Are Snakes Necessary?

by Brian De Palma

  “You should know this about the woman before you take things any further. I don’t think anyone or anything can keep that bitch interested. You know what I gave her for a wedding present? A Jean-Michel Basquiat. Cost me five million dollars. She took one look at it, shook her head, and shoved it in the back of her closet. Right behind her hundred fucking pairs of shoes. Can you imagine how much that hurt me?”

  Elizabeth walks into the room in black jeans, white t-shirt, and a gorgeous coral necklace. Big Prada sunglasses cover her black eye. A purple blotch sneaks past the tortoiseshell frame.

  “Speaking of my painting, where is it?” she says, as if she just happened into any old pool party chitchat. Nick is entirely weirded out. People talk like this? Really? Maybe this wacko scene is something I can use somewhere, he thinks. In a book, in a script.

  The expression on their faces is priceless. What a time to leave his phone in the car.

  “It’s at the casino gallery, babe,” says Bruce. “I didn’t think it got an optimal viewing behind your shoe rack.”

  Elizabeth walks past Bruce and grabs Nick’s hand. “Let’s get out of here.”

  Now Bruce stiffens up. “Where are you going?” he says. “Your boy toy…”

  Bruce turns to Nick. “You’re fired,” he says.

  “…just lost his job,” he continues.

  Nick, unsurprised—this was hardly unexpected—is quick on the trigger. “Fuck you, Bruce, I quit. You can send someone else to Wasilla.”

  He pulls Elizabeth past Bruce, out the door, and into what is now the getaway car.

  Elizabeth wants to know what Bruce said to Nick.

  “He said you were frigid.”

  “Ha,” says Elizabeth. “Do you know why he kept you around? Because he knew you got me hot and bothered. So when I came home from seeing you, he could screw me.”

  CHAPTER 9

  Nick’s Cutlass rolls past the palms on the desert highway. Elizabeth wants to know where he plans to go. “Away,” says Nick.

  Elizabeth puts her hand on his thigh. “Turn around,” she says. “You have no money,” she explains. “And no job. All I’ve got is in that little suitcase.” She nods her head to the pink RIMOWA bag in the back. “And there’s nothing in there we can eat. Go to the Majestic, will you, Nick?”

  The Majestic is pretty much the most over-the-top hotel in Vegas. Which is saying a lot. It’s a little Roman Empire replete with meticulous recreations of the Spanish Steps, the Trevi Fountain and the Coliseum. The elevator men wear gladiator costumes.

  Diamond spared no expense here. No detail is too absurd. Ornate frescoes—in 24-karat frames—dot the ceiling. Diamond’s personal art collection lines the walls and fills the galleries off the Parthenon-themed lobby.

  Nick pulls his Cutlass into Valet Parking. (The valets wear togas.) Elizabeth tells Nick to stay in the car.

  “Wait a minute, babe. They’re not just going to hand over your painting,” he says. She is already halfway out of the car. Elizabeth explains that Mike Masters, Bruce’s head of security, is her buddy and would do anything for her. Plus, he happens to hate Bruce. The shiner ought to clinch things.

  “Don’t you think Bruce alerted these guys? Even if Mike’s on your side, he’s just one guy. No way they’re going to let you waltz out with a five-million-dollar painting.”

  “Just give me five minutes. You’ll see.” Elizabeth flashes her killer smile. It’s the smile that’s driven him mad since he first saw it on the plane to Vegas. But smiles only take you so far. Nick wants to mess around with Elizabeth, in bed. He does not want to mess around with multi-million-dollar paintings or rich guys who punch their wives.

  “Forget it, babe. I’ll get another job. I’ll finish my photo book and sell it for a bundle. We’ll manage.”

  “Like a dream. Those coffee table picture books really sell.” Elizabeth tips her tortoiseshell glasses down her nose and gives Nick a Yeah, right look and gets the rest of the way out of the car.

  She takes Nick’s face in her neatly manicured hands and gives him a long luscious kiss.

  “You. Are. The. Best.” Her lips are still moist from the kiss. “Take another picture of me for your book.”

  Nick slides his iPhone out of his pocket and snaps a picture of Elizabeth throwing him one more kiss. “Make sure you use all the naughty ones, and send a copy to Bruce!”

  “Don’t even joke about it,” Nick says.

  “Don’t forget me,” she calls as she heads towards the lobby door. “Back in five.”

  Elizabeth is not back in five. After twenty minutes Nick is an uncomfortable combination of bored, anxious and hot. He gives Elizabeth another five minutes. Then he parks the car and goes inside the casino. He looks around the lobby, sees Romulus and Remus but no sign of Elizabeth.

  A security guard—please don’t ask what he’s wearing—points the way to Mike Masters’ office.

  No, Mike hasn’t seen Elizabeth Diamond. No, she hasn’t been in the lobby. No, she hasn’t asked for anything. Anything else he can do for Nick? No, no, no.

  There’s a picture of Cleopatra on the ladies room door. Nick opens it up and yells Elizabeth’s name. At the sink, a woman dabs mascara onto her lashes. “Hey! This is the ladies room! Get out!” She’s annoyed and non-responsive when he asks if she’s seen a tall blonde in black jeans. No, she says when he repeats the question, she hasn’t.

  Nick wanders down the hall, turns in at the Diamond gallery by the lobby. A group of high school kids stands in front of a painting—Elizabeth’s Basquiat!—but there’s no sign, there or elsewhere, of Bruce Diamond’s fifth wife.

  Hours later Nick lies on the hood of his car staring, blankly, at the Majestic entrance.

  “Why. Why. Why did I ever let her go in there?” he asks himself helplessly, truly at a loss for what to do next. Why aren’t we home in bed, and where is she? His questions are fruitless. Where the fuck is she?

  CHAPTER 10

  A mahogany box, top-of-the-line casket, lies in fresh-dug earth. Elizabeth, stretched out inside, desperately pounds on the lid, screaming for help.

  But there is nothing nearby other than a vast expanse of Nevada desert.

  Nick’s blood pumps fast, throbs hard against his heart wall.

  He awakens to the feel of a woman’s arm on his shoulder. “Are you all right? Looks like you had a very bad dream.”

  Nick opens his eyes and sees Marsha, his agent’s assistant, leaning forward and looking at him with real concern.

  “Mmm. I’m okay, Marsha. Thanks. I must have dozed off. Wow. Bad dream. Yes. Really bad,” he tells her. “Will it be much longer?” Marsha tells him no, Manny is ready, Nick can go right in.

  Nick pulls himself together and walks into Manny’s office. That might be too dignified a name for the dim room with the tiny window where his 57-year-old agent sits at a rickety desk full of manuscripts and papers. By the look on Manny’s face, Nick can see his book proposal was a bust.

  Nick starts selling. Hard. But Manny isn’t buying.

  “It could be bigger than Mapplethorpe,” says Nick.

  “That’s great,” says Manny, “I wish I was his agent.”

  “What didn’t you like about it?” Nick asks.

  Manny opens Nick’s portfolio and starts thumbing through the pictures.

  “That girl is hot, especially with her clothes off, but it’s called Happy Endings and there isn’t one. Happy or otherwise. It’s just a bunch of girlfriend snapshots. What’s the story? I met her on a plane, screwed her countless times, and she waved goodbye?”

  “What’s supposed to happen?” Nick says. “Let’s see, a couple kissing goodbye? No, wait. They kiss and float off on a raft, into a sunset. Is that what you want?”

  “I want you to get a paying job. There’s no book here. How’s your French?”

  Nick says his French is okay, thanks. Why?

  “A friend of yours. Hildy Akers. She’s doing a picture in Paris. She made a special request for your
services.”

  Hildy in Paris? Last Nick remembered, she’d moved to LA. But that was a few months ago now. Just because Nick’s career is stalled doesn’t mean everyone’s is.

  “I’d be doing what?” he asks.

  Set photographer. Miss Akers is starring in a remake of Vertigo.

  “What a great idea, remake one of the most revered pictures in cinema history.”

  “The story was originally French,” Manny explains. “And they didn’t like the American version.”

  “Who’s ‘they’?”

  “Bernard Pascal.”

  “Never heard of him.”

  “I’m sure he’s never heard of you either.”

  Nick looks down at his shoes, shaking his head.

  Manny wants to know if Nick has anything better to do and asks, “Would a couple of prepaid months in Paris kill you? Steel yourself, Nick. It’s a job.”

  Nick looks defeated. “It’s not photography, Manny.”

  “You want to know what they’re paying for not photography?”

  Nick is on the next flight to Paris.

  What’s that old saying? A payday is a terrible thing to waste? Something like that. Nick figures he can work on Happy Endings in his spare time. You know, in between croissants and café au laits.

  CHAPTER 11

  Haines Johnson wears a red tie. A power tie. But Haines does not need a tie to convey his power. It is evident from his posture that he is at home in the world of dealmakers, power brokers, Sunday golfers.

  There aren’t many African American men (in fact, other than Johnson, there aren’t any) dressed in expensively tailored Italian suits and John Lobb shoes in the banquet room at the Lackawanna Station Hotel in downtown Scranton.

  Johnson would command attention even if he weren’t standing at a podium, in front of a shimmering gold curtain, under a crimson “RE-ELECT LEE ROGERS” sign, in a room full of well-heeled potential campaign donors.

  Tables full of “high net worth individuals” fiddle with rubber chicken while Johnson winds up his introductory remarks.

  “Ladies and Gentleman, I’m honored to welcome the 2016 Parent of the Year, Senator Lee Rogers!”

  Johnson joins the applause that Rogers excites as he (and his high-voltage smile and expensive haircut) move towards the podium.

  Older and wiser than he was during his first campaign for Senate, Rogers has the same general regard for applause. He treats it the way porpoises regard the shiny red balls they balance on their noses. He chases it. He relishes it. He plays it for all it’s worth. Applause is his favorite toy.

  “Please, please,” he tells the crowd, all smiles and twinkling eyes.

  Rogers waves his hands downward. Please, please, he signals the crowd, quiets the applause. “Shh shh shh” issues from the expensive dentistry and high-watt brightness that is his smiling mouth.

  “The first thing I want to tell you about political life is that when a candidate does this—” Rogers waves his hands downward again. “What they really mean is this!” The senator waves his hands up, up, up.

  Rogers elicits laughter, more applause. The ball is back on his nose.

  Enough fun! Rogers puts down the ball and clears his throat and gets ready to launch into what is both a routine and also a rousing stump speech. But first a few introductory remarks of his own.

  “It is a great pleasure to be here today with all of you. This is an extraordinary organization. Kudos and applause for all of you. Thank you for the generosity—and good sense—that motivated your decision to donate the proceeds from this event to Save The Children, a wonderful charity.

  “Now, before I go on, let me say a word about this Best Parent award. I think you have made a mistake. I hate to admit it but I am not the best parent of the year.”

  “Oh no—” A collective groan sails from the crowd on the banquet floor.

  Rogers has the red ball on his nose again. He continues: “But I’m happy to say the best parent of the year is here with me today, and that is my wife, right down here in front, Connie Rogers.”

  The claque of suits seated at Connie’s table rise and applaud. She is lovely, a woman who exudes an evanescent, immediately likable quality. Warmth. Authenticity. It’s hard to say exactly what it is but you get the feeling it would be as easy—and as rewarding—to swap recipes with Connie as it would be to talk about the latest Alice Munro novel or the Matisse exhibit at the Philadelphia Museum.

  Connie looks a little older than her husband but she has a great smile. It’s easy to see why the audience responds when she stands up and blows her husband a kiss, turns and waves to the cheering crowd, and basks in their affection.

  Connie radiates so much warmth that it isn’t immediately obvious how very thin she is. You can tell when she bends down into her seat. (And Mrs. Hines, who is seated beside her, notices that Connie’s hands tremble in the sleeves of her navy blue bouclé dress before she folds them tightly together on her lap.)

  Rogers gives his wife an affectionate wink, clears his throat again (what is that politicians always have in their throats, anyway?) and retakes claim of the audience.

  “By the way, Haines, I was happy to hear you have a modern marriage in which everything is negotiable,” says Rogers. He turns obligingly towards the man who introduced him and sits now at the center table. “I need some advice on that deal. I don’t get much slack at home.”

  Connie casts her husband an adoring glance. She’s tickled— and proud—that her husband is sharing a bit of their private language with a big audience, one she badly hopes will re-elect Lee to the Senate.

  Fanny Cours stands at the back of the room, squinting through a viewfinder. The camcorder in her hand is trained on Senator Rogers. “Slack at home?” she says to herself. “Bad vibes.”

  CHAPTER 12

  Fanny Cours, fresh from Barnard’s orientation week, sips beer at the Railroad Car Bar at the Lackawanna Station Hotel.

  “Wish me luck,” she tells Hart McCoy, her mop-topped, moonfaced, twenty-year-old fellow videographer from Columbia.

  Is there an evolutionary reason boys of a certain age look so much geekier than girls? Fanny, clad in a small black skirt, dark tights and army boots, looks like she lives on a planet near, but alien to, the one where young McCoy lives.

  “Go get him, Fan,” says McCoy. He sips his beer. He could use a hairbrush.

  “I’m telling you,” she says, “he really needs me, Hart.” Her charm isn’t entirely lost on Hart. But he doesn’t register its full measure.

  “And you need him, or you’re going to have sprung for these train tickets for nothing,” says McCoy. Beer foams up in the corner of his mouth.

  Fanny gives McCoy a fist bump and strides through the swinging Railroad Car Bar doors into the Lackawanna. She sees Senator Rogers there, on a plump red velvet sofa, having a drink with his campaign manager, Barton Brock.

  Fanny walks straight towards them. She stops directly in front of them with Hart’s camcorder in hand and waits. The men keep talking, and then finally look up with practiced what-can-we-do-for-you-young-lady? expressions.

  “Senator Rogers?” says Fanny. She sounds a little like a kid who’s interrupted the captains of a particularly complicated dodgeball game on the neighborhood playground.

  “Yes?” says Rogers. He’s used to this.

  “Remember me?” asks Fanny. A vague hint of something awkward passes over her features.

  The senator gives Fanny a perplexed, thoughtful smile. Then his face goes blank and it looks like he’s trying to find something in a dark closet. “I’m sorry,” he says, “I know we’ve met, but can’t recall just where it was.”

  The senator has opened the door. Fanny jumps right through.

  “Yes. Yes. Yes!” she says. “At the San Francisco airport. With my mom. Jenny Cours.”

  Bingo! Rogers’ face lights up. Of course. Jenny’s daughter.

  “What can I do for you, uh—”

  “I’m Fanny. Fanny C
ours. I’m a videographer. And you need me. You really do.”

  The senator is slightly taken aback by Fanny’s directness. Which he vaguely remembers from the airport meeting. But he is not uninterested. People approach him all the time. But he can’t remember a time anyone told him how much he needed them.

  “I do?” he says. “Is that so?” Go on, he seems to add, but does not say aloud. Tell me more. Play me.

  “Yes. You do. You really do.” Fanny stares directly into the senator’s eyes. “You need to show the voters who you really are. Without filters. Or spin doctors. Just the true Lee Rogers.” Fanny holds up the camcorder. “And this can do it. I can do it.”

  Rogers isn’t sure what she’s selling but he genuinely wants to know more.

  “I’d like to be your campaign’s videographer. I can shoot you behind the scenes, off the stump, when you’re talking seriously to friends.” Fanny nods to Barton Brock. “About the future of America and why it matters to voters—and why Senator Lee Rogers’ re-election ought to matter too.”

  Now that he’s pushing fifty, Brock’s tall, muscular build carries the extra weight that comes with campaign trails and months of rubber chicken. But the basic outline of a former running back is still visible under his navy blazer. When he stands, he looms. He has zero interest in hearing more about Fanny or her “videography.”

  (Fanny lost Brock’s interest with the words “without filters.” For Brock is the chief filter for Senator Rogers.)

  “I’m sorry,” he says, sounding about as sorry as a klansman at a lynching, “but we were just talking about where we might go around here to find a decent meal. Look, Miss—” Paying Fanny the pettiest dis imaginable, Brock makes a point of showing he’s already forgotten her name.

  “It’s Cours,” she says, “Fanny Cours. Videographer.”

  “Okay, Miss Coarse, I’m afraid the senator is very busy. Thanks very much for your interest. And good luck to you.”

  Rogers crunches a cocktail peanut in his teeth, chases it with a sip from his glass and tells Brock to hold off and let the lady have her say.