock, delicately working his index finger through the trigger guard. He was foaming, a little, at the mouth. I stepped back to survey the remains of the shattering moment, the scene of squalid violence and lonely death at the shadowy fringes of society. This was my plan. Step back, regard the squalor, make sure things were correctly placed.
Mink’s eyes dropped out of his skull. They gleamed, briefly. He raised his hand and pulled the trigger, shooting me in the wrist.
The world collapsed inward, all those vivid textures and connections buried in mounds of ordinary stuff. I was disappointed. Hurt, stunned and disappointed. What had happened to the higher plane of energy in which I’d carried out my scheme?