And, sure enough, he would go on to a resurrection. He would rise from the ashes of a failed presidency to attain the stature of a well-respected elder statesman. It"s the job of men like me, behind the scenes, to shape and position; sometimes only a nudge is needed. Meanwhile, the public faces of our strength-our avatars, so to speak-are held up as heroes.
But we know what we do.
I took the presidential hand and held it.
Finally it was withdrawn.
"I appreciate you seeing me," he said warmly. "You let me know if you ever need anything."
With that he turned and stepped away. And did I whisper it, or did it only run silently through me? Out of its misery.
As he disappeared through the gla.s.s doors I stayed where I was, standing. The afternoon had been intense, and I couldn"t risk stumbling. It occurred to me he had a point, partly. I was the fall guy for doing what had to be done. I bore the weight of other men"s hesitation.
I saw the fullness of the three fingers then. Carter had left me with something.
The Lady and the Dragon THERE WAS REJOICING AMONG media watchers when prominent newspaperman Phil Bronstein, then the husband of actress Sharon Stone, was bitten on the foot by a Komodo dragon.
The attack occurred at the Los Angeles Zoo, where the celebrity couple was touring behind the scenes so that Bronstein, reportedly an admirer of fierce carnivores, could get a close view of the ten-foot Indonesian lizard. It happened with lightning speed: Just as Bronstein stepped near the giant reptile to pose for a photo, "Komo" the dragon bit him. Jaws clamped rigidly onto the editor"s foot had to be wrenched off; the bite severed tendons and necessitated the surgical reconstruction of his big toe. Still, it was widely regarded as comic, and tabloid reports of the incident belie a barely suppressed delight.
Had Bronstein not been married to Sharon Stone, his misfortune would surely have garnered more sympathy than derision, if far less press. As editor of the San Francisco Chronicle, he was successful but hardly a celebrity in his own right. But the joke was a clear one: The man-eating lizard was a perfect proxy for Stone herself.
Bronstein"s entry into the cage of the lizard was managed by zookeepers, who recommended the editor remove his shoes, lest Komo mistake them for the white rats that were a staple of his diet. And though the keepers" judgment in allowing the lizard and the barefooted man into such close proximity might have seemed an invitation to litigation, publicly the couple was sanguine about the episode, with Bronstein taking responsibility for his decision to enter the exhibit and joking about the encounter. In television interviews Stone blamed neither the zoo nor the reptile.
In the wake of the media frenzy Komo became a highly popular attraction for zoo visitors. His n.o.ble brown head with its dignified throat wattle, his homely yet graceful body and his sleepy eyes endeared him to zoogoers, who fondly recalled his spirited nipping of the rich, a.s.sumedly virile Bronstein. In their native islands Komodos are top predators, fast-moving and heavy with a mouthful of deadly bacteria for killing prey. But as an individual, Komo was described by his keepers as "tractable" and "good with people," in an internal zoo memo. He had been seized as evidence in a U.S. Customs case against an endangered species smuggler named Wong, and was residing at the zoo while Wong awaited trial.
Komo seems to have basked in the light of his newfound popularity. Keepers say he had previously lurked in the shadows of a fake log in his cage but now took up a position on a prominent rock, where he remained for hours a day in full view of the crowds, flicking his forked yellow tongue and posing.
There were no further incidents of aggression.
When after several months Komo"s popularity finally subsided, he was sent on short-term breeding loan to a zoo in Singapore. There for a while he fell ill and was moved to the zoo infirmary. Once he recovered and his stud duties were done-females with whom he mated produced more than 120 eggs-he was again moved, this time to a facility in Kuala Lumpur, where he was purchased for a private zoo by a flamboyant Indonesian billionaire named Tunku Raj.a.putra. This is where I entered the story, since I was fresh from Texas A&M and employed, at the time, as a large-animal veterinarian for Raj.a.putra, whose inherited fortune was based on clove cigarettes and natural rubber. He knew of the lizard"s checkered past and was, not incidentally, a diehard fan of Sharon Stone.
By this time Stone and Bronstein were divorced; the fortysomething movie star had suffered a brain hemorrhage and was appearing in the box-office and critical bomb Catwoman. Raj.a.putra, a short but handsome bis.e.xual who exhibited many of the diagnostic characteristics of narcissistic personality disorder, apparently believed he stood a good chance with the actress-if only he could arrange for a meeting. He brought the lizard to a luxury habitat in his vacation home near Sekongkang, on the island of Sumbawa. Other denizens of the private bestiary included two orangutans, a land tortoise and a tiger shark in a half-million-gallon tank. All the animals were tended by qualified caretakers-I had several colleagues on the estate-and Raj.a.putra spared no expense.
Komo had been captured by Wong"s poachers around the age of five, when he was still a young lizard prancing around in circles and covered in fecal matter. (This was a ritual dance of appeas.e.m.e.nt aimed at older dragons, who might otherwise eat their offspring.) In captivity Komo had quickly become accustomed to his zoo diet of rodents, chicks and rabbits and now only rarely rolled in feces, with a halfhearted shrugging motion. But under Raj.a.putra"s regime he was fed live baby goats, which he was encouraged to hunt in a special outdoor yard connected to his indoor enclosure by means of an underground tunnel. He hunted in full view of Raj.a.putra and guests, who were delighted by the spectacle.
It took him some time to fell a kid, which he would typically not kill directly but mortally injure and leave to die. Businessmen standing at the fence would clap and smile when the bite was delivered and the baby goat sank to its knees, its long-lashed, dark eyes blinking closed tenderly as if for an endless dream. As the applause faded and the businessmen turned back to their c.o.c.ktails and teenage prost.i.tutes, Komo would retire to a corner to sh.o.r.e up his own strength. Goats could run well, even young ones, and he could summon only short bursts of speed. He was no longer in the first flush of youth, and clearly the goats exhausted him.
Finally he would go back to the moribund goat, tear a chunk of flesh from its exposed belly and feast.
There were pyroclastic rocks in his new enclosure and a shallow pond for swimming. Without knowing it, except by a rea.s.suring familiar feeling, he may have recognized the vegetation of his home island of Flores. There were tamarinds, lontar palms and jujubi trees; in the dry dirt he was able to dig himself a burrow, where he slept during the high heat of the day after basking throughout the morning. He was not lonely, for Komodos are solitary by nature, coming together in groups only to eat carrion. Mating is a brief penetration of the female cloaca by the male hemip.e.n.i.s; couples do not stay close. After laying her eggs, the female usually forgets them.
So Komo was at first, I believe, fairly satisfied with his lodgings on Sumbawa. They were superior to those at the Los Angeles Zoo. The mansion and its gardens were on a hill near the sea; the lizard had a decent view of the western horizon and could even, when the time of year was right, see the sun set in the distance with a green flash.
The situation changed with the arrival of Sharon Stone.
In a fit of drug-enhanced megalomania following cosmetic surgery for the removal of a small wart on his back, Raj.a.putra had become convinced that the procurement of Stone as a concubine was the merest of formalities. Confident that the movie star would be pleased to become his chattel, he charged one of his junior secretaries with her summoning and transportation to the compound. This secretary, Suandi, spoke only rudimentary English and was terrified by the prospect of trying to talk to important Hollywood persons over the trans.p.a.cific telephone lines. Thus, instead of calling, he sent various awkwardly worded emails to Stone"s agent, manager and accountant, whose contact details were several weeks in the finding.
As the senior secretary Yang later learned, the agent"s a.s.sistant deleted Suandi"s messages immediately, mistaking them for spam. The manager"s a.s.sistant moved the messages to a folder marked "Potential Stalkers." The accountant"s a.s.sistant was admitted to rehab before reading the email. Suandi checked his inbox faithfully each morning in eager hopes of a response from Stone"s handlers, but was invariably disappointed; and under constant pressure from Raj.a.putra, who kept expecting the actress to show up for dinner, he finally broke down and asked for Yang"s help.
The Sharon Stone who arrived by small plane shortly before the onset of the monsoon season was, admittedly, a few pounds heavier than Raj.a.putra would have guessed from her movie appearances. On the other hand, her hair was even blonder; she looked refreshingly young and smooth, as though her very skin were made of freshly molded latex; and she responded with a white, toothy smile to his overtures from the first night onward, joining him in his curiously outdated water-bed after minimal cajoling. She admired his mahogany headboard carved with intertwined pythons.
And she a.s.sured him that the discrepancy between her real-life and film physiques was entirely normal and a matter of clever special effects, for no actress, she said-speaking upside down through her outstretched legs in a downward-facing-dog pose-could actually be as thin as the tricks of cinematography made her seem.
She practiced yoga every morning. Raj.a.putra admired her thigh muscles.
The billionaire"s English, learned at a British school in Hong Kong, had an Oxbridge flavor. Despite this he was far from fluent and there were many words he did not know; much American slang went right over his head, and to compound the problem Sharon Stone often spoke far too fast. But it was pleasant to immerse himself in the cascade of words, and what he did not understand in her utterances he glossed over, unwilling to admit there were gaping holes in his vocabulary. For this reason he and Sharon Stone did not always comprehend each other perfectly, but acted as though they did.
And while his a.s.sumption was that Sharon Stone had come to stay-and a date for their sumptuous wedding should be set sooner rather than later-the look-alike had in fact been hired by Yang for a period of not more than three weeks while the Las Vegas show she danced in was on hiatus. She was always glad to moonlight as Stone, for playing the part entertained her and the money was often good; in this instance the money had been excellent, the seats first-cla.s.s, the location exotic, and-an unexpected perk-the guy for once halfway good-looking.
He took her to meet Komo on the second morning but offered no introduction as they walked through the gardens, for he wished it to be a complete surprise.
She had been only vaguely aware of the incident at the Los Angeles Zoo. A strip club and two bachelor parties had engaged her services in the weeks thereafter to do stage send-ups of it. On one memorable occasion she had played a nude Stone in high heels, talking and laughing on her cell phone as her husband (also nude) thrashed back and forth in the background in the grips of what looked like an alligator. All of this was juvenile and none of it made much sense; but then, she had not been hired as a drama critic.
And that was long ago now. She had never seen a Komodo dragon in person-in fact, she had never even seen a picture of one-and while Suandi and Yang had warned her solemnly that she must always remain in character, the sight of Komo came as such a shock that she forgot. He was gobbling a fresh kill; his mouth and jaw were covered in blood. The fawn eviscerated beside him bore a striking resemblance to Bambi. And just as Sharon Stone and Raj.a.putra loomed over his wall, Komo pulled from Bambi a long string of intestines, holding them in his mouth and shaking them vigorously back and forth to expel the inedible matter within. Blood and feculence spattered onto the dirt.
Raj.a.putra could hardly have known that a seminal incident of Sharon Stone"s childhood, which she later revealed to Yang and me, had involved her father, a methaddicted salesman who split his time between Reno and Twentynine Palms, disemboweling her mother"s yappy Pomeranian with a broken bread knife. The sight of the fawn and the dragon struck a terrible blow.
"Oh my G.o.d!" screamed Sharon Stone, and turned away. "Jesus Christ! Jesus Christ!"
As she collapsed against a pillar sobbing, Raj.a.putra stood by uselessly, wearing a frozen grimace. Having almost zero capacity for empathy, he was not a born nurturer. Finally a young maid who had been working a few feet away came to lead Sharon Stone to a lawn chair, where she patted and stroked the showgirl"s shoulder softly to calm her down.
Komo himself, whose hearing and vision were both poor but whose sense of smell could pick out a dead bird five miles away, went on eating mechanically in a state of some befuddlement, possibly disoriented by the heady scent of Sharon Stone"s midpriced perfume.
Raj.a.putra had believed the lizard would please Sharon Stone, indicating a commitment on his part to her personal heritage. Watching her cry on the lawn chair, however, pretty face in her hands, shoulders and b.r.e.a.s.t.s heaving, he was unsure. She was a woman, after all, and women were famously weak in the face of gore and violence. She was divorced now from the Jewish media tyc.o.o.n whom Komo had so righteously wounded three years before; Raj.a.putra had thought this would distance her, perhaps even allow her to see in the lizard a kind of cheerful ally against all the Jews; but clearly she was still petrified of the monster.
For her part, Sharon Stone was recovering rapidly. As she hiccupped on the chair she reminded herself this had nothing to do with the deceased Widdle Puff. Her father was also long dead, run over by a tweaking preteen at an off-road vehicle rally in the Imperial Dunes. As for the poor little deer, she reflected, well, it was sad. It just was. But she"d tried to be a vegetarian once and it was super boring; plus she"d had venison for the first time this past Thanksgiving. Pretty good. So she wasn"t one to talk, as far as eating deers went. And her own dog, a Boston terrier, was safe in the care of an elderly neighbor.
No one was trying to hurt her. She was going to be fine. She had to get back into character and scrub her face of its streaky makeup.
She smiled tearfully at the maid, took a deep breath, rose from the chair and nodded at Raj.a.putra.
"I"ll be fine. Gimme a couple of minutes," she promised.
She sat down on the ground in sukhanasa, folded her fingers into ling mudra and closed her mascara-clotted eyes to prepare for healing. It crossed her mind, before she began clearing it, to wonder if the real Sharon Stone would have yelled out "Jesus Christ! Jesus Christ!" But probably it was OK; the star was rumored to be a Buddhist these days.
The maid curtseyed and retreated.
Meanwhile, Raj.a.putra came to a decision.
He left Sharon Stone where she was and came looking for me. He would tell me to kill the lizard, kill it immediately, shoot it point-blank through the head. He would have liked to do the deed himself, in full view of his a.s.sembled servants, but he suspected Sharon Stone would not appreciate that. If he were a woman, he thought, he would find it highly erotic, but he was not a woman and he was certainly not Sharon Stone. She had already refused a leopard coat he had offered her, on the grounds that it was not nice to flay dead creatures and steal their furry coverings. This was what he had gathered, at least. He did not quite fathom her religion, but no doubt in time he would learn to predict its irrational prohibitions.
Of course, I had come to be fond of Komo and was not inclined toward murder, even beyond the fact that it was illegal and went against the ethics of my profession. But I had worked for Raj.a.putra for almost a year by then and knew the billionaire"s volatile moods all too well, so I agreed to dispose of the lizard, provided Raj.a.putra would permit me to use lethal injection instead of a firearm.
Raj.a.putra contemplated the request for a few seconds, then seemed to realize the gun gesture would work only if he himself were the shooter. I would steal his fire if he let me kill the dragon myself with his favorite .45. Mine would be the glory. Other staff might see the execution and think I was more manly.
"Fine, fine," he said hurriedly. By now he was quite transparently afraid I might in fact cling to the firearm idea, which he himself had foolishly handed to me on a platter. "Yes. Injection. Do it today! And send the skin to Andre in Tokyo. I want a jacket and two pairs of boots. Size 26 men"s."
Then he returned to Sharon Stone, who by this time was lying on her back on a towel and pulling up her legs one by one into vatayanasana, the wind-relieving pose.
I ducked into staff quarters to consult with the chief animal keeper, my confidant in matters of herp care. We did the math and decided on an appropriate dose of sedative; we made calls; I filled a syringe; we pulled on our protective legwear and, along with two a.s.sistant keepers, marched over to Komo"s indoor enclosure, where the lizard was by then slumbering. He had consumed about 40 percent of his body weight in a single sitting; seeing my patient was full of deer, I upped the dosage.
It took Sharon Stone almost a week to realize that her situation was less than ideal. The revelation came when Raj.a.putra presented her with a diamond ring hidden in a chicken pot pie (he was convinced the pot pie was a rare American delicacy, but his j.a.panese chef, annoyed to be asked to prepare such plebeian fare, had actually ordered the pies online from Marie Callender"s). When Sharon Stone remarked that the ring was beautiful but closely resembled a symbol of engagement, Raj.a.putra told her she was free to choose whether they married in four weeks or six. After a brief bark of laughter, Sharon Stone sobered up; she could see the billionaire was not joining in her merriment. She told him with regret that she had obligations back home, to her career, her fans and above all-remembering in the nick of time a tidbit from the tabloids-her adopted son Roan. He was still a toddler and was staying with his grandmother, she added quickly, at the moment.
Generously Raj.a.putra conceded her son Roan could be brought to join them. But perhaps the boy was not necessary? For he would give her many more sons, he said, and better ones too; she might be well into her forties, but his sperm were like superheroes. They could go anywhere and do anything.
"Well, you know," said Sharon Stone distractedly, both amazed and insulted, now that she thought of it, that she was actually being seriously mistaken for a woman in her forties, "he"s my son, after all. I do love the kid."
"You may have him, then," said Raj.a.putra regally.
Sharon Stone wondered what else to say. Until now she had thought the billionaire highly eccentric, true; but she had not worried too much about it, for extreme wealth was well known to distort. The fact that he wore an unsheathed dagger tucked into his trousers at all times, the fact that he allowed no plants, vegetables or fruit to touch his skin and bathed in a solution of isopropyl alcohol, the fact that he kissed a laminated picture of Roy Orbison every night before bed and liked to pretend to be a mewling infant during s.e.xual intercourse-all these had struck her as essentially harmless. She saw now that she had misjudged.
She felt it best to go along for the moment. There was no point in open conflict. So she smiled and chose late November for the ceremony.
That night she sought out Yang in his office in the east wing of the mansion and begged. He agreed to a.s.sist. He had foreseen this possibility. Relief flooded through her, for what if the billionaire"s staff had been loyal to him? She threw her arms around Yang and thanked him profusely. She would never forget his kindness.
This was how it came to be that Sharon Stone left the island in the middle of the night, first in a skiff, then in a large power yacht. She was smuggled out of the compound at 3:00 am by Yang and me, guided on foot through the backwoods of the property, the beams of flashlights bouncing around over tree limbs and vines and her Ked-shod feet, mosquitoes stabbing at the back of her neck. Finally we emerged onto a beach, where a few hundred yards from the sh.o.r.e the yacht was anch.o.r.ed, and rowed her out over the reefs in a shallow wooden boat. On the yacht she hugged us and shook our hands again, desperately grateful; she offered us a thick gold necklace Raj.a.putra had given her, as well as her engagement ring. Yang declined, embarra.s.sed; I broke it to her that the diamond was a CZ.
She smiled sadly at us and promised to drop us an email when she reached home safely. Then she was ushered belowdecks into a dark storage room-a cautionary measure, lest a nearby police boat draw close and demand an inspection, for the authorities were in Raj.a.putra"s pocket.
The room had a porthole but through it nothing was visible save the black of the sky. Sharon Stone could make out no features inside, either, so she sat down on the foam they had laid out for her on the floor and soon curled up and fell asleep.
When she woke in the early hours of the morning she was conscious of a rank smell; it reminded her of the stale body odor caked into the blue floor mats at her yoga gym. Then she sat up and saw the mesh of the cage. Komo was crouched within, his large flattish head only a few feet from her face.
She stifled a cry. The lizard regarded her stoically. After a time he flicked out his tongue. He seemed to be drooling.
Raj.a.putra had informed her of the lizard"s death on the day of its ordering, and she remembered a pang of regret. She had suspected the demise of the animal was her fault, and she had tried to forget it. Yet she was confident this lizard was the same one. Sitting on the foam mattress, feeling a little queasy from the boat"s motion, she had time to study it. It wasn"t exactly cute, but there was something endearing about the big guy, she wrote me later in an email. He had a certain calmness she liked very much. He was st.u.r.dy.
She felt grateful he had not been killed. A sense of euphoria washed over her, for both the lizard and herself. She would never complain again, she told herself, would never measure herself against more successful people. Just living was success enough. She was the luckiest woman in the world.
Presently there was a knock on her door and a sailor entered with a plastic tray of food.
"Is it safe in here with him?" she asked, but the sailor only bowed and nodded. He did not speak English.
She put some of her rice noodles in the cage with the lizard, who looked hungry, but he did not touch them.
"OK," she said, nodding. "I know you"re more of a meat guy. I just thought I"d offer."
Later another sailor came in. He looked Indian to Sharon Stone, since he wore a turban. He bowed and smiled, then bustled around the cage, checking the door latches and the lizard"s water bowl. But maybe he was not Indian: Did Indonesians also wear turbans sometimes? It was too confusing. And though she felt exuberant in the knowledge of her happy escape, she was still too shy to ask him.
Before this trip she had barely heard of Indonesia, and then last night Yang had told her it was the fourth-biggest country in the world, people-wise. And India was over a billion strong. Along with China, it was about to take over the world, Yang had said, slightly apologetic. In just a few years America would be a minor country, with nothing left of its brief foray into world domination but mountains of plastic and staggering debt. Its national parks and forests would be sold off to richer countries, and what remained of its crumbling cities would be turned into theme parks for foreign tourists. Who knew? She had always thought India was a kind of quaint little place with spicy food, where everyone did yoga and the women drew red spots between their eyes, a shame because otherwise they were pretty. The men had cute accents but bad facial-hair stylings. A good makeup guy could do wonders with the entire country.
"Where is the dragon going? Is he also going to the airport?"
"We"re making a special stop for him," said the Indian. "He"s being repatriated."
"How long?"
"Just a few hours. Sorry for the discomfort, Mrs."
"Well, s.h.i.t," said Sharon Stone. "This is nothing. This is great. Try the discomfort of being some crazy freak"s s.e.x slave for the rest of your life."
"Of course, Mrs. I get it."
"So thank you. All of you. I mean, you guys are, like, my total saviors."
"I saw you in The Muse," said the Indian, and smiled radiantly. "You were absolutely fantastic!"
"Oh. Thanks, but you know. I"m a ringer."
"Excuse me?"
"I"m not the real Sharon Stone. I look like her, is all."
"Ah! Sure. Sure sure sure."
"No, really!"
"Sure sure. I get it, Mrs. You have my word. Your secret is safe with me."
"But . . ."
"I also liked you in Catwoman. Of course, it was not your best film. I will not lie to you, Mrs. Stone. But your performance was exemplary."
"I mean, thanks, but-"
"Do you know Halle Berry? Is she a nice lady?"
Sharon Stone gave up.
"Very nice," she said, and smiled sweetly. A little creative license. "If you can get past the bad breath, that is."
Sharon Stone was allowed to go up on deck when they reached the island. The lizard"s cage was difficult to fit through the door of the storeroom, and it took six men to move it. She watched as they lowered the cage on a hook into a large motorboat; at the last minute she asked if she could go with them.
"We"re just going to leave this fine fellow on the beach," said the Indian. "This is one of his home islands. Part of a national park just for him and his buddies. It won"t be a long trip."
"Still," said Sharon Stone. "I would like to see it. Please?"
"Certainly, Mrs.," said the Indian.
She climbed down the ladder and sat next to him in the boat. The bay they were approaching was undeveloped-nothing but a gently curving sandy beach, deserted, and above it dull dirt-brown hills dotted with a few scrubby trees. She looked at the lizard"s hands through the cage, or were they feet? The fingers were kind of fat and wrinkled and the sharp claws gray and dirty. They reminded her of a great-aunt she"d visited in Scarsdale. Mean and crusty. But that wasn"t the lizard"s fault.
She looked at his face and felt a hole in her stomach at the thought of him being left here.
Gone. She would be alone then, she thought.
The feeling persisted as she watched from the boat: The men heaved the cage onto the sand, opened it, and stood back with forked sticks, waiting for the lizard to emerge. Eventually he did, though he seemed to be in no great hurry. She never took her eyes off the lizard as they lifted the empty cage onto the boat again, as the lizard sat solid and unmoving on the sand, facing them as the boat pulled away. She admired the lizard"s posture-even, she thought with a wild puncture of hope, loved it. Her heart beat fast. At once graceful and ugly, humble and pugnacious. She could not explain it to herself, but it was rea.s.suring.
It was this posture, this demeanor, that she would seek out in boyfriends and finally a husband. For the rest of her life she would look for these qualities.