Read Online Running Dog by Don DeLillo - Free Book Online Page A

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.”
    “You’re in Quebec City. Picture it. Twenty-two below zero Celsius. People running around everywhere. It’s Carnaval. Somebody hands you a glass that’s pure alcohol plus red wine. You take a drink. Three days later your body comes hurtling through a snow-blower.”
    “Dull. Stupid and dull.”
    Huge stains, as of disruptions in the plumbing, covered part of one wall. The place smelled. There were inclines in the floor, some unexpected grades and elevations. An unfinished mural—palm trees—covered a section of the wall behind the bar.
    “Where are you from?” Moll said.
    “Originally?”
    “Originally, lately, whatever. Or are you the kind of person who sees himself as a man without a history—no past, no relatives, no ties, no binds. You’re the kind of person who sees himself as a man without a history.”
    “But you like that kind of person.”
    “I like that kind of person, true.”
    “Because they tend to be mean bastards,” he said.
    “And I like mean bastards.”
    “They tend to be very, very mean.”
    “And I’m attracted to that, yes.”
    The bartender was a Latin with a terrible complexion. His shirt