Believe Me

by JP Delaney

  I go and pick it up. As I do so, a photograph falls out. A photograph of me. The headshot Marcie had me do for her website, printed out on cheap computer paper.

  The poem it was marking is called “The Ghost.”

  Like an angel with bright monstrous eyes,

  I shall come to where you sleep,

  Gliding toward you silently

  In the shadows of the night.

  I feel a lurch of nausea. But I keep reading.

  And I will give you, my dark beauty,

  Kisses cold as moonbeams,

  Caresses soft as the touch of snakes

  That crawl around a tomb.

  Where some might woo with tenderness

  Your loveliness and youth,

  I mean to reign over you with fear.

  84

  “And you didn’t see anybody?”

  “No one. That is, there were people around. But no one out of the ordinary. And I had that feeling again—the feeling of being watched.”

  Patrick turns the book over in his hands. It’s the standard edition, the one with his own translations, unremarkable in every way. “The university bookstore is only two blocks away. It could be one of my students—”

  “With a photograph of me in it?” I interrupt. I can hear the stress in my own voice. “Why?”

  “You’re appearing in a play about Baudelaire. Maybe they’d Googled you. Maybe it was just a reminder to buy a ticket—”

  “I don’t believe that’s all it is.”

  “Just as you didn’t believe I wasn’t collaborating with the police,” he says gently. “Just as you believe you saw Frank Durban.”

  “Maybe I overreacted then,” I admit. “But I’m not overreacting now. That book was left for me to find. It’s as clear as day—‘I mean to reign over you with fear.’ He wants me scared.” I pull the book out of Patrick’s hands and throw it across the room. “It’s him. It must be. The man who made those images. He’s following me. Sending me messages.”

  “Do you want to go to the police?”

  “They’re hardly going to take it seriously, are they? Like you say, it’s just a book. And you’re not their greatest friend right now.”

  “What, then?”

  I think. “Why don’t I ask Henry if he’ll act as my security? He could escort me to and from rehearsals.”

  Patrick nods. “That’s a good idea. Anything to keep you feeling safe, Claire.”

  But I notice he stops short of saying he thinks I’m right.

  85

  At our next rehearsal, Aidan makes an announcement.

  “You may’ve noticed we have extra security, and that you’ve all been issued passes to get in and out. This is because Claire may have a stalker. You’ll also notice she has a bodyguard when she leaves the building. Please cooperate fully with the new procedures. They really are for everyone’s protection.”

  Across the room, I see Laurence frown as he doodles on his script. I can just imagine what he’s thinking. Here we go again. Drama queen in the house.

  Screw you, I tell him silently.

  * * *

  —

  Even Henry is skeptical.

  “Stalkers tend to do weirder shit than leaving books around,” he tells me. “Usually it’s love letters to begin with. Then they get pissed you don’t respond, and the obsession flips to anger.”

  “I don’t think this guy is a stalker in the usual sense,” I say. “This is more like a hunter stalking prey.”

  “If so, why would he risk alerting you?”

  “I don’t know. But I think it’s all part of his plan, somehow. Messing with my head. Playing mind games.”

  “If that’s all he does, maybe we shouldn’t worry too much.”

  “You didn’t see the images. He’s killed before. He won’t stop at sending poems. Eventually, he’ll want to reenact them.”

  “If it’s the same guy. Speaking of which, I hung out on Necropolis last night. Made it pretty clear I found the stuff on the regular site way too tame. Nobody took the bait.”

  “They will,” I say. “Necropolis is the key to this whole thing. I’m sure of it.”

  86

  All the sex scenes are meticulously choreographed, just like a stage fight. We rehearse them fully clothed to begin with, first at half speed, then three-quarter, until they become more like an exercise in dance or gymnastics; precision rather than passion.

  “If at any point you feel uncomfortable, just say so,” Aidan tells us. “Respect your fellow actors and yourself. There’s nothing wrong with having boundaries.”

  Of course, I never do say anything. Partly because I don’t want to be the person whose limitations hold back the show, and partly because I never saw a boundary I didn’t want to cross.

  “These are the only scenes where you never, ever improvise,” Aidan emphasizes. “Nothing unexpected on the day. It’s all about trust.”

  I have three such scenes: the one where the statue of me comes to life and Jeanne and I make love; the one where Baudelaire and I spend our single night together; and the very last scene of the play, the climactic new ending Aidan’s had Patrick write, in which Nyasha, Laurence, and I perform a waltz with three human skeletons, a danse macabre that gradually turns orgiastic. The skeletons will be worked by puppeteers, hidden in the rigging above the stage. The first time we try it, we get hopelessly entangled, so that’s the scene we spend the most time on. Only when it’s working do we turn to the others.

  My scene with Nyasha is relatively easy—I’m required to be passive at first, a statue lying on a plinth, then gradually more aroused, until I freeze, immobile, in the same ecstatic pose in which I was sculpted. The scene with Laurence is more problematic. No one’s quite sure how it should be played, not even Aidan. In some ways, it’s the most important scene of the whole play, its central mystery, the scene that pivots Baudelaire from adoring Apollonie to rejecting her. We discuss a series of options. Was he impotent? Ecstatic? Terrified? Tearful? Patrick’s script doesn’t say. Everyone thinks that’s a cop-out, but we can’t agree what should fill the void.

  At Aidan’s request, Patrick comes in to workshop some ideas. We try a few things, but it’s still not working.

  Patrick says diffidently, “Can I suggest something?”

  “Of course,” Aidan says.

  “If she’s on top of him,” Patrick says. “On top, and then she deliberately takes his hands and puts them on her throat.”

  “What’s her purpose?”

  “It’s ambiguous. Either she’s inviting him to prove he isn’t the person the poems depicts…or she’s inviting him to prove he is. The point is, he gets angry. And we won’t know if his anger is because she still doesn’t believe him, or because he can’t help but lose control.”

  “Ambiguous is fine for the audience. But for Apollonie? What does she want, right at that moment?” Aidan turns to me. “Claire? It’s your role.”

  “I think she wants him to be true to the poems,” I say slowly. “When all’s said and done, she wants him to be authentic. And she’s scared, because she doesn’t know where it will take her—where it will take them. She knows this is breaking a taboo. But that’s what she truly desires, at least in this moment—the intimacy of sharing his deepest, darkest secrets. And he goes along with it. That’s why he rejects her. It’s right there, in the letter he wrote her the next day: I have a horror of passion, because I know too well the abominations to which it can tempt me. Baudelaire’s frightened himself by what he’s revealed.”

  I look at Patrick. He holds my gaze. After a moment, he nods.

  “Okay, that works,” Aidan decides. “Let’s block it.”

  87

  Eventually we get to the undress rehearsal, as we’ve dubbed it: the first time we’re to rehearse the nude
scenes without clothes. The session is closed, with only Aidan and the choreographer allowed in. It’s hard to know how to approach it, tonally—serious and respectful, or humorous and bantering? Both options, though, are silenced by the sight of Nyasha disrobing. It wouldn’t have mattered how many miles I’d jogged: I could never compete with her whipcord-hard body, her perfect breasts, the stomach that’s as flat and taut as a tennis racquet. I take my own robe off in silence.

  It feels awkward for about two minutes, then I completely forget I’m naked.

  When we’re done and the set is open again, a runner comes up to me. “Flowers for you, Claire. I’ve put them over there.”

  In the sink is an enormous bunch of black lilies. From Patrick, I guess immediately. He knows I was nervous about today.

  There’s no name on the card, just a few typed lines.

  How I would love to see the happiness

  Chased from your sweet eyes

  And your heart in horror drown.

  I call him.

  “Did you send me flowers?”

  “No,” he says. “Damn—I should have.”

  “It’s not that—I’ve been sent another poem.” I read it to him. “It’s from Les Fleurs du Mal, isn’t it?”

  “Yes—from a poem called ‘Sad Madrigal,’ ” Patrick says slowly. “Addressed to the White Venus. He says many men have made her smile, but he wants to be one of the privileged few to have made her weep.”

  “ ‘And your heart in horror drown…’ It’s him again.” I’m trembling. “Book guy. It must be.”

  Patrick’s silent for a moment. “But a bouquet can hardly be construed as a threat, Claire. It could just be someone saying congratulations, your talent’s been spotted at last.”

  “It’s flowers, Patrick. Black flowers. Flowers of Evil. He’s doing exactly what he said he’d do—trying to scare me.” And succeeding, too.

  But even as I think that, there’s a part of me that’s almost grateful. Use that. When Apollonie was sent that same poem, anonymously, opening the handwritten letter that simply arrived at her house one day, the ink only just dried on the sheets, she too had no way of knowing who it was from, or why she had been singled out for this man’s attention. Whether it was from an admirer, a stalker, or—as it turned out—someone who was actually a strange mixture of both. I’d always known she must have been scared, but now I really feel it.

  “You don’t think you might be reading a significance into those words that isn’t really there?” Patrick says quietly, and I know then that he too has researched the symptoms of Histrionic Personality Disorder.

  88

  As I’m leaving, Laurence comes up to me.

  “That was pretty wild earlier,” he says with a boyish smile. “You really went for it.”

  “Thanks,” I say. I’m distracted, still thinking about the flowers. I just want to get home.

  He lowers his voice conspiratorially. “You know, I’d forgotten how amazing you are in bed.”

  “I’ll take that as a compliment. Look, I need to go—”

  “Wait…” He puts his hand on my arm. “How are you, Claire?” he asks quietly. “It’s been hell, trying to pretend there was never anything between us. But don’t assume that just because I can fake it for them, I don’t feel anything for you.”

  I stare at him. “To be honest, Laurence, I had assumed that.”

  He ignores my sarcastic tone. “Actors, huh? We never know what’s real and what isn’t. Look, would you like to meet up for a drink? I’m staying at the Mandarin Oriental.”

  “Okay,” I say slowly. “Sure. I’ll be there at eight. Just for a drink and a talk, okay? To get things straight between us.”

  “Of course. Just a drink. That would be great.”

  I look at his eager, beautiful face and realize that what happened between him and me isn’t over.

  89

  That evening, halfway through his second martini, Laurence confesses how turned on he got earlier, rehearsing our sex scene. “I’m not sure how I’m going to cope, doing that with you every night,” he adds with a boyish smile. “And would I be right in saying, you were also getting into it just a little more than was strictly professional?”

  “Maybe just a little,” I say, blushing.

  Halfway through the third martini, after we’ve flirted a bit, he asks me up to his room.

  We flirt some more, and then I say, All right, let’s go upstairs. He has a suite on the top floor, with a view over the park. It must be costing Patrick a fortune.

  He opens a bottle of champagne. As he pours the first glass, I tell him I’m not going to sleep with him.

  “You’re not?” he says lightly. He clearly doesn’t believe me. Not many women say no to Laurence, I imagine.

  “I’m not,” I repeat.

  He’s still smiling. “Then, if you don’t mind my asking, why did you agree to come up to my room tonight, Claire?”

  “I just wanted to see the view.”

  I walk out of there and go home. I go back to Patrick and show him the video, the one I made with the camera hidden in my bag. The one I’m going to send to Laurence’s wife, just as soon as the production closes.

  “You are a crazy, evil woman,” Patrick says, staring at me.

  “You don’t know how crazy,” I promise him. “You haven’t seen anything yet.”

  90

  Next morning Henry picks me up as usual and walks me to the rehearsal studio. I’m still buzzing from the thrill of entrapping Laurence. But when I enter the rehearsal room, everyone’s standing around looking shocked. Louise, my understudy, is crying. Laurence has his serious-but-sensitive expression on. He doesn’t meet my eyes.

  “Claire,” Aidan says, his voice somber. “We’ve just heard some terrible news. About Nyasha. There’s no easy way to say this…She’s dead.”

  For a moment, his words refuse to make sense. “What?”

  “The police informed us twenty minutes ago. She was staying in a serviced apartment over on Columbus. When she didn’t come down to her car this morning, the concierge went up to check on her.” He looks around at all of us. “The police didn’t say much, but I’m gathering there was foul play involved. They want us all to stay here so they can ask us some questions.”

  91

  We sit around in stunned silence. Nobody wants to ask what this means for the production. Someone asks about Nyasha’s family but no one knows much. She was an intensely private person, I realize.

  Three detectives turn up to take statements. I get a woman who introduces herself as Detective Ferelli.

  I have to tell her everything, I decide. For Nyasha’s sake. So I explain about the stalker, the flowers, how I’d assumed those messages were meant for me.

  “The first time, he marked a poem called ‘The Ghost.’ It’s about breaking into a woman’s bedroom and assaulting her. I thought it was aimed at me, but actually he was doing exactly what Baudelaire did. He was sending me the poem, but the action it describes happened to the Vénus Noire.”

  Detective Ferelli blinks at me, uncomprehending. Impatiently, I go and pull the book from my bag.

  “ ‘Like an angel with bright monstrous eyes, I shall come to where you sleep,’ ” I read. “In other words, Nyasha’s apartment. ‘Gliding toward you silently in the shadows of the night’—well, that’s clear enough. ‘And I will give you, my dark beauty, kisses cold as moonbeams’—That’s when I should have realized. It’s ‘my dark beauty.’ He means the Vénus Noire. Nyasha was his target. Not me.”

  “You’re saying the circumstances of Ms. Neary’s death may resemble a scenario in this poem,” Detective Ferelli says slowly.

  “That’s precisely what I’m saying.” I almost tell her the killer will have taken photographs too, but that means explaining about Necropolis, and once we go d
own that path, I’m going to start sounding really crazy.

  Her lips tighten skeptically, but she writes something in her notebook.

  “How did Nyasha die?” I persist. “It was like the poem, right? While she was asleep? And it involved a knife or broken glass—some kind of mutilation?”

  Detective Ferelli looks at me with distaste. “We won’t be sharing any details at this time, Ms. Wright. For operational reasons.” She makes operational reasons sound like Not with ghouls like you. “Now, can you describe your own movements after you left this building last night?”

  “I had a drink with Laurence Pisano—that’s him, over there—at his hotel, the Mandarin Oriental, between eight and nine.”

  She cocks an eye at me. “In the bar?”

  “Yes…and in his room too. Briefly.”

  She writes this down without comment. Something makes me add, “We didn’t sleep together.”

  “Well, that’s none of my concern, Ms. Wright. Just the times. And after that?”

  “I went home—I live with Patrick Fogler, the writer. The Enclave building, on One Hundred and Thirteenth.”

  “Okay.” She snaps her notebook shut. “At the present time, there’s no reason to think Ms. Neary’s death has any connection with her professional life. So try not to alarm yourself.”

  It takes me a moment to understand what she means. “You don’t believe me? You don’t think the stalking has anything to do with it?”

  “We’ll keep an open mind,” she says neutrally. “But the fact someone left a poem for you, and you received some flowers, doesn’t support any line of investigation we’re currently pursuing.”

  92

  Aidan tells us to stay as long as we want, then take the rest of the day off. Louise, the understudy, finally stops crying. She goes off with Laurence, who has his arm around her. The rest of us disperse silently, each wrapped in his or her own thoughts.