Edge Play X (24 page)

Now, as X made
her way out of the metro and up to the streets above, passing small museums,
restaurants, and souvenir shops as she made her way to the church, she thought
of her mother, how she wished that they could have been together to explore the
city. Finally, after a few more streets, X was in the same yard where her
mother had been photographed. As she stood in virtually the same spot, X
realized that the photographer would have probably been lying on the ground in
order to get the photo of her mother.

Along with
all the other tourists, X climbed the steps leading to the building and then
paused at the top to take in the view of the city. She was energized from the
climb, from the cold, fresh air in her lungs, from the sun on her face. It was
beautiful, the city stretching out in front of her, and X tried to identify the
buildings in the distance: the domed Pantheon, the
Gare
du
Nord
train station, the
dome of Les
Invalides
.

She was by
herself, able to enjoy the experience without being shadowed by the bodyguard,
a man who seemed completely uninterested in any sort of conversation. But that
was what
Compton
expected of him, his
silence; he wasn’t getting paid to talk. Sure, Steinberg had told her that
Europe
was more dangerous
than back home, hence the need for the bodyguard, but she had her doubts that
she’d be kidnapped from one of the biggest tourist traps in the city or that
anyone even wanted to kidnap her.

X turned
around, ready to enter the structure, its portico flanked by giant bronze
statues of Joan of Arc and King Saint Louis XIV, their immense forms seeming to
guard the entrance. She went into the church silently, a feeling of reverence
swelling up within her. The last time she had been to church had been to attend
her mother’s funeral mass. X walked through the church towards the altar, the
impressive image of Christ high above, his arms extended to reveal his sacred
heart afire with compassion and love for humanity. X hoped that it was
true—hoped that there was a God, hoped that Christ had pity on the world.

She
continued through the church, past the stained glass windows depicting Saint
Joan of Arc’s life, past Saint Peter’s bronze foot which she rubbed for good
luck like all the other tourists. Finally, she entered a pew, kneeled, crossed
herself, and began to pray.

As the
woman prayed, her head bowed down towards her interlaced fingers, Agent Simeon
spotted her. He stood motionless, not wanting to interrupt her, in awe of her
in the same way that he was in awe of the Basilica. He wondered what she was
praying about, was amazed that she was praying at all. Maybe she was praying to
God to forgive her for how she had taken pleasure in hurting him and Compton;
maybe she was praying to be free of them.
 

The thought
of X being free from them frightened and saddened Simeon. He didn’t want the
dynamic between them all to end or for X to leave them behind and go on with
her life. He wanted to cloister her, keep her as his own like a bird in a cage,
fully aware that her freedom was what was best for her, the thing that would
make her happy.

After X
crossed herself again and finished her prayer, Simeon entered the pew and sat
next to her. The pair was silent for a moment, and then X handed Simeon the
agenda that Steinberg had given her which listed the attendees of the meeting.
He opened it and scanned it before folding it up again and putting it into the
interior pocket of his suit jacket.

“Thank
you,” he said. “Thank you very much.”

He stood
then and she looked up at him, surprised that he had nothing else to say,
nothing else to request of her.

“I’ll see
you tomorrow evening,” he said and then began to walk away.

X was
ashamed to be thinking of the event that she would be going to with
Compton
the night after, a
masquerade ball that Simeon would also be attending. She wondered if she would
be able to recognize him with a mask on, be able to recognize him at the
upcoming orgy, and then she bowed her head and started praying again.

X spent the
remainder of the afternoon touring
Montmartre
. She went by the
Moulin Rouge and down to the
Pigalle
, or Pig Alley as
the soldiers used to call it, still filled with sex shops and peep shows,
streets where once it was night, the homeless would be paid to pass out porn
advertisements that would litter the sidewalks on a street as worn out and
tired as old hooker.
 

She went
past Renoir’s house and then Picasso’s studio, remembering how Picasso had said
that he painted things not as he saw them, but as he thought them. She visited
the house where Van Gogh had lived, pausing reverently outside of its door. In
the town square where the artists still hawked their works, she stopped to get
coffee and a croissant.
 

Her last
stop was at the cemetery. As she walked through the graveyard’s nooks and
crevices, admiring the sculptures at the tombs, she noticed the small groups
that gathered near the graves of the famous writers, artists, and musicians. As
she sat on a bench and paused for a smoke, X felt peaceful, alive. Her heart
beat faster and a soaring happiness welled up within her. All the dead in their
elaborate graves and exquisite tombs reminded her of the simple fact that she
was alive. It was the antipodal nature of being near the dead that engendered
the feeling, the same way, she noted, that pain could make the pleasure seem
better.
 

9.

When
Compton
returned to the hotel
room with Steinberg, both of them somewhat tipsy from the drinks that had been
served at the dinner meeting, Compton expected that X would be in the living
room waiting for him. Instead, after searching each bedroom and the upstairs
conference area, noting the neatly piled boxes and bags of clothing that had
been placed by the hotel staff into X’s room, he found only emptiness.

Compton had
Steinberg call the hotel to see if the bodyguard they had reserved for X had
gone out with her, and it was reported that no, the man was still in his
quarters. Steinberg checked the table for a note from X and then spotted his
own in the can below. The hotel checked the spa, pool, restaurant, and lobby,
unable to find her anywhere.

Next,
Steinberg called X’s cell phone and was forwarded to her voice mail. He told
his boss these things reluctantly. The years of working together had given
Steinberg a super-sensitivity to Compton’s slightest nuances of emotion, and
sensing the tension and anxiety that lingered under the surface of the man,
usually so stoic and detached, he tried to reassure Compton that the woman had
probably just gone out to buy a pack of cigarettes or to visit a shop and would
be right back.

Compton
dismissed Steinberg, thanking him for the work he
had done today.
 
That was one of the
things that Steinberg liked about Compton: besides the exorbitant pay that he
received, besides the fact that he had traveled lavishly around the world with
the man, meeting the upper crust of society, hobnobbing with dignitaries,
celebrities, and royalty, Steinberg appreciated that his boss so often thanked
him for his work and told him that he was doing a good job. Most of the time,
Steinberg felt that it should be the other way around, that he was the one who
should be thanking Compton. Steinberg had decided years ago that he would do
almost anything for his
boss, that
he would go to
extraordinary lengths for this extraordinary man.

Once
Steinberg was gone,
Compton
sank onto the couch
with another drink and turned on the television, flipping on a black and white
movie, hoping that the images would take him away from his thoughts.

He didn’t
think that X had gone out for cigarettes, nor was he particularly concerned
that she had been kidnapped. Yes, it was true that there was a greater security
risk in
Europe
, and he himself was careful to always have a bodyguard available. But
only a few people were aware that X was his traveling companion, and even fewer
were aware of the true nature of their relationship.

Still, the
possibility existed that X could be kidnapped and held for ransom or used to
force
Compton
to alter his business deals. The thought excited
him. He wasn’t sure what the upper limit was that he would pay if the scenario
ever occurred, but he was certain that it would be an incredible amount,
millions if necessary, he would die a million little monetary deaths for the
woman, and he grew erect at the thought of it, at the thought that X could be
another commodity to be bought, sold, or traded, objectified, that she could be
something negotiated for and ultimately owned by him.

He watched
the movie as night came fully to
Paris
. He drank until he was
thoroughly inebriated. He waited.

10.

While she was
out, X had gotten something to eat for dinner before riding back to the hotel
on the metro. By the time she returned to the room and opened the door to see
Compton on the couch, drink in hand, the flickering television the only light
in the room, the man was drunk, saturated in his intoxication.

Still angry
that he had not taken her to
Versailles
,
X went into the
bedroom and locked the door.
Compton
desperately wanted to
talk to her, to have her simply acknowledge him. Even just a hello would
suffice and then she could go to bed and leave him there on the couch to fall
asleep to the television.

He waited a
few moments and then got up and went to the bedroom door. The alcohol in his
body made him teeter on his feet; the air around him had turned opaque at the
edges. His heart swelled up at the thought of hearing her voice. Scolds or
screams would suffice, as would the lower timbre of disdain that until recently
had infused the bulk of her words to him. But X did not open the door or say
anything at all.

“I’m sorry,
X. I’m sorry that I wasn’t able to take you to
Versailles
.”
 

He waited
for her to answer but received only silence. Inside, he could hear her
stirring. A drawer opened and closed. He was sure that she could hear him.

“We’ll come
back to
Paris
another time and we’ll
go for a whole day, a whole weekend. I’ll arrange it so we can stay there.”

Nothing.

“My
business meetings, sometimes they go longer than I expect. Things come up out
of the blue.”

More
silence. He had to concentrate so that he didn’t slur his speech. He decided to
try a different tactic. That was what he did in business.

“X, I have
an idea. Why don’t we have a little fashion show? You can show me all the
things that you bought today.” He corrected himself. “All the things that I
bought today.”
 

He polished
off the last gulp of his drink and then put the glass onto the console table
behind him.

Elatedly, X
sat on the desk chair and listened to him. She wondered if he knew how pathetic
he sounded.

Compton
put his ear to the door, trying to hear her
inside. Finally, he lifted up his hands and pounded on the door, enraged. He
wasn’t used to being ignored.

“Open the
door, damn it! I just want to talk to you. I just want to see your face.”
 

It wasn’t
too much to ask, was it? All that money he had paid for her paintings, five
thousand bucks an hour to get beaten and insulted by her, then a free luxury
flight to
Paris
, and judging from all
those boxes and bags from the boutiques, he had just spent a small fortune on
clothes. Clothes! And now not even a word from her. Who did she think she was?

He pounded
some more, his palms smacking the heavy wood of the door, the man sliding down
onto the floor as he did so, making X wonder if anyone from the hotel would
come by to see what was going on. She guessed that they wouldn’t.
 

Pulses of
pain ran through
Compton
’s hands, and he rubbed
them together, shaping his hands into fists which he released reluctantly.

It was his
desperation that she enjoyed. Finally, the man was displaying some sort of
emotion. She relished that he was begging for her in a way that he would never
stoop to in his business dealings. And let him beg. Everyone should have to beg
for something. His money, she thought, wasn’t even so much about the money as
it was about the acquisition of it. X had a sense that
Compton
acquired it simply to
see how much he was capable of getting; wealth, after a certain point, was a
supersaturated solution.

She pitied
him and his pathetic needs.

Outside the
door,
Compton
sat dejected, feeling that the room might start
spinning at any moment, start spinning and then keep spinning until he was
completely out of control, until he had lost all semblance of balance, thrown
out of his orbit and flung from whatever the center of mass was that held him
together. X’s strong gravitational pull was distorting the shape of his galaxy
and he adored her for it.