Andrew Klavan - Empire of Lies

Juliette felt this. I could see she did. She seemed to grow in stature where she stood, transported into a golden awareness of her own nobility. She responded to the people with a shy, sweet wave, a gesture both patient and courageous. Then she walked with modestly mincing steps down the carpeted path to where Sally waited to receive her.

There followed a quick coda to their TV interview. Sally wore the same girlfriend expression of tender concern. "How are you feeling, Juliette?" she asked. The words were freighted with meaning.

Juliette smiled brightly, bravely. "I'm doing great, Sally. It's great to be here and I'm really looking forward to enjoying this great

… great moment in the history of movies."

The volcanic roar erupted from the heart of the crowd. They cheered. They whooped and applauded. They loved her: her courage; her dignity. She was perfect. She waved to them again. Sally reached out and gave the actress's hand a gentle, encouraging squeeze: Never surrender. Then an usher guided Juliette to the theater doors-and she was gone, the crowd still applauding.

I stood watching after her, frantic, wanting to cry out, wanting to warn her, warn everyone, trying to think, think, think of what I could do to stop the coming massacre.

Then the last limousine drew into the glow around the red carpet.

It was Angelica, of course-Angelica Eden with her new lover, Todd Bingham. I read later in one of the celebrity blogs that the two of them had been watching Juliette's arrival on a TV in the car. They had seen what had happened, the outpouring of love and support from the audience. According to the blog-and I guess they'd interviewed the limo's driver-Angelica let out a snarling blue streak of curses. "That bitch! That fucking bitch! That fucking shit-faced bitch!" Because, of course, if the crowd loved Juliette, if they sympathized with her as the wronged woman, they were going to hate Angelica as the vixen who'd stolen her man, who'd left her child fatherless and caused that crystal tear to go spilling down her cheek on TV last night. There was no telling how many charity appearances Angelica would have to make, how many African orphans she'd have to adopt to win back the sympathy of the moviegoing audience. According to the blog, Angelica started hissing at Todd as if she were a snake. She said she would obliterate Juliette from the people's minds. She would eradicate the news coverage of her triumphant arrival.

"What are you doing? What are you doing?" Todd is said to have squealed at her.

"If nothing else," Angelica Eden announced to him, "I'm not gonna let that fucking bitch upstage me!"

The car pulled to a stop before the carpet. The liveried doorman opened the door. Todd fairly leapt out into the silver incandescence-eager, maybe, to get away from his lover's tantrum. Like Juliette, he was also smaller in real life than he looked on television, even more delicate and insubstantial, though his blond, handsome head was large, almost weirdly oversized, which apparently made it look good on film. He smoothed down the front of his jacket with one hand, waved to the crowd with the other.

Then Angelica began to emerge from within the limousine-and the scene around me became a riot, descending almost instantly into a kind of mass madness.

The door handle in his hand, the doorman was standing off to one side to allow Angelica to exit. The car was wide open to the dozens of crouching paparazzi who lapped like surf just below its threshold. Angelica was wearing a very short dress, a dress as black as Juliette's dress was white. She had to turn her lower body forward to slide over the seat toward the door as the photographers snapped their pictures and the TV cameras moved in behind them to take video over their heads. Then Angelica had to step down from the car onto the carpet in front of them and then rise up off the limousine's low seat. As hard as she may have tried, it would've been very difficult for her to keep her knees together throughout the entire process. In any case, she didn't manage it.

And suddenly, the photographers' eagerness was transformed into a mindless, rabid, eye-rolling frenzy.

There were gasps from the crowd. Grunts and little cries. I heard a woman say in a strangled voice, "No panties! No panties!" I heard a man growl through his teeth like an animal, "Up-skirt!" Everybody-onlookers, reporters, technicians, security men, police-everyone within view of Angelica's suddenly exposed pudendum-even those only within earshot of the rumors of its exposure-swung in its direction with questing eyes, a single heaving movement like the ocean reaching for the moon.

As I say, it never made the news. And yes, it wasn't a very dignified or serious moment. It was ridiculous and completely out of keeping with the tone of what finally happened, with what was about to happen to those thousands of people, all those people. But it's the truth. And for myself, thinking back on it-I don't know-maybe it was apt, even emblematic in some way. I mean, if God Creating Adam on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel represents our culture at its beginning, maybe a paparazzi upskirt of a starlet's quim is the central image of that culture now.

In any case, it gave me-so to speak-the opening I needed.

The incident lasted a second-one second. During that second, the rapid-fire buzz and snap of the cameras melded into a single chittering hum. A chorus of shocked murmurs rose to a cacophony of ecstatic shouts and cries. All eyes turned in one direction. My eyes turned. And, as they turned, they passed over the police officers who had been guarding the rope at the entrance to the narrow courtyard.

I saw them in motion. I saw them each take a step-then another-away from their posts-toward the red carpet, toward the black car, each extending his neck, each poking out his head, each seeking to steal a look between Angelica Eden's legs.

For one instant, the rope behind them stood unguarded, the path into the courtyard, the path to the theater's back door, was unmanned.

Some part of my brain was still pulling my eyes toward the limo, toward Angelica, but I fought against it. I knew I had only an instant. I started moving. I squirmed between two barricades. As the policemen craned their necks to get a look through the limousine door, I strode boldly, quickly behind them. I ducked under the rope. I ducked out of the wonderful silver light and entered the shadows of the narrow courtyard. I stood straight and started running hell-for-leather toward the door.

Three seconds. Three seconds of pulse and motion, every moment exposed. The cops at the courtyard's far end had their backs turned, but could glance over their shoulders and spot me at any time. The cops behind me were sure to return to their posts in the next instant. And wouldn't one of the people in the crowd have seen me break out? Wouldn't one of them point his finger and alert the law? Three seconds, my feet slapping the bricks, my breath in my ears, my heart hammering. Then my hand was on the cold door handle, my thumb was on the latch, my heart was turning to ice as I thought: Don't let it be locked, don't let it be locked!

It was not locked. I pressed the latch and pushed. There was a snap-I felt it jolting through me. I felt the latch give beneath my thumb. The door swung open. I tumbled through it.

I was inside the New Coliseum.

I crouched there motionless. I was stunned. My mind was blank. Everything had changed so fast, so unexpectedly. One moment, the thing was impossible, the next it was done. I was completely taken by surprise. I could not believe I was actually in the building.

For another second, I hunkered, breathless, gaping at the wall as the door to the outside slowly swung shut behind me. I was in a long, dark, unadorned corridor. There were men in workclothes on either side of me. An efficient-looking young woman in jeans and a sweatshirt was carrying a clipboard somewhere. A security guard in a blue uniform scanned the area, a two-way microphone clipped to his shoulder. There was also a plainclothes security man at the far end of the hall.