Rake

by Scott Phillips

  “Yes, you’re right,” Marie-Laure said. “It’s too soon to know anything, isn’t it?”

  “I feel like a rat even talking about it so soon after.”

  “Don’t be an asshole,” she said. “Want to see me tonight?”

  “I don’t know. I didn’t get much sleep last night, I was thinking I might stay in.”

  “Don’t lie to me. Look, I’m married, right? I’m spoken for. I get it, you fuck other women, and I really don’t care. But don’t lie to me, okay? That pisses me off.”

  The irritation in her voice turned me on. There’s nothing like sex tinged with a little hostility, so I agreed to meet her at eight o’clock for a drink and dinner.

  •••

  I wandered down to Fred’s bookstore in search of something diverting, not really knowing whether Fred would be there or not. He was, and given the state he was in, I was glad he hadn’t called.

  “The police were here,” he said.

  “Okay. What did you tell them?”

  “Nothing. They wanted to know why I hadn’t been in to work all week.”

  I hadn’t even considered Fred’s day job when I assigned him to guard duty, and I wondered now whether I shouldn’t reimburse him for his lost wages. Probably not, since that would likely complicate any future case that might be made against us, not to mention the movie deal. “What did you say?”

  “I said I was working on the script. Which was true. They wanted to see it.”

  “Did you let them?”

  “I told them I’d have to ask you first.”

  “Good for you. Well, it’s all right with me if they want to have a look. Any idea how they got the idea to talk to you?”

  “From Marie-Laure. They wanted to know about anybody associated with this film project.”

  “Hmm. I wonder why that is.”

  Fred seemed genuinely distressed by my failure to add things up. His voice went up an octave and his eyes fairly popped out of their orbits. “Why? Because it’s the only thing linking the two Krysmopompas cases.”

  “Oh.” Trust a writer to make that leap. I should have consulted with him at every stage of the affair, though to be fair the whole business had been improvised and markedly free of any careful planning. In retrospect it was a miracle we’d gotten this far. “Maybe Krysmopompas needs to strike again.”

  He shook his head, in disbelief rather than as a negation of my suggestion. “You’re insane.”

  “Look, it’s great publicity. Maybe we could write this Krysmopompas into the script.”

  “No. Krysmopompas needs to disappear.”

  “Ah, but if he disappears right after Guiteau dies, doesn’t that make it seem as though he or they were just a cover for someone with a grudge against him?”

  He nodded, thinking hard. Being detail oriented probably helps when plotting out books and movies, but in daily life it seems to add to the stress.

  “Meanwhile what’s the word with Annick?” I asked.

  “Nothing.”

  “For Christ’s sake, give her a call. She’s not going to do all the work, she’s a girl.” Of course she’d been plenty aggressive with me, but I was a celebrity, and the rules were different.

  “I don’t have her number,” he said, looking very much like the kind of guy who never gets the kind of woman he really wants because he convinces himself he’s not worthy.

  I wasn’t buying it. “Give me your cell phone,” I said, and when he reluctantly handed it over I programmed Annick’s number into it and hit DIAL, then handed it back to him as it started ringing. Then I slapped him on the shoulder and left.

  •••

  At Palais Royal I picked up my usual assortment of newspapers and sat down in a café to do the Herald Tribune’s crossword puzzle. There was a major story about poor Claude on the front page above the fold, but I’d had enough of that for a while.

  Having finished the top and bottom of the puzzle, I got stuck, as was often the case on one of the clues in the middle, and having been interrupted no fewer than four times by fans—two of whom sought medical advice, and only one of whom sympathetically mentioned my injury—I turned on my phone to check my e-mail. The only one of any significance was from my agent:

  The role on Blindsided went to Dean Flax, the worst actor of his generation, who will thus be making money for his agent and increasing his visibility. The gig was yours if you wanted it and I couldn’t even get you to show up for the audition. This is it, pal, the end of the line. I wash my hands of the whole business.

  —Ted

  I composed a quick reply:

  Nice hearing from you, Bunny. Attached are some news articles about me. They’re in French but someone in the office should be able to translate. What do you think? I’ve been targeted by the same terrorists who killed this famous arms dealer here (more articles attached, but the L.A. Times should have something too). He was the investor in my movie, which should have you salivating at all the possibilities. I know you had your heart set on me as third or fourth banana on your crappy network show, but trust me when I say this movie is going to do boffo business over here. If you can forgive me I will shortly have contracts for you to negotiate. Why don’t you come on over and have yourself a little vacation?

  I didn’t really care whether he kept me on or not; the fact that he was so ready to drop me as a client after a single missed audition was hurtful, and since I’d come to France my career was going great guns without his help. But we’d been friends for a long time, and he’d helped me out in my hungry early days in Hollywood, and in the end I decided to leave it up to him.

  I went back to the puzzle. The clue that was vexing me, 27 Across, was nebulous: “Protozoans in low places.” I had an m and a v and an l, but the surrounding Down clues told me nothing, and without 27 Across I would be struggling with the damned thing all afternoon.

  I called Fred, and he picked up on the first ring, the panic rising steadily in his voice. “What is it?”

  “Relax, it’s just a crossword problem.” I laid it out for him, and I could feel him calming down on the other end as he pondered it.

  “Try ‘Trichomonas vaginalis,’ if that’s not too many letters.”

  It fit perfectly, and suddenly the intersecting Down clues made sense. “Thanks, pal. Your repertoire of obscure facts is pretty amazing.”

  “It’s not that obscure. In fact . . .”

  “Listen, I gotta go. How soon before we have a finished script?”

  “Soon. I’m cranking through the thing.”

  “Good. Keep me posted. We’ve got some momentum despite it all, let’s get it made.”

  “Right, chief,” he said, and he hung up.

  •••

  Marie-Laure and I settled on sushi in a little place near Les Halles. We sat at the bar and watched the chef at work, and it turned out that Marie-Laure wasn’t quite as adventurous in the sashimi department as she had implied. She bristled at the sight of the sea urchin, which to me is the heart of any sushi meal, and stuck mostly to freshwater eel (smoked) and various rolls. I didn’t tease her about it, sensing that the ends I sought would be more easily met via other means.

  “Script’s almost done,” I told her as we neared the end of the meal. It was time to talk some business, as it was the network paying for dinner.

  “Wonderful. Have you spoken to Esmée?”

  “Not since the police told her about her husband.”

  “When are you going to see her?”

  “There’s a memorial tomorrow at the Hanoi Hilton, if you want to come along with me.”

  She sniffed, an almost imperceptible note of jealousy clinging to the sound. “I would have thought you’d want your porn star on your arm. Anyway, shouldn’t we be thinking of getting you a bodyguard? Who knows when this Krystalvision or Kriskringle or whatever he’s called is going to come after you again.”

  “I really hate the idea of being surrounded by goons,” I said, smiling kindly at a half-crippled o
ld lady limping across the dining room for an autograph and possibly a diagnosis. “I like the idea that my fans can get to me.”

  “Suit yourself,” she said, and turned her attention to the remainder of her California roll as I began conversing with the pain-wracked senior. The old dear didn’t want medical advice and in fact wanted to discuss my methods of preparation. She was a stage actress herself, with a number of film roles to her credit, and she had admired my work. I was delighted at the chance to talk shop with an old pro, and as we spoke I started thinking about whether or not there was a part for her in the movie. Perhaps an elderly shepherdess who leads our man to safety. Of course I’d have to consult with Fred about altering or adding a character, but I didn’t think that would be too much to ask.

  When she waddled back to her own table, Marie-Laure spoke up. “You know who that was?”

  “She’s an actress.”

  “She used to be. She jumped out of the window of her apartment over a married politician who stopped returning her calls. She’d been out on the balcony for hours before she finally jumped.”

  “Wow.”

  “Yeah, wow. So of course there were TV cameras, and everybody saw the jump. She hasn’t worked since, she’s completely bonkers.” She leaned over to whisper the tragic end of her story: “She thinks she’s still a star.”

  On the way to Marie-Laure’s apartment Annick phoned. “Fred called, he wants to see me. You have any idea what it’s about?”

  “I think he just wants to sleep with you.”

  “Really? I thought it was maybe something about . . .” She stopped herself, to my immense relief. “About something else.”

  “No, I’m quite sure. I got the impression that’s what you wanted as well.”

  “I suppose . . . if it doesn’t bother you?”

  “Why would it bother me?”

  “No reason.” There was a defiant lack of disappointment in her tone. “I suppose I’m going to have to break up with Bruno before long.”

  “Do it gently. The boy’s just lost his father.”

  “You’re right. Still, life goes on, right?”

  “Right.”

  I hung up and put my hand between Marie-Laure’s knees, and for just a moment I became self-conscious about Balthazar’s being up front. Then I remembered that Balthazar knew all about it, probably knew a lot worse things about Marie-Laure than her sexual habits.

  And of course he knew I’d bought a gun.

  •••

  After a quick, not to say perfunctory screwing, I left Marie-Laure in her apartment. Balthazar had had the good sense to wait for me downstairs, and less than an hour after going up he was driving me back to the apartment in the sixth.

  “So you have any more trouble with that fuck tried to brain you the other week?”

  “Not a bit,” I said, reasoning that my encounter with him in Ginny’s suite didn’t really qualify as “trouble.”

  “That’s good,” he said.

  •••

  I was tired when I got into the apartment but not terribly so given my lack of sleep over the last twenty-four hours. I was still a little horny, even, and so it was with mixed emotions that I greeted Esmée, stark naked in the salon watching television and absently pleasuring herself with what appeared to be a vibrating egg.

  “This would look very bad if anyone were to find out, you know,” I told her.

  “I know,” she said. “Doesn’t that make it that much more exciting?”

  •••

  So it did. Fucking Esmée that night was one of the most thrilling sexual experiences I’ve ever had, coming as it did with the knowledge that we were risking serious jail time (of course it would have been even more exciting back home in the States, where we both would have been putting ourselves at risk for lethal injection). Never mind that I’d already screwed Marie-Laure earlier in the evening; I felt as though I hadn’t ejaculated in a month, and Esmée writhed on the bed like a creature possessed. If you ever get the chance to fuck someone with whom you’re complicit in a recent murder, I highly recommend it.

  JEUDI, DIX-NEUF MAI

  WE AWOKE IN THE MORNING WITH THE BED a disaster area, our clothes and underwear torn and strewn about the room, our smells all over one another. She showered and quickly dressed and left, and neither one of us spoke a word as she did so. I showered in my turn, and when I’d dressed I found Inspector Bonnot sitting in the living room.

  “I hope I didn’t frighten you,” he said.

  “Not at all,” I replied, the very embodiment of aplomb.

  “I ran into Mme. Guiteau as she was leaving. She graciously let me in.”

  “I see.”

  “You should have told me from the start that you were fucking her.”

  “I was protecting her reputation.”

  He chuckled. “Such as it is. Well, I knew anyway; so did all the neighbors. So, presumably, did Guiteau himself.”

  “He never indicated any such thing to me.”

  “But he wouldn’t, would he?”

  “I suppose not.”

  The inspector stood, moved to the window, and opened it up. “Do you mind if I smoke?”

  “Go ahead. It’s not my apartment, of course.”

  “No, of course.” With great deliberation he stuffed and lit a pipe and began puffing lungfuls of smoke out the window and into the cool Parisian air. “I hear stories about you.”

  “What kind of stories?”

  “All kinds. Mostly because people notice you. They tend to remember when the subject of an anecdote is a well-known personality. For example, there was a fight outside the nightclub downstairs, shortly after you moved in. Remember?”

  “Vaguely.”

  “Vaguely? You gave the boy a concussion.”

  “He followed me into the building’s lobby and attacked me.”

  “That’s not the way he tells it. Still, when he checked into the hospital later no one believed his story that he’d been beaten up by none other than Dr. Crandall Taylor.”

  “One of the advantages of celebrity, I suppose.”

  “Yes, I suppose.” He took a deep drag, and the smell of tobacco was quite comforting, bringing back memories of my grandfather and his brother, both smokers who went to early graves. “And of course we already know that when Bruno Guiteau tried to jump you, you gave him a very thorough beat-down in return.”

  “As you point out, he did jump me.”

  “Quite so, and he bears you no particular ill-will for it.” Holding the pipe in the vicinity of the window, he thumbed through a stack of reports. “And there’s this. A rather savage attack on a group of marginal young people down by the Seine. Now this, too, appears to have been a case of self-defense, but what’s interesting is that these kids swore that you were the one who fought them so savagely. Naturally at the time no one took it seriously.”

  “Seems everyone who checked into a hospital that week was blaming me for their injuries.”

  He laughed. “Just so, just so. I took the liberty of looking into your background.”

  “You should have called my press agent, she’d have sent you the whole package.”

  “Yes, quite. I did go through a lot of the entertainment press. The tabloids, the TV magazines, that sort of thing. But I didn’t find much of use beyond your latest triumph on the stage. Congratulations, by the way. I understand your Tartuffe was quite well received in Chicago.”

  “Thank you. I wish you could have seen it.”

  “Where I struck gold was when I contacted the United States Embassy and requested your military records.”

  I was a bit taken aback. “They handed them over as quickly as that?”

  “Not so quickly. I’ve been working on this whole business since the day you were attacked. As I said, the divisionnaire . . .”

  “Yes, his wife’s a big fan.”

  “And what I expected to find was the usual military record for an artist. Training films, things of that nature. But you were
a Green Beret, my friend.”

  “I find it hard to believe that you got access to my military records in any legitimate manner that quickly.”

  “Legitimacy is a flexible concept, monsieur, when it comes to police work and diplomacy. Let’s say that monsieur le divisionnaire’s concern for your well-being opened certain doors at the Quai d’Orsay, which in turn facilitated my queries via your Department of State.”

  “I see.”

  “It’s an interesting record. Nothing but praise from your superiors, the highest possible references from your superior officers, and then—quite suddenly—a less than honorable discharge. No court martial, either. Seems they gave you a choice and you took the lesser of two evils.”

  “I had no desire to spend the remainder of my hitch in military prison.”

  “Quite understandable. And here you’ve managed to stay out of trouble since.”

  “A lesson learned, Inspector. My temper cost me my military career.”

  “And yet you’ve managed to parlay that loss into great success in another career, one that millions dream of.”

  “I have no complaints.”

  Having finished his bowlful, he tapped the ashes out onto the Boulevard St. Germain below. “Well, sir, I’ll bother you no more today. I’ll be in touch, and naturally, if anything happens out of the ordinary . . .”

  “Naturally.”

  •••

  Disillusioned though I was at the ease with which my government gave away my supposedly inviolate secrets, there was nothing in my military record that pointed to me as Claude Guiteau’s killer, and I was confident that if Inspector Bonnot had seen through me as a man capable of violence, it wasn’t necessarily a predictable leap to considering me an assassin.

  •••

  I went to see a movie that afternoon, an American zombie movie in which a friend of mine played the key role of the town doctor. He had a couple of nice scenes after he’d turned into one of the undead, and I had a hearty laugh when he took a large bite out of the shoulder of a young woman dressed as a police officer. When it was over I saw I’d had a couple of text messages from Fred, urging me to call him back as soon as possible.