“We would get home and get into bed and maybe we had sex,” Caroline remembered. “But usually Simon wanted to watch movies. He would watch the lighting of the scene or the way a sequence had been edited, with long takes or short ones.” She understood that he did his best thinking at night, that only by filling his head with the conversation and images
of the day was he able later to concentrate, to let it all back out again. “And then he would go to L.A., not bothering to pack anything. He just took the limo to the airport and then was gone. He liked airplanesâ”
“All right,” I interrupted.
“What's that mean?”
“It means all right.”
“You're bored, you want me to shut up?”
“No, I want to knowâ”
“What, what do you
want
to know? That Iâ”
She didn't finish her sentence, and for a minute, perhaps more, neither of us spoke. The night was at its fullest, snow still falling. I have thought often of those long hoursâin the room in the million-dollar apartment (where someone else lives now), Manhattan twinkling out the window, the rush of traffic belowâexamined its moments and stages and levels; it was, in its own way, a spectacular night that I do not yet think I completely understand. And, as it turned out, we were not done with each other, not at all. Finally Caroline got up to pee, and I stood naked at the window, my head full of expensive wine, somehow seeing the beauty of the dark skyline in a way that I never had before, feeling the bulk and heaviness of each building before me, apparitions of shadow notched with the odd lighted window, the lives there transpiring with the same predictability and mystery as my own.
“There's another part of your story I want to hear,” I said, when Caroline returned.
“Is it bad?” she asked.
“Probably.”
“We finished the wine.”
“I could retreat back to gin, continue with wine, or make a leap to whiskey,” I said.
“You might regret it.”
“I might regret a lot of things.”
She disappeared into the kitchen and returned with a bottle and two shot glasses. She poured them out.
“Let me have it.”
“I want to hear the part in which you meet Hobbs and it
ends up that he's being sent a videotape of himself.”
“Sebastian Hobbs?” she asked.
“You know him?” I said.
“You
know him?”
“Yes, unfortunately.” I told her about our conversation in his officeâthe threats, the African masks, everything.
Caroline sank down on the bed. “Come on!”
“No, I mean it. You don't believe me?”
Caroline began to laugh, madly, and then lay down, making sounds that were no longer laughter exactly but a sort of wretched coughing. “I can't believe it,” she cried, “I can't
fucking
believe it!”
“What? What?” I said.
She looked up at me with large, streaked eyes.
“I
want you to find that tape for me.”
“What?”
“For
me.”
I held her face with my hands. But it was no good. Her top teeth pressed horribly into her bottom lip, eyes brimming. She stared at me with terror. “I really need to find that tape,” she said between heaves. “He keeps threatening me, says he's going to sue me for harassment, says he's going to buy the rights to Simon's movies and take them out of the stores. He says he'll tell Charlie. He has people who watch me, I think. People went through my apartment. That sounds crazy, but it's true.”
“What's on the tape?”
“I don't know!” she cried. “I mean, I know, sort ofâit's not very niceâ” She looked at me plaintively. “It's not good, it was something that Simon ⦔ She turned away and threw herself back onto the sheets. “That's why I wanted you to
see
all of Simon's tapes. I thought you needed to see just what kind of stuff he liked, how he
collected
weird tapes of thingsâthe people in Rwanda and everythingâhow he had a sick curiosity about things.”
“I got that, yes.”
“This is very hard to explain, this makes me seem like some kind of
slut
or something. We were at the Waldorf for
something, some party upstairs that the studio was throwing, and Simon and I slipped out. He kept telling me that he was going places and he didn't know if I was, if I could keep up with him. So naturally I would get pissed off about that, and we would have these fights, and so we were at the bar, back in one of the private rooms, and he challenged me. He said he would do anything I asked him to do, as long as it didn't hurt somebody, and he could ask me to do anything, too. I mean, it was ridiculous, but it had a certain kind of effect. I mean, I liked it, I thought, okay, this guy, this person, is interested in how strong I am, and if we do this, then we'll have done something together, there'll be this
bond,
I guess, and so I said, okay, fine, fuck you, Simon, all right. And he said, okay, we're gonna have to have
proof.
I said, fine. Then he said, when are we going to do this? And I said, tonight, we'll both do it tonight, lots of possibilities out thereâclubs, bars, the streets. It was still early, maybe eleven. And so I started to wonder what the thing was that he
really didn't
want to do. So I said something like you sure you want to do this? I mean, I knew that what he wanted was for me to go have sex with somebody, something like that. Pretty predictable. So he said, you know what I'm going to ask you to do? And I said, yes, you want me to go fuck somebody. And he said, yeah. All I want is it to be someone I never would have guessed. You got to surprise me, you got to really surprise me. He said it couldn't be, you know, the bellhop at the hotel or one of the producers or studio people upstairs. And then he said it couldn't be a woman, that wouldn't count. Had to be a guy. I mean, the psychology of all this is pretty obvious, I know, but the thing is that if you are
really
going to play this kind of game, then it gets pretty interesting, it gets exciting, sort of. Maybe I can't explain it. Anyway, so I said yes. Fuck yes. But then he had to do something for me. I wasn't going to ask him to go out and have sex with some woman, that was too easy, that was nothing. Then I thought maybe I'd ask him to go have sex with a
man,
but then I worried about AIDS. I'd had AIDS testsâall negative, thank you. Besides, Simon would probably just get totally drunk
and then screw somebody down on the East Side or something. Or go to some gay bar and just ⦠you know, whatever. He might be disgusted by it, but it wouldn't
rock
him. I wanted to think of something that would rock him, maybe even be edifying in some kind of way so that we could stop playing these fucking
games
with each other. So I was sort of thinking this was an opportunity, and so it came to me, and I said, I want you to be with somebody tonight when he or she dies. I want you to be right
there,
even touching the person, if possible. And I said I didn't want him going off and running over somebody with a car or something but actually getting into some place or situation, like an emergency ward maybe, something like that, and just being with somebody when they died. I mean, Simon could talk himself into all kinds of places. And when I told him that, that sort of shocked him, it sort of made him realize that if he thought he could ask me to prostitute myself for him, his whim, his amusement, then I was going to push back at him, I was going to play even harder. And I guess that was the only way that I knew I could earn his respect. There was no way that the relationship was going to work if he didn't have respect for me. So I told him that, and he was quiet for a moment, and then he looked at me and I could see that he got it. He saw what I was doing, he accepted the challenge. So, fine. He got one of the studio people to go to his office and get two micro-video recorders with wires and little batteries, the really expensive ones, and he rigged one up my purse; he cut a hole in it and showed me how to start the tape when I was ready. Then we said we would meet here at nine o'clock the next morning. He would show me his and I would show him mine. I mean, we were both drunk and pissed and excited. He called up Billy from the bar phone and told him to pick him up. BillyâI guess you figured this out from the videosâBilly was sort of his sidekick, they did stuff together. They'd hide the camera in Billy's coat or something. Anyway, Billy came in and was parked outside, and then they left together. So there I was. For a while I thought the whole thing was stupid and demeaning and ridiculous. And it
was.
But if I didn't go
through with it, he'd be furious. And I sort of felt that I would be letting him down. Letting
me
down, too. What happened if I didn't go through with it and he did? Then that would be bad, I would have tricked him. Of course, I thought that the opposite could happen, too. I'd go out and have sex with some guy and then find out that Simon didn't do
anything,
went to a club or something. But I had to take him at his word. I had to do it. So I began to think about it. The hotel was full of tourists and businessmen and all the usual kind of guys. I could go out into the world and find a guy, but which one? I mean, finding any old guy would be easy. I was thinking that I could over to one of the bars where I knew that some of the Yankees go after their games, but even that was sort of predictable. A lot of those guys are into partying. I saw all that in L.A. I actually got into a cab and had him drive me around the city, trying to think something up. I even had him go by the mayor's mansion, but the lights were off. Finally, I just came back to the hotel. I decided to sit in the lobby and see who came in. I sat there for maybe half an hour. A couple of men came up to me and I sort of talked to them, found out who they were, but they were just regular businessmen from Philadelphia or officials from Washington or something. Then I was sitting there and a group of people came in, energetic and nervous and sort of clearing the way, and I watched the guy behind the desk put down the phone and wave over a couple of other hotel peopleâI mean, they were nervous, it was obviousâand then came in this huge fat manâ”
“Hobbs.”
“Yes. But I didn't know that yet. All I could see was that he was huge, tall, too, and that his suit must have cost something like ten thousand dollars. He was wearing this great bowler hat. He didn't even look at the hotel desk or anybody, he just walked straight toward the elevator. Then he disappeared. His people checked in at the desk, and then they went up on another elevator. Everything calmed down. The whole thing lasted maybe a minute. He couldn't walk very fast but he wasn't in the lobby more than fifteen seconds. So I asked one of the bellhops who it was. He said it was Hobbs, the
Australian who owns newspapers all over the world. A billionaire, he said. I remember that. I said, billionaire? And he looked at me like I was an idiot. He stays here when he's in the city, he said. So then I said, I want to know something. And the bellhop just says, no lady, no way, can't do it. Shakes his head. You don't even know the room number? I say. Oh, I know it, lady, but I can't give it out. I tell him I'll pay him to know. Come on, he says, I could lose my job. Five hundred bucks, I say. He sort of says, oh shit, lady. Then I say, a thousand. He says, you don't have a thousand. But I did. I mean, Simon's making so much money that we're just carrying around a ton of it, for no real reason. So I show him the money. He was dark, sort of skinny, maybe Pakistani or something. He tells me the number. That's the main suite, he says, which bedroom it is I don't know. I ask him how I'll know if he's telling the truth, and he says, because if I'm not, then you'll come down here and tell the manager and I'll lose my job. This seemed pretty good, so I gave him the money. Then I figured I should get up there before Hobbs went to sleep. If he's coming from England or someplace, then he's going to be really tired, and if he's coming from the West Coast, then he'll stay up a little while more. I'm thinking like this and also wondering what the hell Simon is doing. So I go up there and knock on the door. It opens and there's a guy on the telephone. I smile and say, I'm here for Mr. Hobbs. The guy looks at me and just waves me in. It's a big, big suite, maybe six rooms. The guy motions me into the next room and there is Hobbs, sitting, reading a paper, and then he says, well, what do we have here, something like that, you know, and you can pretty much imagine the rest of it yourself, or some of it at least. He was different, and sweet, too.”
“You taped it.”
“It was easy. I put the purse on a dresser and started the camera. It was a silent drive, with a fish-eye. It took in the whole room.”
I said nothing, only nodded.
“I came back to the apartment the next morning and Simon was quick to tear into my purse. He took the tape away and
never let me see it. It turns out he never did his part of the bargain, either.” She sighed in bitterness. “I hated him for what had become of me, how I was willing to do something like that. I took a shower that must have lasted three hoursâI told myself never again. We had a big fight about the tape, but he wouldn't give it back, and then after he saw it we
really
had a big fight. What did he expect? Then later, after Simon died, I figured that the tape would be in his collection, but it wasn't.”