•••
Marie-Laure wanted to come up to the apartment, but the day had been too exhausting to permit for anything like satisfying intercourse, so I settled for a blowjob in the back of the limo, with Balthazar studiously ignoring us up front. Finished, she zipped me up and bade me good night, and I went upstairs and collapsed onto the bed without even bothering to check what kind of press my beating had earned me.
LUNDI, SEIZE MAI
AS SOON AS I AWOKE I CHECKED THE MAJOR news sites, and they all had a little something, ranging from a dry squib on lemonde.fr mentioning that an actor (unnamed!) from the American soap opera Ventura County had been attacked, to Le Parisien’s racier coverage, which managed to suggest without coming right out and saying it that I’d been attacked by the irate husband of some seduced woman. The latter site, I was thrilled to see, had posted a picture of me exiting the hospital with a bloody bandage on my temple and another on the back of my neck, a devil-may-care expression on my face. It was a good look for me; I’d have to make a note that somewhere in the film my character should get beaten about the head so he could walk around bloodied but unbowed.
There were more, but none of them told me anything the others hadn’t, and only France-Soir mentioned my pending interview with the anchor of the evening news (the male anchor, sadly, as his female counterpart was a thing of exquisite beauty with a naughty smirk, and I’d been hoping to meet her). Despite the bountiful heaps of good press, I felt let down for no good reason I could pinpoint, like a spoiled child on Christmas morning who’s just realized he’s got nothing left to unwrap. After a few moments of stewing I realized what it was: I hadn’t seen anything on any of the sites about Claude’s disappearance. Loath though I was to admit it, surely the presumed kidnapping by terrorists of one of Europe’s wealthiest arms dealers was more newsworthy than my getting brained by an omelette pan.
•••
To my delight, though, Fred had sent me thirty-five pages of script, about a third of what we’d need for shooting. I opened the file and started reading, and I didn’t stop until I’d finished.
It was perfect.
Really funny stuff, plus a decent adventure story with enough twists and turns to allow the audience to forget for a moment that it was watching something as light as Feydeau or Wilde. And a great character for me to play to boot, an exaggerated version of myself, witty, erudite, a devil with the ladies. There were any number of actors who’d kill for a part like this, but it was all mine.
I had to conclude that something about playing the role of jailer had let loose something in Fred’s unconscious and let the ideas fly. But this wasn’t the work of some idiot savant, letting the words flow through his fingers onto the keys as though via some otherworldly medium; this was the work of a professional, its structure—based on what I could tell from Act I, anyway—classical, its dialogue pitch-perfect. It even had a good part for Esmée. I made a mental note to tell him he needed to write one for Annick, too.
I phoned Marie-Laure and told her the news. “How long until he’s finished?”
“I don’t know. Not long now, I don’t think.”
“Hear anything from Claude Guiteau?”
“Not a word on my end,” I said. It was the truth, too; last time I saw him he’d had a rubber ball jammed between his jaws.
“Check with that wife of his, will you? I want to know if he’s in or out.”
“You could just as easily call her yourself.”
“I prefer not to. Do it for me, please. And don’t forget the interview, I need you in the studio by 5:00 PM.”
“I’ll be there.”
•••
Ginny called and asked me to log on to her website, giving me a courtesy VIP password so I wouldn’t have to enter my credit card information. “I’ve got some new stuff up, stuff I shot right before I left L.A., you might want to have a look and see if you don’t get any ideas.”
I logged on and watched her getting her various and sundry orifices penetrated a dozen ways apiece. It all looked fine to me, but it had been a while since I’d had to resort to masturbation for gratification, so I didn’t quite know how I was supposed to react. There was one particular clip in which she played an archaeologist who dug up a mummy, which unwrapped his bandages to reveal a still-functioning phallus. Sucking and fucking ensued, and I wondered which of the minor roles in the movie she might be right for.
And then, having exhausted the newer clips, I surfed around the older titles and found one in which she played a bitchy interior decorator ordering around a handyman, who at one point decided he’d had enough, bending her over, tearing her fancy clothes, and giving it to her all kinds of ways until the obligatory facial at the end, with Ginny greedily licking handyman semen off of her cheeks and lips. Something about this one bothered me (and no, it wasn’t the implied misogyny—my politics lean leftward but not, as you may have gathered, in the direction of the sexually politically correct).
I watched it again and knew what it was: I’d seen that handyman somewhere before, and not long ago, either.
•••
After a light lunch of a salad I took a tranquil stroll across the Luxembourg Gardens to our subterranean dungeon to congratulate Fred in person. He was quite pleased with my enthusiasm and outlined his ideas for the next two acts.
“I think I can be done in a week. No, I know I can.”
“That’s terrific. I’ll start getting everything arranged.”
“Um.” He glanced at the meat locker’s large metal doors. “What about our money man?”
I let out a long sigh. There was the fly in the ointment. “I’m working on it. Meanwhile you keep cranking out those pages.”
He sat down at the old schoolboy’s desk Annick had provided for his use and waved me away, and before I’d gone he was tapping furiously at the keyboard of his laptop.
•••
In the limo on the way to the studio I remembered where I’d seen the handyman from Ginny’s porn video, even came up with his name. He was David Steinke, an actor I’d seen in a couple of L.A. theater productions and whose work had thoroughly impressed me. No wonder I hadn’t quite been able to place him—no one expects an actor of that caliber to turn up in a porno. Ginny was another story altogether; her looks were the only thing that had gotten her cast in the first place, and the quality of her work on the show was only a step or two above the level required for porn.
What were the plays I’d seen him in? One was an all-white revival of Porgy and Bess, not one of the highlights of L.A. theater of that or any other year but a production in which he himself had excelled. The other was a small piece set in a Louisiana bar involving a gay quadriplegic, a black hit man, and a Klansman who come to mutual understanding and respect during Hurricane Katrina. Steinke’s portrayal of the Klansman was sympathetic and nuanced, and I came away from the theater convinced I’d seen a future star.
And of course it had been Ginny who’d accompanied me to both productions. He was a friend of hers from her acting classes and she wanted to support him by bringing as many industry friends as possible to see him at work. The poor guy, he’d given up too easily; nothing legit was open to you once you’d done fuck flicks, Stallone’s pre-stardom, one-shot “Italian Stallion” notwithstanding.
“You’re quiet tonight,” Marie-Laure said.
“Just thinking about someone I used to know who came to a bad end.”
“Have you given any thought to what you’re going to say?”
“I’m going to say what I told the cops.”
She shrugged. “It would be nice if it were something dramatic. Something that suggested a conspiracy.”
My cell buzzed. I had a message from Esmée: MUST SPEAK URGENTLY NOW NOW NOW.
I put the phone back in my jacket. “URGENTLY NOW NOW NOW” from a woman like Esmée meant in reality “I don’t want to have to eat dinner by myself” or “Are you with that woman?” And I had the interview to think about.
•••
The lights of the studio were dim compared to the lights of a set. I was seated across from the anchor during a break, and when the red light came back on we exchanged greetings as though we’d known each other for years. Since we were on the same channel, most viewers would assume that we were old friends. It’s absurd, of course, but I’ve experienced the same thing dozens of times. Once in a gas station in the Rocky Mountains a tiny lady told me she was going to be sure to tell someone named Barney Coggs she’d met me.
“Barney Coggs?” I asked.
She gave me a playful blow on the elbow with the top of her hand. “Our Channel Nine HotNews WeatherCaster!”
“Oh, Barney,” I said. “That rascal! Give him my best.”
And now I was trying to remember whether the anchor’s name was Michel or Daniel. The mnemonic device I’d used had involved a rhyme, and now I was trapped, unable to respond with a casually friendly use of his first name. Ah, well, next time I’d prepare better. I didn’t even know how I was going to answer his questions, since the truth as I knew it was pretty thin stuff: Someone sent me a text luring me to an empty apartment, then hit me over the head.
Unfortunately Michel/Daniel had already covered that part of the affair, and it was up to me to elaborate. But I have long been known among my peers as an inspired improviser. Properly speaking, improv isn’t simply ad-libbing whatever funny line comes into your head; it’s all about propelling a piece forward and giving your fellow improviser something to work with. It’s all about trust between performers, and I believed I trusted my interlocutor enough to throw him something he could throw back at me and allow me to further twist it in a way that would surprise and delight our audience.
“Any thoughts as to your attacker’s motives?” he asked.
It was as though we’d been working together for years; the question was perfect, and my response was inspired.
“As you know, I’ve been in Paris working on a film dealing with the theft of art and antiquities. In the course of my research, I’ve come across a rather unsavory element that has made it quite clear they don’t want such a film made.”
“Can you specify?”
“I’m afraid I don’t have much in the way of specifics. Just that the plot of the script is apparently a bit too close to a certain real-life operation.”
“And what makes you certain this attack was related to these characters?”
“I’m not certain. I think that was their idea, to create a certain amount of confusion. I do remember one thing that seemed meaningless at the time, and perhaps it is. But before the second blow, the one that knocked me unconscious, I heard the fellow say, ‘Krysmopompas strikes again.’ I don’t know what it means, if anything.”
•••
I sat in the limo for a minute or two waiting for Marie-Laure to talk on the phone to some network types who were apparently quite pleased with the interview. Even Balthazar wanted to talk about it.
“That’s fucked up,” he said. “I can’t believe you went in there alone and unarmed.”
“Yeah, well, I didn’t have any reason to think anything was up.”
“But you’re a celebrity. You should have a bodyguard and shit.”
Balthazar struck me both as a tough guy and as a man I could trust, the kind of guy you could ask delicate questions and count on his discretion.
“Balthazar, what would you do if you were in my position? Besides hiring a bodyguard?”
“Shit, man, I’d get me a piece.”
“A gun?”
“Shit, yeah.”
“I wouldn’t know where to go looking for one.”
He raised an eyebrow. “I could send you to a guy I know up in Montmartre. You go, you mention you’re a friend of mine.”
•••
“That was amazing,” Marie-Laure said in the limo as we pulled away from the studio. “I’ll be honest, I wasn’t sure you were up to an interview on the subject. You seemed so vague and diffident about it. But then you managed to work in the movie and that bullshit about chrysalopolis and art thieves. You know something? I had an orgasm when you said that made-up word. I went right up my spine from my clit to my brain. Say it again.”
“Krysmopompas.”
A look of feline satisfaction produced itself on her face and she leaned over to whisper in my ear. “I was going to ask whether you wanted champagne and oysters before you fuck me or after, but now I can’t wait, so you’re going to fuck me in the ladies’ room at the restaurant.”
“Krysmopompas,” I said.
MARDI, DIX-SEPT MAI
I DIDN’T GET HOME UNTIL QUITE LATE, AND I ignored both my mobile and the constantly ringing land line, the latter of which I finally unplugged at three in the morning. I awoke at ten-thirty with Esmée standing over me, the look on her face not unlike that which I imagined Claude might have had on his face the night he tried to shoot me from just about the spot where she now stood.
“Where the fuck is he?”
In my bleary, half-awake state I genuinely had no idea to whom she might be referring. “Where the fuck is who?” I asked.
She slapped me, and she was a lot stronger than I might have guessed looking at her. I swung my legs onto the floor and held my palm to my stinging cheek.
“Do you think I’m stupid? Why didn’t you call me back yesterday?”
“I had an interview to do,” I said, and I was quite grateful at that moment that the night before I had indeed fulfilled Marie-Laure’s fantasy of getting laid in a bathroom stall in a fancy restaurant; I could only imagine how much worse the scene playing out at the moment would have gone for me had another woman been lying there in the bed next to me when Esmée walked in. I don’t think it would have led to a threesome.
“I had a visit from the police yesterday. Claude’s been kidnapped.”
It all came back to me in a horrifying rush, but one thing about being an actor is you learn to seem convincingly surprised at perfectly unsurprising statements. “Kidnapped? Dear God. By whom?”
She slapped me again. “They showed me a picture the kidnappers sent to the press.”
Aha. There was the reason the story hadn’t broken yet; the cops were keeping it quiet. “A picture,” I repeated, an old trick for when you’ve forgotten your next line and want the other actors in the scene to subtly feed it to you.
“I recognized the baby-blue ball gag, you dumb shit. It’s mine—you got it out of the third drawer from the bottom in the armoire.”
Damn. She had me there. Still, one had to fight on. “What’s this about a ball gag?”
“Give it up. Anyway, even if the ball gag didn’t prove it, there you were on TV last night with that ‘Krysmopompas’ bullshit. I had to call the officer in charge of the case to ask if he’d watched, by the way, just to cover myself. He hadn’t, but he’s now in touch with the inspector investigating your case. You should be hearing from him today.”
“You see, what I was doing there was creating some plausible deniability. I really did get attacked, by the way.”
“Look, I’m not mad at you for locking him up, though I’ll admit I’m a little hazy on your motivations. What pisses me off is that you didn’t tell me right away.”
“Really?”
“I wish I’d thought of faking a kidnapping myself. So what’s the idea, roughly?” She had calmed down considerably.
I filled her in on Claude’s unacceptable behavior and the basics of his captivity, along with the various scenarios that Fred and I had worked out for his eventual release.
“You really didn’t think this out at all, did you?” she asked.
“Of course I did. I have multiple scenarios in play, I just haven’t settled definitively on any one of them yet.”
“The only one that works is this one: We kill him.”
“I’m not entirely comfortable with that outcome,” I said. This was something of a vast understatement.
“Tell me another that works.”
“We release him after a ransom is paid.”
“Ransoms are traceable. Besides, he’ll kill you.”
“He never saw me after he woke up.”
“Unless he’s brain damaged, he knows it’s you. And okay, let’s say he’s got amnesia, just like one of the characters in your soap opera.” (That remark stung a bit, with its implied disrespect aimed at my little corner of the television medium, but I let it pass.) “And let’s say he decides to go ahead and finance the movie. What happens when he gets a load of the screenwriter and realizes it’s his former jailer?”
A thought did flash into my mind. What if Fred was a look-alike for Claude’s captor, perhaps an identical twin? Then I remembered that that had been a plot twist on Ventura County. Anticipating her sneering (and absolutely correct) dismissal of the idea, I kept it to myself.
She sat down on the bed next to me, leaned in and kissed me. “If you’re worried about the moral aspect of the whole business, I can assure you that Claude is one evil son of a bitch.”
“I’m sure he is.”
“I’ve thought about it many times, but I’ve never really had an opportunity like this one. Think of it. Claude’s out of the picture. All that money, mine to control without any interference. We’ll make our movie. We can be seen together in public without fear of Claude having one or both of us killed.”
It was all sounding pretty good to me. I have nothing against money, and though I wasn’t exactly lacking for it at the moment, I didn’t have Claude Guiteau’s kind of money, not by a long shot, and having a girlfriend with that kind of dough was the next best thing. And then she said something that made my blood run cold:
“After a decent interval we can get married.”
•••
Even an unwanted marriage proposal seems to call for a celebratory fuck, and after we were finished we showered together and she left. Less than a half an hour later I answered the door to find Inspector Bonnot, of the Police Judiciaire, who was displeased that I’d revealed a piece of important evidence in a TV interview without having told him.
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