"Where?" "I want a haircut." "The President's in town." "We don't care." "We need a haircut." "We need to go across town." "We'll hit traffic that speaks in quarter inches." "Just so I know, which president are we talking about?" "United States." "Barriers will be set up, entire streets deleted from the map." "Show me my car." "What have we learned, then?" "Our system's secure, we're impenetrable." "There's no rogue programme." " It would seem, however" " Eric, no." "We ran every test." "No one's overloading the system or manipulating our sites." "When did we do all this?" "Yesterday." "At the complex." "Our rapid response team." "There is no vulnerable point of entry." "Our insurer did a threat analysis." "We are buffered from attack." " Everywhere?" " Yes." " Including the car?" " Including, absolutely, yes." " My car, this car?" " Eric, yes, please." "We've been together, you and I, since the little bitty start-up." "I want you to tell me that you still have the stamina to do this job." " The single-mindedness." " This car, your car." "The relentless will." "Because I keep hearing about our legend." "That we're all young, smart and raised by wolves." "But the phenomenon of reputation is a delicate thing." "A person rises on a word and falls on a syllable." " I know I'm asking the wrong man." " Oh, what?" "Where was the car last night after you ran our tests?" "I, uh" " I don't know." "Where do all these limos go at night?" "I know I'm changing the subject." "I haven't been sleeping much." "I look at books and drink brandy." "But what happens to all these stretch limousines that prowl the throbbing city all day long?" "Where do they spend the night?" "What?" "Do you ever get the feeling sometimes that you don't know what's going on?" "Do I wanna ask you what you mean by that?" "All this optimism." "I was booming and soaring." "Things happen like" "Bang!" "It's this and that." "Simultaneous." "I put out my hand, and what do I feel?" "I know there's a thousand things you analyse every 10 minutes." "Patterns, ratios, indexes, whole maps of information." "I love information." "Eric, this is our sweetness and light." "It is a fuck-all wonder." "And we have meaning in this world." "People eat and sleep in the shadow of what we do." "But at the same time, what?" "Any special reason we're in the car instead of the office?" "What makes you think we're in the car instead of the office?" " If I answer that question..." " Based on what premise?" "I know I'll say something that's halfway clever but mostly shallow, and probably inaccurate on some level, and then you will pity me for having been born." "We're in the car 'cause I need a haircut." "So have the barber go to the office, get your haircut there." "Or have the barber come to your car." "Just get your haircut and go to the office." "A haircut has what?" "Associations." "Calendar on the wall, mirrors everywhere." "There's no barber chair here." "Nothing swivels but the chair you're in, Shiner." "Where's your car?" "We can't seem to find it." "I'd offer you a ride." "I couldn't." "Absolutely." "I know you work en route." "And I like taxis." "I was never good at geography, and I learn things by asking the drivers where they come from." "They come from horror and despair." "Yes, exactly." "One learns about the countries where unrest is occurring by riding the taxis here." "I haven't seen you in a while." "I looked for you this morning." "Your eyes are blue." "Eat breakfast yet?" "No." "Good." "I'm hungry for something thick and chewy." "You never told me you were blue-eyed." "What are we gonna talk about?" "We want a heliport on the roof." "I've acquired air rights, but we still need a zoning variance." "Don't you wanna eat?" "And a shooting range next to the elevator bank." "Let's talk about us." "You and I?" "We're here so we might as well." "When are we gonna have sex again?" "We will." "I promise." "We haven't in a while now." "When I work, you see, the energy is precious." "When you write?" "Yes." "Where do you do this?" "I look for you, Elise." "I curl up somewhere." "I've always done this." "My mother used to send people to find me." "Maids and gardeners combing the house and grounds." "She thought I was dissolvable in water." "I like your mother." "You have your mother's breasts." "Her breasts?" "Great stand-up tits." "Tell me this." "Where will you go now?" "To a meeting somewhere?" "To your office?" "Where is your office?" "What do you do, exactly?" "You know things." "I think this is what you do." "I think you're dedicated to knowing." "I think you acquire information and turn it into something stupendous and awful." "You're a dangerous person." "Do you agree?" "A visionary?" "A report from the complex." "It's a credible threat not to be dismissed, which means a ride across town is..." "We've had numerous threats, all credible." "I'm still standing here." "Not a threat to your safety." "To his." " Who the fuck is "his"?" " The President's." "This means a ride across town does not happen unless we make a day of it, with cookies and milk." "Do people still shoot at presidents?" "I thought there were more stimulating targets." "On the next block, there are two haircutting salons." "There's one and two." "No need to go across town." "The situation isn't stable." "Here." "I know that smile, Michael." "I think the yuan..." "I mean, there's reason to believe we may be leveraging too rashly." " It's gonna turn our way." " Yes, I know." "It always has." " The rashness you think you see." " What is happening doesn't chart." "It charts." "You just have to search a little harder." "Don't trust standard models." "Think outside the limits." "The yuan is making a statement." "Read it, then leap." "We are bidding big time here." "I know that smile and I wanna respect it." "But the yuan can't go any higher." "I wanna trust it." "We're borrowing enormous, enormous sums." "Any assault on the borders of perception is going to seem rash at first." "Eric, come on." "We're speculating into the void." "Your mother blamed the smile on your father." "He blamed her." "There's something deadly about it." "She thought she'd have to enrol you in special counselling." "I think we ought to adjust." "Where's Shiner?" "On his way to the airport." "Why're they called airports?" "I know I can't answer these questions without losing your respect." "Shiner told me our network is secure." "And it is." "Safe from penetration." "Then why am I seeing things that haven't happened yet?" " How old are you?" " 22." " What?" "22." " You look younger." "I was always younger than anyone around me." "One day it began to change." "I don't feel younger." "I feel located totally nowhere." "I think I'm ready to quit." "Basically, the business." "Put a stick of gum in your mouth and try not to chew it." "For someone your age, with your gifts, there's only one thing in the world worth pursuing both professionally and intellectually." "What is it, Michael?" "The interaction between technology and capital." "The inseparability." "High school was the last true challenge." "There's a poem I read in which a rat becomes the unit of currency." "Yes." "That would be interesting." "Yeah, that would impact the world economy." "The name alone." "Better than the dong or the kwacha." "The name says everything." "Yes." "The rat." "Yes, the rat closed lower today against the euro." "Yes, there is growing concern that the Russian rat will be devalued." "White rats." "Think about that." "Yes." "Pregnant rats." "Major sell off of pregnant Russian rats." "Britain converts to the rat." "Joins trend to universal currency." "Yes, U.S. establishes rat standard." "Yes." "Every U.S. dollar redeemable for rat." "Dead rats." "Yes, stockpiling of dead rats called global health menace." "How old are you, now that you're not younger than everyone else?" "Was I expecting you?" "Just passing by." "Thought you'd drop in, did you?" "That's nice." "I'm glad." "Been a while." "I read about it, of course." "Or did I see it on TV?" "What?" "What?" "The wedding." "Strange you didn't tell me." " It's not so strange." " Not so strange?" "Two great fortunes." "Like one of those great arranged marriages of old empire Europe." "Except I'm a world citizen with a New York pair of balls." "So how many billions together do you two represent?" "She's a poet." "Is that what she is?" "I thought she was a Shifrin." "Little of both." "So rich and crisp." "Does she let you touch her personal parts?" "You look gorgeous today." "For someone who's 41 and finally understands what her problem is." "What's that?" "Life is... too contemporary." "So how old is your consort?" "Never mind." "I don't want to know." "Tell me to shut up." "One more question." "Is she good in bed?" "Is she good in a limo?" "I don't know yet." "That's the trouble with old money." "Now tell me to shut up." "I know something you wanna know." "What's that?" "There's a Rothko in private hands that I have privileged knowledge of." "It's about to become available." "You've seen it?" "Three, four years ago." "Yes." "It is... luminous." "What about the chapel?" "What about it?" "I've been thinking about the chapel." " You can't buy the goddamn chapel." " How do you know?" "Contact the principals." "I thought you'd be thrilled about the painting." "One painting." "You don't have an important Rothko." "You've always wanted one." "We've talked about this." "How many paintings in his chapel?" "I don't know." "Fourteen, fifteen." "If they sell me the chapel, I'll keep it intact." "Tell them." " Keep it intact, where?" " Tell them." "In my apartment." "There's sufficient space." "I can make more space." "But people need to see it." "Let them buy it." "Let them outbid me." "Forgive the pissy way I say this, but the Rothko Chapel belongs to the world." "It's mine if I buy it." "How much do they want for it?" "They don't want to sell the chapel." "And I don't want to give you lessons in self-denial and social responsibility because I don't believe for a second you're as cruel as you sound." "How much?" "What does it mean to, uh, spend money?" "A dollar?" "A million?" " For a painting?" " For anything." "I have two private elevators now." "One is programmed to play Satie's piano pieces and move at one-quarter normal speed." "This is right for Satie and this is the elevator I take when I'm in a certain, let's say, unsettled mood." "Calms me." " Makes me whole." " Who's the other elevator?" " Brutha Fez." " Who's that?" "The Sufi rap star." "You don't know this?" "I miss things." "I don't know what money is any more." "I'm losing money by the ton today." "Many millions." "Betting against the yuan." " Isn't the yuan asleep?" " Currency markets never close." "Shanghai runs all day and night now." "All the major exchanges." "Seven days a week." "I miss that." "I miss a lot." "How many millions?" "Hundreds of millions." "How old are you?" "Twenty-eight?" "Twenty-eight." "I want you to go to the chapel and make them an offer." "Whatever it takes." "I want everything that's there." "Walls and all." "I remember what you told me once." "What's that?" "Talent is more erotic when it's wasted." "What did I mean?" "A word." "Yeah." "Complex recommends extra security." "You're not happy about this." "First, a threat to the President." "You're confident that you can handle whatever comes up?" "Now an attack on the Managing Director of The International Monetary Fund." " Arthur Rapp?" " Arthur Rapp, yes." " Where?" " Nike, North Korea." "While being interviewed on television." "It's on all the channels." "Director Rapp, will this change your policy on the yuan?" "The yuan is uncharacteristically inflated, which makes it unstable." "And eventually it will drop and when" "The complex." "Accept the recommendation." "Good." "All these limos, my God." "You can't tell one from another." "We could be kids on prom night, or some dumb wedding wherever." "What's the charm of identical?" "That I'm a powerful person who chooses not to demarcate his territory with singular driblets of piss is what?" "Something I need to apologise for?" "I wanna go home and tongue-kiss my Maxima." " You know what today is, incidentally?" " I know." "It's my day off, damn it." " I know this." " I need this extra day desperately." " I know this." " But you don't know this." "You can't know what it's like." "I am a single struggling mother." "We have a situation here." "I am a mother running in the park when my phone explodes in my navel." "I think it's the kid's nanny who never calls until the fever reaches 105, but it's the situation." "It's" "We have a situation, all right." "We have a yuan carry that could crush us in hours." "Take some water." "Sit on the banquette." "I like face to face." "And I don't need to look at all those screens, I know what's happening." " The yuan will fall." " That's right." "Consumer spending's down." "That's right." "Besides which, the Bank of China left interest rates unchanged." "This happened today?" "This happened tonight in Shanghai." "I called a source at the Shenzhen." "While running?" "While flinging my body down Madison Avenue to get here on time." "The yuan can't go any higher." "That's true, that's right." "Except it just did." "I didn't sleep last night." "There's a time limit." "Dr Ingram." " Who the fuck are you?" " Dr Ingram." "Where is Dr Nevius?" "Called away suddenly." "A personal matter." "Speak slowly and clearly." "Called away suddenly." "I don't know." "A family crisis." "I'm the associate." "I" "I flushed out your ear holes once." "You do this why?" "What?" "Every day." "No matter..." "Wherever I am." "That's right." "No matter." "So, you do what?" "Same routine every day?" "Varies." "Depending." "So, he comes to your house." "Nice." "On weekends." "We die, Jane, on weekends." "People." "It happens." "You're right." "I didn't think of that." "We die because it's the weekend." "I thought we were moving but we're not any more." "The President's in town." "Oh, you're right." "I forgot." "I thought I saw him when I ran out of the park." "There was an entourage of limousines going down Fifth with a motorcycle escort." "I thought, "All these limos for the President, I can understand."" "But it was somebody famous' funeral." "We die every day." "What do we do about this?" "Let it express itself." "What, do nothing?" "Let it express itself." "You can stand up now." "So, look." "We have two rumours working in our favour." "First, there's the bankruptcies for six straight months." "More each month." "More on the way." "Large Chinese corporations." " This is good." " The yuan will drop." "This is loss of faith." "It will force the yuan to drop." " Dollar will settle up." " The yuan will drop." "Where's Chin?" "Working on visual patterns." " This thing doesn't chart." " It charts." "It doesn't chart the way you chart technology stocks." "You can find real patterns there, locate predictable components." "This is different." "We're teaching him to see." "You should do the seeing." "You're the seer." "What is he?" "He's a kid." "He's got the streak in his hair." " He's got the earring." " He doesn't have the earring." "If he was any dreamier, we'd have to put him on life support." "What's the second rumour?" "There's a rumour, it seems, involving the finance minister." "Some kind of scandal about a misconstrued comment." "He made a comment about the economy that may have been misconstrued." "The whole country is now analysing the grammar and syntax of this comment." "Or it wasn't even what he said, it was when he paused." "They're trying to construe the meaning of the pause." "So maybe deeper, even, than grammar." "It may be breathing." "So the whole economy convulses because the man took a breath." "You gripped the water bottle." "It's that soft type plastic." "Grip it." "You choke it." "It's a matter-of-fact thing." "It's sexual tension." " It's everyday nervousness in a life." " It's sexual tension." "Days like this..." "What?" "Oh, that whole sad business of Judeo-Christian jogging." "You are not born to run." "I look at you, I know what you are." "You are sloppy-bodied, smelly and wet." "A woman who was born to sit strapped in a chair while a man tells her how much she excites him." "How come we've never spent this kind of time together?" "Your prostate is asymmetrical." "Those two." "They're ours?" "I felt the need." "Imperative that we reroute." "The situation is what?" "This." "Water main break." "We have flood conditions in the streets ahead." "State of chaos." "This." "The question of the President and his whereabouts." "He is fluid." "He is moving." "Wherever he goes, our satellite receiver reports a ripple effect in the traffic that causes mass paralysis." "This also is a funeral proceeding slowly downtown, now deflecting westward." "Many vehicles, numerous mourners on foot." "And finally this." "We have a report of imminent activity in the area." " Activity?" " Imminent." "Nature as yet unknown." "Complex says use caution." "Recite to me." "Where's your necktie?" "Had my check-up." "Saw my heart on the screen." "I don't like saying this." "But?" "You smell of sex." "That's my doctor's appointment you smell." "I smell sex all over you." "It's sweat." "It's hunger you smell." "I want to eat lunch." "You want to eat lunch." "We're people in the world, we need to eat and talk." " I'm not sure how hungry I am." " Eat, you'll find out." "Speaking of sex..." "We've been married only weeks." "Barely weeks." "Everything is barely weeks." "We have minutes to live." "We don't want to start counting the times, do we?" "And having solemn discussions on the subject?" "No, we want to do it." "And we will." "We shall." "You want to have it?" "Sex?" "Yes." "'Cause there isn't time not to have it." "Time is the thing that grows scarcer every day." "What, you don't know this?" "I like that bookshop." "Do you know why?" "Because it's semi-underground." "You feel hidden." "You like to hide." "From what?" "Sometimes only noise." "You're one of those silent, wistful children, glued to the shadows." " And you?" " I don't know." "I don't think about it." "Think about one thing and tell me what it was." "All right, one thing." "When I was four I figured out how much I'd weigh on each of the planets in the solar system." "Oh, that's nice." "I like that." "Such science and ego combined." " When are we going to the lake?" " Fuck the lake." "I thought we liked it there." "After all the planning, all the construction, to get away, to be alone together." " It's quiet at the lake." " It's quiet in town." "Where we live, yes, I suppose." "High enough, far enough." "What about your car?" "Not so quiet, surely." "You spend a lot of time there." "Had the car Prousted." "Yes?" "The way they build a stretch is this." "Take a vehicle's base unit and cut it in half with a huge throbbing buzzsaw device, then they add a segment to lengthen the chassis by 10, 11, 12 feet, whatever desired dimension, 22 feet, if you like." "While they're doing this to my car, I sent word that they had to Proust it." "Cork lining against street noise." "It's lovely, actually." "I love that." "The vehicle I armoured, of course." "This complicated the cork lining." "But they managed in the end." "It's a gesture." "It's a thing a man does." " Did it work?" " How could it work?" "No." "This city eats and sleeps noise." "It makes noise out of every century." "It makes the same noise as it made in the 17th century, along with all the other noises that have evolved since then." "No." "I don't mind the noise." "The noise energises me." "The important thing is that it's there." " Cork?" " That's right, the cork." "This is what finally matters." "Is this what I wanted?" "Tell me what you wanted." "Duck consommé with an herb twist." "It's true, you know?" "You do actually reek of sexual discharge." "It's not the sex you think I've had." "It's the sex I want." "That's what you smell on me." "'Cause the more I look at you, the more I know about us both." "Tell me what that means." "Or don't." "No, don't." "And the more I want to have sex with you." "Because there's a certain kind of sex that has an element of cleansing." "It's the antidote to disillusion." "A counter-poison." "You need to be inflamed, don't you?" "This is your element." "Where were you going after the bookstore?" "Because there's a hotel." "I was going to the bookstore, period." "I was in the bookstore." "I was happy there." " Where were you going?" " To get a haircut." " Do you need a haircut?" " I need anything you can give me." "Be nice." "I need all the meanings of the inflamed." "There's a hotel just across the avenue." "We could start over or finish with intense feeling." "That's one of the meanings." "To arouse a passionate feeling." "We can finish what we barely started." "Two hotels, in fact, we have a choice." "I don't think I want to pursue this." "No, you don't." "You wouldn't." "Be nice to me." "A spectre is haunting the world!" "A spectre is haunting the world!" "A spectre is haunting the world!" "We want to think about the art of money-making." "The Greeks have a word for it." "Chrimatistikos." "But we have to give the word a little leeway, adapt it to the current situation, because money has taken a turn." "All wealth has become wealth for its own sake." "There's no other kind of enormous wealth." "Money has lost its narrative quality, the way painting did once upon a time." "Money is talking to itself." "Oh, and this car, which I love." "The glow of the screens, I love the screens." "It's the glow of cyber capital, so radiant and seductive." "I understand none of this." "Does it ever stop?" "Does it slow down?" "Of course not." "Why should it?" "It's fantastic." "But you know how shameless I am in the presence of anything that calls itself an idea." "The idea is time." "Living in the future." "Look at those numbers running." "Money makes time." "It used to be the other way around." "Clock time accelerated the rise of capitalism." "People stopped thinking about eternity and they began to concentrate on hours." "Measurable hours, man-hours, using labour more efficiently." "It's cyber capital that creates the future." "What is the measurement called a nanosecond?" " Ten to the minus ninth power." " This is what?" "One-billionth of a second." "I understand none of it." "But it tells me how rigorous we need to be in order to take adequate measure of the world around us." "There are zeptoseconds." "Good, I'm glad." "Yoctoseconds." "One-septillionth of a second." "Because time is a corporate asset now." "It belongs to the free market system." "The present is harder to find." "It is being sucked out of the world to make way for the future of uncontrolled markets and huge investment potential." "The future becomes insistent, and this is why something will happen soon, maybe today, to correct the acceleration of time, and bring nature back to normal, more or less." "You have to understand, the more visionary the idea, the more people it leaves behind." "This is what the protest is all about." "Visions of technology and wealth." "The force of cyber capital that will send people to the gutter to wretch and die." "What is the flaw of human rationality?" "What?" "It pretends not to see the horror and death at the end of the schemes it builds." "This is a protest against the future." "They want to hold off the future." "They want to normalise it, keep it from overwhelming the present." "The future is always a wholeness, a sameness, we're all tall and happy there." "This is why the future fails." "It can never be the cruel and happy place we want to make it." "What would happen if they knew that the head of Packer Capital was in the car?" "We know what the anarchists have always said." " Yes." " Tell me." "The urge to destroy is a creative urge." "This is also a hallmark of capitalist thought and forced destruction." "Old industries have to be harshly eliminated." "New markets have to be forcibly claimed, and old markets have to be re-exploited." "Destroy the past, make the future." "This is the thing about genius." "Genius alters the terms of its habitat." "Technology is crucial to civilisation, why?" "Because it helps us to make our fate." "We don't need God or miracles or Flight of the Bumblebee." "But it is also crouched and undecidable." "It can go either way." "You've been talking about the future being impatient." "Pressing upon us." "That was theory." "I am your chief of theory." "I deal in theory." "It's not original." "Hey, what's original?" "He did it, didn't he?" "It's an appropriation." "He poured the gasoline and lit the match." "All those Vietnamese monks, one after another in all their lotus positions." "Imagine the pain." "Sit here and feel it." "Immolating themselves endlessly." "To say something." "To make people think." "It's not original." " Just now." " What?" "A report from the complex, concerns your safety." "Little late, are they?" "This is specific and categorical." "There's been a threat, then." "Assessment, credible red." "Highest order of urgency." "This means an incursion is already in progress." "Now we know." "Now we have to act on what we know." "But we still want what we want." "We want a haircut." "It's interesting, isn't it?" "About man and immortality?" "You live in a tower that soars to heaven and goes unpunished by God." "And you bought an aeroplane." "I'd nearly forgotten this." "Soviet or ex-Soviet." "A strategic bomber capable of knocking out a small city." "Is this right?" "It's an old TU-160." "NATO calls it Blackjack A." "It was deployed around 1988." "Carries nuclear bombs and cruise missiles." "These were not included in the deal." "But they wouldn't let you fly it." "Could you fly it?" "Could and did." "They wouldn't let me fly it armed." "Who wouldn't?" "State Department." "The Pentagon." "The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms." "The Russians?" "What Russians?" "I bought it black market and dirt cheap from a Belgian arms dealer in Kazakhstan." "It's where I took the controls for half an hour over the desert." "U.S. dollars, 31 million." "Where is it now?" "Parked in a storage facility in Arizona, waiting for replacement parts that nobody can find." "Sitting in the wind." "I go out there now and then." "To do what?" "To look at it." "It's mine." "People will not die." "Isn't this the creed of the new culture?" "People will be absorbed in streams of information." "I know nothing about this." "Computers will die." "They're dying in their present form." "They're just about dead as distinct units." "Box, screen, keyboard, they're melting into the texture of everyday life." "Is this true or not?" "Even the word "computer."" "Even the word "computer" sounds backward and dumb." " You work out?" " 6% body fat." "Used to be my number." "Then I got lazy." "What are you gonna do about it?" "Hit the machines in the morning and run in the park at night." " Where is he now?" " Who?" "You know." "He's in the lobby." "Torval." "He's watching them come and go." "Danko's in the hall outside." "Who's that?" "Danko, my partner." "Is he new?" "I'm new." "He's been watching your back for some time now." "Came over after those wars in the Balkans." "He's a veteran." "What's he gonna say to you about all this?" "Torval." "That's who you're talking about?" "Say his name." "What's he gonna say to you?" "Just so you're safe." "That's his job." "Men get possessive." "What?" "You don't know this?" "I heard the rumour." "But the fact is, I technically speaking went off duty an hour ago, so it's basically my time we're dealing with here." " Do you find this interesting?" " What?" "Protecting someone in danger." "What makes you willing to do this?" "Take this risk?" "Maybe you're worth it." "Maybe it's just the pay." "Pay's pretty good." "The risk?" "I don't think about the risk." "You're the man in the crosshairs." "I figure the risk is yours." "Is it interesting?" "It's interesting to be near a man somebody wants to kill." " You know what they say, don't you?" " What?" "The logical extension of business is murder." "Move a little left." "Move a little left." "There." "Nice." "Perfect." "What kind of weapon did he give you?" "Taser." "He doesn't trust me yet with deadly force." "How many volts at your disposal?" "100,000." "Jam your nervous system." "Drop you to your knees." "Like this." "Stun me." "I mean it." "I want you to do it, Kendra." "Show me what it feels like." "I'm looking for more." "Show me something I don't know." "Stun me to my DNA." "Come on, do it." "Click the switch." "Aim and fire." "I want all the voltage the weapon holds." "Do it." "Shoot it." "Now." " I need to know where you're going." " Wait and learn." "You smoke?" "Since when?" "I took it up when I was 15." "It's one of those things a girl takes up." "Tells her she's more than a skinny body no one looks at." "There's a certain drama in her life." "She notices herself." "Then other people notice her." "And she marries one of them." "Then they go to dinner." "You're wearing a peau de soie cocktail dress." "Yes." " It's navy blue." " Yes." "And that's your silver lucite jewellery." "Yes, it is." "I'm noticing." "How was the play?" "I left at intermission, didn't I?" " What was it about and who was in it?" " I'm making conversation." "I went on impulse." "The audience was sparse." "Five minutes after the curtains went up I understood why." "Where is your jacket?" " Where is my jacket?" " You were wearing a suit jacket earlier." "Where is your jacket?" "Lost in the scuffle, I guess." "You saw the car." "We're under attack by anarchists." "Just two hours ago there were major global protests, and now what?" "Forgotten." "There's something else I wish I could forget." "That's my peanuts you smell." "Didn't I see you come out of the hotel up the street while I was standing outside the theatre?" "Is that the hotel you wanted to take me to?" "We don't need a hotel." "We'll do it in the ladies' room." "We'll go to the alley out back and rattle the garbage cans." "Look, I'm trying to make contact in the most ordinary ways." "To see and hear, to notice your mood, your clothes." "This is important." "Are your stockings on straight?" "I understand this at some level." "How people look." "What people wear." "How they smell." "Do you mind my saying that?" "Am I being too wifely?" "I'll tell you what the problem is." "I don't know how to be indifferent." "I can't master this." "And it makes me susceptible to pain." "In other words, it hurts." "This is good." "We're like people talking." "Isn't this how they talk?" "How would I know?" " My prostate is asymmetrical." " What does that mean?" "I don't know." "You have to see a doctor." "I just saw a doctor." "I see a doctor every day." "You just saw a doctor?" "That's how I know." "Packer Capital's portfolio has been reduced to near nothingness in the course of a day." "My personal fortune in the tens of billions is in ruinous convergence with this fact." "And there's been a credible threat on my life." "It's okay." "It's fine." "It makes me feel free in a way I've never known." "That's so awful." "Don't say things like that." "Free to do what?" "Go broke and die?" "Listen to me." "I'll help you financially." "I'll truly do what I can to help." "You can re-establish yourself." "At your pace, in your way." "Tell me what you need, and I promise I'll help." "But as a couple, as a marriage," "I think we're done, aren't we?" "You speak of being free." "This is your lucky day." "This is very crazy!" "Take over whole theatre." "What do you think?" " I don't know." " I don't know, either." "But I think it is crazy." "Looks like drug scene." "What do you think?" "Yes." "I think it is latest drug." "Called Novo." "Makes pain go away." "Look how good they feel." " Kids!" " They are kids." "Exactly!" "What pain do they feel that they need to take pill?" "Music?" "Okay." "Too loud." "So what?" "It is beautiful how they dance." "But what pain do they feel, too young to buy beer?" "There's pain enough for everybody now." "I don't believe I'm here." "You tell me when we leave." "I take you out." "Where is he?" "At the entrance." "Torval?" "He watches at the entrance." "Have you killed people?" "What do you think?" "Like lunch." "What do we know?" "We know it's not a group." "It's not an organised terror cell or international kidnappers with ransom demands." "It's an individual." "Do we care?" "We don't have a name." "But we have a phone call." "The complex is analysing voice data." "They've made certain assessments." "They're projecting a course of action on the part of the individual." "Why can't I work up any curiosity on the subject?" "'Cause it doesn't matter." "Whoever it is, that's who it is." "Eric." "Why are we here?" " You ain't heard?" " What?" "Brutha Fez." "What?" "Dead." "No." "What?" "Can't be." "Dead." "Died earlier today." "I don't know this." "Funeral's been in progress all day." "The family wanted the city to have a chance to pay respect." "Record label want an exploitation event." "Big and loud." "Street to street." "Right through the night." "I don't know this?" "How can this be?" "I love his music." "I have his music in my elevator." "I know the man." "What, they shot him?" "Fez's been having cardiac problems for years." "Since high school." "Been seeing specialists, been seeing faith healers." "Heart just wore out." "This ain't a thug down some alley." "The man has never been breathalysed, barely, since he was 17." "Hope you're not disappointed." " Disappointed?" " That our man here wasn't shot!" "I hope he didn't let you down." "Natural causes." "Now, that's a letdown." "What happened to your stretch?" "Let a fine machine degrade in public?" "That's a scandal, man." "Everything's a scandal." "Dying's a scandal, but we all do it." "I think I'm hearing voices in the night." "Because I can't believe you saying this." "Coming from the streets to Mecca" "Death, no matter where you go Come and getcha" "Coming from the streets to Mecca" "Death, no matter where you go Come and getcha" "Ask me do I love this shit." "Me being big as I am, and a retro-nigger." "I have to love what I'm seeing." "Because this is something I can never dream of doing on my thinnest day on Earth." "He liked having his clergy nearby." "He showed up in my office once with an Imam and two white boys from Utah in suits." "He was always excusing himself so he could pray." "He lived in a minaret for a while in Los Angeles." "Yeah, I heard that." "I went to visit him once." "Built it next to his house." "He moved out of his house and into the minaret." "Getting shot is easy Tried it seven times" "Now I'm just a solo poet working on my rhymes" "Kid used to think he was wise to the system" "Prince of the streets Always do things his way" "But he had a case of conventional wisdom" "Never say nothing The others don't say" "Threat of dying wakes the east to the cry" "My soul's unfolding Oh, God, oh, man" "Living high at last Sucking the tit and then I'll pray and fast" "Man gave the news in a slanted room" "And it felt like a sliver of icy truth" "Found my sad-ass soul flying out the mouth" "My gold tooth splitting down to the root" "Let me be who I was I'm rhyme fool that's lost but living" "Coming from the streets to Mecca" "Death, no matter where you go Come and getcha" "Coming from the streets to Mecca" "Death, no matter where you go Come and getcha" "I'm after you long time." "Son of a bitch, I glop you good." "Today, you are cremed by the master, Andre Petrescu, the Pastry Assassin." "This is my mission worldwide, to sabotage power and wealth." "Three years I'm waiting for this." "Freshly baked only, you know?" "I pass up the President of the United States to make this strike." "I can creme him any time." "But you are major statement." "Very hard to zero in, you." "You son" "You lack of humour, Mr Packer." "You live up to reputation okay, but I'm kicked and beaten by security so many times, I'm walking dead." "Where they put me a radio collar when I was in England to save Queen, they tracked me like a rare crane." "But please believe one thing!" "I cremed Fidel three times in six days when he was in Bucharest years ago." "I am an action fighter of creamed pie." "I dropped from a tree on Michael Jordan one time." "This was the famous flying pie." "Museum quality, video for the ages." "I quiched fucking Sultan of Brunei in his bath." "They put me in a black hole until I was screaming from my eyes." "Okay, let's go." "You play?" "Not really my game." "Rugby." "Now, that was my game." "You play?" "Some." "I liked the action and the pain." "Pump iron now." "Of course, you understand, there's still someone tracking you." "Still someone out there." "This was a petty incursion, the whipped cream." "Technically irrelevant." "I understand." "Next time, no pies and cakes." "Dessert is over." "Yeah." "He's out there and he's armed." "He's armed and you're armed." "This is true." "You'll have to draw your weapon." "This is true." "Let me see the thing." "Let you see the thing?" "Okay." "Well, why not?" "You paid for it, right?" "Manufactured in Austria." " Nice." " Yeah." "Smart, too." "Scary smart." "Voice recognition." "That's right." "You what?" "You speak, and it knows your voice?" "That's right." "The mechanism doesn't activate unless the voice print matches the stored data." "Only my voice matches." "Do you have to speak German before it fires?" "No, but the voice, it's only half the operation." "You're saying there's a code as well?" "Pre-programmed spoken code." "What is it?" "Nancy Babich." "We are here." "How come you're such a stranger lately?" "Hello, Anthony." "Long time." "I need a haircut." "You look like what" "Get in here... so I can look at you." "Never seen such ratty hair on a human." "Woke up this morning and knew it was time." "You knew where to come." "I said to myself, "I want a haircut."" "Maybe you wanna eat something first?" "I could eat something." "I have take-out in the fridge that I nibble at it when I get the urge." "So, you married that woman?" "That's right." "That her family's got like money, unbeknownst." "Never thought you'd get married so young, but what do I know?" "I have chickpea, all mashed up." "And I have eggplant with rice and nuts." " Give me the eggplant." " Oh, there." "Good." "Your father did not tell your mother until he had to." "He went fast, once they found it." "He was diagnosed, and then he went." "You was four years old." " Five." " Exactly." "And you?" "You keeping well?" "You know me, kid." "I could tell you I can't complain, but I could definitely complain." "The thing is, I don't wanna, 'cause ain't time." "Let me think what I have that we could drink." "Water from the tap." "I drink water now." "I have a bottle of liqueur that's been here-- Don't ask how long." "I could drink some of that." "Because if your father himself walked in here, and I offered him tap water, oh, God forbid, he would rip out my last chair." "Maybe we can ask my driver to come in." "My driver's outside in the car." "We could give him the other eggplant." "I drove a chequered cab, big, bouncy." "I drove nights." "I was young." "What could they do to me?" "Nights is not so good if you have a wife and child." "Besides, I can tell you, it was crazy enough in the daytime." "I loved my cab." "I drove 12 hours non-stop." "I stopped only to pee." "A man is hit one day by another taxi, comes flying into my taxi." "I mean, he was flying in the air, crashed against the windscreen, right there in my face." "Blood is everywhere." "I never left my garage without my Windex." "I am Acting Secretary of External Affairs in my previous life." "I said to him, "Get off from there." "I cannot drive with your body on my windscreen."" "I ate at the wheel." "I kept my sandwiches in tin foil." "I ate at the wheel also." "I could not afford to stop driving." "Where did you pee, Ibrahim?" "I peed under the Manhattan Bridge." "This is where I peed, exactly." "I peed in parks and alleys." "Peed in a pet cemetery once." "Nights is better in some ways." "I am certain of it." "I was here, what" "Probably, four hours a day, helping my father cut hair." "Nights, I drove my cab." "Oh, I loved my cab." "I had a" " I had a little fan that worked in a battery." "Because-- air conditioning?" "Forget about it in that day and age." "And then I had a drinking cup with a magnet that I stuck on the dashboard." "I had my steering wheel upholstered." "Very nice." "In zebra." "And my daughter, with a photograph on the visor." "I gave this guy his first haircut." "He didn't want to sit in the car seat." "His father tried to jam him in there." "He was going, "No." "No, no, no, no."" "And so I put him right where he's sitting now." "His father pinned him down." "I cut his father's hair when he was a kid." "Then I cut his hair." "But where is the Chief of Security in this situation?" "I realise he's not with us." "We are alone." "I gave him the rest of the night off." "You have protection, right, in the car?" " Protection?" " Protection." "You know what that means?" "I had a gun, but I threw it away." "But, why?" "I didn't wanna make plans." "I wasn't thinking ahead." "Didn't wanna take precautions." "You know how that sounds?" "How does that sound?" "I thought you were some kind of big shot." "You know, destroyed people in the blink of an eye, huh?" "But you sound pretty iffy to me." "This is Mike Packer's kid that had a gun and threw it away?" "What is that?" "Yes." "What is that?" "Yeah, in this part of town, and you had a gun, huh?" "There are steps you must take to safeguard yourself." "In this part of town." "You cannot walk five metres after dark." "You be careless, they kill you straightaway." "You be reasonable with them, they take a little longer." "Tear out your entrails first." "What happened to your eye that it got all twisted that way?" "I can see." "I can drive." "I passed their test." "You were beaten and tortured." "An army coup, or the secret police." "Or they thought they'd executed you." "Fired a shot into your face, left you for dead." "I loved my cab." "I gulped my food." "I drove 12 hours straight, night after night." "Vacations?" "Forget about it." "But what did I do for protection?" " I need to leave." " How come?" "I don't know how come." "That's how come." "Let me do the left side, at least, so both sides are equal." "I'll come back." "Take my word for it." "I'll sit, and you'll finish." " Ibrahim, tell me this." " Yes?" "These stretch limousines that fill the streets." " I've been wondering." " Yes?" "Where are they parked at night?" "Do they get large tracts of space out near the airports?" "Or somewhere in the Meadowlands?" "Long Island?" "New Jersey?" "I will go to New Jersey." "The limo stays here." "Where?" "Next block, there will be an underground garage, limos only." "I will drop off your car, pick up my car." "Then drive home through the stinking tunnel." "Early in the morning, you can see right here." "Teams of men in white overalls." "They are washing limousines." "A marketplace of limos." "Rags flying." "Eric Michael Packer!" "Nancy Babich." " What are you doing here?" " That's not the question." "The question is yours to answer." "Why do want to kill me?" "No, that's not the question." "That's too easy to be a question." "I want to kill you because I want to count for something in my own life." "See how easy?" "You" " You're not a reflective man." "I live consciously in my head." " Give me a cigarette." " Give me a drink." " Do you recognise me?" " I can't see you clearly." "Sit." "We'll talk." "Yes." "I'd like that." "Sit and talk." "Had a long day." "Things and people." "Time for a philosophical pause." "Some reflection." "Yes." "You're not familiar with that weapon." "I've fired that weapon." "It's a serious weapon." "Whereas this..." "I'm thinking of installing a shooting range at my apartment." "Why not your office?" "Line 'em up and shoot them." "You know the office." "Is that right?" "You've been in the office." "Tell me who you think I am." "I don't know." "Who are you?" "Maybe if you tell me your name." "You wouldn't know my name." "I know names more than faces." "Tell me." "Benno Levin." "That's a phoney name." "It's phoney." "It's fake." "It's fake." "It isn't real." "But I think I recognise you now." "You were at the cash machine outside a bank sometime around noon." " You saw me?" " You looked familiar." "I didn't know why." "Maybe you used to work for me, hate me, want to kill me." "Fine." "Everything in our lives, yours and mine, has brought us to this moment." "Fine." "I could use a tall beer about now." " How old are you?" "I'm interested." " Do you think people like me can't happen?" " How old?" " We happen." "Forty-one." "Prime number." "But not an interesting one." "Or did I turn 42, which is possible." "Because I don't keep track, because why should I?" "I've become an enigma to myself." "So said Saint Augustine." "And herein lies my sickness." "Well, that's a start." "It's a crucial self-realisation." "I'm not talking about myself." "I'm talking about you." "Your whole waking life is a self-contradiction." "That's why you're engineering your own downfall." ""Why are you here?"" "That's the first thing I said to you when I came out of the toilet." "I noticed the toilet." "It's the first thing I noticed when I walked in the room." "What happens to your waste?" "There's a hole below the fixture." "I knocked a hole in the floor." "And then I positioned the toilet so that one hole fits over the other." "Holes are interesting." "There are books about holes." "There are books about shit." "But we wanna know why you would willingly enter a house where there is someone inside who's prepared to kill you." "All right, tell me." "Why am I here?" "You have to tell me." "Some kind of unexpected failure... shocked your self-esteem." "Yuan." "Couldn't figure out the yuan." "The yuan?" "Couldn't chart the yuan." "The yuan eluded me." "And so you brought everything down." "This had never happened." " I became half-hearted." " This is because you only have half a heart." "Give me a cigarette." "I don't smoke cigarettes." "Huge ambition and contempt." "I can-- list the things." "I can name the appetites, the people." "Mistreat some, ignore some, persecute others." "A self-totality, a lack of remorse." " These are your gifts." " What else?" "Intuition of early death." " What else?" " What else?" "Secret doubts." "Doubts you could never acknowledge." "You know some things." "I know you smoke cigars." "I know everything that's ever been said or written about you." "I know what I see in your face." "After years of studying." "You worked for me." "Doing what?" "Currency analysis." "I worked on the baht." " The baht is interesting." " I loved the baht." "But your system is so micro-timed that I couldn't keep up with it." "I couldn't find it." "It is so infinitesimal." "And I began to hate my work and you and all the numbers on my screen." "And every minute of my life." "One hundred satang to the baht." "What's your real name?" "Oh, you wouldn't know it." "Tell me your name." "Sheets." "Richard Sheets." "Means nothing to me." "Tell me, do you imagine that I stole ideas from you?" " Intellectual property?" " What does anyone imagine?" "A hundred things a minute." "Whether I imagine a thing or not, it's real to me." "I have syndromes where they're real." "From Malaysia, for example." "The things that I believe become facts." "They have the time and space of facts." "You're forcing me to be reasonable." "I don't like that." "I have severe anxieties that my sex organ is receding into my body." " But it's not." " Shrinking into my abdomen." " But it's not." " Whether it is or not, I know it is." "Show me." "I don't have to look." "There are folk beliefs." "There are epidemics that happen." "Men in the thousands in real fear and pain." "All right." "All right." "People like you can happen." "I understand this." "I believe it." "But not the violence." "Not the gun." "The gun is all wrong." "You're not a violent man." "Violence is meant to be real." "Based on real motives." "On forces in the world that what?" "Make us wanna defend ourselves or take aggressive action." "The crime you wanna commit is cheap imitation." "It's a stale fantasy." "People do it because other people do it." "It's just another syndrome." "It's a thing you caught from others." " It has no history." " It's all history." "The whole thing is history." "You are foully and berserkly rich." "Don't tell me about your charities." " I have no charities." " I know this." "You don't resent the rich." "That's not your sensibility." "What's my sensibility?" " Confusion." "This is why you're unemployable." " Why?" " Because you wanna kill people." " That's not why I'm unemployable." " Then why?" " Because I stink." "Smell me." "Smell me." "Even when you self destruct, you have to fail more, lose more." "Die more than others." "Stink more than others." "In the old tribes, the chief who destroyed more of his own property than the other chiefs" " was the most powerful." " What else?" "You have everything to live and die for." "I have nothing and neither." "That's another reason to kill you." " Richard." " I wanna be known as Benno!" "You're unsettled 'cause you feel you have no role." "You have no place." "But you have to ask yourself whose fault that is." "'Cause in fact there's very little in this society that you have to hate." " Think." " Think." "Violence... needs a cause," "and truth." "There's nothing in the world but other people." "I had this thought one day." "It was the thought of my life." "I'm surrounded by other people." "It's buy and sell." "It's, "Let's have lunch."" "I thought, "Look at them and look at me."" "Light shines through me on the street." "I'm-- what's the word?" "Pervious to visible light." "I thought all those other people-- I thought," ""How did they get to be who they are?"" "It's banks and car parks." "It's airline tickets and their computers." "It's restaurants filled with people talking." "It's people signing the merchant copy." "It's people taking the merchant copy out of the leather folder, and then signing it and separating merchant copy from the customer copy, and putting their credit card back in their wallet." "This alone could do it." "It's people who have doctors that order tests for them." "This alone!" "I'm helpless in their system." "That makes no sense to me." "You want me to be a helpless..." "robot soldier." "And all I could be was helpless." "It's women's shoes." "It's all the names they have for shoes!" "It's all those people in the park behind the library," "talking in the sun." "Your crime has no conscience." "You haven't been driven to it by some oppressive social force." "I hate to be reasonable." "You're not against the rich." "Nobody's against the rich." "Everybody's 10 seconds away from being rich, or so everybody thought." "No." "Your crime is in your head." "Another fool shooting up a diner because." "Bullets flying through the walls and floor." "It's so useless and stupid." "Even your weapon is a fantasy." "What is it called?" "What are the attachments mounted on the barrel?" "What are they called?" " What do they do?" " All right." "I don't have the manhood to know those names." "Men know these names." "You have the experience of manhood." "I can't think that far ahead!" "It's all I can do to be a person." "Violence needs a burden." "It needs a purpose." "What are you doing?" "I don't know." "Maybe nothing." "My prostate is asymmetrical." "So is mine." "What does it mean?" "Nothing." "It means nothing." "It's harmless." "A harmless variation." "Nothing to worry about." "Your age, why worry?" "You should've listened to your prostate." "What?" "You tried to predict movements in the yuan by drawing on patterns from nature." "Yes." "Of course." "The mathematical properties of tree rings, sunflower seeds, the limbs of galactic spirals." "I learned this with the baht." "I loved the cross-harmonies between nature and data." "You taught me this." "You made this form of analysis horribly and sadistically precise." "But you forgot something along the way." "What?" "The importance of the lopsided." "The thing that's skewed a little." "You were looking for balance." "Beautiful balance." "Equal parts, equal sides." "I know this." "I know you." "But you should've been tracking the yuan in its ticks and quirks." "A little quirk." "A misshape." "A misweave." "That's where the answer was, in your body, in your prostate." "But I still have to shoot you." "I'm willing to discuss it." "But there's no life for me unless I do this." "Don't you ever walk through the park behind the library and see all those people sitting in their little chairs and drinking at those tables" "on the terrace after work and hear their voices mingling in the air and want to kill them?" "No." "I'm having my Korean panic attack." "It's from holding in my anger all those years." "But not anymore." "You have to die no matter what." "I could tell you my situation has changed in the course of the day." "I have my syndromes, you have your complex." "Icarus falling." "You did it to yourself!" "Melt down in the sun." "You will plunge three and a half feet to your death." "It's not very heroic, is it?" "Even if there's a fungus living between my toes that speaks to me." "Even if a fungus told me to kill you, even then your death is justified because of where you stand on the earth." "For your apartment and what you paid for it." "For your daily medical checkups." "This alone." "Medical checkups... every day." "For the limousine that displaces the air that people need to breathe in Bangladesh." "This alone." "Don't make me laugh." "Don't make you laugh?" "You just made that up." "You've never spent a minute of your life worrying about other people." "All right." "But the air you breathe, this alone." "The thoughts you have." "Is there a fungus that speaks to you?" "I'm serious." "People hear things." "They hear God." "Anyway, you're already dead." "You're like someone already dead." "Someone dead a hundred years." "Many centuries dead." "Kings dead." "Royals in their pyjamas eating mutton." "I've never used the word mutton in my life." "Came into my head out of nowhere." "Mutton." "I wanted you to heal me, to save me." "I wanted you to save me." "Subtitling:" "CNST, Montreal"