Andrew Klavan - Empire of Lies

There followed several swift, disorienting moments of machinelike efficiency, a human clockwork engineered to allow the glamorous couple an assigned interval of the crowd's admiration before they were ushered toward a fifteen-second interview under the theater awning, and finally swept inside as the next limousine pulled up behind them. Through all this they were accompanied by a chittering, insectile swarm of paparazzi nibbling at the edges of their silver space and by graceful television cameras that swooped around them, dancing attendance in the outer shadows. It was a strange thing to see. It had a strange effect on me. I found myself frozen there, staring, fascinated, my desperation almost forgotten, as if I'd suddenly been rendered nothing more here than an observer, as if I were at home, in fact, watching the whole thing on TV. The passage of the arriving stars from limo to interviewer to theater became everything, a sequence distinct from its surroundings. The chaos around me, the terror inside me, seemed to become dim and peripheral. The police working to keep the crowd at bay, the sound equipment on its trucks, the klieg lights, the photographers, and the chaotic depths of the mob itself, became a blurred frame to the central progression, a border of living irrelevance to the fullness of the comedian's celebrated life. All the force of reality seemed to me to be not with myself but with the couple on the red carpet, with the white teeth in the comic's tanned face, the sparkling sequins on his wife's black dress. The truth of their being, the being of their being, the dimness of my own somehow-lesser presence on the border of the great glow, seemed to grow more intense with every precisely organized second until the sheer force of their actuality climaxed as they stepped up to the interviewer at the theater entrance and I recognized her-her blonde curls, her avid eyes, her bee-stung lips-it was Sally Sterling-and the shock of her familiar appearance rendered the scene on the red carpet so entirely there somehow that I felt, in contrast, I had all but vanished.

It was, as I say, strange; disorienting: the quickness of it, and the brightness of it and my own unimportance on the edges of it practically paralyzed me at first, paralyzed my mind. I just stood there-just stood there, staring. And even when I started to think again, I couldn't think clearly, I couldn't think of anything to do. How could I get closer to the theater? How could I get inside? How could I warn the people-so many people-that they were all about to die?

There were uniformed police patrolling the barricades at every point. There were many more plainclothes security people standing guard watchfully within the protected circle. I thought of grabbing one of them, screaming at him, warning them all of the danger. But they would've arrested me on the spot. I knew they would have. They would have called headquarters and found out who I was: a murder suspect trying to distract an investigation with unfounded terrorist scares. They would have carted me away and it all would've gone on without me. I could already see it in my mind's eye-the chaos-the rubble-the death.

So I stood there-that's all-stood there and stared, watching the scene with a swiftly growing sense of panic and helplessness and confusion. Another limousine pulled up and-great God-there was the secretary of state, tall and sleek in a shiny tuxedo. He stepped smoothly from the car. Took his moment in the moony glow, smiling, waving. And I stood there, watching him, fairly panting in my powerlessness, and thinking, Him, too. They will kill him, too. And looking at the crowds, the thousands all around, and thinking: They will kill everyone for their unforgiving god.

The thought brought me back to myself, back to my senses. As the secretary of state was swept along to his moment before Sally's microphone, I began to take stock. My eyes started moving, searching the scene here and there, looking for anything, any weakness in the defenses, any possible point of entry.

I found one.

The theater stretched over much of the block. On this side of it, near the corner, there was a kind of narrow courtyard, formed by the theater's wall and the rear of a massive hotel on Times Square. A short way into the courtyard, I could make out a door-a stage door or maybe an entrance for technicians-I couldn't tell which from where I was. The entrance to the courtyard was roped off. There were two patrolmen guarding the rope. Two more patrolmen stood on the other side of the courtyard, facing away toward the next street over. I thought: If I could create a diversion, if I could draw the attention of these two cops at the rope, maybe I could rush past them, down the courtyard to the door. Of course the door might be locked. And the two cops at the far end might spot me. And if I did get in, there'd be sure to be more cops inside. But it was the only thing I could think of, the only chance I had.

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.