Free Lookout Cartridge by Joseph McElroy Page B

charter man had only been able to wait half an hour.
    The other call had been a woman who said if I wanted the diary I’d called about, phone this number. Myrna had written it down. It wasn’t Claire’s flat or her office.
    Who then is Monty Graf? Sub leaned into the kitchen, hands on the doorway.
    I held up the pad.
    It’s not there, said Sub, Myrna was in the john when he called, Ruby turned up the TV, my head was full of broken glass. But I know he said he’d meet you tomorrow night about the film and it would be in your interest to deal directly with him and you’d know what he meant. I think that’s right. It’s been a day.
    Where did he say to meet?
    Someone will call. Is this another film?
    If anything happens, I said (and took a deep breath thinking in London call can mean come but here it means phone ), remember the name Monty Graf.
    Sub listened.
    Two weeks ago tonight—which is just a week after the film was ruined—this American Cosmo who lives in Ladbroke Grove with a lot of other people tells Dagger that an Indian he’d mentioned Dagger to is still looking to borrow a movie camera. Cosmo’d phoned a week before, and Alba, who is Dagger’s wife, said Dagger and I were through filming. Cosmo told his Indian and the Indian said he’d phone Dagger the next day about the possibility of using his earner—
    Hold it, said Sub, this is three weeks ago now.
    Right. But the next day—which turned out to be the day the film was ruined—the Indian according to Cosmo forgets to phone Dagger, Cosmo says the Indian has no memory because he lives only in the present though he has a big white file cabinet and a big white flat in Swiss Cottage and works in a gallery in Knightsbridge so he can’t be so dumb—
    Hold it, said Sub, who’s Cosmo?
    An American who’s always over at Dagger’s eating little round slices of special Austrian wurst that Dagger buys at the Air Force PX. Well now a week after the film was ruined the Indian asks Cosmo to inquire about the camera. Dagger says sorry he gave the Beaulieu back, it was a liability after last week. So you can see I wondered if the Indian wanted just information, and I wondered if the Indian had phoned Dagger’s the morning the film was destroyed while Dagger and Alba were at the PX shopping.
    I hope my brain damage isn’t catching, said Sub, and something was happening in the living room.
    I looked at the pad. The woman would not be Claire. But was she phoning for Claire, or did Claire at least know about the call, or had Claire herself not received my bait?
    I’m trying to entertain you, I said to Sub, but heard in the dark side of my head looping at too few revs per moment in my first words, if anything happens . So listen, I got the name of the Knightsbridge gallery and went. I didn’t see any Indian. I liked a picture signed Jan Graf. Wondering where the Indian was, I asked the girl at the desk who Jan Graf might be.
    Monty Graf’s grandma, said Sub.
    Who but the wife of the gallery owner. And the owner is Mr. Aut, an American. Not Phil Aut, said I. Yes indeed, said the girl. But the visit isn’t over. For on the way out I bump into an Indian or Pakistani—probably the Indian; and I am sure I’ve seen him before only he looks bigger now in the gallery.
    Ruby screamed and started to cry, and Sub jumped.
    I have written too much. I have moved too slowly. If only I could have reduced my talk with Sub to a single picture framing say diary pages of mine lying in an open suitcase on a couch recomposed by Myma and a cluttered corner of Sub’s desk with his personalized checkbook open beside the portable radio he gave Rose for her birthday once which this very morning I had been able to reach without getting out of my day bed.
    Tris was saying in the living room, Now you’re a member of the secret group, and Ruby said, Look what he put on my hand.
    Sub said, I told you to put away the printing set.
    He sounded calmer.
    I asked if he got our college alumni