Empire of Lies

by Andrew Klavan

  I began to try to think of ways to create the diversion I needed. Nothing came to me. My thoughts spun like tires in the mud. If I started shouting—"Fire!"—"Bomb!"—the cops would come right for me. I'd be the first one they carried off. Even if I managed to start a panic, I'd be trampled in the rush.

  I stood there—stood there—the time passing, my heart beating, my thoughts going round and round.

  Then—what happened next—well, it was simply unbelievable.

  No one ever reported it—not in context, anyway—not as a relevant part of the events of that night. The TV news never mentioned it. Neither did any of the major papers. I think it was just as Patrick Piersall said, just as he had told me in the Ale House. What happened next didn't fit the story. It was too ridiculous, too undignified, completely out of keeping with the general tone of the terror and tragedy that followed.

  But it's the truth. So I tell it here.

  The theater was now nearly full, the show about ready to begin. There were only two more limousines yet to arrive. These—the most important limousines of all—had been saved for last.

  As I stood there—racking my brains, helpless, fearful, expecting the explosion at every minute—the first of the cars pulled into the heightened silver reality at the head of the red carpet in front of me. The gold-and-scarlet doorman plucked open the back door. Out into the light stepped Juliette Lovesey.

  She leapt instantly into vital relief, radiating presence and charisma. Even I—even at that desperate moment—started and stared at her, struck to have her appear in person right there in front of me like that. She was much smaller than she looked on screen, just a little slip of a thing, really, but as perfectly proportioned as a doll. The swell of her breasts, the line of her short white dress, the liquid curves of her tan legs all had the added charm of a thing in miniature. So, too, the aching fragility and vulnerability of her face, framed in the cascades of shining brown hair, were all the more powerful when you could see for yourself what a tiny and delicate creature in fact she was.

  As she stepped gracefully out of the car onto the carpet, there was a collective surging sigh from the crowd. It was an amazing sound, deep, heartfelt, passionate beyond anything I could describe: a collective moan of admiration and affection and sympathy. They loved her. You could feel it in the very air: They loved her as if she were their own.

  I understood the phenomenon at once. They had all seen the interview. That interview Juliette had done with Sally last night. The announcement she had made: that she was carrying Todd Bingham's baby, that she was going to keep the child even though Bingham had left her for Angelica Eden. Everyone here had seen it, just as I had. In the moment that one tear had fallen from Juliette's lashes onto her cheek, she had changed in the public mind. She had gone from being a spoiled, wealthy, irresponsible narcissist to a wronged woman, ill used and left behind. She had become, that is to say, something the women in the crowd could understand, could identify with, something the men could sympathize with and yearn to protect. She had become a sparkling version of themselves. And with that, she had won them over. They loved her. Loved her.

  Juliette felt this. I could see she did. She seemed to grow in stature where she stood, transported into a golden awareness of her own nobility. She responded to the people with a shy, sweet wave, a gesture both patient and courageous. Then she walked with modestly mincing steps down the carpeted path to where Sally waited to receive her.

  There followed a quick coda to their TV interview. Sally wore the same girlfriend expression of tender concern. "How are you feeling, Juliette?" she asked. The words were freighted with meaning.

  Juliette smiled brightly, bravely. "I'm doing great, Sally. It's great to be here and I'm really looking forward to enjoying this great ... great moment in the history of movies."

  The volcanic roar erupted from the heart of the crowd. They cheered. They whooped and applauded. They loved her: her courage; her dignity. She was perfect. She waved to them again. Sally reached out and gave the actress's hand a gentle, encouraging squeeze: Never surrender. Then an usher guided Juliette to the theater doors—and she was gone, the crowd still applauding.

  I stood watching after her, frantic, wanting to cry out, wanting to warn her, warn everyone, trying to think, think, think of what I could do to stop the coming massacre.

  Then the last limousine drew into the glow around the red carpet.

  It was Angelica, of course—Angelica Eden with her new lover, Todd Bingham. I read later in one of the celebrity blogs that the two of them had been watching Juliette's arrival on a TV in the car. They had seen what had happened, the outpouring of love and support from the audience. According to the blog—and I guess they'd interviewed the limo's driver—Angelica let out a snarling blue streak of curses. "That bitch! That fucking bitch! That fucking shit-faced bitch!" Because, of course, if the crowd loved Juliette, if they sympathized with her as the wronged woman, they were going to hate Angelica as the vixen who'd stolen her man, who'd left her child fatherless and caused that crystal tear to go spilling down her cheek on TV last night. There was no telling how many charity appearances Angelica would have to make, how many African orphans she'd have to adopt to win back the sympathy of the moviegoing audience. According to the blog, Angelica started hissing at Todd as if she were a snake. She said she would obliterate Juliette from the people's minds. She would eradicate the news coverage of her triumphant arrival.

  "What are you doing? What are you doing?" Todd is said to have squealed at her.

  "If nothing else," Angelica Eden announced to him, "I'm not gonna let that fucking bitch upstage me!"

  The car pulled to a stop before the carpet. The liveried doorman opened the door. Todd fairly leapt out into the silver incandescence—eager, maybe, to get away from his lover's tantrum. Like Juliette, he was also smaller in real life than he looked on television, even more delicate and insubstantial, though his blond, handsome head was large, almost weirdly oversized, which apparently made it look good on film. He smoothed down the front of his jacket with one hand, waved to the crowd with the other.

  Then Angelica began to emerge from within the limousine—and the scene around me became a riot, descending almost instantly into a kind of mass madness.

  The door handle in his hand, the doorman was standing off to one side to allow Angelica to exit. The car was wide open to the dozens of crouching paparazzi who lapped like surf just below its threshold. Angelica was wearing a very short dress, a dress as black as Juliette's dress was white. She had to turn her lower body forward to slide over the seat toward the door as the photographers snapped their pictures and the TV cameras moved in behind them to take video over their heads. Then Angelica had to step down from the car onto the carpet in front of them and then rise up off the limousine's low seat. As hard as she may have tried, it would've been very difficult for her to keep her knees together throughout the entire process. In any case, she didn't manage it.

  And suddenly, the photographers' eagerness was transformed into a mindless, rabid, eye-rolling frenzy.

  There were gasps from the crowd. Grunts and little cries. I heard a woman say in a strangled voice, "No panties! No panties!" I heard a man growl through his teeth like an animal, "Up-skirt!" Everybody—onlookers, reporters, technicians, security men, police—everyone within view of Angelica's suddenly exposed pudendum—even those only within earshot of the rumors of its exposure—swung in its direction with questing eyes, a single heaving movement like the ocean reaching for the moon.

  As I say, it never made the news. And yes, it wasn't a very dignified or serious moment. It was ridiculous and completely out of keeping with the tone of what finally happened, with what was about to happen to those thousands of people, all those people. But it's the truth. And for myself, thinking back on it—I don't know—maybe it was apt, even emblematic in some way. I mean, if God Creating Adam on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel represents our culture at its beginning, maybe a paparazzi upskirt of a
starlet's quim is the central image of that culture now.

  In any case, it gave me—so to speak—the opening I needed.

  The incident lasted a second—one second. During that second, the rapid-fire buzz and snap of the cameras melded into a single chittering hum. A chorus of shocked murmurs rose to a cacophony of ecstatic shouts and cries. All eyes turned in one direction. My eyes turned. And, as they turned, they passed over the police officers who had been guarding the rope at the entrance to the narrow courtyard.

  I saw them in motion. I saw them each take a step—then another—away from their posts—toward the red carpet, toward the black car, each extending his neck, each poking out his head, each seeking to steal a look between Angelica Eden's legs.

  For one instant, the rope behind them stood unguarded, the path into the courtyard, the path to the theater's back door, was unmanned.

  Some part of my brain was still pulling my eyes toward the limo, toward Angelica, but I fought against it. I knew I had only an instant. I started moving. I squirmed between two barricades. As the policemen craned their necks to get a look through the limousine door, I strode boldly, quickly behind them. I ducked under the rope. I ducked out of the wonderful silver light and entered the shadows of the narrow courtyard. I stood straight and started running hell-for-leather toward the door.

  Three seconds. Three seconds of pulse and motion, every moment exposed. The cops at the courtyard's far end had their backs turned, but could glance over their shoulders and spot me at any time. The cops behind me were sure to return to their posts in the next instant. And wouldn't one of the people in the crowd have seen me break out? Wouldn't one of them point his finger and alert the law? Three seconds, my feet slapping the bricks, my breath in my ears, my heart hammering. Then my hand was on the cold door handle, my thumb was on the latch, my heart was turning to ice as I thought: Don't let it be locked, don't let it be locked!

  It was not locked. I pressed the latch and pushed. There was a snap—I felt it jolting through me. I felt the latch give beneath my thumb. The door swung open. I tumbled through it.

  I was inside the New Coliseum.

  Darkness Visible

  I crouched there motionless. I was stunned. My mind was blank. Everything had changed so fast, so unexpectedly. One moment, the thing was impossible, the next it was done. I was completely taken by surprise. I could not believe I was actually in the building.

  For another second, I hunkered, breathless, gaping at the wall as the door to the outside slowly swung shut behind me. I was in a long, dark, unadorned corridor. There were men in workclothes on either side of me. An efficient-looking young woman in jeans and a sweatshirt was carrying a clipboard somewhere. A security guard in a blue uniform scanned the area, a two-way microphone clipped to his shoulder. There was also a plainclothes security man at the far end of the hall.

  For that one instant, as I crouched near the door, in a daze, all of them were occupied. None of them was looking my way. Even in my startled state, I realized I must have no more than a fingersnap's worth of time before one of them noticed me and raised the alarm.

  I had to get going. I had to get out of sight.

  My eyes shifted quickly, this way, that. I saw another door, about two long steps to my left. I had no choice. Another moment, I'd be caught. I stood up and moved to the door. I pulled it open. I went in.

  I was just in time. Even as I drew the door closed again, I heard a low, crackling voice come over the uniformed guard's two-way.

  "One-oh-one, you report any intruders at that location?"

  I heard the guard answer out in the corridor, probably not more than ten yards away from me, "No, everything's clear here."

  The crackling radio voice: "Okay, we had a civilian sixty-three report."

  "Nope, it's four, it's good."

  "Roger."

  I heard the guard's footsteps stroll past, just on the other side of the door from me. I heard him push the door open—the door to the courtyard outside. I guess he wanted to make sure no one was lurking out there. I stood where I was, breathing, listening, waiting—wondering if he might check behind this door next. I turned around to get a better look at where I was, where I might hide.

  That's when I saw I was trapped.

  I was in a closet, a long storage closet. There was all sorts of junk in here: brooms, mops, buckets, ladders, coats and jackets hanging from a rod, a shelf full of paper towels and toilet paper, another shelf with boxes of stationery and markers, and so on. A bright light shone down on all of it from the high ceiling. There were no shadows to sink into. There was only the one door, the one way in and out.

  I held my breath. I leaned my ear toward the door. I listened over the beating of my heart. But the guard didn't try to come in. I heard his footsteps moving on now. I heard his voice speaking again farther along the corridor—speaking to another security guy.

  "NYPD outside had a citizen's report of someone in the courtyard. You see anything?"

  "Nah. I been right here. I'd've noticed anyone come in."

  "Me, too."

  I let out a long sigh of relief.

  Then the closet doorknob turned and the door came open.

  I was standing so close to it, trying so hard to hear through it, that it nearly smacked me in the side of the face. But it opened only a crack. Then it stopped—a centimeter from my jaw.

  A woman's voice called from the corridor. "House is full, Maryanne. Five minutes to lights out."

  "Okay." Maryanne's voice came from the other side of the door, inches from me. "I'll be right there. I just gotta get something."

  The door came open the rest of the way. But by then, I was already gone. I'd taken two gigantic, panicked strides down the length of the closet and slipped behind the last coat hanging on the rods. It was a long trenchcoat. It covered me to my knees. Still, it wasn't much of a hiding place. You only had to look down to see me from my shins to my shoes. And if you came close enough, I'd be visible plain as day, my back pressed into the corner, my face rigid with fear.

  Maryanne stepped into the closet and shut the door behind her. Peeking through the coat hangers, I could see her. She was a typical backstage worker, slovenly, rad, short-chopped black hair and crystal blue eyes in a pudgy, pixie face, an enormous shapeless sweatshirt and ridiculous striped tights ending around her calves. The kind of glamourless girl the glamour-puss actresses like to have around because they don't steal the limelight. Just a misfit from the Midwest, you know, calling her divorced mom back home every other day to tell her about her cool job in the big city.

  I wondered if I was going to have to knock her out.

  I couldn't think of what else to do if she saw me. I wasn't expert enough to deck her with a punch, but I could probably choke her until she lost consciousness. Find something to tie her up with. Gag her so I'd have time to get away.

  I huddled behind the trench coat. I closed my eyes. I prayed she would leave the closet before I was forced to hurt her. Rashid flashed into my mind again. Rashid writhing and sobbing behind his gag after I'd shattered his second kneecap. Thank God he'd started talking then. Thank God he'd confessed the whole thing—the whole plan, years in the making, devised way back during the New Coliseum's construction, run with the help and permission of terror masters in the Middle East. Thank God he'd sobbed out the whole story before I had to start crushing his balls.

  But it was enough. Enough to show me to myself. Enough, I said to God. Don't make me hurt the girl, too.

  My fingers curled at my side as if they were already around her throat. Images flashed unbidden in my mind, images from long ago of other women in my harsh hands. I shook them away. My heart strained up to Heaven, praying I would not have to do this thing.

  I opened my eyes, peeked through the hangers. Maryanne was coming forward, coming right toward me. Now she was two feet away, standing beside the coats dangling in front of the trench coat from the same wooden rod. She was so close, I could smell her perfume, tart a
nd coy. I could see strands of her black hair shining in the closet light. Sweat coursed down my forehead, over my cheeks.

  She began sorting through the coats. She was searching for one in particular. Each one she pushed aside brought her closer to me, closer and closer. I could hear her breathing. I could feel the heat of her skin.

  Father in Heaven, I prayed. No more. No more.

  Maryanne pushed another coat aside. Now she was only two coats away. Her perfume surrounded me. Looking through the hangers, I could see a crescent of the white skin of her cheek. Another moment, another coat, and we would be face to face and I would have to do it.

  But now she paused. I felt a coat moving as she handled it. She must have stuck her hand into a pocket because I felt the cloth-softened shape of her fingers graze my hip. I heard a rattling noise. Pills in a bottle. She was taking a pill bottle out of a coat pocket.

  At that moment, the lights went out. Startled, I stiffened, held my breath. Then they came on again—then went out and came on. It was a warning signal. The show was about to start.

  Maryanne pulled back from the coats and for a moment her full profile was clear to me, inches from my nose. I could've leaned forward and kissed her cheek with no effort at all. But she was already turning away, turning to the door. I heard the pill bottle rattle again as she carried it off. I heard her footsteps. The scent of her perfume grew fainter around me.