Glamorama (76 page)

Outside the Virgin megastore a limousine is waiting, an immense carnival surrounds us, bouncers fend off people way too hopeful of getting in. Tormented, I throw up twice beside the limo while Bobby lights a cigar.

“Time to depart, Victor,” Bentley says grimly. “Get your ass up.”

“And do what?” I croak. “Stick it in your face?”

“Promises, promises,” Bentley sighs, mock-wearily. “Just get the fuck up. That’s a boy.”

“You’re just making noise,” I say, standing up.

On the sidewalk Bertrand stares at me and I’m staring back hatefully and then I break away from Bentley and Bobby and rush toward him, my fist raised high above my head, but Bobby ends up holding me back. Bertrand just smiles smugly, within inches of my reach. Slouching away, Bertrand curses in French, something I can’t understand.

15

In the limousine moving back to the house I’m sitting between Bentley and Bobby.

“Chloe Byrnes,” Bobby’s saying. “How … intriguing.”

My head is resting on my knees and I’m swallowing back dry heaves, breathing deeply.

“I like Chloe Byrnes,” Bobby says. “She’s not afraid to embrace her sensuality,” he murmurs. “Amazing body.” Pause. “Quite … distracting.” He laughs darkly.

“If you ever touch her, Bobby, I swear to god I will fucking kill you, I swear to god,” I say, enunciating each word.

“Ooh, how confrontational,” Bentley giggles.

“Shut up, you faggot,” I mutter.

“That’s the pot calling the kettle black,” Bentley says. “Or so I hear.” Bobby starts giggling too. “Boys, boys.”

“Did you hear me, Bobby?” I ask.

Bobby keeps giggling and then, in a very tight voice, squeezing my thigh, says, “You have neither the clout nor the experience to make a threat like that, Victor.”

14

In my bedroom at the house in the 8th or the 16th, sleeplessness is interrupted by the occasional unbearable dream—chased by raptors down hotel corridors, the word “beyond” appearing repeatedly, something wet keeps flying across the upper corner of the frame, making slapping noises, I’m always brushing my hair, trying to find the most accurate way possible to create a part, and I’m canceling dream appointments, keeping things loose, tumbling down steep flights of stairs that are too narrow to navigate and I’m always over water and everyone I run across has a face resembling mine. Waking up, I realize:
you’re just someone waiting casually in the dark for a rustling outside your door and there’s a shadow in the hall.

I open the door. The director from the French film crew is waiting. He seems nervous. He’s holding a videotape, expectantly. He’s wearing an expensive parka.

Without being invited in, he slips past me, closes the door. Then he locks it.

“What do you want?” I ask, moving back to the bed.

“I know we haven’t talked much during the shoot, Victor,” he starts apologetically, without the accent I expected.

“I have nothing to say to you,” I mutter.

“And I understand,” he says. “In fact I think I understand why even more now.”

“That’s okay because I don’t care, I have my own problems,” I say, and then, yawning, “What time is it?”

“It’s light out,” he offers.

I reach over to the nightstand and swallow two Xanax. I tip a bottle of Evian to my mouth. I stare at the director hatefully.

“What’s that?” I ask, motioning to the tape in his hand. “Dailies?”

“Not exactly,” he says.

I realize something. “Does Bobby know you’re here?”

He looks away apprehensively.

“I think you should leave,” I’m saying. “If Bobby doesn’t know you’re here I think you should leave.”

“Victor,” the director says. “I’ve debated showing you this.” He pauses briefly. He decides something and shuffles toward a large-screen TV that’s ensconced in a white-oak armoire across from the bed I’m shivering in. “But in light of what’s about to happen, I think it’s probably imperative that you view this.”

“Hey, hey, wait,” I’m saying. “No, please, don’t—”

“I really think you should see this, Victor.”

“Why?” I’m pleading, afraid. “Why?”

“This isn’t for you,” he says. “This is for someone else’s benefit.”

He blows confetti off the tape before slipping it into the VCR below the TV. “We think that Bobby Hughes is getting out of hand.”

I’m wrapping myself in a comforter, freezing, steam pouring from my mouth because of how cold it is in the house.

“I think things need to be reduced for you,” the director says. “In order for you to … see things clearly.” He pauses, checks something on the VCR’s console. “Otherwise we’ll be shooting this all year.”

“I don’t think I have the energy to watch this.”

“It’s short,” the director says. “You still have some semblance of an attention span left. I checked.”

“But I might get confused,” I say, pleading. “I might get thrown off—”

“Thrown off
what
?” the director snaps. “You’re not even
on
anything to get thrown off of.”

He presses Play on the console. I motion for him to sit next to me on the bed because I’m getting so tense I need to hold his hand even though he’s wearing leather gloves, and he lets me.

Blackness on the screen blooms into random footage of Bobby.

Bobby on Boulevard du Montparnasse. Bobby sitting in La Coupole. Bobby heading down the Champs Élysées. Bobby taking notes while waiting for the Vivienne Westwood show to begin, sitting in a giant room in the basement of the Louvre. Bobby crossing Rue de Rivoli. Bobby crossing Quai des Celestins. He’s turning down Rue de l’Hôtel-de-Ville. He enters the métro station at Pont Marie. He’s on a train, grabbing an overhead handrail as the train slowly enters the Sully-Morland station. A shot of Bobby on an Air Inter flight from Paris to Marseilles, reading a copy of
Le Figaro
. Bobby’s picking up a rental car at the Provence airport.

“What are these? Highlights?” I’m asking, relaxing a little.

“Shh. Just watch,” the director says.

“Bobby doesn’t know you’re showing me this,” I ask again. “Does he?”

Bobby gets off a plane that just landed at Le Bourget airport.

Bobby walks along the Place des Voyages and into a restaurant called Benoît.

Bobby in the tunnel on the Place de l’Alma, near its east end, crouching by the concrete divider that separates the eastbound and westbound lanes.

Suddenly a scene I don’t remember shooting. Café Flore. It’s only me in the shot and I’m tan, wearing white, my hair slicked back, and I’m looking for a waitress.

“This cappuccino sucks, dude,” I’m muttering. “Where’s the froth?” A boom mike is visible above my head.

A voice—Bobby’s—says, “We’re not here for the cappuccino, Victor.”

“Maybe you’re not, baby, but I want some froth.”

A shot of a line of schoolgirls singing as they walk along Rue Saint-Honoré.

Then static.

And then a close-up: airplane tickets to Tel Aviv. Bobby’s outside Dschungel, a club in Berlin, calling a girl a slut. A famous American football player is idling behind him.

Bobby in front of a Jewish synagogue in Istanbul. Bobby wearing a skullcap. Bobby praying in Hebrew. Bobby at the Saudi embassy in Bangkok.

Bobby drifting out of a bungalow in Tripoli, walking past a discarded radio antenna, an expensive Nikon camera swinging around his neck. A group of men follow him, wearing head scarves, holding Samsonite briefcases.

Someone singing a love song in Arabic plays over the sound track.

Bobby hops into a battered Mercedes 450SEL. A Toyota bus with bulletproof windows trails the Mercedes as it heads into a dark, vast desert.

The camera pans to a bulldozer scooping out a giant pit.

More static.

And then a black Citroën heads down Route Nationale through southern Normandy outside a farm village called Male.

The handheld camera shakes as it follows Bobby walking through what looks like a Ralph Lauren advertisement—an intensely green landscape, a gray overcast sky—and Bobby’s so well-groomed it’s astonishing; he’s wearing a black wool blazer, a black cashmere turtleneck, Gucci boots, his hair’s impeccable, he’s holding a large bottle of Evian water. He’s following a path.

Two golden retrievers bound into the frame, greeting Bobby as he nears what looks like a converted barn. He’s passing under a proscenium. He’s passing a catering truck. The barn is made of limestone and chicly shaped logs. As he approaches the front door Bobby turns his head toward the camera and grins, saying something the viewer
can’t hear while pointing at an antique bird feeder that hangs next to the front door of the converted barn.

Bobby knocks on that door. He leans down to pet the dogs. The dogs are photogenic, relaxed. Suddenly both their heads snap up and, bounding out of frame, they immediately run to whoever’s behind the camera.

The door opens. A figure, mostly obscure in the shadowy doorway, shakes Bobby’s hand. The figure notices the camera, gestures toward it, annoyed. The figure motions Bobby inside.

And then F. Fred Palakon, his face clearly visible, looks outside before closing the door.

The director leans over, letting go of my hand, and rewinds the tape to the moment F. Fred Palakon’s face emerges from the shadows of the converted barn.

Once again F. Fred Palakon shakes Bobby’s hand.

Once again F. Fred Palakon gestures toward the camera.

The director presses Pause on the VCR’s console, freezing on Palakon’s face the instant Palakon notices the camera, and right now Palakon’s staring into the bedroom I’m occupying in the house in either the 8th or the 16th.

“I know this isn’t exactly reassuring,” the director says.

I’m cowering on the other side of the bed, delusional, backed up against the wall, floundering.

“Just consider what it means,” he says. “Reflect.”

I start crying. “I’m gonna die, I’m gonna die, they’re gonna kill me—”

“Victor—”

“No, no, no,” I’m groaning, thrashing around on the bed.

“At any rate,” the director says, ejecting the tape from the VCR, “this is not a fantasy.”

I lie on the bed, finally motionless, my hands over my face.