Molly Bit

by Dan Bevacqua

  VENICE 2006

  4

  THE BODYGUARD WAS VERY HANDSOME. Out of boredom more than anything, during the long prep hours in Venice before the media offensive, Molly would fantasize about having sex with him. Not actual sex, but the pre-sex stuff of dreams. She would talk with Zen near a window and let his arm rub against hers as they looked down into the Statue-of-Liberty-colored water. They would say various things. It was a mood situation, a movie sort of flirting. Eventually, the two of them would pull back into the palazzo. She would ask him about Switzerland, where he was from, and wonder out loud if that was his real name? After he said no, Molly would undo his belt, and then it was back to reality, if you could call her life that.

  “Zen!”

  He was reading The Bonfire of the Vanities, which he’d found under her bed during his first security sweep. It was the same taupe hardcover copy her father owned. Molly knew exactly where it was on John’s bookshelf back in Vermont. Zen sat in an oak dining chair positioned against the door. He was large and the chair was small. The phrase was perhaps legs and arms akimbo.

  “Miss Bit,” he said.

  She folded the day’s itinerary in half and placed it in her lap. Every time she moved, the leather wingback she sat in creaked like a ship.

  “How’s the book?”

  “I just started,” he said. “I don’t know.”

  “But do you like it?”

  “Gun to my head?”

  “Gun to your head,” she said.

  “Gun to my head, I like it,” Zen said.

  Over the past day and a half, she’d taught him a few American phrases. Almost all of the phrases were violent, Molly realized. Gun to your head Killing time Skin of my teeth, even, was gross and aggressive. She couldn’t get a sense of whether or not Zen liked this. She couldn’t get a sense of whether or not he liked anything, really, unless she said, “Gun to your head.” Then he was forced into opinion.

  Molly pointed two fingers at him and cocked her thumb.

  “Are you bored?” she asked.

  “This is the job,” he said, and went back to reading.

  Zen had been employed at the insistence of Andrew Kessler, her husband of two years, who was coincidentally directing a movie down in Rome, and having an affair with his lead actress. Molly was pretty sure of this. It was sort of Andrew’s thing: exotic location, stressful shoot, a tryst with the talent. It was how they’d started in Hungary three years before, when they’d both been married to other people. Molly remembered the exact moment when she knew it was over with Jared. She’d been hanging upside down by a guidewire off the side of a building. She’d held a twitching robot-baby by its foot. “Fantastic,” Andrew had said into her earbud, his voice a combination to a lock. “Now smash open that window.”

  “I want to smoke a cigarette,” Molly said.

  Zen raised his shoulders, uninterested.

  “Outside,” she said. “On the veranda, the balcony—whatever that is.”

  Zen stood up, and set down the Wolfe. He didn’t sigh, but pulled in a long, slow breath, as if he was about to go diving.

  “Balcone,” he exhaled.

  “Balcone,” Molly repeated. “How many languages do you know?”

  “Six.”

  Molly stood. There was a full-length mirror next to them. Zen pulled open a set of double doors. As the canal scent of sewage waved in, she looked at herself. She had on a short gray Nehru jacket with green trim, a low-cut blue silk shirt, and a pair of off-black jeans that were tight enough to feel like rubber. She liked how she looked, but she wasn’t crazy about it.

  “This whole outfit is blech,” she said to Zen.

  He was out on the balcone, staring into the buildings across the canal. His blond hair was cropped close in boutique military fashion. He stepped back across the slight rise and looked at her sandaled feet.

  “Heels,” he said. “The red.”

  She gave him the eyebrow. It had once been compared to the Gateway Arch in St. Louis.

  “A short marriage,” he said.

  Molly took the heels out from underneath the wingback, and slipped them on. She tried her weight on one foot, and then the other.

  “How’s this?” she asked, raising the gun.

  “Good,” Zen said. “Tall. Italians like to fear their women.”

  “Out there?” she asked.

  “Clear,” Zen said. “Kill your time.”

  The rain had stopped earlier that morning. In the air above her, seagulls went berserk. Molly put the itinerary in her back jean pocket and took the letter out of her purse. It was a photocopy, maybe the eighth or ninth reproduction, a number far away like that. She’d received letters before, thousands maybe, and she’d had to change her email address at least a dozen times. The fact was people wrote to her. They weren’t necessarily crazy. A PA, or an assistant at the agency, some anonymous twenty-something, copied down her information off a list. Then they gave it to a friend. Who gave it to another. All they wanted to do was say hi, or mention how they thought she was great. Three wrote, “You suck.” It was an invasion—annoying, unprofessional—but it wasn’t uncommon. It was like when she called a restaurant and a host said, “Yeah, okay. Sure. How do you spell that?” Some of the letters were creepy. They were blatantly sexual. “I want to do [specific position] with you.” “You look like you need a little [fill in the blank].” Most of these people were easy to scare off. They were lonely, hospitalized, unstable. When the police reported back to her it was always to inform her that so-and-so wouldn’t be bothering her anymore.

  But this letter was different. The police liaison for the famous said so. It was consistent with a certain type of pattern. It was actually better, the detective said, if they mentioned killing you straight off. That was rage, and rage was brief. Rage was sloppy. He could detect then, he said, make an arrest maybe, put out a restraining order. Shame worked wonders. People moved back to Toledo or wherever. But when they mentioned love, you were in trouble. Love was bad. Love was something you had to worry about. It thought in terms of fate. It was screwed up like that.

  “That’s why it comes every week,” the detective had said. “He thinks he’s being considerate. He’s in it for the long haul.”

  The photocopy was part of the dossier Diane had given Zen. Molly had taken it out of his briefcase when he went to the bathroom. She hadn’t read one in months, even though it had been sent to every house she owned but for one. The Coldwater mortgage had been in Jared’s name, but there was no way he could afford the payments, and she’d taken that as well. It was small, but she liked it. It was cozy. She used it on the rare occasion when Andrew, rather than she, was out of town. The ocean blared like static all night long at the Malibu place. And she hated the Bel Air mansion—it was ridiculous. Part of her had only bought it because she could. Molly wondered what good money was if you didn’t spend it? Andrew had said that this way of thinking proved she’d grown up poor. Real rich people don’t spend a dime, he’d told her. Not if they don’t have to.

  She loved him, but she hated him. She hated his goddamn guts. Their marriage had to be reestablished every two or three months, when they actually saw each other. The rest of the time he didn’t seem real. She might have preferred that. She loved him out of habit: out of an instant attraction that had never abated, and had never grown calm.

  The letter hadn’t changed, it was exactly like the first and the twentieth version, and she reacted to it as she always did. She was afraid, afraid for her life, and then she willed herself to forget about it. Molly had compartmentalized her fear of the letter into a strip of film three scenes long. She would hear a knock at the door. She would open the door. A man with a blank face would be standing there. As always, she put the film strip down inside her body, and once it was there it started to break down and spread throughout her. It was a private thing, slow and true, like another life.

  She lit her cigarette and read the itinerary. In an hour and a half she had a store a
ppearance in Piazza San Marco. She would sign autographs for the first three hundred fans. Reporters would be there as well, but it was bound to be soft-pitch stuff. How was she liking Italy? Venice? The food? Flashes would shutter in quick succession like water coming to a boil. Then it was the boat ride. First, they would make a quick stop at the Guggenheim. It was the last interview with the woman from The New Yorker. After that it was Lido and the junket. She’d do the big press conference first, and then the individuals. After the premiere, there was the after-party. Molly checked her phone. It was ten a.m. She had a fourteen-hour day ahead of her.

  The exterior of the building opposite her own was black with soot. Molly imagined the centuries of fire and recalled a twenty-million-dollar insurance policy Universal had taken out on her skin for Tribes II and III. There had been a lot of fire in those, a number of explosions. But she was done with that sort of shit. She didn’t even care. Her filmography was balanced. Her contracts had been honored. She was the whole shebang.

  Half the cigarette smoked, she rolled the cherry’s edge on the steel balustrade, and watched the small gray ash drift into the canal. In the distance, she heard the deep growl of an outboard motor rev. Over the last five years—since Make It So, and all the films that followed—Molly had developed a sixth sense for money. She knew what it looked like, and felt like. She knew when people were pretending to have it, and when they were pretending not to. More than anything, she knew the sound of someone tracking her down to get paid.

  The first boat full of paparazzi came down the canal. Another boat trailed behind it. When they saw Molly, they cut their engines. At a distance of two school buses, the two boats rocked inside the waves they’d created, their sterns taking on water, the anonymous men aboard falling this way and that. They were like old slapstick extras, with the same clenched faces, and the same blank stares. There were never any women, and there were none this time. The men seemed to swap voices as they climbed on top of one another. They were German, Spanish, Japanese. Their accents were pitchy and erratic.

  “Mol-lee!”

  “Mooly!”

  “Millee!”

  She kept her eyes on the water, or on the buildings, or the sky. Never them. Early in her success, she had made that mistake, and never would again. To look at even one of them, to stare into the lens, had felt similar to bad luck, or, worse, as if a curse had been put upon her.

  Molly gave them a moment from her life. She quarter-turned. She waited a beat. Then she stepped back inside.

  There was a quick knock at the door. Zen checked past the horizontal chain. Once he undid it, the girls banged in. The two faux-hawk’d stylists were first, and then the hair and makeup girl, Victoria, who looked exhausted, as if she’d partied so hard the night before her right eye was now lower than the left. Last was Paula, Molly’s publicist. She had on a man’s blazer with shoulder pads.

  “Are those paparazzi outside?” Paula yelled. She walked toward the balcone. “Who tipped them off?”

  “Relax,” Molly said. “Zen’s on the case.”

  “Who?” Paula asked.

  “Zen,” Molly said.

  “That guy?” Paula nodded at the bodyguard.

  “Yeah,” Molly said. “Him.”

  “Jesus,” Paula said. “That’s terrible. That’s a terrible name.”

  “I think it’s kind of hot,” Victoria whispered. She held her makeup kit under one arm, and handed Molly a cigarette.

  “Where’s Diane?” Paula asked.

  “Gondola tour,” Molly said. “She’ll be back in a half hour.”

  Paula was clever in an angling for position and power sort of way. She possessed the usual take-no-prisoners, I’m-a-world-class-bitch attitude, but what she truly excelled at was choosing who, and who not, to give a shit about. She didn’t give a damn about the stylists, or the hair and makeup girl. Diane, on the other hand, was to be placed on a pedestal. Not only was Diane Molly’s assistant, but, having navigated the last five years together, her best friend. Paula knew that to make Diane happy was to make Molly happy. Both Molly and Diane found Paula to be a total fake, and wondered if she wasn’t a sociopath, but agreed that she did her job extremely well. This fact confirmed their opinion of her character.

  “A little break is good,” Paula said. “That’s nice. That’s nice of you.”

  “She’s not my slave,” Molly said. “She’s my assistant.”

  “Of course not. Of course she isn’t.”

  “I have another assistant for the slave work,” Molly said.

  Zen crossed the room out onto the balcone. He gave a warning in Italian that involved the word polizia, and the boats took off.

  Victoria and Molly smoked, and then Victoria started in on her makeup.

  “There’s no sense in going all out right now,” Victoria said, applying foundation. “You’re just gonna get on the boat with all that wind, and water, and the sun’s no help at all either. I’ll have to do you again at the Guggenheim.”

  With some makeup artists, you could tell it was their whole life. They had given themselves over to it completely. They blinked in the face of other worldly matters. This meant they were invaluable but boring. Not so with Victoria. She seemed to have other interests, although Molly didn’t know what they were. It wasn’t yoga. It wasn’t vegetarian dining. She didn’t know Victoria at all, and never would, but Molly liked her. She liked how she was always having sex with somebody.

  “What did you do last night?” Molly asked.

  “I think his name was Emil,” Victoria said.

  Diane entered. There was something off about her, Molly noticed. Her usual bright, open quality was dimmed like emergency lighting. A Styrofoam bowl of melting gelato overflowed in her hand. Molly didn’t like Diane’s short cut. The humidity made her hair all frizzy. She looked like a kooky librarian.

  “A little early for that,” Molly said.

  “Weird, I know.” Diane threw the gelato into a trashcan. She started wiping her fingers with Kleenex. “I just sort of walked into the store. ‘Gelato, per favore.’ Walked out.”

  “How was the gondola?”

  “Nauseating,” Diane said. “But now I’ve done it.”

  “What’s going on?”

  “Not now.”

  “We are ready?” Zen asked.

  They went down the steps and crossed the empty cobblestone bridge to the other side of the canal. She and Diane grabbed seats in the far stern under a canopy, and soon the boat departed. Venice was a half-sunk music box made of stone. It was cold as a shadow. The canal walls, the buildings, the flesh of the people—everything was the lifeless shade of dead canary. She could not get enough of the green on the water. It was oil, she knew, sludge, but she liked it.

  “What happened?” Molly asked. “Is he with her?”

  “Yes,” Diane said.

  “She’s twenty years old.”

  “Nineteen,” Diane said. “There’s a photo.”

  “A photo of what?”

  “They’re in a café.”

  Molly saw the image in her mind. Her husband, Andrew Kessler, Mr. Hot Shit Director, and the British actress, Kate Uppley, are seated at a table. They lean into each other, eyes closed, about to kiss. It’s not a full-on lock. In these sorts of photographs a little space is good for mystery. The space between is where the action is. The window absorbs the street light. In the background, waiters blur.

  “Which magazine?” Molly asked.

  “OK!.”

  “OK!?”

  “We’re in Europe,” Diane said. “They’re in Europe. This is Europe.”

  “Does the Queen of Darkness know?”

  “Paula doesn’t know.”

  “I don’t want it out there.”

  “That’s why I haven’t told her,” Diane said. “How much are you willing to spend? I’m talking to someone.”

  “At the magazine? Who?”

  “This asshole,” Diane said. “Everything passes through her. I floated the i
dea of thirty, but it’s going to be more.”

  “Because pounds?”

  “Because we’re in a kind of bidding war.”

  “Kind of?” Molly asked.

  “We are,” Diane said. “But I don’t know with who.”

  Their boat moved through the center of the city. Motors gurgled, sputtered, and smoked. A cloud bank slid east, and here came the sun. The canal water went from green to aquarium blue. The bridges appeared to be white marble. Exterior fixtures—railings, lampposts, shop signs—were gold. Everything was Gucci, Rolex, Dior.

  “It’s like Rodeo Drive meets the Lost City of Atlantis,” Molly said. “Pay them whatever.”

  “It’s not that easy.”

  She knew Diane would say that. Diane was always saying that.

  “I talked to the accountant.”

  “And what did Albert say?” Molly asked. “How is Albert?”

  “Albert’s fine. He says hello,” Diane said. “Everything is tied up. Do you know how much this Zen guy is costing you?”

  “How much?”

  “Fifty-thousand euros.”

  “Jesus. For four days? How much American is that?”

  “I don’t even know,” Diane said. “Everything is nuts right now. The Bel Air contractor needs to get paid. I don’t know why you bought that thing in Malibu. Jared’s alimony is killing you. You didn’t get any money at all for Lowlife. And Hydrogen owes you one bajillion dollars. You’re cash poor.”

  “Can’t I do a commercial?” Molly asked. She looked at one of the stores. “How about Chanel?” She noticed a familiar restaurant. “What about Burger King?”

  Molly was joking, but she also wanted to throw herself overboard, and let the motorboat blades do what they would. Andrew was scheduled to arrive that night in time for the premiere, but she knew he wouldn’t come. She remembered how he went about these sorts of things. In Budapest, speaking about the wife he would soon leave, he’d said, “I’ll give it some time, some radio silence. That way she won’t be caught off guard.” Even then, in their early love, she knew he was a coward.

  “A commercial would be a good idea,” Diane said. “Or another rom-com.”