by JP Delaney
INT. LEXINGTON HOTEL, TERRACE SUITE—NIGHT
HENRY
Claire. Thanks for coming. This is Stella Fogler.
(to the woman, reassuringly)
I use several girls as decoys, but from what you’ve told me of Patrick, Claire is absolutely the right choice.
STELLA
(to me, agitated)
You will be careful, won’t you? Promise me you’ll be careful.
I sit down.
ME
Why don’t you tell me about your husband, Mrs. Fogler?
STELLA
He’s like no man you’ve ever met. I mean it. Don’t turn your back on him. Don’t trust him. Do you promise?
Trust him? I think. Not much chance of that. Another married scumbag is all I need right now.
HENRY
Claire’s very professional. She knows what she’s doing.
ME
Just show me a photograph and tell me where to find him. I’ll do the rest.
HENRY
Well, Mrs. Fogler? Do we proceed?
Stella Fogler stops pacing and stares at me, wild-eyed, still twisting the keychain in her hands.
STELLA
Yes. All right. But please—be careful.
9
INT. FLAHERTY’S BAR, NEW YORK—NIGHT
An old, wood-paneled bar on the Upper West Side, the tables well spaced and sparsely populated. PATRICK FOGLER sits at one of them, reading a paperback and making notes on a pad. He’s in his late thirties, dark-haired, with a long, aquiline face. His eyes have a pale-green hue to them. Good-looking, in a quiet, intellectual way.
Like a younger Dan Day-Lewis, I decide, studying his reflection in the long mirror behind the bar. Who just happens to be one of my all-time favorite actors. But Patrick Fogler is even more tautly wound. Intense-looking.
To be fair, he doesn’t look like a cheating scumbag. But sometimes they don’t. Sometimes they’re likable and charming. Those tend to be the ones who cheat the most, actually.
Why? Because they can, I guess.
Right now, I’m more interested in seeing whether you’ve got the ambition and the commitment to join the team…
I shake my head, focusing, trying to push the memory of that producer out of my brain. Just do the job, I tell myself. Smile, flirt, let Patrick Fogler make a pass at you, get out. One hour, tops. Then you’ll be home with four hundred dollars in your hand and you can throw up and cry and get drunk.
And there’ll only be another seven hundred dollars to earn.
As if on cue, Patrick Fogler gets up and comes toward me. Easy. I turn, a quarter-smile of greeting on my face. Too late, I realize it isn’t me he’s approaching. He’s holding out a twenty-dollar bill to the bartender.
PATRICK
Could I have some change?
His voice is precise, well modulated: a sense of power held in check. As the bartender opens the cash register, Patrick Fogler’s eyes meet mine in the mirror. Again I give him the tiniest hint of welcome—the faintest softening and widening of my eyes. He looks puzzled, nothing more. As if he isn’t sure whether he should recognize me from somewhere.
When he has his change, he nods his thanks to the bartender and leaves the bar. But he’s coming back. He’s left his drink on his table, along with the paperback.
I go over and pick it up. It’s a book of poetry: a well-thumbed copy of Les Fleurs du Mal by Charles Baudelaire.
Translated and edited by Patrick Fogler, I note. So he’s some kind of academic.
Quickly I flick through the pages, looking for something I can use. That’s when he returns, catching me at it. Just as I intended.
ME
(guiltily)
Oh, I’m sorry! This yours?
PATRICK
Yes.
He sounds amused. He looks around the almost-empty bar, as if to say, Who else’s would it be?
ME
I hope you don’t mind…I never read any Baudelaire before.
He glances down at the page I’m on.
PATRICK
Well, don’t start with that one.
Taking the book from me, he flicks forward a few pages, finds a place, and reads aloud:
PATRICK
I have more memories than if I had lived a thousand years.
An old desk full of dead ideas
Is not more full of secrets than my aching head…
His voice is rich with conviction, the rhythm quiet and insistent as a pulse. He hands the book back, still open. I look down and take in the next verse at a glance, then speak it back to him, holding his eyes, continuing the beat, milking the language:
ME
It’s a necropolis; a grave in which the dead—
Those bodies I once loved—are tumbled willy-nilly,
Prodded and nudged incessantly
By morbid reveries, like worms.
And now he continues in turn, his eyes fixed on mine, speaking from memory, something dark and weird I can’t follow about becoming the opposite of flesh.
PATRICK
…Like some old statue of a half-forgotten god,
Abandoned in the desert, starved of blood…
I join in the last lines, matching his rhythm, fitting my voice to his.
ME / PATRICK
…Whose enigmatic, weather-beaten frown
Lights up, for a moment, as the sun goes down.
There’s a silence that, for a second or two, neither of us breaks.
PATRICK
You read it well.
ME
Thank you…What’s it about?
PATRICK
His love life, you could say.
ME
He must have had a pretty complicated love life.
Patrick smiles.
PATRICK
When he wrote that, Baudelaire was involved with two women. One was a famous beauty, the toast of nineteenth-century Paris. He called her Vénus Blanche, his White Venus. The other was a mixed-race cabaret dancer who sold her body on the streets. He called her his Vénus Noire. Black Venus.
ME
Interesting…A love triangle.
PATRICK
If you like.
ME
How did it pan out?
PATRICK
He started writing poems that he sent anonymously to the White Venus. The things he wanted to do to her; the things he did to the Black Venus. Poems that touch on every kind of depravity. He said other poets had written enough about the flowery realms of beauty. He wanted to be the first to write about the beauty that comes from evil.
ME
Les Fleurs du Mal…The Flowers of Evil.
Time to make my move.
ME
I guess he understood that some women are attracted by the forbidden.
Patrick Fogler shakes his head. As if I’ve somehow disappointed him.
PATRICK
I have to go.
What?
ME
Really? I was enjoying—I’d love to hear some more—
I try to hand him the book. Which he waves away.
PATRICK
Keep it. A memento of an interesting encounter. I liked hearing you read.
ME
Look, I…I don’t usually do this, but I just had a really shitty evening and I could do with some company. Would you stay and let me buy you a drink?
He smiles again, creasing the lines at the corners of his eyes.
PATRICK
I’d love to. But I’m married.
ME
Oh, I didn’t mean—
He’s already walking away. He calls over his shoulder:
PATRICK
I know. But I did. And unlike Baudelaire, I prefer my Venuses one at a time…It was nice meeting you.
And then, almost as if he’s speaking to himself, I hear him say something in French.
PATRICK
Ô toi que j’eusse aimée, ô toi qui le savais…
ME
What’s that mean? Hey, maybe we could—
Nothing, dammit. I’m left staring after him, the book of poetry still in my hand. And realizing that, for the first time since I started working for Henry, I’ve just been given the brush-off.
10
“So I guess it’s good news,” I say flatly. “Congratulations, Mrs. Fogler. Your husband’s faithful.”
Good news for you, anyway. I’m still smarting.
We’re back in Stella Fogler’s suite. Weirdly, she seems to get even more agitated at this news.
“Faithful!” she wails, wringing her hands. “I should have known it wouldn’t work. Oh God! God!”
“What do you mean?” I say, puzzled.
It comes out in a rush.
“I thought maybe I could get something on him. Something to stop him coming after me,” she says wildly.
What? I look at Henry, confused, but he doesn’t meet my eyes.
“He figured out it was a trick.” Stella turns to Henry. “She was wrong for it. It should have been a dark-skinned girl. They’re the ones—” She stops.
“Black Venus,” I say slowly. “He talked about that.”
“He never talks about that,” she says sharply. Again she appeals to Henry. “I knew this was a mistake.”
I’m getting pissed off now. And not only because she’s acting like this is somehow all my fault. But because I’m just realizing that this whole attempted pickup was the exact opposite of what I thought it was.
“Look, most of the neurotic bitches I do this for would be counting themselves lucky,” I say angrily. “Your husband didn’t hit on me. And believe me, that’s a first. If you were using me to try to blackmail him, you should have told me.” I stand up. “I’d like my money, please. Four hundred dollars.”
Stella pulls an overnight bag from under the bed and unzips it. Taking out a fat roll of bills, she peels off four. Her hands are shaking.
“I don’t mean to sound ungrateful. I’m sure you did your best. And I wasn’t intending to blackmail him, not exactly. I just wanted some…insurance.”
I take the money. “Thanks,” I say coldly.
“I’ll walk you out, Claire,” Henry murmurs.
The door of the suite is barely closed behind us before he’s spinning me around, his hand on my shoulder. “Hey! What was that about? Neurotic bitches, Claire?”
“She is neurotic.”
“And a client,” he insists.
“Henry…Don’t you think that’s fucked up? She wanted him to make a pass at me. What happened to the innocent should have nothing to fear?”
He shrugs. “You needed more work, didn’t you?”
“You knew,” I realize. “You knew that’s what she was after. Jesus. I mean, doing this to scumbags who already cheat on their wives is one thing. But when it’s the wife…” I shake my head in disbelief. “I’m out.”
As I stride away he calls after me, “Don’t be such a diva, Claire. You love this stuff. You know you do. You just didn’t like it that this one didn’t go for you. Call me tomorrow, when you’ve gotten over yourself.”
INT. LEXINGTON HOTEL—FOYER—NIGHT
As I leave the hotel I remember something. I pull the copy of Les Fleurs du Mal Patrick gave me from my bag, then turn back the way I came.
INT. LEXINGTON HOTEL—CORRIDOR—CONTINUOUS
I knock on the door of Stella’s suite again.
ME
Mrs. Fogler? Stella? I have something of Patrick’s. I guess you should have it.
There’s no reply.
ME
Hello?
Nothing. I shrug, turn away.
11
There’s a brilliant exercise, created by the legendary acting coach Sanford Meisner, in which two actors simply repeat each other’s words. It’s designed to show that words mean pretty much whatever you want them to. That the script isn’t a bible, it’s a starting point. Text and subtext.
It’s three days later. Scott and I are circling each other in the rehearsal space while the other students look on.
“You’re smiling,” I tell Scott eagerly, like he must have good news to share with me.
“You’re smiling,” he says back. Only he says it like we’re in the middle of an argument, and this is the proof I’m not taking it seriously.
“You’re…smiling?” I say incredulously, like he can’t even be bothered to hide the fact he just behaved like a shit.
“You’re smiling,” he calls out triumphantly, like I’ve been trying not to and he’s made me.
“You’re smiling,” I whisper, like it’s the first time I’ve seen him happy in a year.
“You’re smiling,” he says, with the unspoken implication, But I’m not.
“Good. Now run with it,” Paul says.
“You’re smiling,” Scott says accusingly.
“I was not!”
“So what are you thinking about?”
“I was thinking about that time we rolled in the snow together.”
“That was the last time, wasn’t it? The last time we were happy.”
“Excellent,” Paul says, stopping us. The other students clap briefly.
“Just remember,” Paul tells the group, “it’s all about using what the other actor gives you. An ounce of behavior is worth a pound of words.”
There’s a knock at the classroom’s open door. One of the admins is standing there with a uniformed policewoman.
“I’m looking for Claire Wright,” she says.
Shit.
“That’s me,” I say with a smile. “How can I help?”
12
The policewoman takes me to One Police Plaza, where I wait in a small, stale room on the eighth floor. I’ve asked her what it’s about but she won’t tell me, just says she’s been told to collect me and everything will become clear soon. Or “momentarily,” as she puts it.
It must be that producer, I’m thinking nervously. He must have filed a complaint. Whatever happens now can’t be good. I know gun laws are a lot less strict over here but I don’t think you can just wave them at people.
Eventually a burly man in plainclothes comes in and introduces himself as Detective Frank Durban. I jump up eagerly and shake his hand, trying to make a good impression. Detective Durban looks a little surprised, but indicates the younger, shaven-headed man holding a pile of papers who comes into the room behind him. “And this is Detective Davies.”
“Do I need a lawyer?” I say anxiously.
“That depends. What have you done?” Durban says. I laugh, because he said it kindly, like a joke, but I notice he gives me time to answer before he adds, “You haven’t been arrested or charged, Claire. We just want to ask you some questions. About Stella Fogler.”
“Who?” Then I remember. Not the producer after all.
“I understand you do some occasional work for a law firm called Kerr Adler,” Durban adds as we sit down. “That correct?”
“Yes, it is.”
“Tell me about that.”
For a moment I consider lying—the job may be non-union, but I’m pretty sure it’s breaking my visa conditions—but since they clearly know quite a lot already, I do as Detective Durban says and tell them everything: Marcie, the decoy work, the hidden camera in my bag. After a while Davies pushes his papers to one side and starts taking notes.
“And was there anything unusual about the assignment for Mrs. Fogler?” Durban asks. “Anything out of the ordinary?”
“Well, I was asked to meet her beforehand. That doesn’t always happen.”
“Why was that?”
I shrug. “Henry said she wanted to take a look at me. See if she thought I was suitable.”
“And how did she seem on that occasion?”
I think back, remembering the way Stella Fogler had paced up and down by the windows. “Well…nervous.”
“Can you be more specific?”
I say slowly, “It was like she was frightened of something.”
The two men don’t look at each other, but I feel them go rigid with attention. “Is Mrs. Fogler all right?” I add.
“Just tell us what happened, Claire,” Detective Durban says. “In what way, frightened?”