Running Dog Read Free Page B

fellow in Dallas, that fellow in Stockholm. As things begin to happen, as the market heats up, my man suddenly disappears. I have no idea how to reach him. He always insisted he would contact me. So I call people, I make inquiries, I hang around our usual meeting place. Finally I hear from the same man who put us in touch at the outset. X is dead, he tells me. Not only dead—murdered. Not only murdered—done away with under strange, very odd circumstances.”
    “How odd?” Moll said.
    “He was wearing women’s clothes.”
    Selvy looked at Moll Robbins, at the same time motioning for Lightborne to pause.
    “What’s in that case you’ve got?”
    “Nikon F2,” she said.
    “It stays inside, okay?”
    “I don’t know, you’ve got a fairly nice profile, Mr. Selvy. Might look good somewhere near the tail end of a story, just to break up lines of print.”
    “It stays or you go.”
    “And a Sony cassette recorder,” she said.
    “Take it out, please. I’d like to see it.”
    “Mr. Lightborne, this is your residence. You invited me to come here. You placed no restrictions.”
    Selvy picked the leather case off the floor, opened it, took out the tape recorder, turned it over, removed the battery case, opened it, took out the four small batteries and set them on the nearest table.
    “Quite a routine,” she said. “You must be handy around the house.”
    “No words, no pictures.”
    “It wasn’t necessary, you know. I’m not about to tape your insipid voice if you don’t want it taped.”
    Lightborne reacted to all this by taking his cup and saucer to the sink and washing them out. Returning, he pushed the box of crackers toward Moll. This time she took one, halving it neatly before taking a bite.
    “After this depressing turns of events,” Lightborne said, “the whole matter dried up and total silence prevailed. But I wanted to give you a little background, Glen, because just yesterday the smallest whisper reached my ear. If things get interesting again, I think your employer ought to be informed.”
    “Sure, absolutely.”
    “As for you, Miss Robbins, you’ll have to forgive a garrulous old man.”
    “It’s been interesting, really.”
    “Who do you work for?” Selvy said.
    “
Running Dog
” she said.
    He paused briefly.
    “One-time organ of discontent.”
    “We were fairly radical, yes.”
    “Now safely established in the mainstream.”
    “I wouldn’t say safely.”
    “Part of the ever-expanding middle.”
    “We say ‘fuck’ all the time.”
    “My point exactly.”
    “Was that your point exactly? I didn’t realize that was your point exactly. I didn’t know you had a point exactly.”
    Selvy got to his feet, saying goodnight to Lightborne and then bowing toward Moll Robbins, clicking his heels together as he did so. She followed as far as the gallery area in order to pluck her sweater from the rigid appendage where she’d left it earlier, returning then to thank Lightborne for his time. He watched her replace the batteries in the tape recorder.
    “I was wondering,” she said.
    “Yes?”
    “Is he always in that much of a hurry? Could be a plane he’s got to catch. Or commuter train maybe.”
    “Glen’s not the type to hang around and make small talk.”
    “Of course if I found out who he buys for, and if it’s someone interesting and important, and if I use this information in one of the pieces I’m doing, it wouldn’t do
you
any good, would it?”
    “Wouldn’t do me much harm either,” Lightborne said. “The collector Glen represents hasn’t shown much interest in the stuff I’ve been coming up with. According to Glen, he may be on the verge of dropping me completely.”
    They walked out into the gallery and Lightborne went around turning off lights. He looked at Moll from a distance of thirty-five feet or so.
    “You mentioned trains and planes.”
    “Just wondering aloud,” she said.
    “If you were heading Glen’s way, and this is only speculation, you’d