Glamorama

4

38

The film crew follows Tammy into the dining area, where she has a tense breakfast with Bruce. She sips lukewarm hot chocolate, pretending to read Le Monde, and Bruce hostilely butters a piece of almond bread until he breaks the silence by telling Tammy he knows horrible things about her past, keeps mentioning a stint in Saudi Arabia without elaborating. Bruce's hair is wet and his narrow face is flushed pink from a recent shower and he's wearing a pistachio-colored Paul Smith T-shirt and later he will be attending a prestigious rooftop luncheon somewhere in the 16th arrondissement that Versace is throwing to which only good-looking people have been invited and Bruce has decided to wear a black body shirt and gray Prada shoes to the rooftop luncheon and he's really going only because of a canceled booking last month.

"So you'll be appreciated," Tammy says, lighting a thin cigarette.

"You don't appreciate me."

"Don't be absurd," she mutters.

"I know who you're seeing this afternoon."

"What else are you doing today?" she asks tonelessly.

"I'll go to the Versace luncheon. I'll have a club sandwich. I'll nod when it's appropriate." Pause. "I'll stick to the script."

The camera keeps circling the table they're sitting at and nothing's registering on Tammy's face and Bruce's hand shakes slightly as he lifts an Hermès coffee cup and then without sipping any café au lait puts it back on its saucer and closes his green eyes, lacking the energy to argue. The actor playing Bruce had a promising career as a basketball player at Duke and then followed Danny Ferry to Italy where Bruce immediately got modeling jobs and in Milan he met Bobby who was dating Tammy Devol at the time and things just flew from there. A vase—a prop—filled with oversized white tulips sits nonsensically between them.

"Don't be jealous," Tammy whispers.

A cell phone sitting on the table starts ringing and neither one of them moves to pick it up but it might be Bobby so Bruce finally answers. It's actually Lisa-Marie Presley, looking for Bentley—whom she calls "Big Sistah"—but Bentley's sleeping because he got in at dawn accompanied by an NYU film student he picked up at La Luna last night because the NYU film student had a tinted-blond chevron that accentuated already enormous lips and a penchant for nonbloodletting bondage that Bentley couldn't resist.

"Don't be jealous," Tammy says once more, before leaving.

"Just stick to the script," Bruce warns her.

As Tammy casually picks up a Vuitton box sitting on a chrome table in the hallway, the opening piano strains from ABBA's "S.O.S." begin playing and the song continues over the rest of Tammy's day, even though on the Walkman she wears throughout the city is a tape Bruce made for her-songs by the Rolling Stones, Bettie Serveert, DJ Shadow, Prince, Luscious Jackson, Robert Miles, an Elvis Costello song that used to mean something to both of them.

A Mercedes picks Tammy up and a Russian driver named Wyatt takes her to Chanel in Rue Cambon where she breaks down in an office, crying silently at first and then gasping until Gianfranco arrives and gets a sense that maybe something is "off" and scurries away after calling for an assistant to calm Tammy down. Tammy's freaked, barely gets through the fittings, and then she meets the son of the French premier at a flea market in Clignancourt and soon they're sitting in a McDonald's, both wearing sunglasses, and he's three years younger than Tammy, sometimes lives in a palace, hates the nouveau riche, fucks only Americans (including his nanny, when he was ten). Tammy "ran into" him on Avenue Montaigne outside Dior four months ago. She dropped something. He helped pick it up. His car was waiting. It was getting dark.

The French premier's son has just returned from Jamaica and Tammy halfheartedly compliments him on his tan and then immediately inquires about his cocaine problem. Has it resolved itself? Does he care? He just smiles evasively, which he realizes too late is the wrong move because she gets moody. So he orders a Big Mac and Tammy picks at a small bag of fries and his flat is being painted so he's staying at the Presidential Suite at the Bristol and it's freezing in the McDonald's, their breath steaming whenever they talk. She studies her fingertips, wondering if cocaine is bad for your hair. He mumbles something and tries to hold her hand. He touches her face, tells her how sensitive she is. But it's all hopeless, everything's a label, he's late for a haircut. "I'm wary," she finally admits. He actually—Tammy doesn't know this—feels broken. They make vague plans about meeting again.

She walks away from the McDonald's, and outside where the film crew's waiting it's warm and raining lightly and the Eiffel Tower is only a shadow in a giant wall of mist that's slowly breaking up and Tammy concentrates on the cobbled streets, a locust tree, a policeman strolling by with a black German shepherd on a leash, then she finally gets back into the Mercedes the Russian named Wyatt is driving. There's a lunch at Chez Georges that she's just going to have to skip-she's too upset, things keep spiraling away from her, another Klonopin doesn't help-and she calls Joan Buck to explain. She dismisses the car, takes the Vuitton box and loses the film crew in the Versace boutique on Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré. No one knows where Tammy is for the next thirty-five minutes.

She hands the Vuitton box to a strikingly handsome Lebanese man slouching behind the wheel of a black BMW parked tightly against a curb somewhere in the 2nd arrondissement, actually not far from Chez Georges so she changes her mind and decides to show up for the lunch where the film crew is waiting and the director and Felix the cinematographer keep apologizing for losing her and she dismisses them by shrugging vacantly, muttering "I got lost" and greeting people sweetly. She's told good news by her agent: Tammy has the next cover for British Vogue. Everyone's wearing sunglasses. A discussion about "Seinfeld" and ceiling fans commences. Tammy declines a glass of champagne, then reconsiders.

The sky, is starting to clear and clouds are dissolving and the temperature rises ten degrees in fifteen minutes so the students eating lunch in the open courtyard at the Institute of Political Studies start sunning themselves as the BMW the Lebanese is driving rolls to a stop on the Boulevard Raspail, where a different film crew is waiting on neighboring rooftops prepared to record the following events with telephoto lenses.

Below them everyone's sighing with pleasure and students are drinking beer and lying shirtless across benches and reading magazines and sharing sandwiches while plans to skip classes start formulating and someone with a camcorder roams the courtyard, finally focusing in on a twenty-year-old guy who's sitting on a blanket weeping silently while reading a note from his girlfriend who has just left him and she's written that they will never get back together again and he's rocking back and forth telling himself it's okay, it's okay, and the cam- corder angles away and focuses in on a girl giving another girl a back rub. A German television crew interviews students on the upcoming elections. Joints are shared. Rollerbladers whiz by.

The instructions the Lebanese received were simple: just remove the top of the Vuitton box before leaving the carbut since Bobby Hughes lied about when the bomb will go off-he simply told the driver to park the car and leave it on Boulevard Raspail in front of the institute-the driver will die in the blast. The Lebanese, who was involved in the planning of an attack in January on CIA headquarters in Langley, is eating M&M's and thinking about a girl named Siggi he met last month in Iceland. A student named Brigid walks by the BMW and notices the Lebanese leaning over the passenger seat and she even registers the panic on his face as he lifts something up in the seconds before the car explodes.

A simple flash of light, a loud sound, the BMW bursts apart.

The extent of the destruction is a blur and its aftermath somehow feels beside the point. The point is the bomb itself, its placement, its activation-that's the statement. Not Brigid blown apart beyond recognition or the force of the blast flinging thirty students closest to the car forty, fifty feet into the air or the five students killed instantly, two of them by flying shrapnel that sailed across the courtyard and was embedded in their chests, and not the other section of car, which flies by, lopping off an arm, and not the three students immediately blinded. It's not the legs blown off, the skulls crushed, the people bleeding to death in minutes. The uprooted asphalt, the blackened trees, the benches splattered with gore, some of it burned-all of this matters just as much. It's really about the will to accomplish this destruction and not about the outcome, because that's just decoration.

A stunned silence and then—among the conscious covered with blood, not always their own—the screaming starts.

Fifty-one injured. Four people will never walk again. Three others are severely brain-damaged. Along with the driver of the BMW, thirteen are dead, including an older man who dies, blocks away, of a heart attack at the time of the blast. (A week later a teacher's assistant from Lyons will die from head injuries, raising the number of dead to fourteen.) By the time the flashing blue lights of ambulances start arriving at the darkening scene, the film crew has packed up and disappeared and will show up later in the week at another designated spot. Without staring through the lens of the cameras, everything at that distance looks tiny and inconsequential and vaguely unreal to them. You can tell who is dead and who is not only by the way the bodies look when they're picked up.

And later that night at a very cool, sexy dinner in an upstairs room at the Hôtel Crillon, past a door flanked by dark-haired, handsome guards, Tammy mingles with Amber Valletta, Oscar de la Renta, Gianfranco Ferré, Brad Renfro, Christian Louboutin, Danielle Steel, the Princess of Wales, Bernard Arnault and various Russians and Vogue editors and everyone is into very serious slouching and some people just got back from Marrakech—a few less jaded because of that trip—and others pay their respects to Tammy as she huddles in a corner gossiping with Shalom Harlow about how all the girls are dating so many inappropriate people (nobodies, gangsters, fishermen, boys, members of the House of Lords, Jamaicans with whom they have no rapport) and Tammy's fanning herself with an invitation to a party at Queen that a boy who looks just like Christian Bale offered her but she's going to bypass it in favor of one in the 16th arrondissement that Naomi's throwing and then sashimi's served and more cigarettes are bummed then lit and Tammy leans into John Galliano and whispers "You're so nuts, baby" and she's drinking too much red wine and switches to Coke and more than one lesbian vaguely comes on to her and someone wearing a kimono asks how Bruce Rhinebeck is and Tammy, gazing at a figure prancing by in the darkness, answers "Wait" dreamily because she's realizing it's really just another difficult evening.

37

A giant set-high-tech and industrial with hints of Art Deco and Mission -appropriating an apartment in either the 8th or the 16th arrondissement is where Jamie Fields, Bobby Hughes, Bentley Harrolds, Tammy Devol, Bruce Rhinebeck and myself live during autumn in Paris. We're inhabiting a 5,000-square-foot triplex that has been paid for with Iraqi money washed through Hungary. To get into the house you have to deactivate an alarm and walk through a courtyard. Inside, a swirling circular staircase joins all three floors and the color scheme is muted olive green and light brown and soft pink, and in the basement there's a gym, its walls lined with Clemente drawings. An expansive open kitchen designed by Biber contains cabinets made from Makassar ebony and dyed tulipwood and there's a Miele oven and two dishwashers and a glass-door refrigerator and a Sub-Zero freezer and custom-made wine and spice racks and an industrial restaurant sprayer installed in a stainless-steel alcove with teak-lined drying racks holding gilded polka-dotted china. A giant mural by Frank Moore looms above the kitchen table, which a silk Fortuny shade hangs over.

Serge Mouille chandeliers are suspended over sparkling green-and-white terrazzo floors and rugs designed by Christine Van Der Hurd. Everywhere there are glass walls and giant white citronella candles and glass-box towers filled with CDs and white glass fireplaces and Dialogica chairs covered in Giant Textiles chenille and padded leather doors and stereo systems and Ruhlman armchairs in front of TV sets hooked up to a digital satellite system that picks up five hundred channels around the world, and bookcases filled with bowl arrangements line the walls everywhere and piles of cellular phones lie in heaps on various tables. And in the bedrooms there are blackout curtains designed by Mary Bright and rugs by Maurice Velle Keep and Hans Wegner's lounges and ottomans in Spinneybeck leather and divans covered in a Larson chenille and dwarf fruit trees often sit next to them and the walls in all the bedrooms are leather upholstered. The beds were made in Scandinavia and the sheets and towels are by Calvin Klein.

A complicated video-monitoring system runs throughout the apartment (and the outside cameras are equipped with built-in illuminators) along with a vast alarm system. Codes are memorized and, since the sequence is changed weekly, rememorized. The two BMWs parked in the garage have been equipped with global-positioning tracking systems, as well as untraceable license plates, bulletproof windshields, run-flat tires, blinding halogen lights in front and back, ramming bumpers. The apartment is swept twice a week-phone lines, outlets, PowerBooks, lampshades, toilets, everything electrical. Behind locked doors are rooms and behind those rooms are other locked doors and in those rooms dozens of pieces of luggage-mostly Vuitton and Gucci-are lined up waiting to be used. In other hidden rooms there are heavy-duty sewing machines, strips of explosives, hand grenades, M-16 rifles, machine guns, a filing cabinet containing battery chargers, detonators, Semtex, electric blasting caps. A closet contains dozens of designer suits lined with Kevlar, which is thick enough to stop bullets from high-powered rifles or flying bomb fragments.

All the phones in the house analyze callers' voices for subaudible microtremors that occur when a speaker is stressed or lying, giving the listener constant LED readings. All the phones in the house are installed with analyzers that send electrical pulses down the line and, bouncing them back, provide an affirmative reading for the listener if the call is being traced. All the phones in the house have a digital binary code scrambler that converts voices to numbers and allows the person on the other end of the line to decode it but keeps third parties from hearing anything but static.

Suddenly, that first week in Paris, Bobby threw an elaborate cocktail party in honor of Joel Silver, who ended up bragging to Richard Donner, who had just flown in from Sacramento, about his new three-million-dollar trailer and someone else was flying his dogs over on the Concorde and then Serena Altschul showed up and gave us the inside scoop on the Bush tour and a soon-to-be-slain rap star and Hamish Bowles arrived with Bobby Short and then-boom boom boom, one after the other-Crown Princess Katherine of Yugoslavia, Prince Pavlos of Greece, Princess Sumaya of Jordan and Skeet Ulrich, who was wearing a Prada suit and a shirt with spread collars and seemed happy at first to see me even if the last time we bumped into each other I ended up running away from him down a darkened street in SoHo. Skeet worriedly noticed the way I eyed a dropped Mentos lying on the terrazzo floor. I bent down and, after brushing it off, popped the Mentos into my mouth and started chewing rapidly.

"You just need to, um, put a positive spin on things," Skeet told me hesitantly.

"I'm saying hello to oblivion," I told Skeet, chewing rapidly.

He paused, shrugged, nodded glumly and immediately walked away.

Aurore Ducas passed by and so did Yves Saint-Laurent and Taki. An Iraqi ambassador spent the entire party standing close to Bobby, who kept making hand motions my way, urging me to mingle. I spent the early part of the evening chatting nervously to Diane Von Furstenberg and Barry Diller and trying to move closer to Jamie, who sometimes was ignoring me and sometimes laughing hysterically while petting a basset hound someone had dragged in, and bartenders poured champagne into thin crystal flutes while staring blankly past us. And predictably the party got hipper as it kept gliding further along and people started dancing to Republica and Kate Moss and Naomi Campbell arrived with The Artist Formerly Known As Prince and Tom Ford showed up with Dominique Browning and I had a heavy conversation with Michael Douglas about high-end safaris while I held a plate of lobster looking fairly benign and "I'm Your Boogie Man" by KC and the Sunshine Band blasted out, which was Jamie's cue to start dancing and my cue to just stare wonderingly at her. Baptiste Piton did the flower arrangements. The word PARTY kept flashing above us in bright, multicolored lettering.

Bruce left the party the moment the French premier's son showed up and Tammy locked herself in an upstairs bathroom with a bottle of champagne and fell into a fairly hysterical state and someone-this zonked-out NYU film student who'd spent a few nights in the apartment and was lighting everybody's cigarettes-gave me his phone number, signing the back of an old issue of Le Monde with an important pen he borrowed from a certain luminary. A new David Barton gym was opening somewhere in Pigalle and a baffled Princess Sumaya of Jordan gasped "Ooh-how perfect." The director and Felix, along with most of the film crew, were thrilled by the direction the party was taking. I ended up slumped over on a bench in the courtyard and drunkenly said "Bonjour, dude" to Peter Jennings as he left and my foot had fallen asleep so I limped back into the party and tried to dance with Jamie but Bobby wouldn't let me.

36

The shows we attended today: Gaultier, Comme des Garçons and-after a stop at the new Frank Malliot place located somewhere beneath the Champs Élysées-Galliano (a giant white curtain, uncharacteristic modern lighting, "Stupid Girl" by Garbage blaring, models bowing, we needed alibis), and then inevitably Les Bains for a dinner in honor of Dries von Noten and male bouncers pull us in and I'm wearing Prada and mellowing out on immense dosages of Xanax and it's a big hyped-up bash and I'm saying "Hey baby" in strained variations to Candelas Sastre and Peter Beard and Eleanore de Rohan-Chabot and Emmanuel de Brantes and Greg Hansen and a dentist I visited briefly in Santa Fe when Chloe was on location there and Ines Rivero and there are way too many photographers and store buyers and PR types and all the girls are carrying straw bags and wearing dresses the colors of crayons and the club is decked out with immense flower arrangements made up of gardenias and roses. I keep overhearing the word "insects" and when I light a cigarette I'm just noticing the thousand francs clutched in my hand that for some reason Jamie gave me during the Galliano show while I sat next to her trembling violently. This morning over breakfast Bobby said nothing about where he was heading off to today but since so many scenes are being shot without me I just frantically memorize my lines and show up according to the production schedule, staying inconspicuous, staying out of sight.

I walk over to where the film crew waits and I hit my mark, lighting Jamie's cigarette. She's wearing a tight sequined pantsuit by Valentino and carefully applied winged eyeliner. Eric Clapton starts playing over the sound system, which is my cue.

"Eric Clapton sucks."

"Oh yeah?" she asks. "That's just great."

I grab a glass of champagne off a tray a waiter gliding by is holding and we're both out in the open standing next to each other on the dance floor, looking at everything else but us.

"I want you," I say, wanly smiling, nodding to Claudia Schiffer as she passes by. "I want you very badly."

"That's not in the script, Victor," she warns, smiling wanly too. "That's not going to play."

"Jamie, please," I say. "We can talk. Bobby's not here yet."

"Just knock those date-rape fantasies out of that pretty little head of yours," she says, exhaling.

"Baby," I say genuinely. "I don't want to hurt you."

"You're about to hurt both of us if you keep this up."

"Keep what up?" I ask.

She turns even farther away. I move closer.

“Hey Jamie—” I reach out to touch her shoulder. “What’s the story?”

"You don't even know where you are, Victor,” she says grimly, but still smiling, even managing little waves at people who wave first. "You have no idea where you are.”

“Show me.”

“I can’t afford to do that, Victor.”

"You don't love him," I say. "I can tell. You don't love Bobby. It's a job, right? It's part of the plan, right? You're just acting, right?"

She says nothing.

Bobby parts a green velvet curtain and walks in wearing a dazzling Valentino tuxedo with a Prada backpack strapped over his shoulders that he didn't check and he surveys the room while lighting a cigarette, briefly blinded by paparazzi, and he just came from a party at Anahi and his hair looks wet and he starts moving toward us, grinning tightly as he strides across the dance floor.

"I think you're afraid of him," I say. "But you don't love him."

"Let's just get through this week, okay?' she says, tensing up.

"Tell me you love him—say it," I whisper. "Tell me you even like him."

The camera suddenly stops circling, holding us both in the frame tightly while we stare helplessly as Bobby comes nearer.

"Be quiet," she says, nodding at someone passing by in the shadows.

"I'll say something to him," I whisper. "I don't care."

"Let's lower the volume, Victor," she warns, smiling widely.

"I hope that's a humorous reference to something I didn't hear you say, Victor," Bobby says, leaning in and kissing Jamie on the mouth.

"Mmm," Jamie purrs, tasting her lips. "Margarita?"

"What are you talking about, Bobby?" I deliver the line in such a way that it's impossible to tell whether I'm feigning innocence or acting hard but Bobby's distracted by something across the room and in a suave way doesn't seem to care.

"I'm starving," Jamie says.

"What?" Bobby murmurs, craning his neck.

"I said I'm starving," she repeats anxiously.

Vaguely panicked, I swallow another Xanax and focus on an MTV crew interviewing Nicole Kidman, who has a bindi on her forehead.

"Rhinebeck is in a rotten mood," Bobby says, staring over at Bruce slouched stony-faced in a booth on the outer limits of the party with Tammy beside him, gorgeous and shell-shocked, wearing sunglasses, both of them surrounded by a smattering of young Londoners.

"I think he'll be okay," Jamie says. "It'll be over soon."

"Yeah, but Tammy's getting damaged and that could screw things up," Bobby says. "Excuse me."

Bobby walks over to the booth, shaking hands with everyone who's impressed by his presence, and when he leans in, Bruce barely registers him and then Bentley strolls over with Marc Jacobs and finally Tammy looks up at Bentley as he shows her the watch he's wearing and she smiles briefly at Marc but the moment the entire booth bursts into cackling her face becomes a mask.

"Talk to him," I'm telling Jamie. "Tell him it's over between you two. Tell him it'll be okay."

"It'll be okay?" she asks. "You dummy," she mutters.

"I'm just trying to articulate how I'm really feeling."

"Your primary responsibility, Victor, at this juncture, is to just—"

"Shut up," I say softly.

"Get over me."

"You started this."

"This is just the tip of the iceberg," Jamie says, and then she can't help it—her face relaxes and glancing over at me her eyes acknowledge mine and she whispers quickly, "Please, Victor, just act low-key and we'll talk later."

"When?" I whisper back.

Bobby returns with Bentley and Marc Jacobs and Marc and Bentley just got back from checking out Marc's headquarters at the Pont Neuf and Marc's very nervous because one of the new hot designers is a teenage drag queen who gets his inspiration from a Chihuahua named Hector.

"I was trapped in a conversation with a Belgian iconoclast and Mr. Jacobs here saved me," Bentley says, waving a fly away.

Marc bows and then kisses Jamie on the cheek, nonchalantly nods my way and says, "Hey, Victor."

"Jesus, it's freezing in here," Bentley says, his breath steaming, and then, eyeing me, adds, "You're looking tired, Victor. Gorgeous but t red."

I'm cool, I'm cool," I say evenly. "Everything's cool."

"Here—you forgot this." Bobby hands Bentley the Prada backpack while Marc charms Jamie by making goofy faces behind Bentley's back, causing even Bobby to crack half a smile.

"Why didn't you check it for me?" Bentley whines. "Jesus, Bobby." "I didn't know I was going to stay." Bobby shrugs, staring at me.

After I'm seated at a table with Donatella Versace, Mark Vanderloo, Katrine Boorman, Azzedine Alaïa, Franca Sozzani and the Belgian iconoclast and we've all laughed at other people's expense and smoked dozens of cigarettes and waiters have cleared away platcs of food that were barely looked at let alone touched and all of us have whispered secret things to the person on our left, Jamie walks by the table with a joint and asks for a light from Donatella, who's sitting next to me, and Jamie—while pretending to talk to Donatella, who's talking to Franca—tells me that Bobby is leaving for Beirut tomorrow and then he's traveling on to Baghdad and Dublin, where he's meeting with a member of a Virginia paramilitary group, and he'll be back in five days. I'm listening intently as she says this and she's encouraging me to laugh gaily and she relays this information in such a way that if you were across the room—as Bobby is now—you would assume she was telling Donatella how terrific Victor looks or contemplating aloud how fabulous her life turned out and Jamie takes just one hit off the joint before leaving it for the rest of the table to smoke and my foot has fallen asleep, and limping away, trying to follow her, I bump into slow-moving silhouettes and shadows and I notice Bentley making a dashing exit with the Prada backpack and then the rock group Autour de Lucie starts tuning up, about to perform their first song, a cover of the Who's "Substitute."

35

ABBA's "Voulez-Vous" blasts out over the sound track and in front of Les Bains a white Range Rover waits and in the front passenger seat the director from another film crew is going over tonight's sequence while in back various assistants staring intently ahead communicate on wireless headphones with the second unit, which has already set up at the designated site. With the Prada backpack slung over his shoulder Bentley hops into the Range Rover as it pulls away, followed by a black Citroën, toward the Boulevard Saint-Germain. Café Flore has been canvassed all week and a detailed description of its layout yielded the best table to leave the Prada backpack at. Bentley studies the following scene on two pieces of fax paper, memorizes his lines.

The cab drops Bentley off a block away from Café Flore and he walks quickly, purposefully, over to that outside table just off the sidewalk where Brad, the actor playing the NYU film student Bentley picked up at La Luna last week, is sitting with two friends—Seattle waif boys who attended Camden with Brad—and they're all stylishly chewing gum and smoking Marlboros, slouching in their seats with perfect hair, and an empty Starbucks cup sits in the middle of the table and by Brad's feet is a Gap bag filled with newly bought T-shirts. "Ooh, let's play dress-up," Brad says when he sees Bentley maneuvering toward the table in his Versace tuxedo.

Café Flore is packed, shimmering, every table filled. Bentley notices this with a grim satisfaction but Bentley feels lost. He's still haunted by the movie Grease and obsessed with legs that he always felt were too skinny though no one else did and it never hampered his modeling career and he's still not over a boy he met at a Styx concert in 1979 in a stadium somewhere in the Midwest, outside a town he has not been back to since he left it at eighteen, and that boy's name was Cal, who pretended to be straight even though he initially fell for Bentley's looks but Cal knew Bentley was emotionally crippled and the fact that Bentley didn't believe in heaven didn't make him more endearing so Cal drifted off and inevitably became head of programming at HBO for a year or two. Bentley sits down, already miked, in a crimson-and-forest-green chair and lights a cigarette. Next to them Japanese tourists study maps, occasionally snap photos. This is the establishing shot.

"Hey Bentley," Brad says. "This is Eric and Dean. They went to Camden and are both aspiring models. We've been comparing diets."

"So that's why I thought you all looked so cool," Bentley says, the Camden reference causing him to flash on Victor and what's in store for him.

"Laurent Gamier is spinning tonight at Rex," Brad says hopefully.

"Maybe, maybe," Bentley says, nodding, exhaling smoke, and then, looking over at the tattoo circling Dean's wrist, "Nice."

"Do you have it?" Brad asks, referring to the Ecstasy Bentley was supposed to bring to Café Flore.

"I'm going to have to go to Basil's flat," Bentley says offhandedly, smiling at Dean again.

"Oh man," Brad groans, disappointed. "That'll take forever."

"Patience—hey, you're only twenty-three, what's the rush?" Bentley asks, patting Brad's thigh, giving it a tight squeeze, which relaxes Brad, causes him to look down, blush slightly. "It'll take me twenty minutes at most," Bentley promises, bending the cigarette into an ashtray. He stands up.

"How do I know you'll come back?" Brad asks, looking up at him.

"I'll leave this," Bentley says, hefting the Prada bag into Brad's lap. "Just hold on to it."

"Will you please hurry?" Brad says, grinning. "We're in dire need of stimulants."

"You look just like Jon Bon Jovi," Bentley tells him.

"So I've been told." Brad smiles proudly.

"That's what makes you so cool."

"Where's that ABBA coming from?" Dean asks, twisting around in his chair.

"I'll be back," Bentley says, brushing dots of confetti off Brad's shoulder. "I'll be back." The Arnold Schwarzenegger impersonation doesn't work a second time and Bentley, who actually doesn't think Brad is half bad, silently cringes.

"What's that?" Bentley asks, having noticed the crude drawing of what looks like a leaf and a number Brad is doodling on a napkin.

"A design for a tattoo I want to get."

"Why the number four?" Bentley asks, squinting.

"It's my favorite number."

"I think it's nice you have one."

"And see?" Brad asks. "That's a leaf."

But it's time for Bentley to go, there are cues, signals given across the boulevard, emanating from various cars and vans, strategically parked, cameras whirring.

"You're gorgeous, baby," Brad says, kissing Bentley lightly on the mouth.

"Don't lose that," Bentley says, pointing at the Prada bag.

"I'll hold on to it, don't worry, just get the stuff," Brad says impatiently, urging Bentley to go, tightly clutching the Prada bag.

Bentley walks away, disappearing into the crowd wandering the sidewalk tonight. "He has the coolest apartment" is the last thing Bentley ever hears Brad say.

After walking a block Bentley cuts across Boulevard Saint-Germain and hops into the black Citroën waiting at the curb, and as he smiles a shadow Crosses his face.

A telephoto lens slowly moves in on the Prada backpack sitting on Brad's lap.

The force of the first explosion propels Brad into the air. A leg is blown off from the thigh down and a ten-inch hole is ripped open in his abdomen and his mangled body ends up lying in the curb on Boulevard Saint-Germain, splashing around in its own blood, writhing into its death throes. The second bomb in the Prada backpack is now activated.

Dean and Eric, both spattered with Brad's flesh and bleeding profusely from their own wounds, manage to stumble over to where Brad has been thrown, screaming blindly for help, and then, seconds later, the other blast occurs.

This bomb is much stronger than the first and the damage it causes is more widespread, creating a crater thirty feet wide in front of Café Flore.

Two passing taxis are knocked over, simultaneously bursting into flame.

What's left of Brad's corpse is hurled through a giant Calvin Klein poster on a scaffolding across the street, splattering it with blood, viscera, bone.

Eric is blown through the window of the Emporio Armani boutique across the street.

Dean's body is spun onto a spiked railing that separates the sidewalk from the boulevard and hangs there, jackknifed.

Shrapnel spreads out in all directions, hitting a middle-aged woman sitting inside the café, spraying into her neck, face and chest, killing her within moments.

A Japanese woman who had been sitting next to Brad's table stumbles, dazed, out of the smoke, both arms blown off at the elbow, before collapsing into the debris on the sidewalk.

A young Armenian lies half on the street, half on the sidewalk, his head blown apart, his moped still between his legs.

A severed arm dangles from the edge of the white overhang and large clumps of flesh are splattered across the Café Flore sign.

From behind the cameras on rooftops and inside various vans so much of it is the usual: bleeding people running out of thick black smoke, the screams of the wounded and dying, a man crawling along the boulevard vomiting blood, gasping for air, charred bodies hanging out of cars that happened to pass by Café Flore in the instant the bombs went off, shopping bags standing in blood outside the entrance. The shock, the sirens, a hundred wounded—it's all so familiar. The director is relying on a top-notch editor to put the footage together and he tells the crew it's time to move on. As the Range Rover drives quickly past the scene, crossing in front of the black Citroën, Bentley briefly notices a woman lying on the sidewalk screaming, her thigh torn open, and while lighting a cigarette he tells the director, "Take me back to Les Bains, s'il vous plaît," where he listens to Jeanne Tripplehorn blab away about the cheese puffs at Taillevent for an hour and Bentley tells her he disapproves of interracial relationships.

34

People leaving. Bobby this morning, Tammy to Jacques Levy's for the weekend, Bruce to check out the floor plans of the terminals at Orly airport, Bentley on vacation, "perhaps Greece, perhaps not," which leaves me escorting Jamie to the Carita salon on Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré, where Jamie has—in no particular order—her hair colored, a massage, aromatherapy and antistress treatments, an energy-balanced magnetic manipulation session, and then she's guided by a New Age adviser (eighteen, gorgeous) to a "beach of calm" complete with the sounds of prerecorded shellfish cavorting somewhere on a large, craggy rock. I'm waiting with the bodyguards and the bodyguards are waiting because of Brazilian millionaires, an empress or two, the Princess of Monaco, Judith Godreche, and we're all sipping a 1992 Chậteau de Bellet and I'm on Xanax while the film crew shoots me flipping glumly through a photography book about '60s movie magazines until the boom operator knocks one of the bodyguards in the head and the director gets bored and the crew moves on to an early dinner and the next setup.

At the Opéra Gamier feelings are mixed about the Japanese libretto but we're really there for the paparazzi waiting at the bottom of the stairs while Jamie and I are standing at the top of the stairs. And Christiana Brandolini is there and Sao Schlumberger loses a contact lens and Irene Amic hisses "You're stepping on my hem" but when she turns and sees my face, panicked and caught in the glow of a chandelier, she relents and smiles, whispering something about how beautiful I am, and then Candy Spelling's waving to Jamie, and Amira Casar and Astrid Kohl tell me about a party a week ago at Les Bains that I wasn't invited to.

I spot the Christian Bale look-alike I first saw on Bond Street in London, now wearing a tuxedo and nodding slowly when he notices me staring over at him transfixed. Jamie and I decide to leave during the first intermission.

A black Citroën takes us to the Buddha Bar and after we sit at a table, shaken, saying nothing, just staring hopelessly at each other, Jamie reaches into her Prada bag and calls Hôtel Costes and since she knows Jean Louis and Gilbert a room is waiting by the time we arrive at 239 Rue Saint-Honoré. The first assistant director glances at a call sheet and tells both of us to be on the main set by 9:00 tomorrow. It's midnight and Jamie rushes into the lobby, hugging herself in a Helmut Lang ponyskin coat, and then it's my turn to follow her.

The door to our room closes behind me and Jamie and I fall on the bed while I'm kissing her mouth and her arms are wrapped around my shoulders and after I'm naked I'm shaking so hard that she has to pull back. Then someone knocks on the door.

Jamie stands up, also naked, pulls on the Helmut Lang overcoat, lazily strides over to the door. She opens it without asking who it is.

A film crew I haven't seen before enters the room. A large Panavision camera is wheeled in, lights are positioned. The first AD tells me where to lie on the bed while Jamie confers with the director and the script supervisor. The propmaster opens a bottle of champagne, pours two glasses. A joint—not a prop—is introduced into the scene and then Jamie's lying next to me and I'm lighting the joint. Someone rumples the blankets on the bed and the director calls "Playback" and Jane Birkin starts sighing "Je T'Aime" on a CD and the film crew is just a shadow behind the lights and it's so cold in the room steam keeps pouring out of our mouths.

Jamie lies on her back and dreamily inhales on the joint I hand her, holding smoke in until she slowly breathes it out-a cue for her to start speaking in a halting, deliberate tone, her voice breathy and lost, her eyes half-closed.

"Bobby . . . strolled into Superstudio Industria. . . . It was a shoot that had gone late . . . was it for an Anne Klein campaign? . . . I can't remember. . . . People were making a hundred thousand dollars a day and it seemed worth it and it was maybe ten-thirty or eleven and . . . in December 1990 . . . four years ago? . . . five? . . . and there had been a power failure of some kind . . . this blackout and candles were being lit but you still couldn't see anything and it was freezing. . . . It had gotten so cold . . . in just a matter of minutes. . . . I had goose bumps all over my body at Industria that night . . . and there was this shape moving in the darkness . . . a figure . . . tall . . . kept getting closer to where I was standing alone . . . and then it started . . . circling me . . . a mass . . . this shape . . . and it was whistling a song . . . which sounded familiar. . . . 'On the Sunny Side of the Street,' it kept singing . . . and then I noticed the camera crew . . . following him at a discreet distance . . . but they had no lights . . . and they were still filming this . . . this shape, this thing . . . and when he lit a cigarette . . . in that instant I saw his face and recognized him immediately. . . . He took me to the VIP room at that Club Xerox . . . and somewhere in the background was the film crew . . . and somewhere beyond that the Who was playing. . . .

"I can't tell you exactly . . . what I was motivated by. . . . I can't really go into detail. . . . It had been an unhappy period in my life. . . . I hated my body . . . the way I looked. . . . I was taking pills, I was seeing shrinks, I went to the gym because I knew no one would like me otherwise. . . . I even thought about plastic surgery. . . . I was twenty-three. . . . My mother and father had just gone through a terrible divorce and my mother was having . . . some kind of nervous breakdown . . . and my dreams at night were just hours of black space . . . sometimes interrupted by bones and that song Bobby was whistling that night at Industria. . . . I had just completed a failed relationship with a famous photographer and had a brief affair with a boy from an Aerosmith video. . . . There were things I wanted. . . . I wanted to be on the cover of more magazines . . . I wanted to be beautiful . . . I wanted to be rich, I wanted to be famous. . . . I had been photographed by Lindbergh and Elgort and Demarchelier and . . . shows, I had done so many shows . . . but I was still mid-level. . . . My grief seemed endless. . . . I wanted something else . . . and then there was what Bobby wanted . . . and in our meeting I . . . evolved. . . . Bobby came in and saw how limited my world was . . . and he motivated me. . . . I never felt I was pretty enough and he made me feel attractive. . . . He indulged me and I, in turn, became cheerful. . . . He told me that physically I was perfect . . . and I decided then that I would follow him . . . anywhere . . . so I spent a spring with him in Los Angeles and he introduced me to his friend . . . 'the genius,' a man named Mr. Leisure . . . and Steven Meisel got involved and my career started taking off. . . . But you've got to know, Victor, that . . . I was not aware of what Bobby did . . . I hadn't been told of his plans. . . . All I really knew was he wasn't a morning person . . . and neither was I . . . and at an opening at MOCA . . . something called 'The History of the Polka Dot' . . . when—”

"I went to that."

“—we were standing in a corner . . . he was so soft-spoken . . . and started telling me things . . . and midway through . . . I had to ask him to stop. . . ."

Jamie starts to cry silently. I relight the joint and hand it to her. Without sitting up she takes it, inhales, coughs a little.

"How did he recruit people? . . . It was only models . . . and famous models. . . . He wasn't interested in anyone else. . . . He would use the fact that as a model all you do all day is stand around and do what other people tell you to do. . . . He preyed on that . . . and we listened . . . and it was an analogy that made sense . . . in the end . . . when he asked . . . things of us . . . and it wasn't hard to recruit people . . . everyone wanted to be around us . . . everyone wanted to be movie stars . . . and in the end, basically, everyone was a sociopath . . . and all the girls' hair was chignoned . . . and the Who was always playing somewhere. . . .

"I remember very little about the beginning of that period. . . . After I had been inducted . . . there were so many long gray stretches . . . dieting . . . going to the gym, which was an obsession of Bobby's . . . absences . . . giant spaces . . . so many things I blocked out. . . . It was such an aimless existence. . . . Everything we did was up-to-the-minute . . . the restaurants we ate in . . . the hotels we stayed at . . . the people we hung out with. . . . In New York we joked about never staying at an address that wasn't a 10021 zip code . . . chartered 737s flew us to weddings . . . waiters never rushed us . . . we were allowed to smoke cigarettes anywhere we wanted . . . people didn't want to like us because we were young and rich and beautiful . . . and no one—I mean no one, Victor—was happy about my success but . . . that was—according to Bobby—'human nature' . . . but still, no one-and this is very important, Victor—no one was skeptical of us. . . .

"And we traveled . . . Palm Beach . . . Aspen . . . Nigeria . . . Christmases in St. Bart's . . . a week at Armani's home in Pantelleria . . . and Bobby made sure I started really getting work, and then it was Cindy Crawford and Paulina Porizkova and . . . and Claudia Schiffer . . . and Yasmeen Ghauri . . . Karen Mulder and Chloe Byrnes and Tammy Devol and Naomi and Linda and Elaine and . . . and Jamie Fields . . . and you had to know the codes to understand how things worked in this world . . . it was almost like sign language . . . and people learned how to behave in my presence . . . and girls were treating me differently now that I was dating Bobby Hughes . . . and then the dark patterns started appearing . . . and when I told Bobby 'No one's being themselves, everyone's so phony,' Bobby said 'Shhh' and then whispered 'That is being themselves.'. . .

"Bobby would try and educate me . . . make me understand . . . what he was doing . . . where he was going with this whole thing and he told me 'Baby, George Washington was a terrorist' and I'd look into that face and see those eyes . . . those lips . . . and things would just start unraveling and I became educated. . . . He would tell me that you show the world things and in showing the world you teach it what you want. . . . He would give me E. M. Forster novels and I never understood them and for some reason . . . Bobby was relieved by this. . . . He told me things like 'We are just reflections of our time' and he never really got more precise than that. . . . I would ask him questions like 'What does fin de siècle mean?' and he would talk for an hour about the inherent evil . . . in rap music . . . and the Who was always playing in the background somewhere. . . .

"I knew Bobby wasn't faithful.... He was sleeping with big models ... famous socialites in good shape . . . the occasional guy or . . . underage girl—girls who attended Spence or Chapin or Sacred Heart—and if he got in trouble with their mothers he'd fuck them too. . . . He would weigh girls . . . you had to be a certain weight . . . and mostly but not all the time a certain height . . . in order to fuck Bobby Hughes . . . If you got on that scale and passed, then he . . . fucked you. . . .”

My arms are falling asleep and I adjust my position, light another joint a crew member hands me.

"A lot of girls disappeared or . . . OD'd . . . or they 'had accidents,' and by this time I was breaking down on the Concorde when I would see the curvature of the earth and the clouds seemed hundreds of miles below us . . . and I'd freak out . . . even on large amounts of Xanax and at the height of my fame. . . . I was responsible for the increased suicide rate among . . . teenage girls and young women who realized they would never look like me. . . . I was told this in editorials . . . angry letters from overweight mothers . . . essays by women in NOW . . . I was told I was destroying lives . . . but it didn't touch me because no one we knew was real . . . people just seemed . . . fake and . . . Bobby liked that I felt this way. . . . It 'helped,' he said . . . and anyway, in the end I was too famous for him to get rid of. . . ."

Her voice quavers, regains its composure, then falters again and she just starts murmuring strings of words, how she moved into films, her first movie, Night of the Bottomless Pit, the arrangement of fake passports, soldiers of fortune from Thailand, Bosnia, Utah, new social security numbers, heads struck with such force they broke open as easily as soft-boiled eggs, a form of torture where the victim has to swallow a rope. "In Bombay. . . ," and now she shudders, swallowing rapidly, eyes clamped shut, tears immediately pouring out of the slits. "In Bombay . . ." She refuses to follow through and then starts shrieking about a serial killer Bobby befriended in Berlin and I hop out of bed and tell the director "Hey, it's over" and while they pack up to leave Jamie writhes on the bed, sobbing hysterically, clawing at the sheets, sometimes shouting out names in Arabic.

33

Outside the building in the 8th or 16th under a hazy sheen of floating mist the film crew waits after the director and Felix the cinematographer have set up a simple establishing shot that will be of the six of us walking "gaily" to a black Citroën waiting at the curb that will take us to a party at Natacha. But this crew doesn't know that earlier this afternoon the film crew I was introduced to the other night at Hôtel Costes has been let into the house by Bobby and has spent the last three hours laying cable, setting up lights, filming sequences I'm not in, including a long unresolvable argument between Tammy and Bruce, a sex scene with Jamie and Bobby, another segment with Bruce, alone, playing a guitar, strumming the old Bread song "It Don't Matter to Me," and they now move quietly around the living room-electricians and a beautiful key grip and the black-bearded director -all conferring with a cinematographer who resembles Brad Pitt in Johnny Suede and upstairs in Bentley's room the first AD keeps parting the Mary Bright blackout curtains, peering out at the other film crew in the street, offering updates over the muffled sounds of another fight between Tammy and Bruce—this one not filmed—concerning the actor playing the French premier's son and predictably doors are slammed, voices are raised, doors are slammed again.

I'm wearing a Prada suit totally unaware of who helped me put it on and I'm positioned in one of the Dialogica chairs in the living room, playing with a lime-green tie someone chose for me. On the TV screen, with the sound off, reruns of "Cheers" followed by "Home Improvement" run endlessly on a tape someone stuck into the VCR. A PA hands me a book of notes that Bobby made, I'm told, especially for me. Continents are investigated, floor plans of the Ritz have been reproduced, an outline was printed from a computer of the TWA terminal at Charles de Gaulle, diagrams of the layout of Harry's Bar in Venice, handwriting experts preoccupied with verifying signatures are interviewed, entries from a diary someone named Keith kept concerning a trip he made to Oklahoma City, pages about plastic explosives, the best wiring, the correct timer, the right container, the best detonator.

I'm reading "Semtex is made in Czechoslavakia." I'm reading "Semtex is an odorless, colorless plastic explosive." I'm reading "Libya has tons of Semtex." I'm reading "It takes 6 oz. of Semtex to blow up an airliner." I'm reading a profile on a newly manufactured plastic explosive called Remform, which is made and distributed only "underground" in the U.S. and is still unavailable in Europe. I'm reading a list of Remform's "pros and cons." I'm reading the words Bobby has scrawled on the side of a page: More useful than Semtex? and then two words that I stare at until they move me to get up out of the Dialogica chair and walk purposefully into the kitchen to make myself a drink: “. . . tests pending . . .

On this much Xanax it's remarkably easy to concentrate solely on the making of a Cosmopolitan. You think of nothing else while pouring cranberry juice, Cointreau and lemon citron into a shaker filled with ice that you yourself attacked with an ice pick and then you're rolling a lime and slicing it open, squeezing the juice into the shaker, and then you're pouring the cocktail through a strainer into a giant martini glass, and back in the living room Makeup fixes my hair and I can't help but keep imagining what Jamie and Bobby are doing in their bedroom and I'm glancing up at the ceiling and while sipping the Cosmopolitan I zone out on the Paul McCartney and Wings sticker on the front of the notebook Bobby made for me.

"Didn't we hang in Sérifos?" the hairdresser asks me.

"We didn't hang out in Sérifos," I say, and then, "Oh yeah."

I attempt to read an interview in Le Figaro that Jamie gave on Wednesday but I'm unable to follow it, realizing midway through that I'm unable to speak or read French. I barely notice the hand grenade leaning against an automatic rifle on the table my drink is sitting on. Why this Paul McCartney and Wings sticker is on my notebook is a question easier to concentrate on. Crew members debate whether the latest U2 record really cuts it, until the director calls out for silence.

Bobby glides in. I look up solemnly from whatever it is I'm doing. "You look nice," he says.

I soften, smile weakly.

"What are you drinking?" he asks.

I have to look at the color of the drink before answering, "A Cosmopolitan.”

"Can I have a sip?"

"Sure." I hand him the martini glass.

Bobby takes a sip, brightens up and smiles. "Great Cosmo, dude."

A very long pause while I wait for him to hand the drink back. "I . . . appreciate the compliment."

"Listen, Victor," Bobby starts, kneeling down in front of me.

I tense up, cross my legs, the copy of Le Figaro slipping to the terrazzo floor.

"I appreciate you watching Jamie and—”

"Hey man, I—"

"—I just wanted to let you know that—"

"Hey man, I—"

"Hey, shhh, chill out." He breathes in, stares intently up at me. "Listen, if I chastise you at times, if I seem to"—he pauses effectively—"warn you a little too harshly about where your place is in all of this, it's just to keep you on your feet." He pauses again, holding direct eye contact. "I really trust you, Victor." Another pause. "Really."

A long pause, this one on my part. "What's going to happen, Bobby?" I ask.

"You'll be prepped," Bobby says. "You'll be told what you need to know. You'll be given just the right amount of infor—"

Upstairs someone slams a door and Tammy cries out and then it's silent. Someone stomps down a hallway, cursing. From inside Tammy's room Prodigy starts blasting out. Bobby flinches, then sighs. "That, however, is getting out of hand."

"What's the story?" I ask slowly.

"Tammy's conducting an affair that is important to us but shouldn't mean anything to Bruce." Bobby sighs, still on his haunches in front of me. "But it does. And that is proving to be a problem. Bruce needs to get over it. Quickly."

"What is"—I start, breathe in—"the problem?"

"The problem . . ." Bobby stares at me sternly. Finally a smile. "The problem really doesn't concern you. The problem will be resolved soon enough."

"Uh-huh, uh-huh," I'm saying, trying to sip the drink.

"Are you okay, Victor?" Bobby asks.

"As well as . . . can be”—I gulp—“expected.”

"I actually think you're better than that," Bobby says, standing up.

"Meaning what?" I ask, genuinely interested.

"Meaning that I think you've adapted well."

A long pause before I'm able to whisper, "Thank you."

Bruce walks down the circular staircase wearing a black Prada suit and a bright-orange turtleneck, holding a guitar and a bottle of Volvic water. Ignoring both of us, he flops down in a corner of the room and starts strumming chords before settling again on the Bread song "It Don't Matter to Me," and the entire crew is silent, waiting. Bobby studies Bruce for a long time before turning back to me.

"Look," Bobby says. "I understand where you're coming from, Victor. We plant bombs. The government disappears suspects."

"Uh-huh."

"The CIA has more blood soaked into its hands than the PLO and the IRA combined." Bobby walks over to a window, peels back a dark, lacy curtain and stares out at the other crew milling about on the street, just silhouettes whispering into walkie-talkies, movement in the mist, more waiting. "The government is an enemy." Bobby turns to face me. "My god, you of all people should know that, Victor."

"But Bobby, I'm not . . . political," I blurt out vaguely.

"Everyone is, Victor," Bobby says, turning away again. "It's something you can't help."

My only response is to gulp down the rest of the Cosmopolitan.

"You need to get your worldview straightened out," Bobby's telling me. "You need to get your information about the world straightened out."

"We're killing civilians," I whisper.

"Twenty-five thousand homicides were committed in our country last year, Victor."

"But . . . I didn't commit any of them, Bobby."

Bobby smiles patiently, making his way back to where I'm sitting. I look up at him, hopefully.

"Is it so much better to be uninvolved, Victor?"

"Yes," I whisper. "I think it is."

"Everyone's involved," he whispers back. "That's something you need to know."

"I'm just, man, I'm just, man, I'm just—"

"Victor—"

“—man, having a hard time having to, like, justify this and . . .” I stare at him pleadingly.

"I don't think you have to justify anything, man."

"Bobby, I'm an . . . American, y'know?"

"Hey Victor," Bobby says, staring down at me. "So am I."

"Why me, Bobby?" I ask. "Why do you trust me?"

"Because you think the Gaza Strip is a particularly lascivious move an erotic dancer makes," Bobby says. "Because you think the PLO recorded the singles 'Don't Bring Me Down' and 'Evil Woman.'"

Silence until the phone rings. Bobby picks up. Bruce stops playing the guitar. It's the film crew from outside and they're ready. Bobby tells them we'll be right out. The film crew inside is already packing it in. The director, obviously satisfied, confers with Bobby, who keeps nodding while staring over at Bruce. On cue Tammy, Bentley and Jamie walk down the circular spiral staircase, and outside the film crew shoots us three times walking from the front door to the black Citroën, the six of us laughing, Bentley leading the way, Jamie and Bobby holding on to each other "playfully," Bruce and I flanking Tammy and she's clasping our hands, looking at each of us happily, because in the movie the crew outside is shooting I'm supposed to be in love with her. Jamie has to take a black Mercedes to Natacha because she's wearing a dress that cost $30,000.

And at Natacha MTV's filming a party upstairs where the girls are all wasted and beautiful and the guys are looking their hunkiest and everyone's wearing sunglasses and waiting for assistants to light their cigarettes and there's another party downstairs where Lucien Pellat-Finet is hanging out with the hat designer Christian Liagré and Andre Walker shows up on the arm of Claudia Schiffer who's wearing a feathered jumpsuit and has a red pageboy and Galliano's wearing a little black trilby hat and Christian Louboutin plays "Je T'Aime" on the piano with Stephanie Marais by his side singing the Jane Birkin part and we're receiving fans at the table we're slouched at, people flocking around us, whispering things, the prerequisite number of oohs and aahs, caviar sitting untouched on silver plates in front of us and it's all really youthquakey and the mood is light until Ralph and Ricky Lauren show up and tonight's theme is the unbearable lightness of being and everything is ubiquitous, the smell of shit rising up faintly from somewhere and floating all over the room.

"Victor," Bobby warns, after someone's handed me a packet of cocaine, reminding me of my assignment tomorrow. "And hey Bentley, pay attention."

Bentley's glassy-eyed from spending most of the day in a tanning bed and he's spacing out on good-looking teenage guys in muscle Ts. My foot has fallen asleep, the tingling moving slowly up my leg, my eyes glancing over at my name on tonight's invite. Photographers are taking pictures of our table. Tammy gazes away, her mouth caked with Urban Decay lipstick.

"He's madly in love with that busboy." Jamie smiles, lighting a cigarette.

We all turn our heads.

"I read an article about good-looking busboys in Time magazine." Bentley shrugs. "What can I say? I'm easily influenced."

"We're not going ahead with the Venice project," Bobby says loudly, over the din of the party.

"Harry's Bar?" Bruce asks, turning away from Tammy.

"No." Bobby shakes his head while waving to someone across the room.

Idly, without asking, I realize this means Harry's Bar will not be blown up.

In the darkness downstairs at Natacha an MTV camera crew interrupts Bobby's discussion of something called the "Band on the Run" project. A VJ begs Bobby and Jamie and Bentley to move closer together so the camera can get all three of them in the frame. Happily, they comply.

"It's about attitude as lifestyle, "Jamie's saying.

"You're starting to sound like a Calvin Klein ad, baby, and I don't like it," Bobby growls.

Jamie waves playfully at the camera until Bobby's asked about his involvement with Amnesty International. I turn away, notice Dennis Rodman striding confidently around the room in a loincloth, a giant pair of wings and a diamond nose ring. When I turn back to the table the VJ is asking Bentley how he likes Paris.

"I love everything but the Americans," Bentley yawns, being vaguely entertaining. "Americans are notoriously inept at foreign languages. My idea of tedium? Listening to some nitwit from Wisconsin try and order a glass of ice at Deux Magots."

From behind me I hear the segment director say to someone, "We're not running that."

"You should let people proceed at their own pace, Bentley," Jamie says gently, leaning in, plucking an unlit cigarette from his hand. "Don't have a tizzy."

"What are you all wearing?" the VJ asks, lights and a camera swinging around to the rest of us. "Just go with it."

It's freezing in Natacha, everyone's breath is steaming and we're waving away flies, the floor littered with piles of confetti, and the smell of shit is even more pervasive after I do a couple of hits from the packet of coke that I reluctantly hand back to Bentley. Markus Schenkenberg, who thinks he's my friend but who is not, pulls a chair up next to mine, another photo op, another black snakeskin jacket to show off, another chance for him to tell me, "We're not infallible, Victuh."

"Is that on the record or off the record?"

Markus yawns as Beatrice Dalle catwalks by, then glances back over at me.

"He's a terrorist," I tell Markus, motioning to Bobby.

"No," Markus says, shaking his head. "He doesn't look like a terrorist. He's way too gorgeous."

Reject the hype, girlfriend," I sigh, slouching deeper into my chair. "That guy's a terrorist."

"No," Markus says, shaking his head. "I know terrorists. That guy doesn't look like a terrorist."

"You're a daredevil," I yawn, giving him shark eye. "You're a total renegade."

"I’m a little out of control," Markus admits. "I'm thinking of jamming out right now."

"He's the villain," I sigh.

Someone from Camden is leaning into Jamie, a French guy named Bertrand who was Sean Bateman's roommate, whispering something in her ear, both of them staring at me. Jamie keeps nodding until Bertrand says something that causes her to stiffen up and stop nodding and she has to push Bertrand away, her face falling apart. Bertrand glares at me while folding back into the crowd. Mario Sorrenti and David Sims materialize, surrounding Markus. Bobby starts tablehopping with Shoshanna Lonstein, a former Talking Head, the magician David Blaine and Snoopy Jones. In tears, Tammy runs away from Bruce, who has China Chow perched on his knees, and a dealer Bentley sent over named the Grand Poobah whispers "Have you been experienced?" in my ear and arrangements are made.

32

A shot of Scotch tape being applied with rubber gloves to a white metal gas canister. This shot—with the camera slowly pulling back—is intercut with one of me taking a shower, slowly soaping my chest, my legs, the camera gliding gratuitously up over my ass, water cascading down the flexing muscles in my back. Another shot of the thick metal canister sitting on a Hans Wegner ottoman. A quick montage of my character dressing—slipping on Calvin Klein boxer-jockeys, a lime-green Prada turtleneck, a Yohji Yamamoto suit with a close-up of the label for the audience's gratification. A close-up of my face, a hand entering the frame to slip on a pair of black Ray-Bans (an instance of well-paid product placement). Another close-up: a Xanax tablet placed on my tonglic, a bottle of Volvic water tilted toward my lips. A shot of the gas canister being packed into a Louis Vuitton tote bag.

An exterior shot of Hozan. A brief interior shot of me eating a late lunch and in this shot the Christian Bale guy walks past me but I don't notice because I'm concentrating on the patrolmen walking by carrying submachine guns, because I'm distracted by the arm that has fallen asleep. Shots of me moving down Rue de Fourey toward the Seine. A shot of me on Pont Marie crossing the Ile Saint-Louis with Notre Dame looming up above me, the sky gray and overcast. Then I'm crossing the Seine onto the Left Bank. A shot of me turning right on Boulevard Saint-Germain. A shot of me descending into a métro station. This shot lingers for several seconds on a crowd of straggling tourists.

A shot of me on a train, where I'm sitting down with the Louis Vuitton tote bag. Directions: Place the bag under your seat, casually open a copy of Le Monde, furrow your brow, pretend to read, look up at the handsome teenage boy flirting with you. A shot of Victor forcing a smile, looking down, a subtle refusal, a small movement of the head, a gesture that says I'm not interested. Another shot of the boy: a shrug on his part, half a grin. I'm repeating a song lyric under my breath—when Jupiter aligns with Mars when Jupiter aligns with Mars—and since I haven't been told what's in the Louis Vuitton tote bag it's easy to slip it under the seat. Later I will find out that the bomb was placed in a 35-pound gas canister along with bolts, shards of glass and assorted nails and that this is what I was carrying around in the tote bag I checked at Hozan during the lunch I had earlier this afternoon, the tote bag I carried effortlessly while strolling through the streets of Paris.

The blast will be blamed on an Algerian guerrilla or a Muslim fundamentalist or maybe the faction of an Islamic group or a splinter group of handsome Basque separatists, but all of this is dependent on the spin the head of France's counterespionage service gives the event. I don't control the detonator. An image from childhood: you're on a tennis court, you're raising a racket, Fleetwood Mac's Rumours plays on an eight-track somewhere and it's the beginning of summer and your mother is still alive but you know there are darker times ahead.

Fifteen minutes after I leave the train, just after 6 p.m., at the juncture of Boulevard du Montparnasse and Boulevard Saint-Michel, across the street from Closerie des Lilas, the bomb kills ten people immediately. Seven others die during the following three days, all of them from severe burns. One hundred and thirty are treated for injuries, twenty-eight of them in serious condition. Later a scene will be shot in which Bobby expresses his anger that the bomb didn't explode underground, where the damage would have been "far greater", instead of on the Pont Royal, which is partially in open air. It was, he stressed, supposed to go off at the Saint-Michel—Notre Dame station, along the Seine, just as the doors opened onto the platform opposite the cathedral.

Instead: a flash.

A shot of the windows on the train imploding from the force of the blast.

A shot of doors folding in half.

A shot of the train lurching forward, burning.

A shot of a scattering crowd.

Various shots of people blown apart, extras and stuntmen thrown out of the lightweight steel car and onto the tracks.

Shots of body parts—legs and arms and hands, most of them real skidding across the platform. Shots of mutilated people lying in piles. Shots of faces blown off. Shots of shredded melting seats. Survivors stand around in the thick black smoke, coughing, bursting into tears, choking on the stench of gunpowder. A shot of the Christian Bale guy grabbing a fire extinguisher, pushing through the panicked crowd to reach the burned-out hulk of the subway car. Over the sound track Serge Gainsbourg's "Je T’Aime" starts playing.

A montage: hundreds of police officers arriving at the area beside the bridge that crosses the Seine and leads to Notre Dame. Victor walking by the Gap while someone in an oversized Tommy Hilfiger shirt Rollerblades by. Victor having a drink at a brasserie on Rue Saint-Antoine, playing with his Ray-Bans. The French premier flying to the scene in a helicopter, while Tammy and the French premier's son—shot by the second unit—fritter away the day at Les Halles after being called away from the Louvre (a call Bruce made from a phone booth on Rue de Bassano, near the Arc de Triomphe) and they're wearing matching sunglasses and Tammy seems happy and she makes him smile even though he's hungover from a coke binge that went on so long he started vomiting blood. She hands him a dandelion. He blows on it, coughs from the exertion.

And then: shots of security checks carried out on roads, at borders, in various department stores. Shots of the damaged train being towed to. a police laboratory. A montage of the sweeps through Muslim neighborhoods. A Koran—a prop left by the French film crew—along with computer disks disclosing plans to assassinate various officials, is found in a trash can near a housing project in Lyons and, because of a clue Bobby planted, an actor cast in the role of a young Algerian fugitive is shot to death outside a mosque.

31

Wearing an Armani suit lined with Kevlar, I usher Jamie past the metal barricades the police erected in front of the Ritz because certain Japanese diplomats are staying at the hotel this week and even with my invitation and Jamie's appearance in the show, "for precautions" we still need to produce our passports so they can be compared with our names an lists that are scanned at three separate checkpoints by the time we get backstage. Metal detectors supply totally inadequate protection, as Jamie slips through them effortlessly.

Backstage is freezing, camcorders surrounding everyone, personal trainers are French-inhaling sloppily wrapped joints and a very mean-streaky teenager who starred in Poltergeist 5: The Leg stands, debating, by a table lined with champagne bottles. I'm vaguely listening as Jamie talks with Linda Evangelista about how neither one of them was cast in the latest blockbuster, about a sunrise in Asia, about Rupert Murdoch. Barely able to smile when Linda taps my shoulder and says, "Hey Vic, cheer up," I down another glass of champagne, concentrating on the models rushing around us, the smell of shit again rising up everywhere, my arm and one side of my neck falling asleep.

A runway has been set up over the downstairs swimming pool for a fashion show by a famous Japanese designer just out of rehab and the show opens with a video of the designer's boyfriend's last trip to Greenland, a voice-over blah-blahs about his communion with nature and then the sounds of cold, icy winds are whooshing behind us, melding into Yo La Tengo, and as all the lights become very white the models, led by Jamie, start strolling barefoot down the catwalk toward a giant gray screen and I'm watching her on a small video monitor backstage along with Frédéric Sanchez and Fred Bladou, who produced the music for the show, and to communicate my appreciation I'm tapping a foot. They don't notice.

At the party afterwards I'm posing for the paparazzi—as instructed—with Johnny Depp and then Elle Macpherson and then Desmond Richardson and Michelle Montagne and then I'm sandwiched between Stella Tennant and Ellen Von Unwerth, a strained goofy expression lining my features. I even give a brief interview to MTV Taipei but the smell of shit is causing my eyes to water, a black stench filling my nose, and I have to break away from the photo ops to down another glass of champagne, and when my vision returns to normal and I'm able to breathe calmly through my mouth I spot the actor playing the French premier's son.

He's lighting a cigar with a very long match, waving away a fly while chatting with Lyle Lovett and Meg Ryan, and without really even trying I find myself approaching him, suddenly aware of just how completely tired I am. One brief movement—I reach out and touch his shoulder, quickly withdrawing the hand.

He turns laughing, in the middle of a joke he's telling, the smile turning hard when he sees it's me.

"What do you want?" he asks.

"I need to talk to you," I say quietly, trying to smile.

"No you don't." He turns away, starts gesturing.

"Yeah man, I do," I say, touching his shoulder again. "I think it's important that we talk."

"Get out of here," he says impatiently. Having lost Lyle and Meg to their own conversation, he says something harsh in French.

"I think you're in danger," I say quietly. "I think if you keep seeing Tammy Devol you will be in danger. I think you're already in danger—”

"I think you are an idiot," he says. "And I think you are in danger if you don't leave here now."

"Please—" I reach out to touch him again.

"Hey," he exclaims, finally facing me.

"You've got to stay away from them—”

"What? Did Bruce send you?" He sneers. "How pathetic. Tell Bruce Rhinebeck to be a man and talk to me himself—"

"It's not Bruce," I'm saying, leaning into him. "It's all of them—"

"Get the fuck away from me," he says.

"I'm trying to help you—"

"Hey, did you hear me?" he spits. "Is anybody there?" He taps a finger rudely against my temple with such force that my eyes flutter and I have to lean up against a column for support.

"Just fuck off," he says. "Get the fuck out of here."

Suddenly Jamie grabs my arm and pulls me away from the actor, hissing into my ear "That was stupid, Victor" as we move through the crowd.

"Au revoir, dude," the actor calls out, mimicking the clichéd accent of a young American.

"That was so stupid," Jamie hisses again, keeps repeating it as she pulls me through the crowd, stopping three, four, eleven times to pose for photos.

Outside the Ritz the Christian Bale guy is at the base of the verdigrised column in the Place Vendôme but I don't say anything to Jamie, just nod sadly at him as he glares at us. I follow Jamie as we walk along the iron gate leading to the Cour Vendôme. A policeman says something to Jamie and she nods and we turn along the south edge of the plaza. She's cursing, unable to get to our car, and I'm trailing behind her, swallowing constantly, eyes tearing up, my chest sore and constricted. The Christian Bale guy is no longer at the base of the column. Finally Jamie leans into the window of a nondescript black BMW that brought us here and lets it go.

Bobby left this morning holding a boarding pass for a British Airways Paris-to-London shuttle. Our instructions: arrive at the Ritz, appear in fashion show, poison pool with LiDV196# caplets, let our photos be taken, order drinks in the Ritz bar, wait twenty minutes, leave laughing. Gossip that Jamie Fields might be dating Victor Ward while Bobby Hughes is away might be—as per Bobby's notes—"an excellent distraction."

A montage of Jamie and Victor walking along Quai de la Tournelle, staring up at the turrets of Notre Dame, looking out at barge traffic on the Seine, Jamie trying to calm me down as I freak out, clawing at my face, hyperventilating, wailing "I'm gonna die, I'm gonna die," and she maneuvers us to a walled-off area somewhere on Boulevard Saint-Michel and we end up shooting my breakdown again, near Quai de Montebello, where I'm fed more Xanax. Then a cab takes us to Boulevard Saint-Germain and we're sitting at a sidewalk table at Les Deux Magots, where I concede, "I'm just wearing uncomfortable socks I bought at the Gap." I blow my nose, laughing miserably.

"It'll be okay," she says, handing me another Kleenex.

"Don't you want me, baby?" I'm asking.

Jamie nods. "Even though I think you tipped that cabdriver a hundred dollars?" Pause. "Sure."

"No wonder he whistled at me."

At the room we always share in Hôtel Costes our bed is already turned down and sprinkled lightly with confetti and I place a .25-caliber Walther automatic on the nightstand and while I'm fucking Jamie she positions herself so that it's easier for me to look at the videos flashing by on the TV screen, to which with both hands she keeps directing my attention, because even with her eyes closed, Jamie says, she can sense my yearning, can feel the need radiating out of my eyes, the unbearableness of it. She might have felt a spark, she might have wept. I might have said "I love you."

Afterwards, slouching in a chair across from the bed, naked, smoking a cigarette, I ask her, "What was Bertrand talking to you about?"

"Where?" she asks without pausing. "Who?"

"At Natacha the other night," I say, exhaling. "Bertrand. He said something to you. You pushed him away."

"I did?" she says, lighting a cigarette dreamily. "Nothing. Forget about it."

"Do you remember him from Camden?" I ask.

"I think so," she answers carefully. "Camden?"

"He was Sean Bateman's roommate—”

"Baby, please," she says, her breath steaming. "Yes. Bertrand from Camden. Yes. At Natacha. Okay."

After I put out the cigarette, washing another Xanax down with a glass of champagne, I ask, "Is Bertrand involved?"

"Is Bertrand involved?" she asks, repeating the question slowly, writhing on the bed, her long tan legs kicking at the sheets.

"Is Bertrand involved in the 'Band on the Run' project?" I ask.

"No," she says clearly. And then, "That's Bobby's game."

"Jamie, I—"

"Victor, why were you in London?" she asks, still staring away from me. "What were you doing there?" Then, after a long pause, closing her eyes, just the word "Please?"

Breathing in, answering without hesitation, I say, "I was sent to look for you."

A long pause, during which she stops kicking at the sheets. "By who, Victor?”

"By a man who said your parents were looking for you."

Jamie sits up, covering her breasts with a towel. "What did you say?" With a trembling hand she puts out the cigarette.

I breathe in. "A man named Palakon offered me money to come and find—"

"Why?" she asks, suddenly alert, gazing at me maybe for the first time since we entered the hotel room.

"So I could bring you back to the States," I sigh.

"This—" She stops, checks herself "This was in the script? This Palakon was in the script?"

"I don't know anymore," I say. "I've lost touch with him."

"He . . . told you my parents were looking for me?" she asks, sitting up, panicking. "My parents? That's crazy, Victor. Oh god, Victor—”

"He offered me money to find you," I sigh.

"To find me?" she asks, clutching herself "To find me? Why did you do it? What are you talking about?"

"I had to get out of town, I had to—”

"Victor, what happened?"

"I came on the QE2," I say. "He offered me money to sail across the ocean to find a girl I went to school with. I wasn't even going to come to London. I met a girl on the ship. I was going to Paris with her." I stop, not knowing where to go with this.

"What happened?" Jamie asks. "Why didn't you?"

"She . . . disappeared." I suddenly can't catch my breath and everything starts tumbling out of me: Marina's disappearance, our scenes together, the photos of the boy who looked like me I found in the Prada bag, at the Wallflowers concert, at the Sky Bar, at the Brigitte Lancome photo shoot, the teeth embedded in the bathroom wall the trace of blood behind the toilet, her name missing on the passenger manifest, the altered photographs of the dinner with the Wallaces.

Jamie's not looking at me anymore. "What was the date?"

"The date of . . . what?"

Jamie clarifies. The night I met Marina in the fog. The night when we stumbled back to my room. The night when I was too drunk. The night the figure moved through my room opening drawers as I slowly passed out. I give her a date.

"What was her name, Victor?"

"What?" I'm suddenly lost, far away from Jamie.

"What was her name, Victor?" Jamie asks again.

"It was Marina," I sigh. "What does it matter, Jamie?"

"Was her name . . ." Something in Jamie's voice catches and she breathes in and finishes the sentence: "Marina Cannon?"

Thinking about it, hearing someone else say her name, clarifies something for me. "No. It wasn't Cannon."

"What was it?" she asks, fear vibes spreading out.

Which causes me to answer, enunciating clearly, "Her name was Marina Gibson."

Jamie suddenly holds out a hand and turns her head away, a gesture we haven't rehearsed. When I move unsurely toward the bed and gently pull her face to mine, an enormity in her expression causes me to reel back. Jamie scrambles out of bed and rushes into the bathroom, slamming the door. This is followed by the sounds of someone muffling screams with a towel. Empty spaces on the bed allow me to lie back and contemplate the ceiling, lights from a Bush video flashing across my face in the dark. Turning up the volume eliminates the noise coming from the bathroom.

30

Tammy and I sit on a bench outside the Louvre next to the glass pyramid at the main entrance where right now a line of Japanese students files by. From somewhere lounge music plays and we're both wearing sunglasses and Tammy has on Isaac Mizrahi and l'm dressed in Prada black and while waiting for the director we light cigarettes and guardedly mention a trendy restaurant, a place where we drank Midori margaritas together. I'm on a lot of Xanax and Tammy's hungover from the heroin she did last night and her hair's peroxided and when someone from the crew asks me a question as we're both handed steaming cups of cappuccino, I say, "I have no opinion on that."

And then, trying to lighten Tammy's mood, I tell her about the last time I did heroin, how I barely woke up the next morning, how when I drank a Coke and puked it tip minutes later it was still carbonated, fizzing in the toilet water. She keeps muttering her lines, trying to remember hollow dialogue about our "relationship." We have already shot this scene four times this morning but Tammy's distracted and keeps forgetting what she's supposed to do or say, putting a mournful spin on what should be innocuous line readings because she's thinking about the French premier's son and not Bruce Rhinebeck, who we're supposed to be discussing in this scene. Plus the international crew speaks various languages so production meetings require interpreters, and the director keeps complaining that preproduction was rushed, that the script needs work. An acting coach has been hired and motivation is discussed, a sense-memory exercise is conducted, we practice breathing. Vacantly I notice that the fountains surrounding the pyramid aren't working today.

The director kneels next to us, leaning in, his breath steaming in the cold morning air. "This scene is supposed to be played very, um, tenderly," he explains, lowering his sunglasses. "You both like Bruce. You don't want to hurt his feelings. Bruce is your fiancé, Tammy. Bruce is your best friend, Victor." The director pauses gravely. "Yet your love, that overwhelming passion for each other, is just too strong. You can't keep it a secret from Bruce any longer. I want that urgency—okay, darlings?"

Tammy nods mutely, her hands clutched into fists. I tell the director, "I'll comply."

"I know," the director says. "That's good."

The director steps away, confers briefly with Felix the cinematographer. I turn to Tammy as someone says "Action." A boom mike hangs over our heads.

I have to smile and reach out to touch Tammy's hand. She has to smile back, which she accomplishes with some difficulty.

"It's cold," she says, shivering.

"Yes," I'm saying. "You need to stay warm.

"I suppose so," she says abstractly. "I'm sorry about last night."

"Where's Bruce?" I ask. "What's the story, baby?"

"Oh Victor, please don't," Tammy sighs. "He went to Athens. I don't ever want him to come between us again. I'll tell him everything when he gets back. Everything. I promise."

"He already suspects," I say. "It doesn't matter."

"If I could only turn back time," she says, but not at all wistfully.

"Can I believe the magic in your sighs?" I lean in for a kiss.

"You know you can." This is said too indifferently.

The director calls "Cut." He walks over and kneels down next to Tammy again. "Baby?" he asks. "Are we all right?"

Tammy's unable to even nod, just keeps scratching a point on her back that she can't quite reach.

"It's all about a light touch, baby," he's saying, lowering his sunglasses.

Tammy sniffs, says "I know" but she doesn't and she's shivering too hard for the scene to continue, so the director takes her aside and as they walk away from the crew Tammy keeps shaking her head, trying to pull away. Freezing, I light a cigarette, squint at the Seine, the smell of shit everywhere, the Louvre sitting behind us long and boring, then I imagine a Saab with a poodle in the passenger seat driving by. My foot has fallen asleep.

Tammy keeps looking back at me, making sure I'm aware of the schedule, but I'm already checking the face of the watch I was given last night by a member of the French film crew.

In digital numbers it reads 9:57.

Someone from the French film crew Rollerblades by, then slows down, making sure I notice him before he nods and glides off.

I stand up, flicking the cigarette away, and walk over to the director's chair and pick up a black Prada backpack sitting beneath it.

"I have to use the rest room," I tell a PA.

"Cool." He shrugs, inspecting a tattoo, a staff of musical notes, emblazoned on his bicep. "It's your life."

I take the bag and wait at the museum's entrance until the watch hits 10:00 exactly.

As instructed, I place the headphones of a Walkman over my ears, adjusting the volume while securing it to a clip attached to the belt I'm wearing.

I press Play.

The beginning of Ravel's "Bolero" starts booming through the headphones.

I'm stepping onto an escalator. The black Prada backpack must be placed next to one of three pay phones in the carousel at the bottom of the Allée de Rivoli escalator.

From the opening strains of "Bolero" until its final crashing cymbals: 12 minutes and 38 seconds.

At 10:01 the bomb is officially activated.

I'm unfolding a map directing me where to go.

At the bottom of the escalator six of the French film crew, including its director, are waiting, grim-faced, all in black.

The director nods encouragingly from behind the Steadicam operator. The director wants this sequence done in one continuous shot. The director motions for me to remove the sunglasses that I forgot to take off while I was moving down the escalator.

Walking slowly through the Hall Napoléon, "Bolero" blaring, gathering momentum, I try not to walk sporadically, keeping a steady rhythm by counting the steps I'm taking, by focusing my eyes on the floor, by making a wish.

At 10:04 1 spot the phones.

At 10:05 1 place the Prada bag at my feet. I pretend to make a call at the phone that takes credit cards.

I check my watch at 10:06.

I move away from the phone bank, the film crew walking alongside me.

I'm supposed to stop and buy a Coke from a concession stand, which I do, taking a single sip before dumping it in a nearby trash bin.

I'm moving back into the hall, the film crew walking alongside me, the Steadicam operator moving in front of me. 10:08. "Bolero" grows more insistent, moving at a faster pitch.

But suddenly the crew is slowing down, causing me to slow down also.

Glancing up, I notice their stunned faces.

The Steadicam operator stops moving, lifts his head away from the viewfinder.

Someone touches my arm.

I rip the Walkman off my head and whirl around, panicked.

It's a PA from the American film crew.

A young girl who looks like Heather Graham. The concerned expression on her face melds oddly into relief She's panting, smiling uneasily now.

"You left this at the phone booth," she says.

She's holding out the Prada backpack.

I stare at the backpack.

"Victor?" she says, glancing first at the French crew and then back at me. "They're ready for you. I think Tammy's, um, recovered."

Total silence.

"Victor?" she asks. "Here." She hands me the Prada bag.

"Oh . . . yeah?" I take the bag from her.

I immediately hand the bag to a PA on the French crew.

Trembling, the PA takes the bag and hands it to the director.

The director looks at the Prada bag and then immediately hands it back to the PA, who winces.

"Who are these people?" the girls asks, grinning, waiting for an introduction.

"What?" I hear myself asking.

"What's going on?" she asks a little more insistently, still grinning.

The director snaps his fingers and is quickly handed a cell phone. He flicks open the mouthpiece, presses buttons and, turning away, whispers something urgently in French.

"Who?" I ask lamely. "What do you mean?"

10:09.

"That crew," she says, and then, leaning in, whispering, "The crew, like, behind you?"

"Them?" I turn around. "Oh, they just started following me around," I say. "I don't know who they are."

The French PA's breathing is actually audible, his eyes keep widening helplessly.

"Bolero" keeps rising.

An infinite number of possibilities appear.

I'm taking the slightest breaths.

The girl says, "Victor, come on, I think we should go." She touches my arm with a small hand.

I look over at the director. He nods curtly.

On the escalator, I turn around.

The French crew has already disappeared.

"Why did they take your bag, Victor?" the girl is asking. "Do you know them?"

"Hey baby," I say tiredly. "Hey, mellow out. Be quiet."

"But Victor, why did those people take your bag?" she asks.

"Bolero" ends.

The tape in the Walkman automatically clicks off.

I don't bother checking my watch.

At the pyramid Tammy stares at me quizzically, casually checking her watch, seemingly recovered.

"I got lost," I say, shrugging.

In the hazy distance, from where I'm slouching, the PA who looks like Heather Graham is already talking with the director and Felix, and both of them keep glancing over at me—suspicion, whispers, a general aura of cold worry—and confetti is scattered all around, some of it simply falling from somewhere above us, but I'm barely aware of anything. I could be in Malibu lying on a beach towel. It could be 1978 or 1983. The sky could be black with spaceships. I could be a lonely girl draping scarves over a dorm room lamp. All week I've been having dreams made up entirely of helicopter pull-away shots, revealing a giant metallic space, the word "beyond" floating above that space in white and gold letters. Someone from the crew hands me a tambourine.

29

Tonight everyone is packed into the first-floor Windsor Suite at the Ritz. Among the minglers: Kristen McMenamy, Sting and Trudie Styler, Kate Moss, Jennifer Saunders, Bryan Ferry, Tina Turner, Donatella Versace, Jon Bon Jovi, Susie Bick, Nadja Auermann in a bubble-lace cocktail dress, Marie-Sophie Wilson in Inca pink, a handful of newly rich Russians, a famous producer just out of prison or rehab, does it matter? A large pug waddles throughout the room, desperately trying to avoid being stepped on. I have no idea what this party is about though it could be for the new fragrance Pandemonium. I feel pinned together, on the verge of collapse, my mouth dry from too much Xanax. We spent the day on a yacht, nodding sympathetically at one another. Oribe dropped in and did everyone's hair. Someone standing in the corner faints, I notice idly while lighting a cigarette. Disco classics blare.

Jamie's wearing—under protest—the bright-yellow leopard-silk crinoline Bobby insisted upon and she's talking to Shalom Harlow and Cecilia Chancellor, the three of them giggling tiredly, and in a black polo neck and hip-hugger pants, Cecilia's a little deaf right now because her boyfriend spent the day following her around lighting firecrackers.

When Jamie glances over at me it's with a look that reminds me: You. Are. Alone.

Someone with blond dreadlocks and a chin spike is behind me, demanding a beer.

Bertrand Ripleis joins Jamie, kisses Shalom, wraps an arm around Cecilia's waist, glares at me occasionally.

But I'm distracted by the fly that keeps hovering over a giant silver bowl piled high with Beluga, by the faint but noticeable smell of shit filling the room—"Do you smell that?" I keep asking people; "Oh yes," they keep replying knowingly—and by the guy lolling about in a white lab coat, by the diagrams of rockets and the files stamped with security classifications I saw scattered on a table in an upstairs bedroom in the house in the 8th or the 16th, and by the girl slouching next to me holding a parasol, moaning "How démodé" and then "So last season."

"It's all pretty dim," I concur, shivering.

"Oh, you're so ruthless," she sighs, twirling the parasol, dancing away, stranding me. I have been standing in the same position for so long that my leg has fallen asleep.'

A trimmer Edgar Cameron—a minor, fleeting acquaintance from New York I haven't seen since last Christmas and whose girlfriend, Julia, is a reasonably fashionable vacuum I fucked after I first started dating Chloe—has nodded at me several times since he entered the party and now, since I'm standing alone, holding a glass of champagne, trying not to seem too bereft, I am a prime candidate for a visit. Julia told me that Edgar owns a hairless cat and is such a drunk that he once ate a squirrel he found in an alley off Mercer Street "on a dare." I used to kiss Julia like I really cared, like I was going to stick around.

"I owe you money, Victor," Edgar says apologetically, once he makes his way over. "I know, I know. I owe you—what? Oh let's just make it an even two hundred." He pauses worriedly. "Will you take francs?"

"Edgar, you don't owe me any money," I say softly, staring over at Jamie posing for a photographer.

"Victor, that's very cool of you but I would've picked up my part of the tab at Balthazar the other night if only I'd—"

"Edgar, what are you talking about?" I sigh, interrupting him.

"Last week?" Edgar says, vaguely waving to someone. "At Balthazar. In New York. When you picked up the check. You put it on your card."

Pause. "I wasn't at Balthazar last week, Edgar," I say carefully. "I haven't been in New York in . . ." My voice trails off, something tiny and hard in me starts unfolding.

But Edgar's laughing. "You seemed to be in a much better mood the other night. Paris bumming you out? Oh look, there's Mouna Al-Rashid."

"You could say that," I whisper. "Edgar . . . when did we have dinner?"

"Last Tuesday," Edgar says, not laughing anymore, his smile fading. "At Balthazar. A whole bunch of us. You put it on your card. Everyone gave you cash. . . ." Pause. Edgar stares at me as if I'd suddenly fallen asleep. "Except me. I offered to go to a cash machine but—"

"I wasn't there, Edgar," I say softly, my eyes watering. "That wasn't me.

"But we went dancing afterwards, Vic," Edgar says. "You were celebrating." He pantomimes someone having a good time. "B-list models all night, a booth at Cheetah, the works."

I wipe away a tear that spills out of one eye, trying to smile. "Oh man.

"Victor, I mean, I don't. . ." He tries to laugh. "I mean, I called you at your apartment the next day. I left a message. I offered to take you to lunch."

"I don't remember any of this, Edgar," I choke.

"Well, you seemed very upbeat," he says, trying to convince me. "You were talking about going back to school, to Columbia or NYU." Pause. "You weren't smashed, Victor. In fact I don't even think you were drinking." Another pause. "Are you . . . okay?" Again, a pause. "Do you have any pot?"

"Are you okay, Edgar?" I ask back. "Maybe you were really drunk, maybe—"

"Victor, my girlfriend, you know, Julia? Well "No, not really."

"Well, she said she ran into you at the Gap the next day," Edgar says, frowning. "The one on Fifth Avenue? Downtown?" Pause. "She said you were buying sunscreen and looked, um, fairly cheerful."

“Wait—who else was with us?" I ask. "At Balthazar?"

"Well, it was me and Julia and—oh god, Victor, is this a joke?" "Just tell me," I say, wiping another tear that races down my cheek.

"Please?"

"Well, it was me and Julia and Rande Gerber, Mira Sorvino, someone from Demi Moore's production company, Ronnie Newhouse, someone from the Cardigans, and of course Damien and Lauren Hynde."

Very carefully I hand the champagne glass I'm holding to Edgar, who tentatively takes it from me, mystified.

"Victor, you were actually quite enchanting that night," Edgar says. "Really. There's no need to cry. My god, you and Damien patched things up, the club's a resounding success and —"

"Edgar, please don't." Adrenaline rushing through me, I fumble around in my jacket pocket, find two Xanax, throw them in my mouth, toss my head back. I take the glass of champagne out of Edgar's hand and down it so quickly I start coughing.

"You and Damien were talking about opening another place," Edgar says. "In TriBeCa, I believe."

"Edgar," I say, leaning into him, breathing heavily. "I don't think that was me."

"Well, whoever it was, he was . . ." Edgar flinches, moves away slightly. "He was extremely, um, well-behaved and . . . I actually must be off. Later, Victor." He disappears into the nothingness of the party.

I'm hot even though steam keeps pouring from my mouth with every exhale and "Beyond"—the word that shows up in my dreams—keeps flashing over the party, buzzing electric near the ceiling. It seems that every one in this room has been here for ten hours.

"It's not fun to scare people away, is it, Victor?" Felix, the cinematographer, suddenly appears, wearing a chartreuse jacket with little epaulets on the shoulders. His subsequent wink is some kind of cue. I'm trying to recover and failing.

"I suppose," I manage.

The director, whom I didn't notice, makes himself more apparent by standing in front of me and staring grimly.

"A stellar evening," he says.

"What?" I ask, and then, "Oh. I suppose."

"Is something wrong?" the director asks. "Is something troubling you, Victor?"

"No, um, I'm just overwhelmed."

"Well, you have a lot to live up to, right?"

"Yes, that's right." I'm nodding. "And I'm freaking out because of it."

"Victor," he starts.

"Yes?"

"Who have you been holding court with recently?" the director asks. "I mean, besides the people in the house."

"Oh . . . no one." I shrug. "Just . . . me."

"What was going on in the Louvre this morning?" Felix suddenly asks. "Dimity, the PA, mentioned you were being followed around by a camera crew.

"Dimity has no idea what she's talking about," I say, finding my voice. "Even though she is, in her own . . . way, quite, um, a wonderful"—I gulp—"person."

"We would also like to know what happened to the actor playing Sam Ho," the director says without warning. "Do you have any idea concerning his whereabouts?"

The name—Sam Ho—resonates dully, and briefly I'm transports back to the gym in the basement of that house in London, Jamie screaming, Bobby in a ski mask, Bruce holding a knife, the blood and wires, the flickering lights, the gutted mannequin, the party we went t the next night and the girl who ignored me there.

"I don't want to talk about . . . the past," I manage to say. "Let's concentrate on the pr-pr-present."

"You were the last one with the actor after you left Pylos," Felix says "You were supposed to stay with the limo once you exited the club."

Pause. "Well . . . ," I start. "Have you talked to the . . . driver?"

"We've been unable to locate him as well," the director says. "What happened that night, Victor?"

"Victor, did Sam Ho come back to the house with you that night?" Felix asks. "This is very important, so think carefully."

"No, he did not," I say, straining, flushed.

"You're lying," the director snaps.

"I'm profoundly insulted by that remark."

"Oh Jesus," he sneers.

"Victor," Felix says calmly, though his attitude seems menacing. "What happened to Sam Ho that night? After the two of you left Pylos?"

"He . . . started coming on to me—”

"But where were you going?" the director asks, advancing closer. "Why didn't you stay outside the club? The crew was outside. They said they saw you run to the limousine. They said it took off screeching."

"Do you really think I'm going to make some kind of—I don't know—surprise announcement concerning where . . . I mean, Jesus . . ."

"Where did the two of you go?"

"I don't know," I say, crumpling. "We . . . went for a ride . . . at Sam's request . . . and we . . . were going for a ride . . . to another club, I think." I start squinting, pretending to think. "I don't really remember. . . . I think Bobby told me to bring him back to the house but—"

Felix and the director shoot glances at each other.

"Wait," the director says. "Bobby told you to bring Sam back?"

"Yeah," I say. Following Felix's gaze, I see Bobby across the room.

Bobby's looking fresh and relaxed and lights a cigarette Cameron Diaz is holding and he glances over at me and, when he sees who I'm talking to, does a very casual double take and excuses himself from the group he's standing with, people I can't even recognize because of how blurry my vision has rapidly become.

"But that wasn't in the script," Felix says. "That was most definitely not in the script."

"Why did Bobby want Sam Ho back at the house, Victor?" the director asks very quietly.

I shrug helplessly, notice the confetti dotting the sleeve of the black jacket I'm wearing.

Bobby's hand lands on that arm, and smiling widely for Felix and the director, he says, "I need to talk to our boy here—can I please have him?" But it's not really a question because it's shaped in the form of a demand.

"No," the director says. "You can't."

"Am I interrupting something?" Bobby asks boyishly, tightening his grip on my arm.

"Yes," the director says. "We were having a conversation about inconsistencies."

"Hey man, I'm not the script supervisor, dude," Bobby says. "Take it up with someone else."

Felix and the director don't say anything. It's almost as if they're obeying a silent vibe Bobby's sending out: I'm beautiful, I have a purpose, go back to your dream.

We brush past extras, Bobby's arm around my neck, and he's patting my shoulder, maneuvering me to where Jamie's waiting by the exit, laughing fakely at what someone she doesn't really know says, and then Bobby asks me, "What would you think if all these people were to die and this entire hotel came crashing down?" He's grinning, serious.

"Oh dude," I whisper, breaking up. "Oh man."

"Here—take this," Bobby says, slipping a tablet into my mouth, offering me his glass of champagne while caressing the back of my neck. "It's like a rainbow."

28

In the shower in the bathroom Jamie and Bobby share Bobby's admiring the tans we acquired on the yacht today, at the shocking whiteness where our boxer-briefs blocked out the sun, at the white imprints Jamie's bikini left behind, the paleness almost glowing in the semidarkness of the bathroom, the water from the massive chrome head smashing down on us and both our cocks are sticking up at sharp angles and Bobby's pulling on his prick, stiff and thick, his balls banging tightly beneath it, the muscles in his shoulders flexing as he strokes himself off and he's looking at me, our eyes meeting, and in a thick voice he grunts, "Look at your dick, man," and I look down at the cock I'm jerking off and past that, at my thickly muscled legs. . . .

In the shower Bobby lets me make out with Jamie and Bobby's head is between her legs and Jamie's knees buckle a couple of times and Bobby keeps propping her up with an arm and his face is pushed up into her cunt and she's arching her back, pushing herself onto his tongue, and one of his hands is gripping my cock, soaping it up, and then Bobby starts sucking it and it gets so hard I can feel the pulse in it and then it gets even harder, the shaft keeps thickening and Bobby pulls it out of his mouth and studies it, squeezing it, and then he flicks his tongue over the head and then he lifts it up by the tip and starts flicking his tongue in brief, precise movements over the place where the head meets the shaft as Jamie hungrily moans "do it do it" while fingering herself in the semi-darkness and then Bobby places the entire shaft into his mouth, taking as much of my cock as he comfortably can, sucking eagerly, wetly, while crouching down on his haunches, still stroking his own prick, and below it the curves of his thighs keep swelling as he repositions himself. I'm bending my neck back, letting the water stream down my chest, and when I look back down Bobby's looking up at me and grinning, his hair wet and pressed down on his forehead, his tongue extended, pink against his face. Then Bobby motions for me to turn around so that he can spread the checks of my ass and I can feel him extending his tongue up in it and then he removes his tongue and sticks his index finger halfway up my asshole and keeps fingerfucking me until he's pushed the entire finger as far as it can go, causing my cock to keep twitching uncontrollably. . . .

I drop to my knees and start licking Jamie's pussy, my fingers spreading her lips, and as her hands massage my hair I lean her against the shower wall—Bobby still behind me on his knees, his finger moving in and out of my asshole, another hand running over my hard, cubed abs—and I keep running my tongue from her clit to her asshole and placing one of her legs over my shoulder I suck her clit into my mouth as I fuck her with two then three fingers and then I move my tongue into her asshole, fucking it with my tongue while my fingers tug on her clit, and when I stand up Bobby's finger slips out of my hole and I turn Jamie around and squatting down behind her I spread her small, firm ass cheeks open and start pumping my tongue in and out of her asshole and then I slide my tongue deep inside her anus and keep it there while rubbing her clit until she comes. . . .

After we dry off we move into Jamie and Bobby's bedroom, next to the giant bed which has been stripped of its sheets, and all the lights in the room are on so we can see everything and Jamie's squeezing my cock, sucking on its head, and I'm watching Bobby walk over to a drawer and when he bends down his ass cheeks spread wide, briefly exposing his asshole as he picks up a bottle of lotion, and when he turns around his cock is sticking up in a full erection and he strides back to us as I'm watching Jamie put one finger inside her pussy and then pull it out and then she starts stroking her clit and then she brings that finger up to my mouth and I start sucking on it. She sticks her finger back into her vagina and when she pulls it out she offers it to me again and I take her hand, licking the saltiness from her finger, sucking on it, and then I pull her face to mine and while I kiss her my hands slide down to her ass, then up to her waist and then up to the heavy firmness of her tits, my palms passing lightly over her tiny nipples, causing them to harden, while she keeps trembling, moaning. Then I lay her on the bed and kneeling at the side of it I smell her cunt lips, inhaling deeply, beads of water still clinging to her pubic hair, and I'm breathing gently on her and with one finger I trace the outline of her labia, not parting them yet, just teasing, and then I slide one finger deep into her pussy, playing with her clit as I watch it deepen in color, and she's lying back on the bed, her eyes closed, and then I'm strumming my tongue along her clit and then I lift her hips up and I'm spreading her ass open until I can see the pink inside it. . . .

I move my mouth back up to her tits, sucking hard on the nipples while squeezing the breasts beneath them, and then I slide down again, my tongue traveling down the line bisecting her body, and Jamie raises then spreads her legs, her clit totally engorged now, but I barely touch it at first, deliberately avoiding it, causing Jamie to shift around continuously, trying to place herself against my tongue, whimpering, and when my tongue lightly laps at it her clit gets firmer, bigger, and my hands are squeezing the backs of her legs and then the insides of her thighs and I'm still fucking her with my tongue and when I lift her hips up again I start sucking on her asshole. Bobby's leaning in, staring intently as my tongue goes in and out of her anus while he strokes his prick off. "God, you're so wet," I'm whispering. "You're so fucking wet." I start pumping a finger into her vagina and Jamie's bucking her hips as I move my mouth up and suck the whole labia into my mouth and then I lick her clit again, causing Jamie to thrash out another orgasm. . . .

In front of me Jamie steps into Bobby's arms and he places a huge hand under her chin and tilts her face upward and he kisses her deeply, their pink tongues entwined, and Jamie's hand falls onto Bobby's cock and she squeezes it and then she eases Bobby down onto the bed next to where I'm lying, his head at my feet, his dick at my face, and Jamie drops to her knees beside the bed and starts licking the sides of Bobby's prick while she's staring at me and Bobby's moaning and he's tonguing my feet and Jamie raises then lowers her mouth, taking in as much of his cock as she can while Bobby's hips keep thrusting upward. She climbs onto the bed and raises herself over Bobby's dick then slowly lowers herself, her eyes riveted on mine as his cock slides into her pussy, and then she pulls it out until she's rubbing her slit over the head and then she falls onto it again and it slides into her effortlessly and then she stops, stays still, letting her cunt accustom itself, and then she starts riding Bobby's cock, rising up to its tip then lowering herself down hard onto his pelvis, Bobby groaning as he pumps into her, and suddenly all her muscles contract at once and she's trying not to come but she loses control and starts yelling "fuck me fuck me fuck" and somewhere across the room a beeper goes off, is ignored. . . .

I'm on my knees in front of Bobby and he's urging me to lift his penis up so I can smell his balls and then he pushes my head back and slides his cock all the way into my mouth and I'm gagging, choking for air, but Bobby keeps it there until my throat relaxes, his hands on either side of my head guiding me up and down on his penis, then pulling it way out but keeping the head in my mouth and then pushing his cock back into my throat until my upper lip is buried in his pubic hair and my nose is pressing against his hard, taut abdomen, his balls tight against my chin. When I look up, his head is thrown back, only the point of his chin visible above the thickly corded column of his neck. Bobby's abdominal muscles taper down from under his chest to the narrower ones at the base of his stomach and one of my hands is rubbing over them, my other hand on the place where his back fleshes out into the curves of his ass, and I'm swallowing hard, my lips slicked over with my own spit and Bobby's pre-come, and I run my tongue around the head, sucking up and down, going all the way to the base of it in a slow, steady motion, my nose buried in Bobby's sweaty pubic hair, and then he starts fucking my face harder. . . .

Bobby falls back on the bed and hoists me up, positioning me so he can start sucking my dick while I'm sucking his, and he's deep-throating me, his head going all the way down and all the way up each time, sucking hard on my cock as it emerges from his mouth coated with saliva and then swallowing it as he goes back down, our hips rotating slightly, in rhythm. Then Bobby rolls over and lies flat on his stomach, one knee cocked, his balls resting on the bed beneath the crack of his ass, and Jamie's spreading the cheeks of Bobby's ass apart and, panting, I lean down and kiss his asshole, immediately sticking my tongue in it, and Bobby's responding by raising his hips until he's on his knees and elbows and I start drilling his asshole with my tongue, feeling it expand slightly then contract and then expand again and then Jamie moves to the top of the bed and spreads her legs in front of his face, holding his head, and he tries to get at her pussy but she's sitting on it and he moves backward taking Jamie with him until she's lying on her back, raising and spreading her legs in front of Bobby's face, and he starts eating her pussy until he turns her over onto her hands and knees and starts eating her pussy from behind and he's emitting loud groaning noises that are muffled from between her legs and I start lubing Bobby's asshole with the lotion he brought to the bed. . . .

I'm sitting back on my heels and Jamie leans over and starts sucking my cock, spitting on it until it's slathered with saliva, and then I stand on my knees and push Jamie away, keeping Bobby's ass spread with the fingers of one hand and lubing my cock up with the other, and then I guide the head of my penis up against his asshole, grasping his hips, holding them steady, shoving gently forward until I can't help myself—I start fucking him really hard, my stomach slapping up against his ass while Jamie holds on to me, bringing me back each time I lunge forward. I let go of one hip and reach down and around to find Bobby's hand stroking his stiff dick, jerking it off, matching each stroke with my thrusts, and I close my hand around Bobby's and the rocking motion we're making causes my hand to automatically go back and forth and I start riding him harder, breathing so fast I think my heart's going to stop, totally flushed. "Easy, easy," I hear him moan. "Don't come yet. . . ."

Bobby grabs my cock and helps me guide it into Jamie's pussy and I slide my penis up into her while holding her thighs from beneath, reaching my arms around them, doubling her up, and then I grab both her tits and start sucking on them while I'm fucking her, her cunt sucking on my cock as she rocks from side to side, her pussy totally responding and sucking me in when I pull back, and then I'm slamming into her, grunting with each thrust, and her face is bright red and she's crying out, heaving against me, and then I pull out and turn her over, spreading her ass cheeks with the thumb and finger of one hand and while I'm sliding a finger in and out Bobby slathers my cock with more lube and, grasping Jamie's hips while rotating my own, I push my rock-hard cock slowly into Jamie's rectum, feeling it stretch out, not even waiting until she's loosened up to start fucking her ass really hard. Bobby leans down, watching my dick disappear then reappear, Jamie's asshole clinging to it, and then positions himself at the head of the bed and grasping the headboard for leverage he slides his hips forward, raising and spreading his legs so Jamie can eat out his asshole while he jerks off. Releasing a hip, I reach down and squeeze Jamie's breasts again, running my hand down her stomach until I find her clit, and with two fingers I start rubbing it, then fingerfucking her while she continues eating Bobby's ass out, sometimes sucking his dick. . . .

Jamie stands up on the bed and straddles Bobby at hip level. She lowers herself over his cock and grasps it with one hand and then feeds it up into her cunt until she's sitting down on it, leaning forward, flattening out on Bobby, her breasts pushed into his face, and Bobby holds them with both hands while sucking on her nipples. I'm crouching between Bobby's legs inside Jamie's and I spread her cheeks and start fingering her asshole, which is pushed out and distended from the pressure of having Bobby's large cock filling her. I sit back on my heels, my erection twitching, and when I spread Jamie's cheeks even wider she raises her hips, causing Bobby to slide out of her until only the head of his cock remains inserted between the lips of her cunt and then my cock slides effortlessly back up into Jamie's ass. Carefully Jamie settles back down on Bobby's cock while I bounce gently up and down, Bobby's cock going all the way in while my dick slides halfway out, and we can both feel Jamie's vaginal muscles contracting powerfully during her orgasm as she convulses between us. . . .

"Here, lift up," Bobby's saying as I raise my hips, and he quickly slides a towel under my ass and I'm touching the contours of his chest, tracing the line bisecting his body, and he's spreading my legs while leaning over and kissing me hard on the mouth, his lips thick and wet, and one finger, then two fingers, start moving in and out of my asshole and both of us are glistening with sweat and my head's in Jamie's lap and she's holding me, whispering things in my ear, leaning over and stroking my erection. "Yeah, show me that dick, Victor," Bobby says. "Keep stroking it, that's it. Spread your legs. Wider. Lift them up. Let me see your asshole." He lifts my legs up and pushes my knees back and I can feel him spreading my legs open, inspecting that area. "Yeah, you've got a nice pink butthole, man. I'm looking at it right now. You want me to fuck it, huh?" I'm bracing myself, gazing intently up at Bobby, who is expressionless, and I'm not sure how many fingers are in my ass right now and his hand starts moving in a circular motion, fingers moving deeper until I have to grab his wrist, whispering "Easy, man, easy" and with his other hand he keeps twisting my nipples until they're sore and burning and my head's lodged in Jamie's armpit and I have to strain my muscles to keep from coming too soon. . . .

"Wait," I groan, lifting my head up. "Do you have a condom?"

"What?" he asks. "Oh man, do you care?"

"It's okay." I lean back.

"You want me to fuck you?" he's asking.

"Yeah, it's okay."

"You want me to fuck you with this cock?" he's asking, hoisting my legs up over his shoulders.

"Yeah, fuck me."

Jamie watches carefully as Bobby slides his long, thick cock in and out of my asshole and then starts increasing the length and depth of his thrusts, pulling his prick almost all the way out and then slamming it in again, his cock pumping my prostate, and I'm looking up at him and shouting out and his abs are straining with each thrust and he tries to steady himself by holding on to my shoulders, the muscles in his arms bulging with the effort, and his eyebrows are furrowed and his face—usually impassive—now scowls briefly with pleasure. "Yeah, fuck him, fuck him harder," Jamie's chanting. Bobby keeps slipping his cock in and out of me, both of us groaning with relief, intensity rising, and then I'm yelling out, convulsing uncontrollably, both of us bucking wildly as I start ejaculating, shooting up onto my shoulders and then my chest as Bobby keeps fucking me, my anus contracting around his thrusting cock. "Yeah, that's it, that's it, man," Bobby groans, coming, collapsing on top of me. . . .

27

Afterwards, back in the shower by myself, water spraying over me, I'm delicately touching my asshole, which seems distended, tender, slick with lotion and Bobby's semen, the flesh feeling pierced. Stepping out of the shower, I dry off, avoiding my reflection in a giant mirror, afraid of what I might see in it. I scan the counter for a comb, deodorant, aspirin. I peer into a medicine cabinet but it's empty. I start opening drawers: a Breitling watch, two Cartier tank rings (one citrine, one amethyst), a pair of diamond-studded sunglasses, a bottle of cologne called Ambush, a container of Shiseido moisturizer. In another drawer: dozens of Chanel lipsticks, an issue of Harper's Bazaar with Tammy on the cover, a few dried roses and-in a clear plastic bag in the bottom drawer of the bathroom Jamie and Bobby share-a large black hat, folded over.

I hesitate before taking the bag out of the drawer, because something in me says not to. Instinct says not to.

I'm holding the bag up in front of my face, averting my eyes.

The sound of a fly whirring around my head causes me to look at the bag.

In the bag is the hat Lauren Hynde gave me in New York.

The hat Palakon told me to bring with me on the QE2.

Its entire inner flap has been removed.

A large, gaping hole exists where the small red rose was.

One side of the hat is dotted with pink and green confetti.

I can't even touch the bag anymore. I just keep swallowing involuntarily until I carefully place it back in the drawer and then I slowly close the drawer. But this is a dream, this is a movie—repeating that calms me down but in the back of my mind, faintly, darkly, is the sound of laughter and it's coming from a grave and it's whispery, blaming.

Naked, clutching a towel, I slowly move into the bedroom where Jamie and Bobby are sleeping deeply, gracefully, on a flat sheet soaked with our sweat even though it's so cold in this room

the room is a trap. The question about the hat will never be asked. The question about the hat is a big black mountain and the room is a trap. A photo of your expressionless face is on the cover of a magazine, a gun lies on top of an icy nightstand. It's winter in this room and this room is a trap that my breath is steaming as I keep staring down at Jamie and Bobby sleeping on the bed.

On Bobby's shoulder is a tattoo, black and shapeless, I never noticed before.

A QE2 flashback, a montage with strobe lights.

The smell of the sea, an October afternoon, the Atlantic moving slowly below us, midnight, meeting Marina outside Club Lido, her voice raspy from crying, the fog machines, Marina backlit in front of a bathroom drawer, how shy she seemed at the railing, how purposefully she moved around my cabin, the hooded parka.

There was the hair hanging over Marina's face. And there was the hooded parka.

There was the tattoo, black and shapeless, on her right shoulder blade.

This tattoo did not exist the afternoon we first met.

You never saw Marina's face that night.

"You have to go to London," a voice whispered.

That night, you never touched her body.

You understand that something incomplete is being revealed.

An unscheduled stop mid-crossing.

Someone climbs aboard a ship.

A girl you didn't save was doomed.

It's all very clear but you have to keep guessing.

It's what you don't know that matters most. This is what the director told you.

I dress, then stagger outside.

When I look back up at the house he's standing in a bedroom window. He's looking down at me. He's holding a finger to his lips. He's saying "Shhh."

26

Because métro service doesn't begin until 5:30 I'm walking aimlessly through a dark early-morning fog, staggering for long stretches, until automatic timers turn the streetlights off and clubs are just closing and a figure, a specter, strolling by smiles venomously at me and in the fog the outlines of glass and concrete towers keep shifting shapes and without thinking about direction I find myself walking toward the Eiffel Tower, through the Parc du Champ de Mars and then across the Seine on the Pont d'Iéna and then past the Palais de Chaillot. A pigeon bursts out of the fog, leaving a swirling trail behind. Without warning, leaning against a black Citroën, in the fog, is the Christian Bale look-alike.

"Victor?" he asks, rock-faced, subdued. He's wearing a black cardigan, ankle boots, a Prada overcoat.

Silently I walk up to him, the streets littered with confetti, the fog locking in on us.

"Someone wants to see you," he says simply.

I just nod and without any prodding get into the back of the Citroën, lying flat across the seat, then curling up once the car starts moving, and I'm making noises in the backseat, sometimes weeping. He tells me not to crack up. He remarks delicately about an opening in my destiny. But I'm paying minimal attention, listening to him as closely as I would listen to a brick, a tree, a pile of sand. Finally, absurdly, I ask, "Do you know who I am?" On the radio: something emblematic of where I'm at in this moment, something like "Don't Fear the Reaper" or "I'm a Believer."

A hotel on Avenue Kléber.

Following the Christian Bale guy down a hallway lined with photos of mostly dead celebrities, I'm so drowsy I can barely keep up with him and the lights above us keep flickering chicly and at the far end we arrive at a door covered with a thin sheet of frost.

Inside the room all the lights are dimmed, and sitting at a desk, Sky TV glowing soundlessly on a large-screen television behind him, legs primly crossed, smoking a cigarette, is F. Fred Palakon.

I appear seemingly nonplussed.

"Hello, Victor," Palakon says. "How are things?" he asks menacingly. "Remember me?"

The Christian Bale guy closes the door behind us, then locks it.

Palakon gestures toward the edge of the bed. After I sit down, facing him, he recrosses his legs, regarding me unfavorably. It's freezing in the hotel room and I rub my hands together to keep them warm.

"I got . . . lost," is all I say, shamefully.

"Well, not really," Palakon says. "Not what you'd technically call 'lost,' but I suppose there's some truth in your statement."

I'm staring at the carpet, at the patterns revealing themselves in the carpet, and I keep rubbing my hands together to keep them warm.

"I see you've taken up with quite a crowd," Palakon says. "I shouldn't be surprised. A hip, happening, gorgeous young thing like yourself, all alone in Paris." He says this with such harsh articulation that I have to flinch and look away. "I see you have a tan."

"Palakon, I—"

"Mr. Ward, please don't say anything," Palakon warns. "Not yet."

"Palakon, you never called me in England," I say in a rush. "What was I supposed to do?"

"That is because I was informed you never checked into the Four Seasons," Palakon says sharply. "How were we supposed to call you when we had no idea where you were?"

"But . . . that's not true," I say, sitting up. "Who told you that? I mean, what are you talking about, Palakon?"

"It means that there are no records of you ever staying at the Four Seasons," Palakon says. "It means that if someone tried to contact you at the Four Seasons we were simply told that neither a Mr. Victor Ward nor a Mr. Victor Johnson was staying there." An icy pause. "What happened to you, Victor?"

"But I checked in," I'm protesting. "The driver who picked me up in Southampton saw me check in."

"No, Victor," Palakon says. "The driver saw you walk in. He did not see you check in."

"This is wrong," I'm muttering.

"All attempts to get in touch with you at the Four Seasons proved fruitless," Palakon says, glaring. "When we finally tried to make actual physical contact, as in searching the hotel for you, we came up with nothing."

"Ask him," I say, pointing at the Christian Bale guy, standing behind me. "He's been following me ever since I got to London."

"Not really," Palakon says. "He lost you that night after you were at Pylos and didn't find you again until the other night, when he spotted you at the opera." Pause. "With Jamie Fields."

I don't say anything.

"But because of your actions let's just say his part has been beefed up considerably."

"Palakon," I start. "I don't care about the money anymore. I just want to get the hell out of here."

"That's very noble, Mr. Ward, but you were supposed to get Jamie Fields out of London and back to the States," Palakon says. "Not traipse off to Paris. So the money—as of now—is beside the point."

Looking down again, I mutter, "I traipsed, I traipsed, I admit it, I traipsed . . ."

"Why are you. . ." Palakon sighs, looks up at the ceiling, curved and stained, and then, thoroughly annoyed, back at me. "Why are you in Paris, Mr. Ward?"

I'm still muttering, "I traipsed, I traipsed . . .”

"Mr. Ward," Palakon snaps. "Please."

"What else do you know?" I ask. "How did you find me?"

Palakon sighs again, puts his cigarette out, runs his hands over the jacket of a very natty suit.

"Since you had mentioned that you were going to follow that girl you met on the ship to Paris, we simply pursued a few theories."

"Who is 'we,' Palakon?" I ask hesitantly.

"Does the third person alarm you?"

"Who's . . . the third person?"

"Mr. Ward, what is the situation as of now?"

"The . . . situation is . . . the situation is . . ." Grasping, unable to figure it out, I just give up. "The situation is out of my control."

Palakon takes this in. "That's too bad." After a thoughtful pause, he asks, gently, "Can it be remedied?"

"What does that . . . mean?" I ask. "Remedied? I told you—it's out of my control."

Palakon runs a hand along the desk he's sitting at and then, after a long pause, asks, "Are you in any position to fix things?"

"I don't know." I'm vaguely aware of my feet and arms slowly falling asleep as I sit slumped on the edge of the bed. "I'm not sure."

"Well, let's start with does she trust you?" he asks. "Is she willing to leave? Is she coming back to the States?" Another pause. "Is she in love with you?"

"We've . . . been intimate," I say hollowly. "I'm not sure—”

"Congratulations," Palakon says. "So you've become a duo. How cute. How"—he tilts his head—"apropos."

"Palakon, I don't think you know what's going on." I swallow. "I don't think you're in the same movie," I say carefully.

"Just get Jamie Fields out of Paris," Palakon says. "Just get her back to New York. I don't care how you do it. Promise her things, marry her, perform a kidnapping, whatever."

I'm exhaling steam. "She has . . . a boyfriend."

"That has never been an impediment for you before, Mr. Ward," Palakon says. "Who is it? Who's she seeing? Someone in that house? Not Bruce Rhinebeck. And it can't be Bentley Harrolds."

"It's Bobby Hughes," I say hollowly.

"Ah, of course," Palakon says. "I'd forgotten about him."

"How's that possible?" I ask, confused.

"Depending on what planet you live on, Victor, it's not so hard."

A long patch of silence.

"There's a small problem, Palakon."

"If it's small it's not a problem, Mr. Ward."

"Oh, I think this is," I say, my voice getting tiny.

"Just take Jamie Fields back to the United States," Palakon says. "That's all you need to do."

"There's a small problem," I repeat.

"My patience ran out the minute we met, Mr. Ward. What is it?"

"Well, you see," I say, leaning in for emphasis, smiling involuntarily, my heart tightening, whispering loudly, "They're all murderers."

Palakon sighs wearily. "Excuses, excuses. Oh Mr. Ward, you can do better than that. You're not that lazy."

In a calm and purposeful fashion I try to express everything that has been happening: how they memorize maps, passwords, warning signals, airline timetables, how they learn to strip, assemble and load an array of light machine guns—M16s, Brownings, Scorpions, RPGS. Kalashnikovs—to throw off tails, how one day they had to eliminate everything in our computer system that connected them to Libya. I tell Palakon about the detailed maps of various American and Israeli embassies scattered throughout the house, that at any given time three million dollars in cash is hidden in a closet downstairs next to the gym, that we know certain people only by code names, that intermediaries lunch frequently in the house and there are so many parties. I tell Palakon about how fake passports are arranged and how those passports are constantly being shredded and burned, how Bobby is always traveling to Belgrade or to Zagreb and visas are applied for in Vienna and there are anxious consultations and trips to villas in outlying suburbs. How I am constantly being introduced to just another young Palestinian with a "troubled past" or to someone who was partially blinded by an Israeli letter bomb, patriots who had strayed from the path, people offering pretexts for refusing to negotiate, beautiful men boasting of secret alliances.

I tell Palakon about the bombing of the Institute of Political Studies, the bombing at Café Flore, the bombing on the métro at Pont Royal. I tell Palakon about a car lined with 120 pounds of explosives that rolled down a hill in Lyons and smashed into a police station, killing eight people, four of them children, injuring fifty-six. I explain the attempted bombing of the Louvre, how Jamie Fields poisoned the pool at the Ritz, the whispered references to TWA flights leaving Charles de Gaulle, how new social security numbers were invented, aerial reconnaissance photos were taken, certain vanishings accomplished. I tell Palakon about a chaotic party, then about another chaotic party, while I'm gripping the comforter and it all seems so insubstantial that I'm reminded of a Basque separatist movement's motto one of the scriptwriters showed me one day in a red spiral notebook: "Action Unites. Words Divide."

Palakon studies me. He sighs, then keeps sighing for what seems like minutes.

"If I believe you, Mr. Ward—and I don't know if I'm there yet—what does this have to do with—"

"Hey, I didn't make this up," I shout. "I'm not that good an actor."

"I'm not saying you made it up, Victor," Palakon says, shrugging. "What I'm thinking, however, is that perhaps you have a more active imagination than I realized. Maybe you've seen too many movies, Mr. Ward."

Something suddenly flashes in front of me. A somber realization.

"The hat," I say. "They have the hat."

Palakon glances over at the Christian Bale guy.

Palakon looks back at me.

"What do you mean?" Palakon asks tentatively.

"They have the hat," I say. "The hat you told me to bring."

"Yes?" Palakon asks, drawing out the word. "What . . . exactly are you saying?"

"I found the hat that Lauren Hynde gave me," I say. "It was in their bathroom. It was in their bathroom—Jamie and Bobby's."

"I'm confused," Palakon says. "Did you give it to them?"

"No. I didn't."

"But . . ." Palakon shifts around uncomfortably in his chair until he is sitting erect, his back straight. A new, ominous mood fills the room. "What are you saying? How did they get it?"

"I don't know," I say. "It disappeared from my cabin on the QE2," I say. "I found it an hour ago in a bathroom drawer," I say.

Palakon stands up, starts pacing, scowling to himself He's taking stances that say: this changes everything.

The Christian Bale guy is leaning over, his hands on his knees, taking deep breaths.

Everything suddenly seems displaced, subtle gradations erase borders, but it's more forceful than that.

"Palakon?" I ask, slowly. "Why was that hat so important?"

No answer.

"Why did Lauren Hynde give me that hat?" I ask. "Why is the hat so important, Palakon?"

"Who says it is?" Palakon asks, distracted, harassed, still pacing.

"Palakon," I sigh. "I may be a lot of things, but stupid is not one of them." Finally I'm so scared that I start breaking down. "I need help. You've got to get me out of here. I don't care about the money anymore. They'll kill me. I mean it, Palakon. They will kill me." Panicking, doubled over on the bed, I envision my corpse on a beach, someone's idea of a "flourish," and there's a breeze, it's midday, a figure disappears into a cove. "I shouldn't even be here—oh fucking god—I shouldn't even be here."

"You weren't followed," Palakon says. "Please Mr. Ward, calm down."

"I can't," I'm whining, still doubled over, clutching myself "I can't, I cannot, I—"

"Mr. Ward, is there anyone who can help you?" Palakon asks. "Anyone you can put us in touch with?"

"No no no, there's no one—"

"What about family? What about your parents? Maybe something can be arranged. Something monetary. Do they know where you are?"

"No." I breathe in. "My mother's dead. My father—I can't, I can't bring my father into this."

Palakon suddenly stops pacing.

"Why not?" Palakon asks. "Maybe if you put us in touch with your father he could come over here and we could make an arrangement to somehow extract you from this mess—"

"But, Palakon, what mess? What do you mean, a mess? And I can't can 't get my father involved." I'm shaking my head, weeping. "No, no, I can't, no—"

"Victor, why can't you get your father involved?"

"Palakon, you don't understand," I'm whispering.

"Mr. Ward, I'm trying to help you—”

"I can't I can't I—"

"Mr. Ward—" Palakon shouts.

"My father is a U.S. senator," I scream, glaring up at him. "My father is a fucking U.S. senator. That is why he can't get involved, Palakon," I scream. "Okay? Okay?"

Palakon swallows grimly, taking this in. Visibly alarmed, he closes his eyes, concentrating. Waves lap at the body on the beach and behind it hard brown surfers ride buoyantly over green swells below a burning sun high above the horizon and beyond them there's an island—boulders, woods, an old granite quarry, the smell of salt—and on that island another figure disappears into a cove and then it's night.

"Your father is Samuel Johnson?" Palakon asks.

"Yes," I hiss, still glaring at him. "Didn't you know this when you first contacted me?"

"No, we didn't," Palakon says quietly, humbled. "But now I"—he clears his throat—"see."

"No you don't," I'm saying mindlessly, moving my head back and forth like a child. "No you don't."

"Victor, you don't need to explain to me who your father is," Palakon says. "I think I understand." He pauses again. "And because of this I also understand why this makes the situation more . . . delicate."

I start giggling. "Delicate? The situation is delicate?" I stop giggling, gasp in a sob.

"Victor, we can help you, I think—”

"I'm trapped, I'm trapped, I'm trapped, and they'll kill me—"

"Mr. Ward," Palakon says, kneeling, leaning in to where I'm sitting on the edge of the bed. "Please, we will help you but—"

When I try to hug him he pushes me gently away.

“—you have got to act as if nothing has happened. You have got to pretend that you don't know anything. You've got to play along until I can figure something out."

"No, no, no—"

Palakon motions for the Christian Bale guy. I feel a pair of hands on my shoulders. Someone's whispering.

"I'm afraid, Palakon," I sob.

"Don't be, Mr. Ward," Palakon says. "We know where you are. In the meantime I have to figure some things out. We'll contact you—"

"You've got to be careful," I say. "Everything's bugged. Everything's wired. Everything's being filmed."

They're helping me stand up. I'm trying to cling to Palakon as they lead me to the door.

"You must calm down, Mr. Ward," Palakon says. "Now let Russell take you back and we'll contact you within a couple of days, possibly sooner. But you must remain calm. Things are different now and you must remain calm."

"Why can't I stay here?" I plead, struggling as I'm being led to the door. "Please let me stay here."

"I need to get a full view," Palakon says. "Right now it's just a partial view. And I need to get a full view."

"What's happening, Palakon?" I ask, finally motionless. "What's the story?"

"Just that something has gone terribly wrong."

In the backseat of the black Citroën everything is covered with confetti and it seems like hours before Russell drops me off on Boulevard Saint-Marcel and then I'm crossing through the Jardin des Plantes and then I'm at the Seine and above me the morning sky is white and I'm thinking, Stay indoors, go to sleep, don't get involved, view everything without expression, drink whiskey, pose, accept.

25

I'm standing at a pay phone on Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré, calling Felix at the Ritz. The phone in his room rings six times before he answers. I'm taking off my sunglasses then putting them on, again and again.

"Hello?" Felix asks tiredly.

"Felix, it's me," I say. "It's Victor."

"Yes?" Felix asks. "What is it? What do you want?"

"We have to talk." Across the street from where I'm standing someone's behaving oddly—weird hair, waving car fumes away with a newspaper, laughing uncontrollably. Across the street the sun is rising, then decides not to.

"Oh Victor, I am so tired of this," Felix says. "I am so tired of you."

"Felix, please, not now, please don't go into a rant now," I'm saying. "There are things you need to know," I'm saying. "I've figured some things out and I need to tell you these things."

"But I'm not interested in listening to you anymore," Felix says. "In fact, nobody is, Victor. And frankly I don't think there's anything you need to tell anyone, except of course if it's about your hair or your gym routine or who you plan to fuck next week."

(Bobby flies to Rome and then to Amman, Jordan, on Alitalia. A bag in the overhead compartment in first class contains spools of electric wire, needle-nosed pliers, silicon, large kitchen knives, aluminum foil, packets of Remform, hammers, a camcorder, a dozen files containing diagrams of military weapons, missiles, armored cars. On the plane Bobby reads an article in a fashionable magazine about the President's new haircut and what it means and Bobby memorizes lines he needs to deliver and flirts with a stewardess who mentions in passing that her favorite song is John Lennon's "Imagine." In a soothing voice Bobby compliments her career choice. She's asking him what it was like being on the Oprah Winfrey show. He's recalling a visit to room 25 at the Dreamland Motel. He's planning a catastrophe. He's contemplatively eating a brownie.)

"Felix, remember when you were asking me what happened to Sam Ho?" I'm saying. "Remember about the other film crew? The one Dimity saw me with at the Louvre yesterday?"

"Victor, please, just calm down," Felix says. "Get a grip. None of this matters anymore."

"Oh, yes it does, Felix, it does matter."

"No," he says. "It doesn't matter."

"Why not?" I'm asking. "Why doesn't it matter?"

"Because the movie's over," Felix says. "The production has been shut down. Everybody's leaving tonight."

"Felix—"

"You've been shockingly unprofessional, Victor."

(Jamie's in traffic circling the Arc de Triomphe, then she's turning down Avenue de Wagram, making a right onto Boulevard de Courcelles, heading for Avenue de Clichy to meet Bertrand Ripleis, and Jamie's thinking that this seems like the longest day of the year and she's thinking about a particular Christmas tree from her childhood, but it was never really the tree that impressed her, it was the ornaments adorning the tree, and then she's remembering how afraid of the ocean she was as a little girl—"too watery," she'd tell her parents—and then she's eighteen, in the Hamptons, a summer dawn, freshman year at Camden is a week away and she's staring out at the Atlantic, listening to a boy she met backstage at a Who concert at Nassau Coliseum snoring lightly behind her and two years later, in Cambridge, he'll commit suicide, pulled toward a force he could not evaluate, but now it was the end of August and she was thirsty and a giant gull circled above her and mourning didn't matter yet.)

"Please, please, Felix, we have to talk." I'm practically gasping and I keep turning around to see if anyone's watching me.

"But you aren't listening, you little fool," Felix snaps. "The movie is over. You don't need to explain anything to me because it doesn't matter anymore. It does not apply."

"But they killed Sam Ho that night, Felix, they killed him," I say in a rush. "And there's another movie being shot. One you don't know about. There's another crew here and Bruce Rhinebeck killed Sam Ho—"

"Victor," Felix interrupts softly. "Bruce Rhinebeck came over this morning and talked to us—the director, the writer, myself-and he explained the, um, situation." A pause. "Actually he explained your situation."

"What situation? My situation? I don't have a situation."

Felix groans. "Forget it, Victor. We're leaving tonight. Back to New York. It's over, Victor. Goodbye."

"Don't trust him, Felix," I shout. "He's lying. Whatever Bruce told you, it's a lie."

"Victor," Felix says tiredly.

I suddenly notice that Felix's accent has disappeared.

(Bruce replaces the cardboard frame in a piece of Gucci luggage with sheets of dark plastic that disguise the explosives, which are made up of narrow gray odorless strips. Embedded in the strips: gold-plated nickel wire. Bruce has lined up fifty-five pounds of plastic explosives end to end, then attached them to a detonator. The detonator is powered by AAA batteries. Occasionally Bruce glances at an instruction manual. Bentley stands behind him, arms crossed, staring silently at Bruce, at the back of his head, at how beautiful Bruce is, thinking, If only . . , and when Bruce turns around Bentley plays it cool, just nods, shrugs, stifles a yawn.)

"I suppose I can tell you since obviously you don't like Bruce, even though I think he's quite charming and should have been the star of this production," Felix drones haughtily. "You know why Bruce should have been the star of this production, Victor? Because Bruce Rhinebeck has star quality, Victor, that's why."

"I know, I know, Felix," I'm saying. "He should've been the star, he should've been the star."

"According to Bruce he has really tried to help you, Victor."

"Help me with what?" I shout.

"He says you are under extreme emotional pressure, possibly due to a major drug habit," Felix sighs. "He also says you tend to hallucinate frequently and that nothing coming out of your mouth is to be believed."

"Jesus fucking Christ, Felix," I shout. "These people are murderers, you asshole. They're fucking terrorists." Realizing how loud this comes out, I whirl around to see if anyone's behind me, then lower my voice and whisper, "They're fucking terrorists."

"He also said he thinks that you're quite possibly an insane individual and also—however improbable the director and I thought this sounded—rather dangerous." Felix adds, "He also said that you'd tell us they were terrorists. So."

"He builds bombs, Felix," I whisper harshly into the phone. "Oh fuck that—he's insane, Felix. That's all a lie."

"I'm terminating this phone call, Victor," Felix says.

"I'm coming over, Felix."

"If you do I'll call the police."

"Please, Felix," I'm moaning. "For god's sake."

Felix doesn't say anything.

"Felix?" I moan. "Felix, are you there?"

Felix keeps pausing.

"Felix?" I'm crying silently, wiping my face.

And then Felix says, "Well, perhaps you could be useful."

(In the Jardin du Luxembourg he's hungover again—another cocaine binge, another sleepless dawn, another sky made up of gray tile—but Tammy kisses the French premier's son, fortifying him, and in a flea market at Porte de Vanves, both her hands on his chest, he's hooking her in with his right arm and he's wearing slippers. "Soulmates?" he asks. Tammy smells like lemons and has a secret, something she wants to show him back at the house in the 8th or the 16th. "I have enemies there," he says, buying her a rose. "Don't worry, Bruce is gone," she says. But he wants to talk about a trip to southern California he's taking in November. "S'il vous plaît?" Tammy whines, eyes sparkling, and back at the house Tammy closes the door behind him, locking it as instructed, and Bentley's making drinks in the kitchen and hands the French premier's son a martini glass filled to the brim with a cloudy gimlet and as he sips it he senses something behind him and then—as planned—Bruce Rhinebeck rushes into the room shouting, holding up a claw hammer, and Tammy turns away and closes her eyes, clamping her hands over her ears as the French premier's son starts screaming and the noise being made in that room is the worst ever and Bentley wordlessly pours the pitcher of drugged alcohol into the sink and wipes the counter with an orange sponge.)

I start weeping with relief "I can be useful," I say. "I can be, I can be really useful—"

"Bruce left a bag here. He forgot it."

"What?" I'm pressing the phone closer to my ear, wiping my nose with the sleeve of my jacket. "What, man?"

"He left a Gucci tote bag behind," Felix says. "I suppose you could come by and pick it up. That is, if you can be bothered, Victor—"

"Felix, wait-you've got to get rid of that bag," I say, suddenly nauseous with adrenaline. "Don't get near that bag."

"I'll leave it with the concierge," Felix says, annoyed. "I have no y intention of seeing you."

"Felix," I shout. "Don't get near that bag. Get everyone out of the hotel—"

"And do not try contacting us," Felix says over me. "We've shut down the production office in New York."

"Felix, get out of the hotel—"

"Nice working with you," Felix says. "But not really."

"Felix," I'm screaming.

(On the opposite side of Place Vendôme, twenty technicians are at various lookout points and the director is studying a video playback monitor of the footage shot earlier today of Bruce Rhinebeck leaving the hotel, a toothpick in his teeth, Bruce posing for paparazzi, Bruce laughing mildly, Bruce hopping into a limousine with bulletproof windows. By now the French film crew has been outfitted with car protection for when the demolition team begins detonating the bombs.)

I start racing toward the Ritz.

(In a pale-pink room, Felix hangs up the phone. The suite Felix occupies is in fairly close proximity to the center of the hotel, which ensures that the explosion will cause as much structural damage as possible.

The Gucci tote bag sits on the bed.

It's so cold in the room that Felix's breath steams.

A fly lands on his hand.

Felix unzips the tote bag.

He stares into it, quizzically.

It's filled with red and black confetti.

He brushes the confetti away.

Something reveals itself.

"No," Felix says.

The bomb swallows Felix up, vaporizing him instantly. He literally disappears. There's nothing left.

24

A thundering sound.

Immediately, in the 1st arrondissement, all electricity goes dead.

The blast shatters the Ritz from the center—almost front to back—weakening its structure as the pulse spreads to both sides of the hotel.

The windows flex, then shatter, imploding.

A gigantic wall of concrete and glass rushes toward the tourists in the Place Vendôme.

A ball of fire boils toward them.

A huge mass of black smoke, multilayered, irregular, rises up over Paris.

The shock wave lifts the Ritz up, unhinging nearly all the support beams. The building starts sliding into the Place Vendôme, its collapse accompanied by a whooshing roar.

Then another deafening roar.

Chunks of debris keep falling, walls keep cracking apart, and there's so much dust the Place Vend6me looks as if a sandstorm has struck.

The explosion is followed by the customary "stunned silence."

The sound of glass continuing to shatter is an introduction to the screaming.

Boulders of concrete litter the streets surrounding the Ritz and you have to climb over them to get into the Place Vendôme, where people are running around covered in blood and screaming into cell phones, the sky above them overcast with smoke. The entire face of the hotel has been blown off, rubber roofing is flapping in the wind and several cars, mostly BMWs, are burning. Two limousines lie overturned and the smell of burned tar is everywhere, the streets and sidewalks entirely scorched.

The body of a Japanese man dangles from the third story, caught between floors, drenched with blood, a huge shard of glass embedded in his neck, and another body hangs tangled in a mass of steel girders, its face frozen in anguish, and I'm limping past piles of rubble with arms sticking out of them and past Louis XV furniture, a candelabra ten feet high, antique chests, and people keep staggering past me, some of them naked, tripping over plaster and insulation, and I pass a girl whose face is cut in half, the lower part of her body torn away, and the leg lying nearby is completely embedded with screws and nails, and another woman, blackened and writhing, one hand blown off, is screaming, dying, and a Japanese woman in the bloody tatters of a Chanel suit collapses in front of me, both her jugular vein and her carotid artery sliced open by flying glass, causing every breath she takes to gurgle blood.

Staggering toward a giant slab of concrete angled directly in front of the hotel, I see four men try to pull a woman out from beneath it and her leg comes off—detaches effortlessly—from what's left of her body, which is surrounded by unrecognizable chunks of flesh from which bones protrude. A man whose nose was slashed off by a shard of glass and a sobbing teenage girl lie next to each other in a widening pool of blood, her eyes burned out of their sockets, and the closer you move to what's left of the main entrance, the number of arms and legs scattered everywhere doubles and the skin sandblasted from bodies sits everywhere in giant, papery clumps, along with the occasional dead-body dummy.

I'm passing faces lashed with dark-red cuts, piles of designer clothes, air-conditioning ducts, beams, a playpen and then a baby that looks as if it has been dipped in blood, which slumps, mangled, on a pile of rubble. Nearby a small child lies bleeding continuously from his mouth, part of his brain hanging out the side of his head. Dead bellmen lay scattered among magazines and Louis Vuitton luggage and heads blown off bodies, even one of a chisel-faced boyfriend of a model I knew back in New York, many of them BBR (what Bruce Rhinebeck calls Burned Beyond Recognition). In a daze, wandering past me: Polly Mellon, Claudia Schiffer, Jon Bon Jovi, Mary Wells Laurence, Steven Friedman, Bob Colacello, Marisa Berenson, Boy George, Mariah Carey.

Paths are made through the concrete boulders blocking Place Vendôme, and the paparazzi arrive first, followed by CNN reporters and then local television crews, and then, finally, ambulances carrying rescue teams followed by blue-black trucks carrying antiterrorist police wearing flak jackets over paratrooper jumpsuits, gripping automatic weapons, and they start wrapping victims in blankets and hundreds of pigeons lie dead, some of the injured birds haphazardly trying to fly, low to the ground above the debris, and later the feet of children in a makeshift morgue are being tagged and parents are being ushered out of that morgue howling and bodies will have to be identified by birthmarks, dental records, scars, tattoos, jewelry, and at a nearby hospital are posted the names of the dead and injured, along with their condition, and soon the rescue workers outside the Ritz are no longer in rescue mode.

23

I sit in a revival theater on Boulevard des Italiens. I collapse on a bench in the Place du Parvis. At one point during the day I'm shuffling through Pigalle. At another point I just keep crossing then recrossing the Seine. I wander through Aux Trois Quartiers on Boulevard de la Madeleine until the glimpse I catch of myself in a mirror at a Clinique counter moves me to rush back to the house in the 8th or the 16th.

Inside the house Bentley sits at a computer in the living room, wearing a Gap tank top and headphones from a Walkman. He's studying an image that keeps flashing itself at different angles across the screen. My throat is aching from all the smoke I inhaled and when I pass a mirror my reflected face is streaked with grime, hair stiff and gray with dust, my eyes yellow. I move slowly up behind Bentley without his noticing.

On the computer screen: the actor who played Sam Ho lies naked on his back in a nondescript wood-paneled bedroom, his legs lifted and spread apart by an average-looking guy, maybe my age or slightly older, also naked, and in profile he's thrusting between Sam's legs, fucking him. Bentley keeps tapping keys, scanning the image, zooming in and out. Within a matter of minutes the average-looking guy fucking Sam Ho is given a more defined musculature, larger pectorals, what's visible of his cock shaft is thickened, the pubic hair lightened. The nondescript bedroom is transformed into the bedroom I stayed at in the house in Hampstead: chic steel beams, the Jennifer Bartlett painting hanging over the bed, the vase filled with giant white tulips, the chrome ashtrays. Sam Ho's eyes, caught red in the flash, are corrected.

I bring a hand up to my forehead, touching it. This movement causes Bentley to swivel around in his chair, removing the headphones.

"What happened to you?" he asks innocently, but he can't keep up the facade and starts grinning.

"What are you doing?" I ask, numb, hollowed out.

"I'm glad you're back," Bentley says. "Bobby wants me to show you something."

"What are you doing?" I ask again.

"This is a new program," Bentley says. "Kai's Photo Soap for Windows 95. Take a peek."

Pause. "What does it . . . do?" I swallow.

"It helps make pictures better," Bentley says in a baby's voice.

"How . . . does it do that?" I ask, shivering.

The sex-scene photo is scanned again and Bentley concentrates on tapping more keys, occasionally referring to pages torn from a booklet and spread out on the table next to the computer. In five minutes my head—in profile—is grafted seamlessly onto the shoulders of the average-looking guy fucking Sam Ho. Bentley zooms out of the image, satisfied.

"A big hard disk"—Bentley glances over at me—"is mandatory. As well as a certain amount of patience."

At first I'm saying, "That's cool, that's . . . cool," because Bentley keeps grinning, but a hot wave of nausea rises, subsides, silencing me.

Another key is tapped. The photograph disappears. The screen stays blank. Another two keys are tapped and then a file number is tapped and then a command is tapped.

What now appears is a series of photographs that fill the screen in rapid succession.

Sam Ho and Victor Ward in dozens of positions, straining and naked, a pornographic montage.

Bentley leans back, satisfied, hands behind his head, a movie pose even though no camera is around to capture it.

"Would you like to see another file?" Bentley asks, but it's really not a question because he's already tapping keys.

"Let's see," he muses. "Which one?"

A flash. A command is tapped. A list appears, each entry with a date and file number.

“VICTOR" CK Show

“VICTOR" Telluride w/S Ulrich

“VICTOR" Dogstar concert w/K Reeves

“VICTOR Union Square w/L Hynde

“VICTOR" Miami, Ocean Drive

“VICTOR" Miami, lobby, Delano

“VICTOR" QE2 series

“VICTOR" Sam Ho series

VICTOR Pylos w/S Ho

“VICTOR" Sky Bar w/Rande Gerber

“VICTOR" GQ Shoot wq Fields, M Bergin

“VICTOR" Café Flore w/Brad, Eric, Dean

“VICTOR" Institute of Political Studies

“VICTOR" New York, Balthazar

“VICTOR" New York, Wallflowers

“VICTOR" Annabel's w/ J Phoenix

“VICTOR" 80th and Park w/A Poole

“VICTOR" Hell's Kitchen w/Mica, NYC

As Bentley continuously scrolls down the screen it becomes apparent that this list goes on for pages and pages.

Bentley starts tapping keys, landing on new photos. He enhances colors, adjusts tones, sharpens or softens images. Lips are digitally thickened, freckles are removed, an ax is placed in someone's outstretched hand, a BMW becomes a Jaguar which becomes a Mercedes which becomes a broom which becomes a frog which becomes a mop which becomes a poster of jenny McCarthy, license plates are altered, more blood is spattered around a crime-scene photo, an uncircumciscd penis is suddenly circumcised. Tapping keys, scanning images, Bentley adds motion blur (a shot of "Victor" jogging along the Seine), he's adding lens flair (in a remote desert in eastern Iran I'm shaking hands with Arabs and wearing sunglasses and pouting, gasoline trucks lined up behind me), he's adding graininess, he's erasing people, he's inventing a new world, seamlessly.

"You can move planets with this," Bentley says. "You can shape lives. The photograph is only the beginning."

After a long time passes, I say in a low voice, staring silently at the computer, "I don't want to hurt your feelings, but . . . I think you suck."

"Were you there or were you not?" Bentley asks. "It all depends on who you ask, and even that really doesn't matter anymore."

"Don't . . ." But I forget what I was going to say.

"There's something else you need to see," Bentley says. "But you should take a shower first. Where have you been? You look like shit.

In the shower, breathing erratically, I'm flashing over the two files in the giant list containing my name with the most recent dates.

“VICTOR" Washington DC w/Samuel Johnson (father)

“VICTOR" Washington DC w/Sally Johnson (sister)