"Conspiracy's our theme. Shit, you know that. Connections, links, secret associations. The whole point behind the series you're doing is that it's a complex and very large business involving not only smut merchants, not only the families, not only the police and the courts, but also highly respectable business elements, mostly real estate interests, in a conscious agreement to break the law. Or haven't you heard."
"I heard."
"If you examine the matter, Percival's got nothing to do with any of this. He's an art collector with a taste for the erotic. I see it, if at all, as a fun thing."
"What can I say?"
"I don't see it as major."
"You're telling me not to pursue it."
"I miss ramifications."
"One last talk with the man."
"He won't let you anywhere near his collection."
"I have possible access without him."
"How?"
"Mysterious source."
"Close to the Senator?"
"Close enough."
"I have my doubts."
"Let me work on it."
"Knucklehead," Delaney said.
Her voice was husky and a little intimate and sometimes made insults sound like endearments. Often she purred obscenities. In her carefully tailored way, surrounded as she was by photos and layouts, by crushed paper cups, overflowing ashtrays, cellophane mobiles, by books and scattered magazines, she managed to suggest the rigor that dwells at the heart of successful concealment. Moll watched her pour lotion on her wrists and over the backs of her hands and then slowly, dreamily even, begin rubbing it in. They knew about this even in Sunnyside. It was the way she dismissed people.
It was late afternoon when Moll hailed a cab that took her past the Little Carnegie, where a special Chaplin program was playing. She found Selvy waiting in her apartment and decided not to ask how he'd gained entry. Bad taste, such questions. An insult to the ambivalence of their relations.
Her sweater crackled as she fulled it over her head. Static cling. Current in the tips of her fingers. When he touched her, she jumped. They crashed together onto the bed. The mild shocks ceased as their bodies came to resemble a single intricate surface. She began tossing her head, free and clear of garments, straddling him, noting the blends and scents rising.
Their eyes locked. A reconnoitering gaze. She sensed his control, his will, a nearly palpable thing, like a card player's unswerving determination, the furious rightness of his victory.
She ran a finger along his mouth. He lifted her then, driving with his hips, pounding, so high she tumbled forward, a hand on either side of his head for balance. They remained that way, reaching the end slowly, without further bursts and furies. On hands and knees she swayed above him, licking her lips to moisten them against the dry air.
Propped on an elbow he watched her walk out of the room. When she came back she brought a can of beer, which they shared,
"You have a third baseman's walk."
"I walk crouched," she said.
"Like you've been spending a whole career too close to home plate, expecting the hitter to bunt but always suspicious, ready to dart one way or the other."
"Suspicious of what?"
"He might swing away."
"So that's my walk. A third baseman. What about my body?"
"Good hands," he said. "Taut breasts. A second baseman's."
"I just remembered something."
"Won't get in your way when you pivot to make the double play."
"We're going to the movies. I just realized. There's a Chaplin program at the Little Carnegie and we've got four and a half minutes to get down there."
_The dictator in uniform_.
_Each of his lapels bears the double-cross insignia. His hat is large, a visored cap, also with insignia. He wears knee-high boots_.
_The world's most famous mustache_.
_The dictator addresses the multitudes. He speaks in strangulated tirades. A linguistic subfamily of German. The microphones recoil_.
_The story includes a little barber and a pretty girl_.
_An infant wets on the dictator's hand. Storm troopers march and sing_.
_The dictator sits on his desk, holding a large globe in his left hand. A classic philosophical pose. His eyes have a faraway look. He senses the vast romance of acquisition and conquest_.
_The celebrated scene_.
_To a Lohen grin soundtrack, the dictator does an eerie ballet, bouncing the globe, a balloon, this way and that, tumbling happily on his back_.
_The dictator weeps, briefly_.
_The little barber, meanwhile, studies his image as it appears on the surface of a bald man's head_.
_The dictator welcomes a rival tyrant to his country. The man arrives in a two-dimensional train. The leaders salute each other for many frames_.
_The prerogatives of dictatorship are easier to establish, they learn, when there is only one dictator_.
_There is a ball in the palace. The dictator and his rival eat strawberries and mustard. A treaty is signed. The two men team up_.
_The dictator goes duck-hunting and falls out of his boat_.
_Mistaken identity_.
_The barber, or neo-tramp, who is the dictator's look-alike, assumes command, more or less, and addresses the multitudes_.
_A burlesque, an impersonation_.
In a restaurant nearby, Moll said, "The really funny thing is that I remember the movie as silent, and it's not of course. I even forgot the speech at the end. Incredible. But I guess the visual memory is what dominates. I'll tell you what I never, ever forget when it comes to movies."
"What?"
"Who I saw a particular movie with."
"Who you saw a particular movie with."
"I never forget who was with me at a given movie, no matter how many years go by. So you're engraved, Selvy, on the moviegoing part of my brain. You and Charlie Chaplin forever linked. Charlie said he would never have made _The Great Dictator_ later on in the war or after the war, knowing by that time what the Nazis were capable of. It's a little naïve, in other words. He also said something strange about the dictator being a comedian. But Charlie's so related in my mind to silent film that I completely forgot this was a talkie. Ten, twelve years ago it must have been. Probably more. Fifteen maybe."
"Shut up and eat."
"I do run on at times."
"Just a bit," he said.
Over dessert she said, "Let's go drinking downtown."
"Serious drinking."
"Our original hangout. Some serious drinking. A couple of roustabouts out on the town."
"What's it called, I forget."
"Frankie's Tropical Bar."
"Can we find it?"
"Ask any cabbie. It's famous."
"The guy with the bandage on his head."
"Who tried to throw a bicycle at that fat lady."
"It all comes back," he said.
"Local color. Good talk. Festive music. Disease."
At two in the morning they were still there. Two men and an elderly woman sat at the other end of the bar. On a step leading down to the toilets another man sat sprawled, mumbling something about his landlord working for the FBI. The FBI had placed cameras and bugging devices not only in his apartment but everywhere he went. They preceded him, anticipating every stop he made, day or night.
"Ever get swacked on absinthe?"
"Missed out on that," Moll said.
"Serious derangement of the senses."
"I went through a disgusting mulled wine phase several years ago. It started in Zermatt and I allowed it to continue much too long and in far too many places."
"Doesn't beat a Caribou," Selvy said.
"Yes, very nice. But not to be mentioned in the same breath as a Bellini, which goes down especially well if you happen to be lounging on your terrace in Portofino, overlooking the bay."
"Nothing beats a Caribou."
"This is boring," she said. "Stupid way to converse."