Glamorama

  “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 uncircumcised 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. Let me guess. Bar Vendôme?”

  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)

  22

  After the shower, I’m led downstairs at gunpoint (which Bobby thought was excessive, needless, but not Bruce Rhinebeck) to a room hidden within a room in what I assume is some kind of basement in the house in the 8th or the 16th. This is where the French premier’s son, chained to a chair, is slowly being poisoned. He’s naked, gleaming with sweat, confetti floats on a puddle of blood congealing on the floor beneath him. His chest is almost completely blackened, both nipples are missing, and because of the poison Bruce keeps administering he’s having trouble breathing. Four teeth have been removed and wires are stretching his face apart, some strung through broken lips, causing him to look as if he’s grinning at me. Another wire is inserted into a wound on his stomach, attaching itself to his liver, lashing it with electricity. He keeps fainting, is revived, faints again. He’s fed more poison, then morphine, as Bentley videotapes.

  It smells sweet in the room underground and I’m trying to avert my eyes from a torture saw that sits on top of a Louis Vuitton trunk but there’s really nowhere else to focus and music piped into the room comes from one of two radio stations (NOVA or NRJ). Bruce keeps yelling questions at the actor, in French, from a list of 320, all of them printed out in a thick stack of computer paper, many of them repeated in specific patterns, while Bobby stares levelly from a chair out of camera range, his mouth downturned. The French premier’s son is shown photographs, glares wildly at them. He has no idea how to respond.

  “Ask him 278 through 291 again,” Bobby mutters at one point. “At first in the same sequence. Then repeat them in C sequence.” He directs Bruce to relax the mouth wires, to administer another dose of morphine.

  I’m slouching vacantly against a wall and my leg has fallen asleep because of how long I’ve been stuck in this particular position. Sweat pours down the sides of Bentley’s face as he’s camcording and Bobby’s concerned about camera angles but Bentley assures him Bruce’s head isn’t in the frame. The French premier’s son, momentarily lucid, starts shouting out obscenities. Bobby’s frustration is palpable. Bruce takes a break, wiping his forehead with a Calvin Klein towel, sips a warm, flat Beck’s. Bobby lights a cigarette, motions for Bruce to remove another tooth. Bobby keeps folding his arms, frowning, staring up at the ceiling. “Go back to section four, ask it in B sequence.” Again, nothing happens. The actor doesn’t know anything. He memorized a different script. He’s not delivering the performance that Bobby wants. He was miscast. He was wrong for this part. It’s all over. Bobby instructs Bruce to pour acid on the actor’s hands. Pain floods his face as he gazes at me, crying uselessly, and then his leg is sawed off.

  21

  The actor playing the French premier’s son realizes it doesn’t matter anymore how life should be—he’s past that point now in the underground room in the house in the 8th or the 16th. He was on the Italian Riviera now, driving a Mercedes convertible, he was at a casino in Monte Carlo, he was in Aspen on a sunny patio dotted with snow, and a girl who had just won the silver medal in the Model Olympics is on her tiptoes, kissing him jealously. He was outside a club in New York called Spy and fleeing into a misty night. He was meeting famous black comedians and stumbling out of limousines. He was on a Ferris wheel, talking into a cell phone, a stupefied date next to him, eavesdropping. He was in his pajamas watching his mother sip a martini, and through a window lightning was flickering and he had just finished printing his initials on a picture of a polar bear he’d drawn for her. He was kicking a soccer ball across a vast green field. He was experiencing his father’s hard stare. He lived in a palace. Blackness, its hue, curves toward him, luminous and dancing. It was all so arbitrary: promises, pain, desire, glory, acceptance. There was the sound of camera shutters clicking, there was something collapsing toward him, a hooded figure, and as it fell onto him it looked up and he saw the head of a monster with the face of a fly.

  20

  We’re at a dinner party in an apartment on Rue Paul Valéry between Avenue Foch and Avenue Victor Hugo and it’s all rather subdued since a small percentage of the invited guests were blown up in the Ritz yesterday. For comfort people went shopping, which is understandable even if they bought things a little too enthusiastically. Tonight it’s just wildflowers and white lilies, just W’s Paris bureau chief, Donna Karan, Aerin Lauder, Inès de la Fressange and Christian Louboutin, who thinks I snubbed him and maybe I did but maybe I’m past the point of caring. Just Annette Bening and Michael Stipe in a tomato-red wig. Just Tammy on heroin, serene and glassy-eyed, her lips swollen from collagen injections, beeswax balm spread over her mouth, gliding through the party, stopping to listen to Kate Winslet, to Jean Reno, to Polly Walker, to Jacques Grange. Just the smell of shit, floating, its fumes spreading everywhere. Just another conversation with a chic sadist obsessed with origami. Just another armless man waving a stump and whispering excitedly, “Natasha’s coming!” Just people tan and back from the Ariel Sands Beach Club in Bermuda, some of them looking reskinned. Just me, making connections based on fear, experiencing vertigo, drinking a Woo-Woo.

  Jamie walks over to me after Bobby’s cell phone rings and he exits the room, puffing suavely on a cigar gripped in the hand holding the phone, the other hand held up to his ear to block the din of the party.

  “He’s certainly in hair heaven,” Jamie says, pointing out Dominique Sirop. Jamie’s looking svelte in a teensy skirt and a pair of $1,500 shoes, nibbling an Italian cookie. “You’re looking good tonight.”

  “The better you look,” I murmur, “the more you see.”

  “I’ll remember that.”

  “No you won’t. But for now I’ll believe you.”

  “I’m serious.” She waves a fly away from her face. “You’re looking very spiffy. You have the knack.”

  “What do you want?” I ask, recoiling from her presence.

  Behind her Bobby walks quickly back into the room. He grimly holds hands with our hostess, she starts nodding sympathetically at whatever lie he’s spinning and she’s already a little upset that people in the lobby are dancing but she’s being brave and then Bobby spots Jamie and starts moving through the crowd toward
us though there are a lot of people to greet and say goodbye to.

  “That’s a loaded question,” Jamie says glacially.

  “Do you know how many people died at the Ritz yesterday?”

  I ask.

  “I didn’t keep track,” she says, and then, “Don’t be so corny.”

  “That was Bertrand,” Bobby says to no one in particular. “I’ve gotta split.”

  “You look freaked,” Jamie says slowly. “What happened?”

  “I’ll tell you later, back at the house,” he says, taking her champagne glass, drinking half.

  “Why are you leaving, Bobby?” Jamie asks carefully. “Where are you going?”

  “I guess my social life is much busier than yours,” Bobby says, brushing her off.

  “You brute.” She grins. “You savage.”

  “Just stay for the dinner,” Bobby says, checking his watch. “Then come back to the house. I’ll be there by eleven.”

  Bobby kisses Jamie hard on the mouth and tries to act casual but something’s wrong and he can barely control his panic. I try not to stare. He notices.

  “Stop gawking,” he says irritably. “I’ll be back at the house by eleven. Maybe sooner.”

  On his way out Bobby stops behind Tammy who’s swaying from side to side, listening rapturously to a drug dealer called the Kaiser, and Bobby motions from across the room to Jamie, mouthing, Watch her. Jamie nods.

  “Is Bobby gone?” Jamie’s asking.

  “You’re in fine form tonight,” I spit out, glaring. “Do you know how many people died at the Ritz yesterday?”

  “Victor, please,” she says genuinely while trying to smile, in case anyone’s watching. But the French film crew is surrounding a cluster of mourners laughing in the corner of the cavernous living room. Blenders are whirring at a bar, there’s a fire raging in the fireplace, cell phones keep being answered.

  “They killed the French premier’s son yesterday too,” I say calmly, for emphasis. “They cut off his leg. I watched him die. How can you wear that dress?” I ask, my face twisted with loathing.

  “Is Bobby gone?” she asks again. “Just tell me if he’s left yet.”

  “Yes,” I say disgustedly. “He left.”

  Visibly, she relaxes. “I have to tell you something, Victor,” she says, gazing over my shoulder, then glancing sideways. “What?” I ask. “You’re all grown up now?”

  “No, not that,” she says patiently. “You and I—we can’t see each other anymore.”

  “Oh really?” I’m glancing around the room. “Why not?”

  “It’s too dangerous.”

  “Is it?” I ask, smirking. “What a cliché.”

  “I’m serious.”

  “I don’t want to talk to you anymore.”

  “I think this whole thing has gotten out of hand,” Jamie says.

  I start giggling uncontrollably until a sudden spasm of fear causes my eyes to water, my face to contort. “That’s … all?” I cough, wiping my eyes, sniffling. “Just … out of hand?” My voice sounds high and girlish.

  “Victor—”

  “You are not playing by the rules,” I say, my chest tightening. “You are not following the script.”

  “There are no rules, Victor,” she says. “What rules? That’s all nonsense.”

  She pauses. “It’s too dangerous,” she says again.

  “I’m feeling a lack of progress,” I’m saying. “I think we’re all living in a box.”

  “I assume you understand more about Bobby now,” she says. “It’s easier, isn’t it? It’s easier to gauge the fear factor now, isn’t it?”

  A long pause. “I suppose,” I say, without looking at her.

  “But you’ll still be in my … periphery.”

  “I suppose,” I say again. “How reassuring.”

  “You also need to stay away from Bertrand Ripleis.”

  “Why?” I’m barely listening.

  “He hates you.”

  “I wondered why he was always snarling at me.”

  “I’m serious,” she says, almost pleadingly. “He still holds a grudge,” she says, trying to smile as she waves to someone. “From Camden.”

  “About what?” I ask, irritation and fear laced together.

  “He was in love with Lauren Hynde,” she says. “He thinks you treated her shittily.” A pause. “This is on the record.” Another pause. “Be careful.”

  “Is this a joke or like some kind of French thing?”

  “Just stay away from him,” she warns. “Don’t provoke.”

  “How do you know this?”

  “We’re … incommunicado.” She shrugs.

  A pause. “What’s the safety factor?” I ask.

  “As long as you stay away from him?”

  I nod.

  A tear, one tiny drop, slips down her cheek, changes its mind and evaporates, while she tries to smile.

  “So-so,” she whispers.

  Finally I say, “I’m leaving.”

  “Victor,” Jamie says, touching my arm before I turn away.

  “What?” I groan. “I’m leaving. I’m tired.”

  “Victor, wait,” she says.

  I stand there.

  “In the computer,” she says, breathing in. “In the computer. At the house. There’s a file.” She pauses, nods at a guest. “The file is called ‘Wings.’” Pause. As she turns away, she says, “You need to see it.”

  “Why do I need to see it?” I ask. “I don’t care anymore.”

  “Victor,” she starts. “I … think I … knew that girl you met on the QE2 …. ” Jamie swallows, doesn’t know where to look, tries to compose herself, barely succeeds. “The girl who disappeared from the QE2 …”

  I just stare at her blankly.

  When Jamie grasps my reaction—its hatefulness—she just nods to herself, muttering, “Forget it, forget it.”

  “I’m leaving.” I’m walking away as it starts raining confetti.

  Because of how the apartment is lit, extras have to be careful not to trip over electric cables or the dolly tracks that line the center of the living room, and in the lobby the first AD from the French film crew hands me tomorrow’s call sheet and Russell—the Christian Bale guy—is wearing little round sunglasses, smoking a joint, comparing shoe sizes with Dermot Mulroney, but then I realize that they’re both on separate cell phones and not talking to each other and Russell pretends to recognize me and “drunkenly” shouts, “Hey, Victor!”

  I pretend to smile. I reach out to shake his hand.

  “Hey, come on, dude,” he says, brushing the hand away. “We haven’t seen each other in months.” He hugs me tightly, dropping something in my jacket pocket. “How’s the party?” he asks, stepping back, offering me the joint. I shake my head.

  “Oh, it’s great, it’s cool,” I’m saying, chewing my lips. “It’s very cool.” I start walking away. “Bye-bye.”

  “Great,” Russell says, slapping my back, returning to his conversation on the cell phone as Dermot Mulroney opens a bottle of champagne gripped between his knees.

  In the cab heading back to the house in the 8th or the 16th I find a card Russell slipped in my pocket.

  A time. Tomorrow. An address. A corner I should stop at. Directions to that corner. Suggestions on how to behave. All of this in tiny print that I’m squinting at in the back of the cab until I’m nauseous. I lean my head against the window. The cab swerves around a minor traffic accident, passing patrolmen carrying submachine guns patiently strolling the streets. My back aches. Impatiently I start wiping makeup applied earlier off my face with a cocktail napkin.

  At the house, after paying the cab fare.

  I press the code to deactivate the alarm. The door clicks open.

  I tumble through the courtyard.

  The living room is empty—just the furniture pushed aside earlier this afternoon by the French film crew.

  Without taking off my overcoat I move over to the computer. It’s already on. I tap a
key. I enter a command.

  I type in WINGS.

  A pause. The screen flashes.

  WINGS ASSGN# 3764 appears.

  Letters start appearing. A graph starts unfolding.

  NOV 15

  BAND ON THE RUN

  Beneath that: 1985 And then: 511

  I scroll down to another page. A map appears on the screen: a highway, a route. It leads to Charles de Gaulle airport. Below this the Trans World Airlines logo appears.

  TWA.

  Nothing else.

  I start tapping keys so I can print out the file. Two pages.

  Nothing happens. I’m breathing heavily, flushed with adrenaline.

  Then I hear four beeps in quick succession.

  Someone is entering the courtyard.

  I realize the printer’s not switched on. When I switch it on, it makes a soft noise, then starts humming.

  I press another key: a flash.

  Voices from outside. Bobby, Bentley.

  The WINGS file slowly prints out.

  Keys are being entered into the various locks on the front door.

  The WINGS, slightly overlapping it.

  In the foyer, the door opens: footsteps, voices.

  I pull the two pages out of the printer, shoving them inside my jacket, then flick off the computer and the printer. I lunge toward a chair.

  But I’m realizing that the computer was on when I came in.

  I fall toward the computer, flicking it back on, and lunge again toward the chair.

  Bobby and Bentley walk into the living room, followed by members of the French film crew, including the director and the cameraman.

  My head rests on my knees and I’m breathing hard.

  A voice—I’m not sure which one—asks, “What are you doing here?”

  I don’t say anything. It’s winter in here.

  “Victor?” Bobby’s asking, carefully. “What are you doing here?”

  “I felt sick,” I say, gasping, looking up, squinting. “I don’t feel well.” A pause. “I ran out of Xanax.”

  Bentley glances at Bobby and, while walking by me, mumbles disinterestedly, “Tough shit.”