Glamorama (67 page)

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.